The Sadness of America

[Joe Allonby]

Oh, and Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Herman
Mellville, Benjamin Franklin....

On 10/10/05, Joe Allonby <joeallonby at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/%7Emescha/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 ...
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________
> > Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
> > http://mail.yahoo.com
> >
>
>
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