Fwd: Re: Sixties and Oldies

[White, Rich]

When irony is discredited....

only the credit-less will have irony?
 ----------
.*++From: owner-pynchon-l
.*++To: CO27447; SY19058
.*++Subject: Fwd: Re: Sixties and Oldies
.*++Date: Friday, February 09, 1996 3:11PM
.*++
.*++<<File Attachment: HEADERS.TXT>>
.*++
.*++Ah, but you see, the number of people who have large CD collections is
.*++much
.*++
.*++greater than the number of people who have (had) large vinyl 
collections.
.*++
.*++For what ever reason, the CD has endeared people more to music.  More
.*++
.*++people buy CD's than purchased vinyl.  Also, with the improved sound
.*++
.*++quality (I know, I too think vinyl sounds better, but for the average
.*++
.*++listener...) of CDs, people are buying vast quantities of older music
.*++
.*++because those recordings can be digitally cleaned up.  Also, the ease of
.*++
.*++care that CDs offer makes them more appealing to many people.
.*++
.*++
.*++
.*++                                                        Ethan
.*++
.*++
.*++
.*++
.*++
.*++Ethan-
.*++
.*++
.*++
.*++1.  How do you know people have larger CD collections?
.*++
.*++
.*++
.*++2.  I don't believe records sound better-unless you have a very 
expensive
.*++audio set.  For us poor epicures CD's enhance the power of my small
.*++stereo.  I do miss my record collection though and if I had to do it
.*++again I wouldn't have sold them.
.*++
.*++
.*++
.*++A question for the group:
.*++
.*++
.*++
.*++I recall Donald Fagan saying that we are now living in the "post-ironic
.*++stage"-my question is where do true ironists(?) like TRP go from here?
.*++Seems like much of his ouevre has been co-opted, saturating the 
airwaves-
.*++where now we have the yin-yang depicted by tobacco companies which I saw 

.*++on matchbooks recently, e.g.
.*++
.*++
.*++
.*++Irony is tending toward the mean.  When irony is discredited as it is
.*++today  how does it recapture its "edge"?  Is there no message left to
.*++lose?  Do we then become (or only can become)  Wm.  Gass' Herr Kohler
.*++digging tunnels hating hate hating, even the humorous Culp, writing
.*++limericks, shitting on history, feeling pure since hate is the only pure 

.*++thing left.  I like Gass' book since the subject is direct unlike what
.*++passes for "bullshit rebellion"  nowadays.  I have bought Infinite Jest
.*++and hope it doesn't fall into the Barthelme, Barth, Eco crowd-you know
.*++books with much wit but as heartless and flat as life today.
.*++
.*++
.*++
.*++Rich
.*++
.*++NYC
.*++
.*++
.*++
.*++