overwhelmed by d.f.w.

I told my sister that I had started Infinite Jest; her response: "Prepare to have no life for the next two weeks."

How right she was. The prose is completely engrossing; my attention rapt, Wallace 'has' me. Akin to losing oneself in the magnificence of nature, or the painterly virtuosity of Gericault, or the conceptual elegance of Barnett Neumann, the experience of Infinite Jest is one of near-mystical transcendence. Completely sensual, the text engages the visceral mind, recalling imagery containing our collective memories of embodiment.

"The same small breezes make the rotted palms along the condominium complex's stone walls rustle and click, and a couple of fronds detach and spiral down, hitting the deck with a slap. All the plants out here are malevolent, heavy and sharp. The parts of the palms above the fronds are tufted in sick stuff like coconut-hair. Roaches and other things live in the trees. Rats, maybe. Loathsome high-altitude critters of all kinds. All the plants either spiny or meaty. Cacti in queer tortured shapes. The tops of the palms like Rod Stewart's hair, from days gone by." (44)


"These worst mornings with cold floors and hot windows and merciless light--the soul's certainty that the day will have to be not traversed but sort of climbed, vertically, and then that going to sleep again at the end of it will be like falling, again, off something tall and sheer." (46)

Aside from this verbal virtuosity, the "truth nugget" abounds in Wallace's work. Two examples hit me this morning, one about the experience of loss, the other the experience of American culture.

'Hey Hal?'
'...'
'How come the Moms never cried when Himself passed away? I cried, and you, even C.T. cried. I saw him personally cry.'
'...'
'You listened to Tosca over and over and cried and said you were sad. We all were.'
'...'
Hey Hal, did the Moms seem like she got happier after Himself passed away, to you?'
'...'
'It seems like she got happier. She seems even taller. She stopped travelling everywhere all the time for this and that thing. The corporate grammar thing. The library-protest thing.'
'Now she never goes anywhere, Boo. Now she's got the Headmaster's House and her office and the tunnel in between, and never leaves the grounds. She's a worse workaholic than she ever was. And more obsessive-compulsive. hen's the last time you saw a a dust-mote in that house?'
'Hey Hal?'
'Now she's just an agoraphobic workaholic and obsessive-compulsive. This strikes you as happification?'
'Her eyes are better. They don't seem as sunk in. They look better. She laughs at C.T. way more than she laughed at Himself. She laughs from lower down inside. She laughs more. Her jokes she tells are better ones than yours, even now, a lot of the time.'
'...'
'How come she never got sad?'
She did get sad, Booboo. She just got sad in her way instead of yours and mine. She got sad, I'm pretty sure.'
'Hal?'
'You remember how the staff lowered the flag to half-mast out front by the portcullis here after it happened? Do you remember that? And it goes to half-mast every year at Convocation? Remember the flag Boo?'
'Hey Hal?'
'Don't cry, Booboo. Remember the flag only halfway up the pole? Booboo, there are two ways to lower a flag to half-mast. Are you listening? Because no shit I really have to sleep here in a second. So listen--one way to lower the flag to half-mast is just to lower the flag. There's another way though. You can also just raise the pole. You can raise the pole to like twice its original height. You get me? You understand what I mean, Mario?'
'Hal?'
'She's plenty sad, I bet.' (42)

And the second, on the rampant escapism in American culture:

"American experience seems to suggest that people are virtually unlimited in their need to give themselves away, on various levels." (53)

the annihilation of passive voices

Confused by the title? Indeed. Recently, I became painfully aware of my overuse of the passive voice. Generally, I consider myself an adept writer, however late-nights, metaphorically full-plates, and slap-dash efforts to finish lingering academic commitments have facilitated my grammatical back-slide. I read something recently that proclaimed something to the effect of "your verbs should attack your nouns." I take it as a declaration of action, of rhetorical combat: fight the good fight against filler words; meaningless (poorly constructed) text. I cannot wait, a new project!

Not totally unrelated, I am presently resurrecting my Italian. As my studies progress, I find that my knowledge of English grammar (re)gains lucidity: the components of language vivify and solidify. Even as I write this little flurry, my mind fills with thoughts of tenses, subjects, verbs, direct objects...exhilarating! Don't be surprised if, nel futuro, you see alcune parole in italiano.

So how does all this relate to Chamber Music Midwest? On the most basic level: program notes. Better. Program. Notes. Excited? On a less literal level, I'd suggest that "annihilating passive voices" is central to Chamber Music Midwest's mission. I strive to make the festival about active participation (dare I say "voices") for both audience and performer--a goal I intend to further realize next season with performances from Grapefruit and pre- and post-concert activities. Sarà meravigloso!

jottings, chiefly on visual + musical egalitarianism*

So I'm working on a short little flurry of a paper about what I'm calling "visual egalitarianism" in Jackson Pollock and his Abstract Expressionist colleagues. Thinking critically about the lack of a focal point or any sort of representation** in their work brings me back to this idea of equality and absolutism expressed in artistic forms. Considering the former, a few examples come to mind: Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School, Kandinsky, the AbEx'ists, Boulez, and Cage. With regards to the latter, I'm thinking of the First Viennese School, and the general "academic" style of Western Europe (anyone from Michelangelo to Titian to David, even Gerome).

