May 6, 2016

"Technology does cut two ways: it facilitates a weird and sometimes useful intimacy, sure, but it also teaches us to conflate a curated identity with a real one..."

"... and, moreover, to work on perfecting our systems of curating rather than our actual selves. This becomes important, politically, when we can no longer read or understand the human character. Our present cultural climate discourages empathy—a stay-in-your-lane policing has been afoot for a while now—and demands the performance of absolute authority. The idea that a person could work to understand another, to assume their struggles and their triumphs, to question them, and to love them regardless, is the crux of any spiritually functioning civilization. Yet this seems to be Radiohead’s real anxiety: that we are all forgetting how to know each other, and how to be properly alive."

Last paragraph of a New Yorker article Amanda Petrusich — author of “Do Not Sell At Any Price: The Wild, Obsessive Hunt for the World’s Rarest 78rpm Records" — about how the band Radiohead had suddenly "bleached its Internet presence—its Web site faded to white; its Twitter and Facebook pages were scrubbed of content—a move so blatantly counterintuitive that acolytes knew to recognize it as a portent. "

16 comments:

Michael said...

stopped at "curated" Like Radiohead, however.

Laslo Spatula said...

Girl with the Pony Tail on the Treadmill:

I know I'm supposed to like Radiohead.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

Radiohead is cool.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

I guess I like them; I just don't like to listen to them.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

I mean, I liked "Creep."

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

"I'm a Creep, I'm a weirdo, what the Hell am I doing here."

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

But now, I don't know. They sound like broken washing machines.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

Clunk-Clunk, Clunk-Clunk. Zzzzzz.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

I guess some people like that kind of thing.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

Or maybe they just pretend to like it.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

Maybe everyone else is just pretending, to seem cool.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

I like my music to be music.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

"If you wanna be with me, Baby there's a price to pay
I'm a genie in a bottle, You gotta rub me the right way."

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

If someone asks, I'll still probably say I like Radiohead.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

I think it's just easier that way.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

Clunk-Clunk, Clunk-Clunk. Zzzzzz.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)


I am Laslo.

veni vidi vici said...

I've often wondered how all the reporters and insider journo's that write about these matters have aligned narratives with regard to something like this, where the haute artiste has essentially gone dark, ostensibly without explanation. And yet, the reporters all have the same vivid (and highly flattering to the artiste of course) explanation for all the awestruck fans!

Art and commerce make such a wonderful stew. Boogie with Stu.

John Henry said...

10 years or so back my mother moved out of her house into assisted living. She had hundreds of 78s from the 20s through the early 50s that had belonged mainly to my father.

Many were "Albums", a cardboard book with holders for 6-8 individual records. She had several 2-3' high stacks of loose records.

They were worth nothing, according to the auctioneer, and we tossed them all.

Now perhaps I should have kept them.

John Henry

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Our present cultural climate discourages empathy—a stay-in-your-lane policing has been afoot for a while now—and demands the performance of absolute authority

I don't know what "performance of absolute authority" means. If I understand the "absolute authority" part to reference ideas about identity that cause problems like claims of cultural appropriation, etc, then I'm not sure what the verb "performance" is doing in that sentence.



The idea that a person could work to understand another, to assume their struggles and their triumphs, to question them, and to love them regardless, is the crux of any spiritually functioning civilization.
Name some historical examples, please. The Romans worked to understand and integrate others, but in no way did they "love them regardless." The Greeks? Modern Europe? The author asserts this standard so forcefully you'd think some examples would be easy to name...unless it's just a stupid, stupid statement.

John Henry said...

Blogger Laslo Spatula said...


Radiohead is cool.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

I guess I like them; I just don't like to listen to them.


Kind of like what Mark Twain said about German wine. (The innocents abroad?) "They tell me it is not as bad as it tastes."

Laslo,

What happened to PTG? Does she no longer dream of Audis?

John Henry

Bill Peschel said...

"But now, I don't know. They sound like broken washing machines."

That made me laugh out loud. Don't know if it applies to Radiohead, though. I don't listen to them.

"Plucking an enigmatic postcard with the phrase “We know where you live” from the dark recesses of your home mailbox might alarm anyone unfamiliar with Radiohead’s elaborate, vaguely playful approach to the album rollout."

Oh, so this is not a permanent thing, not a statement of philosophy, but a brilliant way to garner media attention and to get their die-hard fans talking.

"in particular, the various ways technology, as employed both by ourselves and our governments, can leave us feeling hostile and estranged"

She's sure the increased exposure of the public to the nefarious doings of politicians, how Pelosi's husband benefited from her support for funding "green" companies, how the NYT just published a profile of how Ben Rhodes manipulated a compliant media to lie about the Iran deal, Hillary exposing secret information on her unprotected server, has absolutely nothing to do with it.

"suggested that the action of the piece—in which a cabal of men wearing antlered masks surround a woman bound to a tree trunk, and a man is coerced into climbing inside a giant wooden effigy, which is then set on fire—might have something to do with the refugee crisis in Europe."

So Radiohead is concerned about Islam spreading through Europe? Because that sounds like the rape-attacks in Colonge and elsewhere and the myriad brutalities Islam has inflicted on its perceived enemies.

"This becomes important, politically, when we can no longer read or understand the human character."

This is assuming that we ever understood the human character (what does that even mean? Is she talking about humanity in general, or in particular. Because we've been fooled by both.)



Fernandinande said...

John Henry said...
Kind of like what Mark Twain said about German wine. (The innocents abroad?) "They tell me it is not as bad as it tastes."


That was Wagner's music - "not as bad as it sounds."

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Bill Peschel said...
Oh, so this is not a permanent thing, not a statement of philosophy, but a brilliant way to garner media attention and to get their die-hard fans talking.


G-g-g-garner alarm! (*klaxon sounds*)

Fernandinande said...

New Yorker, technology

Steven Pinker
"The New Yorker screws up big time with science: researchers criticize new piece on epigenetics." (the article mentioned here a few days ago).

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I don't think there are very many things you can think about that don't cut two ways.

To me it is a prison.

David said...

Curated?

There's that word again. Yuck.

YoungHegelian said...

The idea that a person could work to understand another, to assume their struggles and their triumphs, to question them, and to love them regardless, is the crux of any spiritually functioning civilization.

Well, I'm glad someone at the New Yorker thinks that the Christian faith is "the crux of any spiritually functioning civilization", & isn't afraid to say it in print.

Wait! What? You're saying that the author wasn't referring to Christianity. Then what exactly could she be referring to in the history of any of the world's civilizations?

Roughcoat said...

There's New Yorker writing style and this article is a pure example of it. It makes my skin crawl. It makes me feel claustrophobic, or like I'm suffocating. Like I'm trapped in a very crowded party in a very small Upper East side apartment filled with Woody Allen-type people.

Roughcoat said...

What I mean is, this article is the literary equivalent of an over-bred horse.

mikee said...

I was raised to believe that "character" was what you showed when alone, anonymously doing things nobody would know you did.

That definition still fits the internet age. The necessary conclusion is that the vast majority of people today lack good character.