All of you are scandalous and wicked and make me feel older and loster than I am. I go in almost fear of hearing any REM come on and ruin my inner war with their stiptic pencilings. But meaning? Oh, I'm reading and writing about Robert Frost, and what would he be without his addiction to meaning and sense? At least I hate him for the right reasons. Reasons, did I say?
Meaning is just the objectification of Hartmut Rosa’s “resonance”, peak-experience, whatever the hell you want to call it to a web of symbolic or narrative associations thats consciously comprehensible to a particular culture. What you are favoring, whether you accept it or not, is closer to Buddhist sunyata with a bit of anicca…that liberation in the recognition that everything is transient, decaying and empty of inherent meaning…but like dada, a negation of meaning becomes its own meaning because the 2 are interdependent concepts. You can’t reject meaning without being concerned about it on some level
Some of the most doofussy try-abouts seem to simmer up from asking a set of (neo-!, or similarly anti-neo-) cultural critics to opine on the nature of *meaning* -- like anyone should give a fuck... Meaning is not purpose, nor telos, you double-dunces; and the entire premise seems hamstrung instantly by your piddling references to poetry collections, "oopsie, oh silly me! I dropped my handkerchief of self-promotion here! Teehee...", and the asserted *failure* of funky-ahh movements like Dada -- [that is: prithee tell how can something fail if it is purportedly meaningless, or without purposive structure? The answer is a total whatever, mind you.]
Do you remember that REM song, Nightswimming? "I'm pining for the moon / and what if there were two / side by side in orbit / around the fairest sun? / That bright, tight, forever drum / could not describe Nightswimming." This bunch of caricatured louchistes who Halloweenily-saunter like a set of ozone-wrapped dock-rats could not create something so beautiful, so meaningful! Please, for the love of the ethnoprotectionist Etat, accept yourselves my lost brethren: accept that you are like us: all of us -- Bourgeois, And Sentimental. Heave-ho your legacies overboard all you want, I know you! I see you! Behind your gaie little nom-de-plumes, there is the hunger for meaning -- for consequence -- for ascendence and the requisite class-mobility. Roman Analisis, the Sophomore. Justinian Isis -- the Stentorian Líder. James Champagne, the entomologist and collector of rare and endangered words. The other guy... Why don't you all listen to some REM? Why don't you watch Braveheart (1995)? Why don't you recite your words into the mirror late at night and see how few, how meagre the sad number, of your neck-hairs stand to attention at your abject lack of poetry, of shamanism? Cmon you fucks. Make me cry.
My criticism still stands I'm afraid. There's nothing "transgressive" about liking REM's Nightswimming, and there never was nor will be. It isn't a question of obsolete or empty forms of emancipatory "violence" in imagery or signage. Nightswimming is the very thing you are seeking -- something full and ever-giving in the memory, something that cannot be possessed and yet pours in, again and again, in the quiet moment. Ultimately it is a conservative song, unfashionable: it is about the personal nature of meaning creation, and about holding these things with a sense of care. In this sense it is a "mature" work -- it is the work of a father -- the "real" Dad Rock. Your critiques are empty because they provide nothing by way of approval, and what they do seem to (in passing) elevate to an authentic value, it basically stands on the same ontological grounds (transgression/active-nihilism/bourgeois-escapism) as the very thing which "passéfies" the so-called Daddest things. You must celebrate your fatherhood, celebrate your place in the gyre of things, celebrate the protection and the pedagogy you can provide new life -- REM "Nightswimming", the piano-led ballad in all its sentimentality, is the answer.
This is the McSweeney's/THE BELIEVER approach to art that was briefly popular in the 00s.
If you can tolerate the lamblike bleating of Michael Stipe, we have a bunch of remaindered late period Zadie Smith novels to sell you. You may also be interested in Dave Eggers; we suggest a perusal of his WIKIPEDIA page for further information.
Possibly because you only wrote a measly-weasely paragraph Siobhán. Maybe Siobhán the Hanger-On, or the Basically-Ignorable; as opposed to Jungle-Fever-Lover. Your notions of Meaning-qua-Onanism, or Meaning-qua-Fixed-Interpretation are again, mostly just wishful thinking on your part. Perhaps you said the least and were therefore the least objectionable.
All of you are scandalous and wicked and make me feel older and loster than I am. I go in almost fear of hearing any REM come on and ruin my inner war with their stiptic pencilings. But meaning? Oh, I'm reading and writing about Robert Frost, and what would he be without his addiction to meaning and sense? At least I hate him for the right reasons. Reasons, did I say?
