Topics Covered: A tangential, symbolic pseudo-explanation of a complex scientific principle I don't even fully comprehend, jams, SURPRISE!
Yes, that is GZA and no, "Come Do Me" will not be featured here.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that entropy tends to increase in an isolated system. "What exactly is entropy?" you ask (very reasonably.) Honestly, I'm not qualified to give a detailed answer, but my understanding is improving. Until recently I had always equated it with dynamism and chaos, but strictly speaking it's more of a state of disorganization. Though an increase in entropy will yield spontaneous changes, it ultimately amounts to an aimless, torpid mass. It shouldn't be defined as "randomness" exactly since it's actually the most statistically probable state of matter. In fact, organized systems like, say, the human body or the earth's ecosystem, are practically miraculous in that the likelihood of their emerging from whatever event set the universe in motion was almost nonexistent, and yet here they are, functioning pretty well considering the circumstances.
Is this what lies at the root of our attraction for the new and the strange, our awe at the sheer improbability of their existence? Maybe subconsciously we interpret fresh, original art work is a sign that we are successfully staving off the flood of entropy, that things will continue to work out as long as we can invent and adapt. We don't just want freaks, we need them to ease our existential angst.
Or maybe they're just really good at entertaining. In any case, here are some songs which have been making me feel revitalized lately:
"I Need a Freak" - Sexual Harrassment So much about Sexual Harrassment as a band remains mysterious to me. Who were they? Why did they only make one, 6-song record? Did they intentionally misspell "harassment"? Their sound is comparatively easier to nail down. The overall result is similar to vintage Prince except somehow even stranger and more indulgent, perhaps partially from the lack of context. This track in particular has a lot going on. The contrast between its subject matter and its super-serious, almost urgent delivery is kind of off-putting in a good way, like a perverted political manifesto. Also, is it just me or does that repeated synth line sound suspiciously like "My Humps"? I'm on to you, Fergie.
"Shhhy" - Food for Animals Their new album, Belly, is definitely worth your time. It's an inexplicably consistent synthesis of disjointed electronic noise and straightforward, political rap. I won't even bother with further description since this track is an absolute banger and pretty much speaks for itself. However, in the spirit of stereotypical music journalism hyperbole, allow me to posit a hypothesis: this could very well be the future of hip-hop.
"Sorairo no Kureyon" - Happy End I found out about this band from Neojaponisme's article on Rolling Stone Japan's list of the top 100 Japanese Rock albums. Kazemachi Roman, the album this track comes from, was #1 and even though my understanding of the lyrics is very limited (according to Wikipedia it's a concept album about Tokyo after the 1964 Summer Olympics) it's easy to see on a purely aesthetic level why this would have such a broad appeal. It takes all the established tropes of the various folk-related genres and does them very well. I particularly enjoy "Sky-Colored Crayon" because it's just so much fun to hear such a stereotypical country song (a style with such strong associations with a particular region of a particular nation) sung in Japanese. The melody sounds dead-on like Neil Young. It even has yodeling! I don't know whether to chalk it up to cultural imperialism, postmodern appropriation, or the universal appeal of melancholy slide-guitar.
"Beautiful Rebel" - Jeremy Jay Something about Jeremy Jay's sing-talking, guitar-strumming style reminds me of Lou Reed, but with less disillusionment. The riff on this track sounds especially glam-rock, though there's an innocent quality in Jay's voice which subverts that genre's pervasive sense of artifice and ironic detachment. Even when what he's saying doesn't really make much sense, he says it with such conviction you really start to buy into the total, surreal vision.
"Quality Crayon Wax OK" - Essential Logic Lara Logic was a founding member of X-Ray Spex, one of my favorite punk bands. She dropped out before they had recorded a full album, but she played saxophone on "Oh Bondage, Up Yours!" which is an accomplishment by itself. If you're a fan of Germ Free Adolescents, listening to Beat Rhythm News is like spotting an old acquaintance from high school on the street, but then getting closer and realizing it's actually just a stranger: simultaneously nostalgic and jarring. There's enough of a similarity that it seems familiar, but more rigorous scrutiny reveals a much more subdued, experimental sound.
