I wonder what you (and Ken) think of the Viennese Vegetable Orchestra?
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=29&art_id=qw1085413861497B232&set_id=1
Roger
On 11/15/05, Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Agreed.
>
> A bit further: while a lot of what's being talked about became widely
> broadcast in the 60s, whenever that was, as one who predates the 60s I can
> tell you that a lot of it was already in place. The folkies I knew listened
> endlessly to Folkways recordings of highly skilled traditional musicians
> and spent days and weeks trying to replicate what they heard. There were
> then no conservatories teaching blues guitar (for instance), but none of
> these guys would have considered themselves untrained, and none were
> chanting their native woodnotes wild. A few of the masters, Van Ronk among
> them, gave private lessons--Danny Kalb was a Van Ronk student--but beyond
> the basics it was not very different from sitting on the porch learning riffs.
>
> The same was true of poetry. There were always lots of young folk who
> thought that anyone could do it just like that--my feelings, my orgasms,
> are so terrific and unique all I have to do is write them down--hey, the
> 19th century was also crowded with similar--but very few of them persisted
> long enough to learn any craft. Those who did hung with older poets or with
> each other and found their chops.
>
> I have to say that I find most of Cage and company pretty boring--I find
> ideas about music less interesting than music, especially after the first
> performance. But again, conceptual music and for that matter visual art
> preceeds the invention of the term by a few decades. What changed was the
> reception--the means of dissemination became more democratic. What also
> changed was the invention of an audience without the patience to learn
> anything, so that for instance minimalism (little m ore than a concept or
> two), which requires little of the listener, found listeners. Phillip Glass
> aint Bach or Carter, in case anyone hasn't noticed. I speak as one who sat
> through the whole of Einstein on the Beach, The Photographer, and
> Satyagraha. Does anyone even remember the last two? Puccini played through
> jello.
>
> Mark
>
>
> At 10:11 AM 11/15/2005, you wrote:
> >Although I clearly am on side with those who feel that open form can be
> >poetry, I do sympathize a bit with Dave's feelings about the need for
> >craft, practice, whatever in poetry as in every kind of work/play.
> >
> >As George Bowering once said:
> >
> >for years I have learned to live in the middle of a seeming contradiction.
> >Socially and politically I believe that I am a romantic leftist; but when
> >it comes to the composition of literature I am an elitist. I am not
> >reluctant to say that I'm interested in the art of writing. I like trade
> >unions and hate chambers of commerce, but I am still not going to support
> >an unlearned instinct poet in her delusion that she deserves the attention
> >I will give happily to The Dumbfounding.
> >
> >
> >Yup.
> >
> >Doug
> >
> >Douglas Barbour
> >11655 - 72 Avenue NW
> >Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9
> >(780) 436 3320
> >
> >Each leaf a runnel the
> >roofs now skiffs in green
> >I've never done anything
> >but begin.
> > Lisa Robertson
>
--
http://www.badstep.net/
http://www.cb1poetry.org.uk/
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