Meaning is just the objectification of Hartmut Rosa’s “resonance”, peak-experience, whatever the hell you want to call it to a web of symbolic or narrative associations thats consciously comprehensible to a particular culture. What you are favoring, whether you accept it or not, is closer to Buddhist sunyata with a bit of anicca…that liberation in the recognition that everything is transient, decaying and empty of inherent meaning…but like dada, a negation of meaning becomes its own meaning because the 2 are interdependent concepts. You can’t reject meaning without being concerned about it on some level
Reality, truth, meaning: the jargon of elite thinkers.
Awe. Just lots of awe. 🙏
Some of the most doofussy try-abouts seem to simmer up from asking a set of (neo-!, or similarly anti-neo-) cultural critics to opine on the nature of *meaning* -- like anyone should give a fuck... Meaning is not purpose, nor telos, you double-dunces; and the entire premise seems hamstrung instantly by your piddling references to poetry collections, "oopsie, oh silly me! I dropped my handkerchief of self-promotion here! Teehee...", and the asserted *failure* of funky-ahh movements like Dada -- [that is: prithee tell how can something fail if it is purportedly meaningless, or without purposive structure? The answer is a total whatever, mind you.]
Do you remember that REM song, Nightswimming? "I'm pining for the moon / and what if there were two / side by side in orbit / around the fairest sun? / That bright, tight, forever drum / could not describe Nightswimming." This bunch of caricatured louchistes who Halloweenily-saunter like a set of ozone-wrapped dock-rats could not create something so beautiful, so meaningful! Please, for the love of the ethnoprotectionist Etat, accept yourselves my lost brethren: accept that you are like us: all of us -- Bourgeois, And Sentimental. Heave-ho your legacies overboard all you want, I know you! I see you! Behind your gaie little nom-de-plumes, there is the hunger for meaning -- for consequence -- for ascendence and the requisite class-mobility. Roman Analisis, the Sophomore. Justinian Isis -- the Stentorian Líder. James Champagne, the entomologist and collector of rare and endangered words. The other guy... Why don't you all listen to some REM? Why don't you watch Braveheart (1995)? Why don't you recite your words into the mirror late at night and see how few, how meagre the sad number, of your neck-hairs stand to attention at your abject lack of poetry, of shamanism? Cmon you fucks. Make me cry.
REM?
You're in the wrong entry.
https://neopasseism.substack.com/p/dad-rock
My criticism still stands I'm afraid. There's nothing "transgressive" about liking REM's Nightswimming, and there never was nor will be. It isn't a question of obsolete or empty forms of emancipatory "violence" in imagery or signage. Nightswimming is the very thing you are seeking -- something full and ever-giving in the memory, something that cannot be possessed and yet pours in, again and again, in the quiet moment. Ultimately it is a conservative song, unfashionable: it is about the personal nature of meaning creation, and about holding these things with a sense of care. In this sense it is a "mature" work -- it is the work of a father -- the "real" Dad Rock. Your critiques are empty because they provide nothing by way of approval, and what they do seem to (in passing) elevate to an authentic value, it basically stands on the same ontological grounds (transgression/active-nihilism/bourgeois-escapism) as the very thing which "passéfies" the so-called Daddest things. You must celebrate your fatherhood, celebrate your place in the gyre of things, celebrate the protection and the pedagogy you can provide new life -- REM "Nightswimming", the piano-led ballad in all its sentimentality, is the answer.
This is the McSweeney's/THE BELIEVER approach to art that was briefly popular in the 00s.
If you can tolerate the lamblike bleating of Michael Stipe, we have a bunch of remaindered late period Zadie Smith novels to sell you. You may also be interested in Dave Eggers; we suggest a perusal of his WIKIPEDIA page for further information.
But... but I like Nightswimming.
And why don't I get an insulting descriptor? That kinda hurts my feelings. I bet it's because my numb de plumb is the gaiest of all.
Possibly because you only wrote a measly-weasely paragraph Siobhán. Maybe Siobhán the Hanger-On, or the Basically-Ignorable; as opposed to Jungle-Fever-Lover. Your notions of Meaning-qua-Onanism, or Meaning-qua-Fixed-Interpretation are again, mostly just wishful thinking on your part. Perhaps you said the least and were therefore the least objectionable.
I think Jeff Buckley killed himself to get away from folks like you
🙈🙉🙊
"Nightswimming" is the one James. The Song that will set you free...
have you run out of shirts?
Not as yet Mr Ashtray...
Ooh la la someone's been enjoying their Camus