This is what comes up on a Google image search when you type in "Water Curses"
"Street Flash" - Animal Collective Though Avey Tare contributed a really lovely song to the recently released Living Bridge compilation and Panda Bear's newest solo album has garnered a lot of well-deserved praise, for me nothing can compare to their work as a group. There's always so much going on in their music and yet somehow it never devolves into cacophony or mindless gimmickry. This is one of my favorite bands so it's hard for me to be objective, but I think the forthcoming Water Curses EP is some of their best material yet, album or otherwise. It surprised me to hear that these are actually B-sides from Strawberry Jam. Electronic beats are dominant in the mix, sure to remind some of those giant typewriter sounds at the end of "Derek, but the overall mood is definitely very laid back since 3 of the 4 songs are of the long, expansive variety. This one for example is just about a guy who goes out for a walk to get his mind off the troubles of the day, but it sounds more like an epic, introspective journey.
BONUS VIDEO!!
"No More Workhorse Blues" - Bonnie 'Prince' Billy To conclude this post, here's one of my favorite music video of all time for the retooled version of "No More Workhorse Blues". Apparently it was directed by Harmony Korine and typical of his oeuvre there's an overload of cultural signifiers (race, gender, class), but no real clue as to what they're supposed to mean. I think it's one of those things you either really connect to on a visceral, almost sublinguistic level or dismiss entirely. In the former case it's pretty much impossible to explain the narrative you've constructed from his fragments without sounding like a pretentious douche (as I'm sure I've demonstrated here.) On the plus side, nobody gets AIDS and there's that great Dave Berman backing vocal at the end to haunt your dreams.
Stay weird, y'all.
P.S. If you've happened across this blog and you have some work you'd like to recommend (even your own) as worthy of investigation drop me an email or comment. Obviously, I'm always happy to check out new things.
Topics Covered: Introductory "Precession", the trouble with icons (more than you might think), the number one cause of Hello Kitty-related violence, murder, suicide, possibly both at the same time, obscure celebrities going about their business.
Prepare to have your mind adorably blown.
When you read Jean Baudrillard's essay, "The Precession of Simulacra", you get the feeling that what's at stake in representation is a lot more than just the possibility of clear and efficient communication of ideas through imperfect/unstable symbols, rather simulations have the potential to completely undermine your entire notion of an objective "truth" or "reality". At first that sounds really melodramatic, but as you read along his argument proceeds in such a logical fashion that your very doubts begin to seem unreasonable. After all, how often do you contemplate the objective basis of your views? What would happen if someone could replicate the conditions of reality without satisfying any of your prerequisites for establishing something as real? What does it matter if you ultimately can't even tell the difference? I don't really have definitive answers to any of those questions, but follow me anyway on a magical voyage into HYPERREALITY!
First of all, it's important to establish that what Baudrillard means by "simulation" is not the same thing as "copy" or "model", rather it is a construction which completely recreates the appearance and effects of the original to the extent where the two are essentially indistinguishable. A "model" would be something like a ship in a bottle. You can differentiate it from a "real" ship because it is much smaller in size and it can't serve the same purposes (i.e. it is purely aesthetic, incapable of actually transporting goods or people across a body of water.) The primary example he uses for "simulation" is psychosomatic illness. It creates symptoms identical to those of a "real" illness to such a degree of accuracy that the sufferer truly believes that they are sick, but there is no observable biological cause. Is a psychosomatic illness any less real simply because it doesn't fit Louis Pasteur's Germ Theory of Disease? Of course not, but where does that leave us? Pasteur's theory describes the majority of cases so it still helpful, but it is no longer tenable as the objective "truth" behind all illness. Simulations have a tendency to complicate matters like that by exposing what we thought were fixed rules as merely generalizations, thus undermining the basis of our reality.
Unfortunately, there's not a lot we can do to recuperate a sense of stability other than A) placing our faith in representations or B) trying to escape them completely. Of course, both of those strategies carry their own sets of problems. Baudrillard describes the conflict between iconolaters (image worshipers) and iconoclasts (image breakers) prominent in Reformation period Christianity. The iconolaters fell into group A, they "were content to venerate God at one remove", using religious images like crucifixes and statues. Of course, along with such practices come instances of idolatry where the image itself starts to receive praise rather than the deity it is supposed to be representing. So the group B types, the iconoclasts, decided to do away with religious representation completely in order to restore honor to the "true" God and they went around actively destroying religious depictions. However, their insecurity ultimately did more to undermine their truth than uphold it since the logic of their protests instilled the images with a kind of power which even the iconolaters had never intended. If people could apparently receive miraculous boons from a statue which wasn't actually representative of God, then what was the difference? Perhaps there was never a truth behind the image and God was never anything more than a human construction from the beginning.
