the impulse to group-historicise vs the causes of bad writing

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

follow-up to:
(a) a post i made on freakytigger's thread
and
(b) the part of my EMP paper which i actually pussied out of and didn't explore (as requested by dickmalone


(a) i was wondering about the social context "ver kidz" are downloading all this material INTO, and suggested that the impulse to group-historicise what's shared is going to catch up with every new generation as it gets older (probably sooner as the mass requiring retrospective organisation will be massier)

by this i mean that there comes a point -- an age -- when things in yr life (like interaction w.yr own kids, or death of parents, or mid-life crisis) cause you to take stock of yr life so far and the choice you made; but -- while in its full effect there is an atomised, solitary just-you element to it, there is also (always) a social element, as in did "i dodge my generation's bullet?" vs "haha what were we thinking?"... the social aspect will be responded to, media-wise (at its most basic, this is what nostalgia-media is about, and there is LOTS of it, catering, often very differently, to a succession of different generations)... my speculation about the sheer quantity of information the young'uns are processing leading to a speedier mnedia of recapitulation'n'revision is exactly that, speculation --- but i do think that if the carousel is whirling ever faster and noiser, then more ppl will step off or fall off sooner, and their consolation-needs will kick in more urgently

(b) specifically what i meant by "results in bad writing" (which thus goes on to create bad music) -- tho as i say i pussied out of this part of my paper and ended up not thinking it through -- is rock after punk created a language of critical success that stresses lines of established influence, as well as innovation and breakthrough within those lines (form being thus: "xyz, influenced by green on red and pigbag, is the first band to combine ska and salsa with indie hiphop")... this is bad writing (to me) bcz it immediately goes on to evade the important bit, which is to answer the question "SO WHAT?" in respect of this analysis (viz my war on the word "influence", which to me is the touchstone of this failure: a shared understanding of the significance is taken for granted right at the point it should be being explored)

my conclusion in ref.good writing was that maybe the TEST OF SPACE can be formulated (in the extreme abstract) thusly: "Does it matter to you that it matters to me (and vice versa)?"

Comments

[koganbot]

I still don't think you've successfully explained to me what your critique of "influence" is - that is, what type of argument about influence you think is the "bad" argument, or how one deploys the "good" ones, say Harold Bloom or yours. (And I've probably spent as much time as anyone except maybe you trying to understand what your critique of influence is.)

What you're criticizing upthread is the sort of writing that goes "Frank Kogan is writing in the spirit of Lester Bangs and Richard Meltzer" and then says nothing interesting about what Lester or Richard did and how I used their ideas myself. Publicists and reviewers make such statements all the time (though it's usually "Band X channels the spirit of [Gang Of 4, Slits, Stooges]). But criticizing this writing isn't criticizing any concept of influence but rather the simple failure to say what the influence was, since the reviewer/publicist isn't telling a story of influence but is rather just invoking names. All this means is that there are a lot of shitty thinkers out there, or OK thinkers who don't have the space to say what they mean, or the impetus to figure out what they should mean. But you've left the notion of "influence" unscathed (in this thread, that is). "In the mid 1980s Frank Kogan took the Bangs-Meltzer-Marsh assault on progressive FM rock as a model for how his own attack on the postpunk alternative-indie rock world and his own call for a new regeneration." That sentence shortchanges my originality somewhat* and overlooks a bunch of my other sources, but I don't see where there's anything fundamentally wrong with it. This is the standard story of influence: Person B uses Person A as a model but applies it to new situation C, modifying model A as necessary, and in rare circumstances overthrowing model A and coming up with something substantially new.

(*I didn't actually read Lester's "James Taylor Marked For Death" until after my first Why Music Sucks broadsides, and I remember when Psychotic Reactions And Carburetor Dung came out Luc and I remarded to each other how similar were the things Lester was wrestling with to the things I was wrestling with.)

[koganbot]

Close quote after "[Gang of 4, Slits, Stooges])." Delete "how" from "as a model for how his own attack."

[koganbot]

remarded - remarked

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

yes these argts were posted very off-the-cuff and unrigorous to get me back into thinking about them, so w/o doubt full of holes as is -- i have printed out yr replies and am taking them off to shropshire to discuss with my dad instead of getting him a birthday cake ponder while i read my advance copy of luc's book

off-net from 5-ish today till late monday