Indeed, before we get to Kandinsky and the Second Viennese School [of Rock] and their descendants (Boulez/Pollock et al), we have to first look at their predecessors: the First Viennese School [of Rock]. The musical forms and aesthetic of the eighteenth century really offer a fantastic aural analogue to the socio-political milieu of the era. I'm specifically thinking about the disparity between the aristocracy/ruling class and everyone else. Essentially, musical hierarchies in the form of tonality (ie the tonic, dominant, and leading tone are the "important" scale degrees. An oversimplification, but you get the idea) mirror social structures (class). I'd really like to know a whole lot more about the French Revolution, but for now I'll just say that it is completely compelling the way that strict musical forms and harmonic structure begin to erode around the beginning of the nineteenth century, following various political upheavals (the French Revolution being just one example). Beethoven's Eroica is actually a great example of this in that the sonata form of the first movement is, well, jumbled. By reorganizing a then-familiar form, the composer challenges our expectations, thus subtly implying social change. Maybe. This is all pretty speculative.

So with this in mind, Schoenberg's Pan-Tonality (that is what he said) takes on a new social meaning. When he literally refers to it as an emancipation--how can we not read a kind of "liberation narrative" into the work? Considering also what we know about fin-de-siecle Vienna, Schoenberg's musical freedom-fight gains more complexity. At once, the composer is a member of the political minority (Christian socialist Lueger is in power) while also participating in a (sometimes violent) patriarchy. That is not to say that he was a misogynist (as far as I know, he wasn't), only to note the often complex relationship of minority to majority(ies). In a very real sense, the emancipation represents not only a break from the musical past, but also implies a kind of Utopian ideal--not surprising given Schoenberg's own biography and what I can imagine would be a hell of a time living in Vienna around 1900.

With regards to the visual arts, I'd like to discuss Kandinsky and the AbEx'ists. Taking the example of Kandinsky, we can notice a break down of visual hierarchy, something like Composition IV (1911) is tottering on the brink of non-representational art.

Figure non-representational: Kandinsky's Composition IV

Although that is a sort of "well, duh" analysis, the aforesaid connection between abstraction and equality is what makes this sort of thing compelling. Recently, I was speaking with one of my mum's friends (a visual artist) about Schoenberg and this idea of pantonality as a representation of equality; being an awfully sharp tac, she brought up Kandinsky's work--for her, the musical analogue in that when art is non-representational, all shapes, colors and lines are equal. This conversation still fresh in my mind, I began to mull over the notion of representation as being inherently unequal with regards to the AbEx'ists.

These guys were, in my mind, both ideological and stylistic descendants of Kandinsky. Similarities abound, the most obvious being the non-representational style and a sort of spiritual relationship between artist, canvas, and material (the material being much more important for the AbEx'ists). However, more intriguing is the American public's reaction to Pollock and his pals. Upheld as arbiters of a quintessential American art, their works and personae were used as a cultural weapon in the cold war: they were celebrated as visual symbols of democracy. Certainly, you can discuss the movement of the avant-garde from Paris to New York; the American adoration of the "new," but from my perspective the notion of visual egalitarianism is the most "American" aspect of their work.

Figure visual egalitarianism: Pollock's Autumn Rhythm

*that is a little Aristotle jokey-joke(!) Yay Poetics!
**I'm thinking here about formal hierarchy: there is an inherent value judgment in notions of foreground versus background. Indeed, one might argue that a line that implicates contour is more important (valuable) than one that participates in say, a cross hatch. The main idea being that in representational art, one line can have more meaning than another.

a laugh at the expense of e.t.a hoffmann

I've got some good stuff in the works: ideas about the artist and artwork, the rise of the virtuoso, listening practices...the list goes on. And of course, a recap of the largely successful Concerto Soloists (we received a standing ovation from our 60+ audience members!).

Until then (and to get us all primed for the art-as-autonomous-object discussion), I give you a little humor, a review I wrote of Haydn's Creation as a parody of E.T.A. Hoffmann:

Upon hearing Mr. Haydn’s Creation, it is my contention that the “Representation of Chaos” emblemizes our epoch. No longer do the shackles of Classical thought bind us—indeed we have engaged in an emerging era of empiricism and experimentation. Aristotle’s grip has weakened; Scholasticism’s shadow has waned. Where our aesthetic was once based upon the logic of the ancients, their suppositions steeped in Ancient dogma, the slow transition to modernity has arrived.