It's really a problem with no solution since human culture has already become too dependent on symbols to be able to function without them. Even simple communication requires a certain degree of "faith" that your words represent real objects and phenomena which the listener can also understand and so comprehend your meaning. To paraphrase Derrida, there is no way to get outside of the discourse of imagery.
Throughout the essay, Baudrillard expresses a nostalgia for something like a simpler time when images authentically meant what they said. It's almost as if the image has grown progressively stronger as Postmodern thought and practice became more and more thoroughly integrated with our culture.
"These would be the successive phases of the image: [1]-it is the reflection of a basic reality [2]-it masks and perverts a basic reality [3]-it masks the absence of a basic reality [4]-it bears no relation to any reality whatever: it is its own pure simulacrum."
Whether or not this is actually a modern development or merely symptomatic of a more general acceptance of symbolism without an observable, preexisting referent is kind of a moot point. The really interesting thing is looking at cultural examples of progression to higher levels of simulation and noting the changes which allowed for this advance. Japanese culture in particular is famous for adapting existing "Western" concepts and retooling them in such a manner which achieves the same effect as the original (often even more efficiently and fantastically), but through means which disregard the prototype's rationale.
Let's start with an example from popular culture: the promotional mascot. When you think of Frosted Flakes you probably think of Tony the Tiger. In commercials Tony is always playing sports with the kids, both a participant and a role model encouraging children to adopt a more active lifestyle. Even his endorsement for the product, the resounding "They're Grrrrreat!", sounds like someone cheering for the home team. The question is: what does any of this have to do with Frosted Flakes? They're not especially healthier for you than any other cereal, they won't improve your teamwork, and they certainly won't increase your physical abilities. This is the classic American conception of a mascot: it signifies positive qualities which the viewer will then associate with the product even though they don't actually exist in the product itself. This is a third order simulation which masks the absence of a reality (i.e. the only inherent value in cereal is nutritional and Frosted Flakes will not actually make you better, faster, stronger, etc.)
Anyone familiar with contemporary Japanese culture knows that it is chock-full of promotional characters. Practically every product is partnered with a charming creature to endorse it and even non-consumer based institutions like Volunteers for Children's Rights Protection and government prefectures have their own mascots. However, the ultimate manifestation of this phenomenon appeared back in 1976 with the Sanrio corporation's official licensing of the now ubiquitous "Hello Kitty". What makes Kitty so revolutionary is that she is largely considered to be the first mascot to precede her products, intended to be consumed in and of herself. Unlike the traditional Western model where the product comes first and then a character is created to add positive connotations onto it, Hello Kitty inverted the system by having products made to promote her adorable visage. She is a fourth level representation, a pure simulation of cuteness, unbound to any particular set of personal characteristics (unlike Tony, her "personality" is entirely aesthetic) or physical format making her an empty vessel capable of promoting anything and everything. Tarot cards, exhaust pipes, toasters, sex toys; Kitty has appeared on all of them and regardless of the item's specific function the "truth" she embodies (which is nothing more than her appearance) alters it into something equally decorative and insouciant. This is the very real and unnerving power of pure simulation: it doesn't refer to anything other than itself so it can contain any value and never compromise its own integrity.
What can't she do?
For a more "high cultural" example of this same principle, let's turn now to the fiction of Ryunosuke Akutagawa, one of modern Japan's most critically lauded authors. His short story, "In a Grove" ("Yabu no Naka"), which, incidentally, is also the basis of the famous Kurosawa film Rashomon, was first published in 1922. While the West was embracing Modernism, a style which tends to complicate the notion of reality by including a multiplicity of equally valid perspectives in relationship to the same event, Akutagawa came out with this text which actually has a lot more in common with Postmodernism, a style which ups the ante by containing a multiplicity of realities in irresolvable conflict with one another. Based on a traditional Japanese folktale, the plot basically amounts to a series of oral accounts describing the events which led up to the murder of a well-to-do man in the titular grove. Each of the first-hand witnesses of the death, a known criminal, the man, and his wife, all describe the event differently and each one takes the blame for the killing (the man is contacted through a spiritual medium, the other two confess to the police.) Each of their explanations is equally viable in relation to the available evidence, but the reader, placed in the position of the confessor (as in one who receives the admission of guilt), will inevitably feel compelled to make a judgment as to which is the "true" account in spite of the absence of an objective basis for such a decision. The point, of course, is that justice can't exist in the presence of multiple truths so in order to restore our faith in the logical enforcement of morality we often have to act arbitrarily. Baudrillard describes this as being symptomatic of our current climate of representation:
"No more mirror of being and appearances, of the real and its concept. No more imaginary coextensivity: rather genetic miniaturization is the dimension of simulation. The real is produced from miniaturized units, from matrices, memory banks, and command models- and with these it can be reproduced an infinite number of times. It no longer has to be rational, since it is no longer measured against some ideal or negative instance. It is nothing more than operational."
