Finger on the Pulse

version

Well-known member
How important is it to keep up with culture, current events? What are the pros and cons of doing so? Herzog claims the poet must not avert his eyes, but then again we aren't all poets.
 

version

Well-known member
I guess this is something of a sequel to Reducing the Input, but I think it's a different discussion and approaching it from the other end.
 

version

Well-known member
Do you watch any television?

I do, I watch the news from different sources. Sometimes I see things that are completely against my cultural nature. I was raised with Latin and Ancient Greek and poetry from Greek antiquity, but sometimes, just to see the world I live in, I watch “WrestleMania.”

An unexpected choice.

You have to know what a good amount of the population is watching. Do not underestimate the Kardashians. As vulgar as they may be, it doesn’t matter that much, but you have to find some sort of orientation. As I always say, the poet must not close his eyes, must not avert them.

So you’ve been watching “Keeping Up With the Kardashians?”

I’m starting to discover it. I’m curious; that’s my guiding principle.
 

luka

Well-known member
no idea. that's why i know how tricky it is. there's a 1001 things going on at any one time. but only one thing is the PULSE
 

version

Well-known member
I’m curious; that’s my guiding principle.
It can get you into trouble at times, but I think this is a good principle to have guiding you. I get a bit freaked out by incurious people. How can you be so content?
 

linebaugh

Well-known member
Is the pulse a group thing? Whats in the air socially-and identifying the agents at play directing the flow?
 

version

Well-known member
Some people have a knack for finding it. Bowie, for instance. I imagine he had various teams of people working for him at one time or another, but he had the sense to hire them in the first place and his comments on the internet were very perceptive.

He was a culture vulture, but you have to be able to identify the stuff worth picking clean in the first place. A skill in its own right when you manage to do it as regularly as he did.
 

version

Well-known member
Bannon's got it. I dunno that Cummings does. He's perhaps too preoccupied by his charts and spreadsheets.
 

luka

Well-known member
Is the pulse a group thing? Whats in the air socially-and identifying the agents at play directing the flow?

i thnik it is. and that is part of what makes it tricky because why are you privelegeing that group
 

luka

Well-known member
Some people have a knack for finding it. Bowie, for instance. I imagine he had various teams of people working for him at one time or another, but he had the sense to hire them in the first place and his comments on the internet were very perceptive.

He was a culture vulture, but you have to be able to identify the stuff worth picking clean in the first place. A skill in its own right when you manage to do it as regularly as he did.

westwood did the same. and you give credit both to his team but also to him for recruiting the team
 

luka

Well-known member
barty said to me he will never get old cos he'll never stop trusting the people. but who are the people? if you dont know them personally any longer, becasue you are too old then where are you getting the information
 
running with the metaphor, if we see human culture as an organism... keeping your finger on the pulse is sensitivity to the pace and pattern of progress and change without imposing too much of your own will, set aside faction, difference . it suggests sensitivity, neutrality. if you dont keep the finger on the pulse you get out of touch, or fixated, siloed and selfish
 
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