Ch 15

[Robin Landseadel]

Somehow I'm reminded of Anna Russell's line [concerning Der Ring des  
Nibelungen] that in Opera you can do anything you like, as long as you  
sing it. Es Posible!
On Apr 14, 2009, at 7:26 AM, Joseph Tracy wrote:

>
> On Apr 14, 2009, at 8:50 AM, Henry Musikar wrote:
>
>> Fol-de-rol, and fiddle-de-dee!  Nonsense! Huxley was right.  In the  
>> quoted
>> passage, Huxley was not suggesting that novels are pure, but only  
>> that music
>> could be absolute, sheer "nonsense," and still be enjoyed and even
>> respected.  And in my opinion, movies and TV are not too far behind  
>> in that
>> respect.
>>
>> Na-na-na, na-na-na, hey-hey, goodbye!
>>
>> Henry Mu
>> http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20/
>>
> I hear him saying it is particularly easy to attach  nonsensical   
> commercial propaganda to music and have it retain "intellectual   
> conviction" .  I think this is not a meaningful insight. There is no  
> important intellectual conviction that Pepsi's got a lot to give,  
> and what you end up with is a rather more obvious argument  that  
> commercial appeals are enhanced by aesthetic pleasure.  OK and what  
> does this say about music?   What is the meaning of the word  
> advantage( put in a favorable or superior position) . Advantage over  
> what? What is shameful to write or express  in music that is not  
> also shamelessly and successfully written or expressed in essays,  
> speeches, graphic  imagery, poetry,  stories etc.?  Nonsense is  
> enjoyed and respected by many in every medium, written, spoken,  
> heard  etc.
>> And in my opinion, movies and TV are not too far behind in that
>> respect.
> In terms of money invested, movies and TV are way ahead, for the  
> obvious reason that they can use all the  aesthetically pleasurable  
> elements of graphic design , story, dramatic action, dialogue and  
> music in a skillfully arranged package.
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Joseph Tracy
>>
>> On Apr 13, 2009, at 12:03 PM, Dave Monroe wrote:
>>
>>> "For the commercial propagandist, as for his colleagues in the  
>>> fields
>>> of politics and religion, music possesses yet another advantage.
>>> Nonsense which it would be shameful for a reasonable being to write,
>>> speak or hear spoken can be sung or listened to by that same  
>>> rational
>>> being with pleasure and even with a kind of intellectual
>>> conviction...."
>>>
>>> --Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited (1959)
>>
>> I find this a bit snobbish on Huxley's part, since novels  often
>> serve the same propagandistic purposes, and nonsense is foisted in
>> every medium. My POV would be that the problem he describes is more
>> about the different motives behind art  or commercial
>> entertainment.   Kinda weird that Huxley has this classical wariness
>> of the ecstatic, but ends up writing a book length commercial for
>> mescaline.
>>
>>