Thursday, March 27th, 2008
zeitgeist, insight or both?
I’ve never really tried to get into Dylan (although I did love ‘things have changed’ from wonderboys, which was also a very good film.)
However I came across a cover version of ’senor’ by Calexico and Willy Nelson which I really liked and I thought I’d throw this question out there.
Does it really matter if culture is timeless or not? For instance if Bob Dylan doesn’t really have that much relevance for me (although I know Atomsmasher is a big fan), surely it doesn’t diminish the value of his work and the immense contribution it had on the cultural life of America. Similarly, I doubt people will really understand the Simpsons twenty years from now but do we really care?
On the other hand, there are the classics and things like Shakespeare which are rightly regarded as giving profound insights into human nature. However some of the status Shakespeare must be part of a self-perpetuating cycle in which future generations are pointed towards work which is regarded as ‘classic’ by previous generations.
What I’m really trying to get to, is should artists care about trying to create something timeless? I’m going to so no, because I think that by applying insights to a contemporary settings, you can often get a more practical feel of the world, rather than the theoretical nature of some of the classics.
You could argue that someone like Dickens illustrates that even very contemporary stories are timeless. I’m more inclined to think that its the quality of the story which counts. In other words a gripping tale will survive (Da Vinci Code? Harry Potter?) even if it doesn’t tell you that much.
Before I start going around in circles I’m going to stop now. Enjoy the song and the home video’s not bad either.
March 27th, 2008 at 4:13 am
al-tahafut said:
i’ll go with both. if people can capture the local zeitgeist in their work, they can inspire their contemporaries - young and old - even if the very young and the very old don’t get it then or later. but then, like you wrote, if people provide insights into things as unchanging (stubborn) as human nature, then their work becomes ‘timeless’, and can inspire people anywhere at anytime. i guess it depends on what people are trying to convey through their work: is is something specific, like a commentary on life in england in the early 90s (see blur)? or is it something broader, like love (the beatles)? the music blur and the beatles made definitely captured the essence of their time, but it’s also just good music. so, yeah, both. =/
and, i think atomsmasher’s gone awol! how will we survive!? =(
March 27th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
an_unsuitable_boy said:
on your second point, that’s part of the reason i did a dylan post. if that doesn’t prompt him to find time in his 20 hour work day to post something then nothing will :p (well maybe tribal ethnic music)
March 27th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
al-tahafut said:
i think it’s time that we - as his partners in crime, absurdity, and general foolishness - stage an intervention. you call a workaholic rehab centre to arrange for a room/cage, i’ll bring a pair of scissors he can take to his silk/poly-blend ties.
March 27th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Atomsmashin said:
lol! sorry chaps.
one day the world will come alive to the wonders of tribal makrani music!! speaking of classics:
super semantically, is a classic either:
a) Part of an iterative school where individual pieces, though may be considered classics in their own right are really a part of longer, more timeless journey. Eastern classical music would be an example. The raags that underlie much of school (and even some pakipop, actually) have evolved into their classical status iteratively over centuries or more, and I suspect were never conceived as ‘classics’ as such; they fact that they had so much time to incorporate society’s preferences, almost makes then asymptotically ‘perfect’ if you will; I guess one could argue great works of (ancient) literature, the illiad, the republic, the shahnama etc are similar..
b) The Jaffa cakes: these are the type definers, and perhaps harder to pin down. Shakespeare wrote a style of play that was genius for its well concealed pithyness, he defined a new class for English plays, and perhaps what makes his work isn’t that the themes are timeless*, for indeed they are very firmly placed in period (being plays), but rather because they are unaffectedly good at being entertaining and incisive simultaneously. I find it hard to think that anybody who actually goes out to create a classic could succeed – for is ‘merely’ the fact that the work is groundbreaking, with no iterative possibilities as such that makes it a classic. Shakespeare fits the bill, Britney doesn’t, Dylan, perhaps. As much as I cant ‘prove’ this empirically, I think faddishness gets sieved out over time, or does it?
c) My polyester ties
*I was musing over the weekend when reading Plato’s republic on the tube, how his concerns (the state of youth, the decedance of humanity etc) –I should warn you, I only had enough time to read the intro, and few pages of the text - were still very contemporaneous concerns of our modern society; ultimately maybe our notions and thoughts really aren’t so different from our far removed predecessors as we think they are. I guess, what I am wondering is – is all keenly felt art automatically timeless?
March 28th, 2008 at 12:57 am
al-tahafut said:
see this is why we need you. ^_^
i think that’s a great idea - Iterative Classic Creation (you read it here first, peoples). it makes a lot of sense to me at least, an evolution through input from society at large.
as for the Jaffa Cakes, i think it’s much more difficult to know what makes them classics (as you’ll note if you tried wading through the quicksand of my first comment). uniqueness + entertainment + profundity = instant classic? that sounds true enough to me too.
but then there are also classics that are wonderfully stylised, but short on substance. i’m too sexy? kit kat bars (hey, chocolate is art!)? plan 9 from outer space? all classics of their kind.
so, i guess, there are two paths to a classic, with respect to what has come and gone before - continuous and discontinuous. then, a classic could be either a) or b), or both (sometimes c) too). in any case, people keep coming back to said classic, referring to it, consciously or otherwise.
and, yeah, on the issue of timelessness: i guess what that means is that a work goes to the heart of human nature in some way. as long as humans steal (and do all the other wonderful stuff we do) - whether it’s a warm leg of mammoth or a macbook air - people will be able to relate to that work in some way.
[end incoherence]
March 28th, 2008 at 10:32 am
an_unsuitable_boy said:
Agreed. Iterative classic creation is definitely a brilliant notion. This is definitely worth exploring more later. I’m guessing that tasteless hollywood remakes don’t count.