How can justice be truly "just" if apparently authentic motives and guilt and be produced and reproduced to fit any situation? What we are left with is a fourth level simulation of justice, a system which is forced to accept any number of plausible explanations in order to sustain itself with no real obligation to entertain concepts like "right" and "wrong".
This movie is even better than Clue, I swear!
Ok, well that was kind of a bummer, so let's turn now to something which should be more comfortingly familiar: reality television. Criticism of reality TV is well-worn territory, I know. Skepticism is almost expected to such an extent that shows have begun to explicitly reassure the audience of their own authenticity. When the Court TV network made its transition to the much more generalized truTV at the beginning of this year it came equipped with a bold new slogan to set itself apart from its "over-produced" brethren:
The truth, of course, is that the change was little more than nominal. If you look at its programming lineup you'll see the same shows they've been broadcasting for years. No, for something truly unique it's best to look to an outside source. Japanese popular culture saves the day once more!
If you're not familiar with the J-Pop supergroup Morning Musume, consider this your formal introduction:
Of course, Morning Musume (or Momusu for short) are more of a relative concept than a fixed team of artists. Though quite successful in their own right, the group also functions as kind of a marketing machine for their label, Hello! Project. Established members eventually "graduate" to solo careers or smaller sub-groups and new members are then auditioned to replace them so the roster is constantly changing. Nevertheless, even though they remain indistinct as individuals, as a collective they have undoubtedly already penetrated your subconscious. When you first saw those videos online demonstrating the stereotypical "wackiness" of Japanese television, you were watching Morning Musume.
The prevalent youtube clip "Dramatic Prairie Dog", which has spawned so many parodies, was also taken from a TV appearance with Momusu.
But there's an even more amazing show you've probably never heard of: Futarigoto. (Roughly translated, "Together".) Basically it consists of a variety of interview segments with the girls from the band, but one in particular is uncannily captivating. A given girl lounges around by herself in a well-furnished Tokyo apartment. That's it. There's no narrative progression, no challenges, no goal, no cheesy host, no special obligation to be entertaining... there's not even any creative editing to create the illusion of action, just a few transitional skips ahead during the really static portions. In fact, often the girl will seem confused as to what she's supposed to be doing. One just does math homework for her entire segment (positive role model!) Another watches a horror movie on DVD and all we see are her reactions. It's absolute fucking mundanity, but the whole time there's this news ticker on the side of the screen giving frequent, enthusiastic updates like this is breaking news.
Even the ingrained idea that the lives of celebrities have their own inherent glamor doesn't seem to hold up especially when you have only a dim perception of why the subject is supposed to be interesting in the first place and yet somehow it's still hard to look away. What does it all mean?!
Baudrillard conjectures that in the old days simulations designed for entertainment often served the secondary purpose of bolstering our sense of reality. You step outside the gates of the Magic Kingdom in Disney Land and suddenly you're in a giant parking lot. You want to be immersed in fantasy, but only temporarily and within certain, defined limits so that you can leave with a deeper appreciation for the stability of the everyday world. Now reality is our entertainment and not the just kind of "reality" where people are vying for social supremacy on a deserted island or competing for an exclusive job position, but also the quotidian stuff your little sister does when she gets home from school. Our actions are serious to us when we perform them, but with a digital camera they can be converted into mass amusement. Star Wars Kid, Chris Crocker, Lil' ShowStoppa: none of them intended the joke they became. People are becoming alienated from their own lives. Now you can actually become famous against your will. Welcome to the Desert of the Real.
Here, soothe your Postmodern paranoia with some classic Japanese jams:
Topics Covered: Platonic thought's relevance to shoegaze, Romantic poetry, Surrealism, and the filmography of Vincent Gallo
Play-doh Plato. A good pun, but hardly Ideal.
