mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
I would guess my attitude towards obscure art's lack of significance would be different if I was an artist myself. Even fucking about with that silly poem today on that thread today was absorbing and interesting. The writer isn't speaking to an audience, not always, but speaking to themself always, in between the lines.

Yeah it's funny, if I put up a tune that I made (as I've done lots) and it hits 10 views, I'm like 'super yay!' so that's prob true with regard putting stuff out there etc.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"the people who played would be so funny and alive, and it's just...how do you translate that. So I did experiments in films - can this one make people cry, can this one make people laugh, can this on make people leave - and then tried to combine them. It was just trying to allow people to enjoy complicated ideas while still having them be sexy, and so I thought drugs and film could do that better, have a wider reach, than doing that with books or whatever"
That sounds about right. It's a long time since I saw them now but I remember them hitting the spot because while they were headfuckingly strange, at the same time this was never allowed to suck the vivacity from the thing. It never pushed it into a dry academic exercise (ok also I was into Joe Orton which helped). For me it was perfect cos I've come to realise that what I look for in music (and thus probably in other art forms too) is a kind of sweet spot between music that (crudely) is weird/experimental/avant-garde and music that is pop/imnediate/whatever. Now I think about it it seems slightly reminiscent of the distinction Luka drew at the start betwen dry avant-garde and the ludicrous psychedelic each of which on its own is a dead end.
 
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Corpsey

bandz ahoy
To divert interest from the poet to the poetry is a laudable aim: for it would conduce to a juster estimation of actual poetry, good and bad. There are many people who appreciate the expression of sincere emotion in verse, and there is a smaller number of people who can appreciate technical excellence. But very few know when there is an expression of significant emotion, emotion which has its life in the poem and not in the history of the poet. The emotion of art is impersonal. And the poet cannot reach this impersonality without surrendering himself wholly to the work to be done. And he is not likely to know what is to be done unless he lives in what is not merely the present, but the present moment of the past, unless he is conscious, not of what is dead, but of what is already living.

I think it's his description of the past as what is living which made me wonder about Eliot's famous essay (I happened to read today, provoked but uncomprehending) in relation to this thread. The "dead" residue of psychedelica is piled up around us, so where is the living core?

Are art forms dead or alive? Is that a valid question?

The famous essay:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69400/tradition-and-the-individual-talent
 
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luka

Well-known member
Not that you need the drugs. It's more a case of where your attention goes I suppose
 

catalog

Well-known member
The hilarious thing about it is that no one, at any point, answers the frigging question, in any useful way
 

luka

Well-known member
I didn't read all the posts obviously but there's definitely a few people showing their arses

It was a competitive scene, that. Vicious. I wasn't involved cos I wasn't clever enough/academic enough. Probably a good thing in retrospect.
 

catalog

Well-known member
When you read the threads in one go, 5 years can go by and you don't even notice. It's like the big long fight
 

catalog

Well-known member
I was digging out an old plant from a pot today, trying to get all the roots out, which were stuck fast in the pot. Should've taken a photo and posted it there
 

catalog

Well-known member
It's a problem with philosophy isn't it. People can't explain it without referring to ten other things. It suits a more q and a discursive style
 

luka

Well-known member
I was digging out an old plant from a pot today, trying to get all the roots out, which were stuck fast in the pot. Should've taken a photo and posted it there

I've had that. Looks mad all clawed round the thing
 

catalog

Well-known member
Just the shape of everything, plus a few roots had burst out. They take on the mould of the enclosing container, more so than the thing itself. Incredible really.
 
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