NP: Eminem (was: Influenced by GR?)

[Thomas Eckhardt]

>This is so, like Alanis said, ironic. I wonder if he was being
>ironic when he beat the shit out of that bartender or pulled a gun on
>another "artist" (one of the guys from Insane Clown Posse, if I 'member
>correctly) the same week his album was released? Speaking of transparnet
>marketing ploys ("If you liked Fred Durst's borderline criminal behavior,
>you'll like Eminem").

These incidents, and especially the news, mentioned by Jeannie, that his
wife attempted suicide a week ago suggest either a seriously disturbed
person or, as you say, rather transparent marketing ploys. My interest was
sparked by "Kim", and I can't help thinking about what a wife must feel when
her husband has a no.1 hit with an album that contains an utterly convincing
aural fantasy about murdering her for cheating on him. After listening to
the track, a friend of mine said she would have left him immediately, under
police protection. I mean, the least he could have done was to use different
names. Mathers quite probably is a sociopathic asshole, but, and here's my
dilemma, "Kim" is a great performance. It is, in other words, indefensible
on ethical grounds but quite a feat artistically.

To bring this back to Pynchon, by means of a few incoherent thoughts:
Offensiveness has become a marketing ploy a long time ago, and I personally
find offensiveness for offensivenesses' sake rather boring. In earlier
times, although nostalgia to me isn't what it used to be either, the public
felt offended because artists were true to the approach they had chosen as
the best to deal with their material ("Les Fleurs du Mal", "Madame Bovary",
"Ulysses", "GR"). Today, it is very hard to be recognized as being
offensive. It seems that you need to insult minorities (I don't know whether
this is the right term for women, but you know what I mean), and not, for
example, challenge the state, which has become used to being dissed by
popular music and perhaps not so popular literature, or multinational
corporations, who couldn't care less, or the aesthetic conventions of
mainstream culture. In fact, considering the success of Eminem, insulting
minorities seems to have become a part of mainstream culture. In regard of
this overall development Pynchon's decision to write "Mason and Dixon" and
not "GR Pt.2" seems even more admirable.

Yes, I prefer De La Soul, too. And A Tribe Called Quest, and Mos Def, and...
But right now I am going to listen to some Curtis Mayfield, I guess.

Thomas