Though perhaps a bit outmoded as a pragmatic worldview, Platonic Idealism has been remarkably resilient in the realm of art, manifesting itself continually throughout history in practically every medium and genre. In its original sense it referred to the notion that specific objects in observable reality are merely imperfect reflections of an eternal Ideal which exists in the realm of ideas as the standard by which we mentally apprehend the object's essence. To paraphrase Wikipedia's practical example: the tree in your back yard has a few dead branches and a pair of initials carved into it. These imperfections differentiate it from the Ideal tree which you envision in your mind when you think of what is meant by the word "tree". Perhaps a bit hard to believe, but as a concept it could justifiably be considered the basis of pretty much every post-modern, "meta" creative gesture you hold dear since it is so bound up in the process of creation. Art begins in the realm of imagination where it is theoretically perfect, in a sense Ideal, but as a means of communication it is inextricably linked to the real, limited by the flawed materials which compose it, etc., and thus it becomes an imperfect reflection of itself. Any piece which highlights its own inability to effectively convey its message or, even more elaborately, indicates a message but refuses to engage it explicitly for fear that doing so would distort its meaning owes a great debt to good, old-fashioned Platonic Idealism.
The allure of this dynamic was first made apparent to me through this song:
My intense love for "Sometimes" is almost entirely based on its deliberate refusal to deliver on the emotional catharsis it promises. The (discernible) lyrics are charged with romantic expectancy which is never resolved. The synth-y/organ-y strain builds and rises, but its volume never rises above the general murmur. It psychs me out every time and yet I'm never disappointed because, as corny as it may sound, I'm fairly certain the Ideal climax I imagine is better than anything Kevin Shields could have actually achieved (no offense, man.)
Speaking of the greatest songs never played you couldn't ask for a more canonical example than the second stanza of John Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn":
"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal - yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not they bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!"
These lines refer, of course, to the figures depicted on the titular urn of Greek origin, each frozen in time at a point before the completion of the action which gives their (real or imagined) life meaning. By being preserved in an Ideal, heroic posture they become eternal, fixed representations of abstractions, and thus are free from the stain of mundanity and the inevitable decay of mortals who are too unstable to function as signifiers of anything greater than themselves. An appropriate sentiment for a poet whose premature death did so much to cement his fame. Though the idea that an artist's imagination could somehow grant him access to the Ideal and this action's relationship to the real objects on which it is based are fairly common themes among the Romantic poets (equally famous examples of it are readily apparent in the work of Coleridge and Wordsworth) Keats stands out in particular as being a supreme champion of the mind and its power to create new realities through art, uncompromised by their transition. He famously wrote in a letter to Benjamin Bailey: "The Imagination may be compared to Adam's dream--he awoke and found it truth." Perhaps it never occurred to him since it had endured so long that one day his urn might break.
If the Ideal was somewhat coded in the imagery of Romantic poetry, it couldn't get more overt than the Surrealist art movement which attempted to bring subconscious, prerational thought directly into the real world. Perhaps a bit counterintuitively, practitioners often tried to do this while utilizing materials and established formats which were already endowed with their connotations. Whether or not that nullifies their aim of making a "meaningless" work, an Ideal visual mystery which raises questions but doesn't provide enough clues to arrive at a definitive answer, I couldn't really say. Anyhow, one thing that is readily apparent is that a particular Surrealist's success on both a business and philosophical level is often directly linked to their ability to keep people guessing. Sometimes this might come off as "gimmicky" in a "dude, check it out the landscape is actually, like, a face cuz, like, we're all a part of nature, right?" kind of way, but in the work of someone like René Magritte even fairly straightforward images present a lot of intriguing details to puzzle over.
The Lovers
Clairvoyance
Man With a Newspaper
Though none of these images is beyond the realm of possibility they somehow come off as fantastical. In each piece the focus is simultaneously evident and obscured and so the viewer's attention is arrested indefinitely until their mind can create an explanation which can be plausible (the man simply finished the newspaper and went about his day) or implausible (he vanished, never to return) so long as it creates a justification for their initial interest. For me, Magritte's work come closest to achieving an Ideal mystery because it recycles the imperfect manifestation of the artist's thoughts back into the mind of the audience where it takes on its surreal qualities.
NOTE: this section will contain movie spoilers.
