oh well...

[Brian <bmcgow01@wild.vill.edu>]

I thought about beginning this installment with some witty remarks, but
what the hell, I decided to go straight into my 11 man blitz defense.
Besides, it's just more fun that way.


> McGoo, if you claim to like Townshend and The Who then why do you persist in
> this impossible comparison between a 19th Century poet and a 20th Century
> songwriter and performer?
>
First off, thanks for spelling my name right, not everyone can do that.
I persist because it is not only possible, but it should be done.  If
something is not taken in the context of all that came before it, it
cannot be understood in its entirerty.  If you want to get a fuller
appreciation of Townshend's work, I highly suggest that you look into
his major influences, but then again that would have to come on your
time.


> Isn't there a class of undergrads somewhere whom
> you can browbeat with this angels-on-a-pinhead pedantry?
>
You seem to have been unable to make a rather small leap of logic, or
maybe you just don't read.  I mentioned before that I am an historian;
therefore, one could correctly reason that I teach history.  History
classes are no place for poetry, that's why we have an English
department.  Plus, Mr. Townshend is not taken as serious work by any
scholar I have met, I'm one of the only people who would even give
teaching him a thought.

> "The Emily Dickinson Is God" Mailing List where, I can only presume, Townshend
> bashing is the daily mantra.
>
Actually they are more concerned with "legitimate" poets, like Whitman,
Pound and Elliot.

> Do you sign on to the mailing lists of every rock and
> roll group to preach the Gospel According Emily or do you limit your artistic
> pontifications to The British Invasion?
>
I have better things to do.  As I said before, you appear to have
ignored this also, Townshend is a good as rock gets.  Why not compare
the best to the best?

> Pete was the guy who invented distortion and feedback; pretty fucking
> innovative, I'd say. How 'bout his use of sequenced synthesizer tracks?
> the guys changed the face of modern music.
>
Interesting that you bring this up.  I was just talking to a good friend
of mine, a muscian, about the sad state of rock n'roll.  We came to the
conclusion that the music itself has barely changed a bit since its
humble beginings.  In fact it is the same damn thing.  This was formerly
my biggest reason why rock is not art, but while talking to him, we came
to a better conclusion.  We decided that the line drawn between art and
entertainment is simply that art has an aestetic goal.  Sit-coms,
flowers and sunsets may move you, but they are not art.  Poetry, the
good stuff at least, has an aestetic goal, hence it is art.  We were
unable to find the aestetic goal of rock, in fact we agreed that there
isn't one; therefore, it is not art.  There is a fine line between
entertainment and art, rock is entertainment, good poetry crosses this
line and runs as fast as it can.

> More to the point, just 'cause someone did it first (by having the benefit of being born a hundred
> years earlier) doesn't make 'em better when judged on their own merits,
> history notwithstanding. Just because she invented something silly
> doesn't make her better.
>
I do judge them on their own merits, and Mr. Townshend lost.  This
argument you are presenting is basically saying that inventors should
not be considered geniuses.  According to what you say, Mr. Edison is
nothing special.  He invented the lightbulb 100 years ago. I can build a
lightbulb today, so why is he more special than I?  As I think you can
see with this example, you are incorrect.  Innovation is a sign of a
special person, emulation is the sign of a normal person.  When it comes
to writing, Townshend is normal and Dickinson is special.

And her innovations are far less silly than feedback.  She actually
changed the face of poetry forever.  Rock is still the same old crap it
was before Townshend.


> I thought WCW was an innovator.
>
You asked for my opinion, so I happily gave it. I happen to classify
Williams in the same category as I do Stein.  This is a category that I
loosely term Bullshit.  Innovation is good if it works, but I think
their innovation isn't very good (i.e. it doesn't work).


> Art *is* art because I say.
>
This cannot be so.  Simply because if art is art because you say so,
what stops us from taking this one step further to saying a cracker is a
cracker because I say so.  That is nice we all agree what a cracker is,
but perhaps we don't all agree.  Then some things are crackers to some
and telephones to others.  As you can see, this would be quite a problem
and is the reson why we actually have definitions.  Art no different
than anything else.


> Actually, the human being who can influence the course of history by act
> of will is quite rare.
>
Rare in that relative sense, but these individuals are all over the
place.  History has been crafted by the wills of men, randomness has had
a very small role in history.

> And relating this to The Who, I think they did
> it.
>
You can't get away with saying this and not saying how and why.


> BTW, did anybody here read the TIME article a while back that listed "My
> Generation" as one of the pivotal events of the Twentieth Century?
>
I got a good laugh at this one.  Granted it's a good song, but give me
break, it a just a song.  I could probably name 1000 more important
things before I even got to 1965.  Don't ask me to try, because I might
just do it.

> They brought home a bunch of new ideas from Europe (isn't that where Gershwin got his
> sound?).  The result was a mini-Renaissance.  Similar result after WWII,
> but not quite so marked.
>
 The renassance didn't occur because of new ideas from Europe per sey,
it was just an entire generation of people that felt totally ailenated
from their parents in every possible way.  One of the major reasons that
this didn't happen after WWII was that the fighters of this war felt
they were doing the right thing, where as the soldiers of WWI had no
idea what the hell they were fighting for.  Fairly similar to Vietnam.


> Was there a war in Europe which generated the artistic and scientific
> advances at about the turn of the century?
>
Yup, it was called the Franco-Prussian War.  It created Italy and
Germany, and really pissed off France.  It was also a major cause of
WWI.


