The Sadness of America

[Joe Allonby]

I have to agree with Dave on this. What exactly is wrong with rock 'n' roll?
How is that not culture? Are our dead black and white guys (Elvis, Muddy
Waters, Johnny Cash, Gram Parsons, Hank Williams, Charlie Parker, Jimi
Hendrix) not as good as dead white European guys? Has Bekah even heard Gram
Parsons?

I'm wearing a pair of Wranglers right now, and I have to say that they are
damned comfortable, durable pants. They look pretty god too. That's why
Europeans like them so much too. Maybe it's not Milanese high fashion but I
can do just about anything but swim in them.

I watched Deadwood on HBO the other night. Pretty good program. Maybe you
should check it out before you label it "not authentic culture".

American movies? I think we've already established how important American
film has been to the world.

Peace,
Joe


On 10/9/05, Dave Monroe <monropolitan at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> >
> > The US doesn't have any kind of authentic culture to
> > preserve or export (unless you count TV and rock
> > and roll and movies and plastic things and blue
> > jeans)....
>
> Huh? Wha? Not only is this most all of my favorite
> things, not to mention the most exportable stuff on
> the planet save weapons and pollution, but ... well,
> the deep, deep problematics of "authenticity" aside,
> one might also mention jazz, C&W, R&B, soul, hip hop,
> folk art and/or "Americana," the musical ... maybe the
> complaint is that our culture tends towards the mass
> repoducible? So what? So ...
>
> The REALLY interesting point to be made, perhaps, is
> that so much of what's really interesting about
> American culture is at root inseaprable from its
> importation of African slaves, but ... but that makes
> any/all of it no less "authentically" American that
> anything anywhere else is "authentically" of that
> time/place/et al. The Romans/Mongols/Moors/whoever
> left their traces all over Europe, for example, and
> most of the "traditions," not to mention nations, that
> perhaps might be appealed to here are or relatively
> recent invention ...
>
> http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521437733
>
>
> http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/history/material_culture/rmclean/html/trad.htm
>
> http://www.versobooks.com/books/ab/a-titles/anderson_b_communities.shtml
>
> http://www.nationalismproject.org/what/anderson.htm
>
> http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~mescha/bookrev/Anderson,Benedict.html
>
> http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0209&msg=70567
>
> > Only San Francisco, Boston and New York have their
> > own urban ambiance.
>
> I love SF and NYC. Haven't been to Boston, but I also
> love Chicago, and I'm sure others here might have a
> little something to say from experience ...
>
> > There are some historical sites and the rest is
> > commercialized hype. Why do the foreign tourists
> > want to come to see the US? Las Vegas? (yes,
> > sad to say, imo.) Why do I go to Helsinki or
> > Paris?
>
> How are the Eiffel Tower, The Louvre, et al., not then
> "commercialized hype" in their own ways? LV I've been
> to, and can likely do without, but ...
>
>
>
>
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