Station Identification

[Judy]

Thank you! from this Bowie fan. No need to add anything. You said it best...

- Judy

 From: Otto

> Register, Roots & Spirit
>
> Structuralistically of course you can compare literature to music to some
> extent and with no doubts Pynchon and Bowie both belong to the "register"
of
> the postmodern culture of the seventies. Both are considered as "icons" in
> their area, the one in postmodern literature, the other in contemporary
pop
> music.
>
> Our man himself makes the comparison between his "job" and the
contemporary
> music at the end of the "Slow Learner"-intro where he's referencing to the
> liner notes of Zappa's "Cruising with Ruben & The Jets" from 1968. We've
had
> that on the list before, if my memory serves me well:
>
> "This is an album of greasy love songs & cretin simplicity. We made it
> because we really like this kind of music (just a bunch of old men with
rock
> & roll clothes on sitting around the studio, mumbling about the good old
> days). Ten years from now you'll be sitting around the same with your
> friends someplace doing the same thing if there's anything left to sit
on."
>
> What I mostly liked about this short text is the last thing, "(...) if
> there's anything left to sit on." I bet Pynchon, whose fiction, as Douglas
> Fowler says, "takes place in the moment just before apocalypse"
(Companion,
> p. 17) liked it too:
>
> "What is most appealing about young folks, after all, is the changes, not
> the still photograph but the movie, the soul in flux. Maybe this small
> attachment to my past is only another case of what Frank Zappa calls a
bunch
> of old guys sitting around playing rock 'n' roll. But as we all know, rock
> 'n' roll will never die, and education too, as Henry Adams sez, keeps
going
> on forever."
> (T.P. "Slow Learner", 1084, p. 23)
>
> "Station to Station" after all is rock 'n' roll in the tradition of blues
> and rhythm & blues, perfectly played in the spirit of that time with
> phantastic guitar work by Carlos Alomar. It is a powerful record because
you
> can still hear it today without feeling ashamed that you've once liked
that
> kind of music.
>
> Besides, the title song opens with train-sounds and ends with the
> apocalyptic "mid-to-late 20th century human condition" line:
> "It's too late . . ."
>
> Otto
  >