Multi-functional and fascinating though it may be, Platonic Idealism and its offshoots can be restrictive in their own way and just as much art has been produced in refutation of them as in acceptance. Vincent Gallo's Buffalo '66 stands out as an excellent film which, on one level, functions as literal rejection of Idealism. The protagonist, Billy Brown (Gallo), wants so badly to create an Ideal image of himself that he abducts Layla (Christina Ricci) so he can put up a front as an embodiment of the American Dream (government job, a beautiful wife, the promise of offspring) for his parents. Hilarious hijinx ensue:
Lurking grimly in the background of this ridiculousness is Billy's equally Idealized plot for revenge against the former NFL kicker whom he blames for the sad state of affairs in his life. However, when he is about to perform his sinister deed he envisions the practical results of his action: two meaningless deaths and no one to appreciate his "glorious" gesture. Ultimately, he opts for a more nihilistic outlook, giving supreme importance to the real relationship he has cultivated with Layla rather than going through with the absurdly myopic vendetta he has fantasized about for so long. While reserved in its aspirations for greatness it comes off as feel-good in the end, so even a hardcore Idealist can come out of it feeling like a winner.
Topics Covered: thoughts on Sweeney Todd, the prophetic visions of William Blake, the artistic legacy of Prince v Sinéad O'Connor "When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you." --Nietzsche
NOTE: I've made an effort to be vague on specific plot points in order to avoid spoilers so this entry should be safe to read even if you haven't seen the film yet.
I went into Sweeney Todd with very few expectations: I knew from the press it was a musical and I inferred from its general aesthetic and the Tim Burton directing credit that it would be bleak. Ultimately, I was not disappointed in either respect (clever songs propelled rather than adorned the plot which was anything but uplifting), but particularly the latter. The narrative presents a LOT of problems, almost exclusively focusing on social injustices and all the various forms of physical and emotional violence humans enact on other humans, and very little in the way of reliable solutions or methods of coping. The message you walk away with is that people, voluntarily (as in the case of a consensual, romantic relationship) or involuntarily (as in the inherent power disparity in a hierarchical social structure), will always be vulnerable to the capricious or well-intentioned motives of other people. That is that and there's really nothing to be done.
Of course in a modern philosophical/artistic context that sort of fatalistic conclusion is kind of unoriginal and, at least in a realistic sense, pretty much inevitable. The real drama of the film and the essence of what makes it truly compelling and worthwhile lies in how it demonstrates the ways in which opposing viewpoints form entirely different perceptions of the world in relationship to the exact same conclusion (i.e. that the world is full of people who can and will try to victimize you.) The main ideological rift occurs between the titular "Demon Barber of Fleet Street" and a young sailor, Anthony Hope, whom, we are told, was instrumental in the rescue and return of Mr. Todd to what will be the staging ground of his plot for revenge. You can probably tell from their names that apathy v. optimism will be a prominent aspect of their dichotomy, but of course the dilemmas they face are much more complicated than your standard glass-half-empty-or-half-full fare. On a more basic level their contrasting views of life are a matter of scale.
Todd tends to see things in a more generalized manner. London to him is basically a scaled down model of the seething "pit" of iniquity that constitutes human relationships on a universal level, thus everyone's character can be reduced to fit into one of two categories: there are the oppressors and the oppressed (who, if they gained any power, would implicitly become the former rather than transcending this binary) and both are equally worthy of death. So his response to a self-acknowledged vulnerability to humanity is to elevate his own highly dubious sense of morality to the position of raison d'etre (which, come to think of it, is pretty much an essential step in any quest for revenge) and consequently to dehumanize everyone else by abstracting their unique characters into those aforementioned categories and using them as tools for his own ends. The fatal flaw here is that his rationale which serves the purpose of shielding himself from the specific is actually rooted in the individual: his wife and daughter (motivation) who were "taken from him" by the evil judge (goal). What makes his philosophy untenable is its simultaneous negation of and dependence on (surprise, surprise) other people.
Conversely, Hope's mindset, in spite of his propensity for snap judgments, is almost entirely decided in a case-by-case basis. His greatest good is embodied entirely by the woman he loves, Johanna (coincidentally also Todd's daughter). Consequently, Judge Turpin is vilified in equal measure since he is the primary obstacle to wedded bliss. As such, it seems to young Anthony that if he can successfully elope with his beloved then, by corollary, he has escaped the world's ills and found lasting happiness. Of course Johanna herself, having endured semi-pedophilic/incestuous advances throughout her childhood and a recent internment in the local asylum is understandably less confident. She indicates that an escape from London won't mean an escape from suffering and everything in the film's Gothic tone would seem to affirm her assertion, but Hope proceeds as planned and the couple's ultimate fate remains ambiguous. Equally unclear in the end is whether or not this perspective is supposed to be viewed as a sort of "flawed, but the best anyone can do" kind of thing or if we are to infer his innocence too will eventually be crushed and the cycle of revenge will spin out into eternity... I told you it was bleak.
