D-Caf! D-Caf!
I got a 100 on my argument paper concerning eminent domain. I am feeling nice and loose, it's good to know I can still get the job done 2 years after college. Even if it is KnickKnack.
Dreadnok captain Zartan has posted a counterspiel over at his blog, scathing and well-written. What it amounts to is an outline of his battle plan against Christmas, complete with slam-dunk intelligence supporting the war and a well-detailed attack strategy.
I will say that if anyone has more of a gripe with platoons of errant NY/NJers wading around the area at the will of the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse (Suburban Sprawl, who rides a plywood steed) than I do, well, I will fight them to earn the title of Biggest Griper Vs. Platoons of Errant blah blah blah blah blah. I, too, worked as an entry-level food service employee during the holidays, actually working ON Christmas once, although it didn't grate on me quite as much as it did on my comrade. But it still sucks. Nevertheless...
I see a problem when Christmas music is ruined for someone by the realization that the artists who wrote it may have been interested more in money than in promoting the Christmas spirit. Now, cynicism is a valuable tool--doubt, and not having completely blind faith in human nature, is healthy. But virtue is defined by a mean between the vices of excess and deficiency, as determined by a rational principle such as a man of practical wisdom would use (that's right, I just got Nicomachean on your asses). In short, cynicism needs to be tempered by a willingness to, in the end, accept people and ideas that can prove themselves in the face of doubt.
So when Christmas music causes irritation and bitterness because of the possibly greedy motivations of the composers, that, to me, is symptomatic of cynicism having become an end in itself and no longer a filter through which we separate the wheat from the chaff, intellectually. Left unchecked, it will spread through the mind and body, and eventually to the colon. Then it's curtains, Zartan. Let me help you. You can borrow my tape of the Charlie Brown Christmas special.
So Friday was something. The mission was accomplished and the Plastic People successfully infiltrated, although G.I. Joe managed to take Destro out of commission for a short while. The Baronness still managed to accomplish her mission spectacularly, in rather skimpy dress. The rest of the night was spent living behind the velvet rope. Not exactly something I'm used to. I met a few interesting people here and there, but mostly just took advantage of the free booze. The single women travel in packs, and the single men travel in 
prides. It's not the best environment for the solitary hunter, shall we say. But that was never really the goal anyway, and a good time was had regardless. Especially since I got to ralph all over the ground in front of some Manhattan precinct police station. Woo!
And then, Saturday happened to provide one of the best one-two friday-saturday punches EVER. Did the annual march up to Beck's Tree Farm for the family tree, took in the awesome view as usual, then came home and received the LaSalle Crimson Guard as we prepared for the show. Everyone came together to make this probably the best show yet. The relationship between an audience and a performer is symbiotic--the more "into it" the audience, the more "into it" the performer, and it goes back and forth in a feedback loop. Well, thanks to Zartan, Baronness, Destro, Dr. Mindbender, Major Bludd, Metal-Head, and a host of other Crimson Guardsmen, that feedback loop grew more and more out of control until the rockingness of it threatened to tear the Funhouse off its foundations. So to all who came Saturday, thank you once again. We do this for you, because you do it for us. We all made it a great night.
Dreadnok captain Zartan has posted a counterspiel over at his blog, scathing and well-written. What it amounts to is an outline of his battle plan against Christmas, complete with slam-dunk intelligence supporting the war and a well-detailed attack strategy.I will say that if anyone has more of a gripe with platoons of errant NY/NJers wading around the area at the will of the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse (Suburban Sprawl, who rides a plywood steed) than I do, well, I will fight them to earn the title of Biggest Griper Vs. Platoons of Errant blah blah blah blah blah. I, too, worked as an entry-level food service employee during the holidays, actually working ON Christmas once, although it didn't grate on me quite as much as it did on my comrade. But it still sucks. Nevertheless...
I see a problem when Christmas music is ruined for someone by the realization that the artists who wrote it may have been interested more in money than in promoting the Christmas spirit. Now, cynicism is a valuable tool--doubt, and not having completely blind faith in human nature, is healthy. But virtue is defined by a mean between the vices of excess and deficiency, as determined by a rational principle such as a man of practical wisdom would use (that's right, I just got Nicomachean on your asses). In short, cynicism needs to be tempered by a willingness to, in the end, accept people and ideas that can prove themselves in the face of doubt.
So when Christmas music causes irritation and bitterness because of the possibly greedy motivations of the composers, that, to me, is symptomatic of cynicism having become an end in itself and no longer a filter through which we separate the wheat from the chaff, intellectually. Left unchecked, it will spread through the mind and body, and eventually to the colon. Then it's curtains, Zartan. Let me help you. You can borrow my tape of the Charlie Brown Christmas special.
