Thursday, May 22, 2008

PARATAXIC DISTORTION 2

So I've read it loosely translated (many thanks to the_mullah, and babelfish) and I can see he's trying to be clever-clever, and one can't really blame him for that; and I can also see that he's full of all the tried-and-tested bullshit barroom reductionism reflexes. He doesn't get it on any level whatsoever. As I said, there's no bad feeling towards Tietchens, and I take full personal responsibility for how people respond to anything I do or say.

It just makes you want to give up, not just with music, but with humanity. What's the fucking point? The answer is there is none.

10 comments:

Unknown said...

One of the main reasons Tietchens doesn't get Racket, is that he hasn't actually listened to it. And you recommended his book without actually having read it. The unexpected disappointments would seem to be part and parcel of these type of intellectual games/jokes. I'm surprised Tietchens went for humor (as far as I can tell) instead of a more verbally dense and intellectually cryptic approach. At least you've now read a bad translation of the part of the book that's relevant to you.

Whitehouse material is going to generate a lot of misinterpretation. Maybe the trick is to take the nature and dynamics of those misinterpretations as a source for further creative insight, instead of something to feel futility over.

William Bennett said...

I still recommend the book, and still contend that he'd have written the same thing anyway because it's not that he doesn't get Racket, it's that he doesn't get Whitehouse. Not that that should concern him in the slightest.

Ea-M. said...

You can't do "art" and afterwards "complain" about people that "don't get it". Or is just me not getting that WH isn't art, but actually an educational programme?

William Bennett said...

I'm certainly not complaining about AT, he doesn't get it and that's all there is to it... and anyway, who says artists can't complain?! =P

Sypha said...

"What's the fucking point" indeed.

Recently a friend of mine had a neighbor who died when she ate a piece of cake that had a bit of hazlenut on it (unknown to her). She had an allergic reaction to it. My friend said it was things like that which shook up his assumption that everything in this world happens for a reason (I should add here my friend is Christian, though not overly religious or heavy-handed about it). I responded with my own belief that the universe is just a chaotic place and it's only humans that seek to impose some sort of artifical order or meaning onto it. He responded "I guess it just makes things much more bareable to believe they happen for a reason. Otherwise, like you said, we just accept that there's just chaos, and if that's the case I'd rather live in denial." I found the response interesting, in that I think a big reason why so many people cling to religion (Or any sort of faith-based system of thought for that matter) is because they're trying to deny that there's no point to anything.

But for those of us who refuse to cling to the notion that things happen for a reason, that there's a point to all this, it does make one wonder why we even go on. Pleasure, I guess. Oddly enough, this theme is explored very well in the Batman comic "The Killing Joke" (with the Joker representing chaos and Batman standing in for order). I can't help but think that the Joker made a stronger case for his point, though.

. said...

"it does make one wonder why we even go on"

Well, chaos can be pretty fucking exciting :)

Ea-M. said...

"Well, chaos can be pretty fucking exciting :)"

Which makes me wonder which i'd prefer; chaos on end or unending predictability?

Yrk!

David Cotner said...

"I take full personal responsibility for how people respond to anything I do or say."

I would be infinitely surprised if there wasn't a typo somewhere in this sentence.

Richo said...

Although, clearly, your point about Tietchens' write-up of 'Racket' is a wholly separate issue, I'd have thought you'd have long got used to Whitehouse being misinterpreted? Would be nice to see this translation, however, no matter how rough it is, since my German amounts to about 6 words!

Odile Lee said...

"To this end, it has been one of the interesting issues of the rise of the internet and social media, that official critics of movies, music and such- really means very little when anyone can post their two cents of whatever."
Too bad you did not know of the massive Black Swan rise of the internet at this time.

As for "chaos is pretty fucking exciting"- I lived neurological chaos. Its not very exciting to go back and edit ones old files ( this case, schoolwork for a certificate gained not too long ago, revising) - and wonder what kind of crazed lunatic would save files 20 time, on one doc, one 4 sec after the other, the next ten min later. etc
Ive looked back on this mess ( one of many, Im sorting ) as though someone took my organised files, and threw them in the air. This being my evil twin( unmedicated.)

Yes, the world is the same. One is usually sorting out the fucking mess thats your due, according to chance. (This is no reason to accept idiots spouting nonsense as real Truth, bloody minded-ly ignorant and smug in this at that.)

Having experienced this, chaos as chemical, unchangeable and mixedwith the chaos of the world in a unholy gene cross that Mendel would run screaming from, I much prefer my own obsessive mania for organisation.

Having a bitch and moan, about the randomness of everything is one of the sole consolations of being handed this demonic baby of some union with the unspeakable one never desired.