discussion about art: part n+1

[jtk]

I think Beatles were rarely more than fun, which is a fine thing of course. Lennon penned some good ideas. Next.

 

...but I agree with Ellis about The Who. But I think the Dead were far more powerful.

 

The Stones were the most American of the Brits...they knew where their music was born and they knew why the people that counted at the time (black, Vietnamese) were rioting in the streets. The Beatles were out of the loop that counted most.

 

The Who were fun. Think "Blow Up." The new boss/old boss line was a wise incidental observation, but given that revolution really was happening, they became a rear guard argument for passivity.

[laurent-paul]

Elvis ever sang the same song all his life. No "White album" no "Segent's pepper" kind of albums which really revolutioniszed the whole musical world.

 

But that's only coming from a very visually ( and now you are discovering, also very auditively ) sick person, whose lack of scholarship may probably not be worth to be taken into account.

 

And this has nothing to do with beeing in different continents Both Elvis and the Beatles are personaly borring greatly.

[jtk]

Beatles "revolutionized the whole musical world? Wow! I'll bet their album covers revolutionized the "art world" too :-)

[laurent-paul]

well, fyi just speaking about Sgt Pepper's they were the first ones to record on stereo, multitrack, firsts to invent "mutling" and automatic double tracking, flanging and invented lots of the effects used by anybody in electric music today,veryspeeding, playing and recording high frequandies for the first time etc.

[jtk]

Fred, the Beatles did ring certain bells inside lots of us.

 

But Elvis made people go nuts, jump around, be human animals...and Lennon was quoted as saying that before Elvis there was nothing.

 

Lennon was mistaken: We all know there were Hank Williams, Duke Ellington, and maybe even a European choir master.

[Norma Desmond]

"But Elvis made people go nuts, jump around, be human animals..."

 

The Stones did, too.

 

So what?

[laurent-paul]

( sorry was drunk again ) Actually I don't find the Beatles boring, and they sound more revolutionary than ever. I also listened to this Elvis guy again, and have to admit that a few interpretations of his song are quite good.

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But back to thread, as now, photo and music are somehow rejoining, may I share a very interesting article from the Times Online, studying how late XXIth century blues and especially "Disaster songs" were actually both an art form, but also the news alerts of the day mostly telling about death :

 

<a href="http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article2544752.ece" >From The Times September 28, 2007</a>

[pawel_czapiewski1]

It seems that the quotes are out of context and "loosely" translated.

Tarkovski's films are as much alive today as they ever were. Remake of "Solaris" with George Cloony was made not too long ago, but imo that's more Lem's than Tarkovski's baby.

 

Speaking about music: One of the pieces on Jan Garbarek's "All Those Born With Wings" - third if i remember correctly - is dedicated to Tarkovski. (excellent sax)

[jtk]

+++ Pawel, your mention of Garbarek is especially interesting here...he doesn't swing (synth Vs soul), but it's good to be reminded of hours spent on a Persian carpet in the Eighties, listening to ECM :-) Nice stuff.

 

http://www.amazon.com/All-Those-Born-Wings-Garbarek/dp/B0000260ZE

 

+++ Fred, it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing. Of course, neither Bach nor Garbarek have learned to be body people :-)

 

+++ Laurent-Paul... I've changed my (wise-guy) tune about the artistry of your Pharoanic Egyptian kinsmen.

 

http://www.cabq.gov/museum/

 

However...you hypothesized that since Egyptian works were lost, Shakespeare would be lost...

 

Egyptian work in today's museums suggests the exact opposite: good work may be eternal (as may bad work)...the gorgeous British Museum examples date back around 3,500 years, so we can all be optimistic about the future of Wm Shakespeare.

 

Give my regards to your mummy :-)

[ellis_vener_photography]

"Think "Blow Up."

 

That was The Yardbirds.

[jtk]

Ellis, you're right. And they were thereby more important than the Who.

[Norma Desmond]

"it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing"

 

First off, great quote. Brings a smile.

 

I doubt Ellington and Mills were saying much more than that their favored genre of music

needed that special swing to work. I hope they would have allowed that J. Bach, J. Lennon,

and J. Cash gave meaning to their music with other qualities.