> That is your contention, but I also know that Dickens used several
> dialects in his work. Cockney for instance is most certainly a dialect,
> as legitimate as a Southern accent or "black" accent. Now that I think
> about it, so did Doyle in the Holmes stories.
> Perhaps you believe this because it was more obvious with an American
> accent?
>
No, I'm not actually able to tell the difference between some of them,
mostly because I'm not from that part of the country.  If you don't feel
like believing me that Twain is the most influential novelist of the
19th Century, go ahead and don't believe.  But I rest assured knowing
that Hemmingway, Fitzgerald and every teacher I've ever had agrees with
me.  My life is too short to waste time debating this.


> That you admit he used "real speech" at all counters your argument about Twain.
>
No, Twain was still first.  I also checked into his opinion of Dickens,
which I promised earlier.  Twain claimed that Dickens was "a veritable
God."  Twain is the father of the modern novel.

> You mean like I'm too stupid to figure it out without several musicians?
> How do you know *I* am not a musician?
>
No, I just figured that the chances of you being a muscian are so slim,
that I had a pretty good chance of assuming you weren't.  Your
insistence that rock n'roll is great music also tends to put me off.  No
musician I have ever met think rock is any good, but that might just be
my friends.

> > Now take for instance Ms. Joplin.  She was a song
> > writer/poet who wrote about social change.  She didn't change society, she
> > just wrote about its changes.
>
> Poor choice, or was that intentional? She didn't write her songs.
>
It was a failure to type the right name.  I meant to say Joni Mitchell;
however, I was thinking Joplin that day, so I unconsciously wrote it.
Sorry.

> I said the movement was unified within itself.
>
You first said it was unified, then you said society as a whole was
fractured.  I was talking about society as a whole.  You seemed to have
changed the scope at least once.

> > Rock was altogether a different story.  While a generation did clearly
> > exist, it was not even close to as dramatic.  Plus it did not produce the
> > kind of artistic golden age the 20's did.
>
> In your (humble?) opinion.
>
Mine, yes, and also the opinion of every scholar you will meet.  The
period from 1918-1932, referred to as the 20's, is clearly the high
point of American art.  This is another subject I don't feel is up for
discussion.  If you don't feel like believing me, don't, I won't lose
any sleep.

While the 60's had Heller and Vonegut.  The 20's had Hemingway,
Fitzgerald, O'Neill, Steinbeck, Pound, Elliot...It was just as good as
American art gets.


> Yeah...forget about walking on the Moon and other such nonsense.
>
This was probably the greatest scientific achievment of all time, but
the Cuban Missile Crisis is the most signifigant moment of the decade.
All American - Soviet foreign policy was defined by this moment.  This
was the closest we came to nuclear war.  But of course, we did get a few
nice rocks...

> Compelling, but you're just about 10 years too late for this
> argument...unless you're talking about the `50s, RnR started. All of the
> things you say are pretty true, just placed in the wrong decade.
>
No, they in the right decade.  If there is anything I do well in this
world, it is knowing my history.  Sure rock did start in the 50's, but
it came into its own in the 60's.  Jazz began sometime before the 20's
but that is the decade in which it came into its own.  Baseball began in
the 1840's but it came into its own in the 1900's.  Few things start
life as big hits, unless we are talking about pop culture
entertainment...


> > Ouch...[that reatail sales are the best quality control] hurts.
>
> But it's true.
>
Maybe in the pathetic world of rock, but not in the world of art.  Last
time I checked Mr. Van Gogh didn't sell a painting in his life.  I guess
you would have told him to quit.  I hope you don't know too many
artists.

> I said that The Who's music moved forward, and you said "Art does move
> forward."
>
Yes, but The Who's music does not move forward.  It is the same crap in
1982 that it was in 1964.  The music is identicle, the lyrics do
change.  So they are the only part I would consider art by this older
definition, but as I said before I don't see any aestetic goal in rock.


> Oh, and you stole that book of Dickinson poems did you?
>
No, I inhereted it.

> A term which is defined: Effect. That is the term which describes how
> Art can be measured. OK?
>
No, not OK.  I am affected by all sorts of things that aren't art.  I
get a great feeling when watching baseball, but that's not art.  Art
changes, and it has an aestetic goal.  Rock has neither.

> That's OK. I think Dickinson is a fairly minor influence, and Tolkein
> DEFINITELY had more influence.
>
I have only one word for this.  It is eight letters long and rhymes with
tullbit.  I told this one to the guys in the English departement, I
think they are still laughing.  In fact they asked me to thank you for
making their weekends.  That is definately a good one.  debating this
any further is an insult to the intelligence of everyone who has ever
read a single line of modern literature.

In summary I have two things to say.  First of, I must apologoze for the
length of this and for getting personal, but a few things that were
suggested were just dead wrong.  Second, I must say that there is an
audience for rock and there is an audience for poetry.  While the two
are tangential, they are not even close to the same.  Poetry lovers,
look to find out all about the influences of their favorite poets and
what they changed.  Rock lovers tend to ignore all suggestions that
there is anything better than what they like.  Rock lovers are just
people who can't love poetry.  Perhaps rock deserves its audience, and
its audience deserves rock.  Sorry for being harsh, I was just telling
the truth.

That's all I have,

-McGoo