So Friday was something. The mission was accomplished and the Plastic People successfully infiltrated, although G.I. Joe managed to take Destro out of commission for a short while. The Baronness still managed to accomplish her mission spectacularly, in rather skimpy dress. The rest of the night was spent living behind the velvet rope. Not exactly something I'm used to. I met a few interesting people here and there, but mostly just took advantage of the free booze. The single women travel in packs, and the single men travel in prides. It's not the best environment for the solitary hunter, shall we say. But that was never really the goal anyway, and a good time was had regardless. Especially since I got to ralph all over the ground in front of some Manhattan precinct police station. Woo!And then, Saturday happened to provide one of the best one-two friday-saturday punches EVER. Did the annual march up to Beck's Tree Farm for the family tree, took in the awesome view as usual, then came home and received the LaSalle Crimson Guard as we prepared for the show. Everyone came together to make this probably the best show yet. The relationship between an audience and a performer is symbiotic--the more "into it" the audience, the more "into it" the performer, and it goes back and forth in a feedback loop. Well, thanks to Zartan, Baronness, Destro, Dr. Mindbender, Major Bludd, Metal-Head, and a host of other Crimson Guardsmen, that feedback loop grew more and more out of control until the rockingness of it threatened to tear the Funhouse off its foundations. So to all who came Saturday, thank you once again. We do this for you, because you do it for us. We all made it a great night.
posted by Face of Spades at 9:14 AM
4 Comments:
The thing I love about blogging is that I don't have to fuck around with "proof-reading" or "making sense". Upon a second reading of my missive against Christmas, I realized I left out a sentence. A completion of an idea, even. So just to amend/retort: commercial music is not inherently bad; I love me some "Toxic" and "Since U Been Gone" because songs like those truly do manage to leap out of their Mid-Town assembly lines and into the collective dance-conscious, so to speak, if you will. Christmas music (with a few honorable exceptions--see Sufjan's free stuff et al.) not only emerges purely out of the profit motive but oozes with it. You expect Stevie Nicks' cover of "Silent Night" to suck dick, sure, but then it even falls short of your expectations by half-heartedly sucking limp hermaphrodite chode. It's pathetic.
It all begs the question, why does everyone (again, a few exceptions--Low's "Just Like Christmas" is excellent, and some of Sufjan's songs above are original, but--and believe me, I've looked--contemporary Christmas music is very weak) re-tread the same tired old ground year after year, recording after recording rather than write new, original music about the joy of mall traffic and Bill O'Reilly? Because: Christmas sucks.
You will find no denial in my rebuttal concerning the commercial motives of contemporary Christmas composers. Even the most naive of listeners would have a tough time arguing that Mariah Carey wasn't interested in money when she produced "All I Want For Christmas Is You."
Whether or not there is commercialism is not the issue. The problem is that you let it get to you to such an extent that it spoils the entire season. You don't have to listen to Stevie Nicks, there is plenty of decent and heartfelt holiday music out there, so why focus on what sucks? And do you really think that a tune about mall traffic and the No-Spin Zone would improve your attitude towards Christmas?
I do have to listen to Stevie Nicks, though. It's what they play at work. And Cher, Amy Grant, Backstreet Boys, Melissa Ethridge, and a hundred different covers of "12 Days of Christmas," "Frosty the Snowman," and "White Christmas." The music they play during the rest of the year sucks pretty hard; it's mostly adult contemporized indie. But, unlie the Christmas music, it's not all bad. I've heard Feist's "Mushaboom" a thousand times and I'm still not sick of it.
The only parts of Christmas that elicit any emotional response from me, good or bad, are mall traffic and Bill O'Reilly, so I suspect such a song would at least resonate. But name 3 heartfelt Christmas songs.
(And, ok, Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas is You" is one of my top 5 favorite Christmas songs.)
Okay, even if you have to listen to Stevie Nicks, I don't see why it has to consume your thoughts to the extent that it does. Although it does give me an idea for a modern-day cartoon Christmas special, "How The Fegleys Stole Christmas from Zartan".
Heartfelt would be anything credited to "Traditional" or else written by some German or Brit in the years before royalties. That pretty much trims down the motivations for writing. There's also the possibility of music written in the modern age by people who clearly had the ability to milk the consumer brothel but decided instead to choose a less profitable but more artistic route, perhaps Mannheim Steamroller or the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. (I've actually never heard either album but it seems they would fit the mold, from what I know.)
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