 

And speaking of animal behavior and raw body movement, have you forgotten this?

 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3l6n6_the-beatles-1st-ed-sullivan-show_music

 

I can hear my mom as if it were yesterday. "Those kids are acting like wild animals!"

 

You'll enjoy this article. It's good to laugh at ourselves sometimes.

 

http://departments.risd.edu/faculty/dkeefer/web/swing.htm

[jtk]

Mr. M. Jagger (London School of Economics) makes a fundamental point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhIU5mLgwnc

[jtk]

The Beatles were compulsively white. Ed Sullivan was perfect.

 

But American Top 40 wasn't the only game in town:

 

http://juanitos.net/index.php?2006/05/17/22-vigan-chante-harlem-shuffle

 

Vigon est un chanteur français d'origine marocaine, né à Rabat, spécialisé dans le rhythm and blues, apparu dans le milieu des années soixante.

[Norma Desmond]

"The Beatles were compulsively white."

 

So were the Dead, for that matter, and both bands were compulsively male. Donna was

mostly a fixture in her decade of harmonizing.

 

I must ask again, so what?

[GerrySiegel]

Since everyone understands this Tartovsky fellow, send me an email and fill me in when you get time. In Honolulu we stick to solid and sustaining stuff. Like "Live Free or Die Hard." See,all about death and life...

 

We get a Honolulu Academy of Art Festival once a year with subtitles. If they have enough sex they get a good turnout too.

[laurent-paul]

+++ John... My intention never is to change anybody's tune, and especially not yours, which I really enjoy reading, even and probably especialy when I don't agree with.

 

But I'm glad your curiosity led you to take a bit of time to do some research on a perhaps new field, as much as most your your posts, are making me disovering the ereferences you use.

 

"However...you hypothesized that since Egyptian works were lost, Shakespeare would be lost..."

 

This is as much an hypothesis as stating Shakespeare's work will last forever : any of these two hypothesis can be proved at the moment.

 

Egyptian work in today's museums suggests the exact opposite: good work may be eternal (as may bad work)...the gorgeous British Museum examples date back around 3,500 years, so we can all be optimistic about the future of Wm Shakespeare.

 

again 3500 years, still is not forever. And actually my statement was not about beeing totaly lost, but as much about not beeing understood anymore : What tells us that we understand hieroglyphs today ? Did we really understood the Rosetta stone ? nothing is so sure IMO.

 

And When I spoke about pre-greek poets, that was a bit of a provocation, as I never heard about any poets from that area, but as this civilisation lasted for so long, and we discovered musical instruments, we can make the hypothesis that they had some kind of poetry ( religious or not ), but the fact we don't know about, means that either they were lost, or that we don't understand it anymore, meaning it is lost in our collective human memory.

 

My only point again beeing that we can't say for certain that the work of one or collective authors can last longer than the civilisations which are producing these writers.

 

Give my regards to your mummy :-)

 

I will next time I see her ( he actually ) but she is a very social person, and is not that easly available.

[kristina_kraft]

In my opinion, during the history of our mankind, people and later artist were inspired by someone's death (of close friend, relatives, saints, etc), because they were deeply touched in the heart by their death. In the beginning, people had built a tombs and inside they would left the traces in a form of symbols. In the caves too. That was the first artwork. The drawings of bisons, hunters during hunting. Their life was on the wall because they were in danger all the time. They were fighting to survive. It was very dramatic. So, someone touched by that human struggle had left the traces on the walls to show the future generations.

 

Life - death - art - life and death. It is a circle, it is a braid.

 

Being near death situations can excite or wake up creativity. And person can become talented one. Can become an artist.

 

Art in theater in the period of Antiquity was divided on Comedy and Tragedy.

Person / artist can only understand death when live its life fully, being aware and conscious of the life around.

 

When I go to photograph in nature (forest or mountain), I am more aware of the danger, more sensible, then in the city. I feel more lively and creative and I capture very good motives.

[jtk]

Kristina, I feel safer in the wild than in civilization.

 

As to cave drawings of bison, hunters etc: they're about killing, not about danger. We do have canine teeth and we've survived as a species by being the top predator. Jane Goodall saw the thrill of the kill in chimps. It's in our blood line, it's so thrilling that we re-enact it for fun in bull rings and have invented religions to facilitate it.

 

Some of us do sometimes fear death, but most of us rarely bother.

[kristina_kraft]

Of course it's about killing, thus we have survived as intelligent species, intelligent predator. I don't feel like predator when I'm Outdoor.

Cave people started to worship (respect) their own surviving when they recognized their abilities over the nature. They became first artist, living the scenes of hunting on the cave walls.

 

The tombs are different. Those were the sanctuaries and were being built with intension. They were always being faced to sunrise, so the rays could illuminate inside on the dead one, and the walls too, on which were also the drawings like spirals. (Newgrange tomb, Ireland).

This is an example of art in architecture.

[jtk]

It's not just a matter of killing. It's a matter of killing each other.

 

Kristina, women have rarely in history been considered predators and they've been trained away from it. Hunting and killing has been men's work since the dawn of time in almost every society, the Amazons being bizarre exceptions. That's probably the primary reason you "don't feel like a predator." Along with that genetic and cultural reality, you are alienated from the wild by verbal complexity, urban experience, and technological involvement (cameras, computers, automobiles): you are an alien in the wild...as am I.

 

We are shocked by the stars when we can see them...but our ancestors weren't because their position, and the position of the sun, were important to everybody's daily experience. Understanding didn't require shamans or spirituality... poetry and story-telling around the fire brought understanding everywhere, just as they do today.

 

For spiritual reasons we select and slaughter members of our tribes, such as wives of dead men in India, or the young men we encourage to follow in their ancestors' military tradition, or our neighbors when we're told they're witches.

 

God said to Abraham, "kill me a son." Toying with Abraham and his son, He then changed His mind, telling him to stop. But the Abrahamic enthusiasts among us prefer the sadism of the original order. It's exciting to kill sons, as we saw in Yugoslavia and see in Iraq.

 

Worship is closer to terror than it is to illumination or respect.

 

I'm suggesting that we not read too much into what we define as the "art" of people we cannot know...especially since "art" doesn't mean anything in particular for our own societies.

[ellis_vener_photography]

"The Harlem Shuffle: entry on Wikipedia:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlem_Shuffle

 

summary: The Stones were just covering an early 1960s R&B song. Charlie Watts rules!

[ellis_vener_photography]

Might be intersted on this take on Mick Jagger's approach to economic revolution:

 

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/26/mick-jagger-profit-maximizer/

[jtk]

Ellis, older versions of Harlem Shuffle can be found on Youtube (knocked off with precision by Stones), but only the Stones feature that, ummmm, gasp, perspire, gasp, yes, YES, luscious woman in tight white dress.

 

Another of Mick's accomplishments was intro of Bob Marley to the US. Reggae existed long before, but not bigtime.

 

Mick knew the poetic power of "revolution". Rove and company created todays fighting in streets, but they don't dare call it Revolution.

[kristina_kraft]

A passionate dance of life:

I was watching a documentary film about flying reptilians who survived the meteor crash. (Discovery).

One female flying reptilian (I don't know its name), had a very interesting breeding ritual. She was selecting her male very specifically: When she found a male, she would then "playing" with him in a passionate way almost till the death - they would fly away high above the sky, holding each other close. When they had reached a particular hight, she would suddenly turn upside down, heading right down to the ground. In that moment, if male would separate from her during that free fall, she wouldn't choose him for breeding. Now, she would go after another male, repeating the same ritual, and if the male would stay till the end, till this last one meter above the ground, she would have breeding with him.

After when she would spawn the egg, she would chase off him, keeping the egg just for her self.

 

Now, for that kind of breeding, the female reptilian was very brave. A deadly and dangerous dance just to find a perfect male.

It is about rare species who probably survived, entering a new age after meteor disaster.

 

Now, I find that kind of breeding very interesting. Because its almost an art, and surely it shows its beauty fully.