pynchon-l-digest V2 #1917

[Doug Millison]

CyrusGeo:
Intriguing... In what way is that so? As I gather from your other posts, you
don't hold rappers in high esteem. Do you have the same opinion about
medieval troubadours? Personally, I find absolutely nothing in common
between the two. After all, troubadours were practitioners of an art that
goes way back to the time of Homer (at least...).

Storytellers traveling from place to place, telling their stories to musical
accompaniment -- that's how "those medieval troubadours *might conceiveably*
be considered *something like* today's rappers," and in a line stretching
back to Homer. Many differences to discuss among their respective cultural
contexts, of course.

It's more accurate to say that I don't hold many commercial record producers
in high esteem, although I do respond to music in many genres, including
some rap music and also including some commercial music.

Re a point made in a later post, I wonder if the years of training required
to master a musical instrument and play jazz can really be compared to
learning how to use the recording equipment that creates the accompaniment
for rap. Having said that, I realize that untutored musicians can create
transcendant musical experiences with only the most rudimentary tools,
assuming they've got the creative ability and insight.  Very few musicians,
in any genre, have this ability, in my opinion,

Pynchon resolves the high brow/low brow distinctions quite neatly by
including a broad spectrum across musical and other media genres that he
treats in his fiction. Didn't some critics find Vineland unsuccessful
precisely because of its focus on pop media, compared to their perception of
a relatively larger proportion of high art content of GR?