While some of my less progressive colleagues (ensconced in their own propensity for cultural torpidity) might construct diatribes rife with misunderstanding and incredulity—citing the work as a grotesque parody of the sublime wherein superfluous decadence serves to create a blasphemous farce—I wish to advocate the opposite. If I may apply a yet unknown metaphor: in the war of modern and ancient, progressive and stagnant, Mr. Haydn is at the front of the army (my philosophe colleagues would, in their native tongue, say the “avant garde”), gallantly fighting for the advancement of art. Indeed, the work differs aesthetically from the prevailing style. Like Aristotle’s logic, the music of our time is balanced: syllogistic premises support their inevitable conclusions, inexorable from substance, universal classifications provide clarity. Where this popular style relies on idealized form, Haydn’s work surpasses the ideal, ascending to portray the actual. In his “Chaos,” Mr. Haydn represents nature in all its terrible sublimity: too well counterfeited with sacred text and music in gross contrast, it has created a scandal. Rather than experiencing the ideal of nature (perfect and inevitable), Mr. Haydn has recreated its extremes: the subtle, the bizarre, the transcendent thus instigating in the listener sensations ecstatic, horrific, terrific.

Haydn’s “Chaos” begins in grandeur, its initial opulence subsiding to reveal a hazy pool of harmonies both transcendent and monstrous. From this bizarre jumble, sensibility emerges: couth and pleasing harmonies, set ablaze by timpani interjections. It is an aural landscape, akin not to Fragonard or Poussin, but rather an unnamed, unknown visionary: offering impressions paradoxically fleeting and sustained, their aural audacity imprinted on the minds of many. The music meanders woefully through uncertain waters, the mind envisages the ether: seemingly bleak, empty. However within this unfettered vacancy lie innumerable possibilities ripe for development and our subsequent pleasure. In this atmospheric environment rising arpeggios titillate, anticipating the approaching sonic splendor, the expectation heightened by an unyielding pulse. Receding into ethereal gray the music subsides; the senses are saturated by cosmic nothingness. From the vacuum, a voice interrupts to shatter this once serene oblivion: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” The pulsating motive introduced in the opening sinfonia becomes an instrument not of drama (as in the previous movement) but rather, representative of time itself. With the omnipresence of this metronomic impulse, the choir begins: “and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” With this text, Mr. Haydn incites expectation, marrying this text with hushed music in minor key. Extreme text painting follows—the oblivion is vivified by a transition awesome and indeed luminous: “And God said, let there be light; And there was light.”

The too oft cloying effervescence so characteristic of the present style has been tamed by contemporary ennui. Haydn’s “Chaos” is our own: where once aesthetic conventions valued idealized nature, Haydn duplicates it with virtuosic veracity: it is an expert counterfeit conceived with exacting similitude. The orchestra quivers and roars, its quavers symbolic of our own cultural melancholy: the current quest to reconcile artistic, aesthetic, philosophical and political uncertainty. At moment of illumination, the music mimics our era: with the announcement of “light” a strict style reemerges, recalling our own age: enlightened by reason while clinging still to logic.

With the completion of the eighteenth century, we have entered a new age: the age of experience, of practice, of knowing, of empiricism. Our fathers and their disciples are consumed with pursuits of the mind alone. Basing their knowledge of the world on mere theory, they are imprisoned by both logic and doctrine; like Ripa’s representation[1], they too are fools, rendered inept by their scholarly isolation. And thus our present aesthetic predicament: periodicity, balance, idealization, formal rigidity. Lacking authenticity, it is bereft of substance thus a mere verisimilitude: it possesses the compass, but performs an incongruous task.[2] And here, I must agree with Mr. Locke, in all his empirical eminence: without experiential understanding, theoretical pursuits are hollow. Brandishing merely the baton and violin, a musical bastion—that of the oratorio ensemble—emboldens Mr. Haydn’s Creation: though tempered by its intrinsic transience, the composition becomes a literal force of nature through which the terrible sublime is known experientially. In creating this aforementioned “counterfeit” Mr. Haydn has replicated and thus known nature herself, replete with resplendence both subtle and crass.

---

[1] Ripa, Cesare. Iconologia link to 1709 English printing: http://emblem.libraries.psu.edu/Ripa/Images/ripatoc.htm. Originally produced at the close of the 16^th century, Ripa’s Iconologia was an anthology of emblems. The allegorical figures—organized with meticulous exactitude—have been noted as “the key of seventeenth and eighteenth century allegory.” (Emile Male, as quoted by Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts p. 163) were widely used in visual art and were well known to the cultural elite. The collection is a clear product of its age—the urge for both taxonomy and collection central to its being. Theory, depicted as a beautiful woman misusing a compass (figure 295), exemplifies the Renaissance attitude toward scholastic methodology: without practice, theory remains hopelessly flawed.

[2] Ripa, in his description of Theory “A young woman looking upward: her hands clasp’d together; a pair of Compasses over her Head; nobly clad in Purple; seeming to descend the Stairs. The colour of her Garment shews that the Sky terminates our Sight; her Face, that the Intellect is taken up with celestial Things; the Stairs, that Things intelligible have Order, proceeding by Degrees from Things near to Things a-far off. The Compasses are the most proper instrument of Measuring, which perpetuate the Name of an Author.” It is important to note not only Theory’s misuse of the compass, but also her status as “nobly clad in Purple” indicating her position as a member of the wealthy elite and thus aligning the upper-class education (that is to say, the Classical education) with foolishness.