The dynamic between these two opposing philosophies united by a common conclusion was evocative of a similar tension that runs throughout the work of William Blake. Like Anthony Hope, Blake was an optimist in that he was staunchly Christian and thus believed that a correct formula of actions exists which will result in freedom from suffering, but like Sweeney Todd he was also kind of, um, CRAZY in that he believed in a metaphysical world unbound by a distinguishable formalized dogma and regularly had divine visions (supposedly when he looked at the sun he saw "A hundred angels singing ‘Holy! Holy! Holy!’”)
On the Morning of Christ's Nativity by William Blake Tripped-out stuff like this was like an everyday occurrence for him.
In 1789 Blake published Songs of Innocence as a standalone and it wasn't until 5 years later that it appeared in conjunction with its companion volume, the appropriately titled Songs of Experience. Together they create what is probably one of the most famous and intriguing internal dialectics in the history of British poetry (although, in my opinion, on their own most of the poems in Innocence wouldn't warrant much extra thought.) I could go into depth with a lot of specific citations to illustrate how these two concepts are defined within the work itself, but really you should just read the whole thing and make up your own mind. It's short, fairly entertaining, and available for free perusal here and probably a million other places on the internet or your nearest library. However, for the sake of furthering the heretofore established argument here is a quick breakdown of my understanding of them:
INNOCENCE -an essentially integrative perspective which seeks to empathize with everything in its surroundings, good or bad. This results in a lot of anthropmorphization and endowing things with supernatural/divine qualities in order to create a plausible explanation for why said things which apparently contradict the speaker's view on an empirical level actually affirm it on a metaphysical level.
EXPERIENCE - a perspective which sees subjectivity and difference as the constitutive element of existence. This results in a lot of confusion as to what the hell things are "supposed to mean" both in and outside the poems since they aren't being reduced to the speaker/reader's level of comprehensibility. Read "The Sick Rose" and you'll know what I mean. It's stuff that's authentically affecting, but you'd be hard-pressed to explain just why.
OK, I lied. I am going to provide one textual example, but it's actually from the Pickering Manuscript. The final four lines of "Auguries of Innocence" (the poem Gary Farmer's character was so fond of quoting in the excellent Jim Jarmusch movie Dead Man [which, incidentally, stars Johnny Depp playing a character named William Blake]) do a wonderful job of illustrating the Innocence/Experience dichotomy:
"God appears, and God is light To those poor souls who dwell in night, But does a human form display To those who dwell in realms of day."
The poem assumes that existence will end with God's return, the conflict lies in how this will be perceived. To the Experienced mind the deity appears as a symbol, an abstraction whereas to the Innocent it will present itself in a form they can understand, the human. Either way it sounds pretty sweet if you buy into that kind of thing.
Despite the fact that I am completely obsessed with early to late '80s Prince, I had never heard his original version of "Nothing Compares 2 U" until just recently. The Sinéad O'Connor is, of course, an institution of Western society (and rightfully so in my opinion since unrequited love is one of the most artistically fecund themes in all of history [HINT: see future entry]) and in its own right probably much more famous than its predecessor. I was surprised then, though perhaps I shouldn't have been, that Prince's version was so different from what I had grown accustomed to:
It features the estranged lovers in dialog with each other, their reconciliation practically a foregone conclusion whereas with O' Connor's:
there is a pervasive atmosphere of uncertainty. The speaker wants to get back together with her lover but there is no guarantee that they will feel the same way or even that this would be a good decision. These qualities are why I prefer the cover despite the fact that both versions of the song operate in relation to the same assumed endpoint (i.e. the restoration of a relationship.)
Given their particular artistic leanings it seems fitting that one of them will be remembered for controversial moments like this:
View the entirety of the infamous Pope-rip performance here IF YOU CAN HANDLE THE INTENSE/RELEVANT POLITICAL STATEMENT.
and the other for unifying, spiritual jams like this:
