Re: Kantian Tunes

1

The message isn't maudlin. It's more like a triangulation of nationalism, exhortation to The People, and religion-class squirmy over-earnestness.


Posted by: Gonerill | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 10:42 AM
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2

That's very nice. But New Kantian Ideas--what's that all about?

I couldn't help but read the message in the second video to the tune of "Come together." Do those vocalizations have anything to do with the style of the song or he just playing around?

On Iranian music generally, I liked Andy Kershaw's BBC program.


Posted by: Populuxe | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:05 AM
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3

That seems cool, thanks, Populuxe.

And I think he's just playing around, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to know for sure.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:08 AM
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4

The slides are killing me.


Posted by: FL | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:14 AM
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5

Why is there a sideways Italian flag at the end?


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:15 AM
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6

FL is discouraging me from going to the first vid.

It's not that the message is maudlin. It's that it's pro-love, and ogged is anti-.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:17 AM
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7

Wait, I'm sorry, there's a cock joke in the slides?! And Labs is objecting?


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:18 AM
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8

I didn't mean that the message is maudlin; I just think of the Iranian inability to avoid over-earnestness as being in the same family as their inability to detect the maudlin. I probably should have explained that, but we like to keep things punchy around here.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:18 AM
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9

I keep hearing something about "chevalier in Normandie."

I guess Farsi isn't that hard to understand after all.

Aah! I just got to the end! Crayon drawings of smiling groups of people! It's like the anti-unfogged.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:21 AM
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10

That is the greatest slideshow ever. The picture of the man getting a haircut just before the 2-minute mark was truly inspiring.


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:21 AM
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11

I'm sure the concept of "maudlin" exists in Farsi, it seems to be kept under guard

I thought we bonded over being emotionally tough immigrant types. You betrayed me, you inscrutably sentimental Near Easterner.


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:22 AM
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12

خیلی جالبه.دمت تا ثریا گرم


Posted by: OPINIONATED GRANDMA | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:24 AM
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13

we like to keep things punchy around here.

Or, you know, incomprehensible.

An awful lot of non-NATO cultures (for lack of a better basket for the group I'm imagining) seem to go in strong for the maudlin (less sure about the o-earnest). Is it just a calibration thing (American maudlinism isn't always maudlin to us) or is there an underlying difference? I know that Japanese (in general) don't get sarcasm, so sometimes these things are just cultural.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:25 AM
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14

Slol is an immigrant? I thought he was Thomas Pynchon.


Posted by: Wrongshore | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:26 AM
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15

Someone should buy ogged the complete run of Sublime Frequencies releases; then we'll see about this treacle nonsense.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:28 AM
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16

OG gets it exactly right.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:29 AM
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17

I know that Japanese (in general) don't get sarcasm, so sometimes these things are just cultural.

Japanese satire exists but is incredibly amateurish. You can usually expect something on the level of Scary Movie 3 from even the most acclaimed satire-minded directors and writers. Basically a copy of whatever it is they are making fun of, but incoherent and full of fart jokes.


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:31 AM
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18

I get it: their unspoiled directness and sincerity are just so irritating.

What a business opportunity. "Ogged's academy of ironic detachment and coolness." "Overcome you Farsisity, and learn to give people shit!"


Posted by: I don't pay | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:34 AM
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19

I get it: their unspoiled directness and sincerity are just so irritating.

Indeed. It's facile, is the problem. Let's come together! Well, ok, but that guy there used to torture so-and-so's uncle for a living, and this mullah stole the other guy's land after the revolution, and what was that about our shared humanity again?


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:37 AM
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20

Is it Jews? Thinking about my NATO-basket of nations, just about all of them have, historically, had either a significant Jewish population or Jewish intelligentsia. I certainly associate sarcasm with Jewish culture, and a certain non-maudlin character as well (oy vey is not a maudlin expression).

But my definition of Jewish culture may have artificial overlap with the New York milieu of my youth.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:37 AM
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21

Wait, Googoosh is not treacle. I so much regret not having gone to see her when she came a few years back. One of my best musical memories is all the dancing (male only) grad students when Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan came to my grad school. Also, Amr Diab and Rachid Taha do not sound like treacle to me.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:37 AM
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22

I'm having trouble with the online farsi dictionary. I got as far as "More ardent than" and gave up.


Posted by: Wrongshore | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:37 AM
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23

20: Didn't Iran historically have a substantial Jewish population?


Posted by: washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:38 AM
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24

Is it facile or naive? We've heard for thirty years about what a "young" country it is. Could it be they just don't know?


Posted by: I don't pay | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:39 AM
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25

Almost all foreign pop music sounds like it comes from the same treacle factory.

Fucking foreigners. They're not just foreigners, you know. They're almost all fucking Swedes.

ABBA! Need I say more?


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:39 AM
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26

"Fiddler on the Roof" is definitely one of the less maudlin things in the genre of "romanticized evocation of the older days".


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:39 AM
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27

Sarcasm comes from defeat.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:39 AM
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28

Are you translating OG's comment? It says "Very interesting. [Idiomatic expression that literally translates 'your mouth is hot/may your mouth be hot' and means "Good job, that was just the thing (to say)."


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:40 AM
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29

There are plenty of Persian Jews. I should know.


Posted by: Wrongshore | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:42 AM
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30

Is it facile or naive?

They're not naive, and actually, the young Iranians in Iran aren't really given to the same sort of earnestness; a lot of them are tough and clear-eyed and cynical.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:42 AM
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31

How do you say OG in Farsi? Is this Ogged's Mom bemoaning her grandsonlessness?


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:42 AM
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32

A demographic slice then. What accounts for it, and how old are they?


Posted by: I don't pay | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:43 AM
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33

I GOT THAT FROM A COMMENT ON THIS OTHER VIDEO FOR A MORE ROCKIN SONG

TORANG


Posted by: OPINIONATED GRANDMA | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:44 AM
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34

Only since Nebuchadnezzar.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:44 AM
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35

Sorry, gotta swim...


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:45 AM
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36

16 is both a compliment to and local colloquialism for 12.


Posted by: Wrongshore | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:46 AM
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37

20: With one exception, every Jewish person I have ever known has been more than usually sentimental, particularly after having a few. (Or maybe my concept of "sentimental" is incorrect.)

But the thing is, sentimentality lives very well side-by-side with blistering irony. Wasn't it Adorno who said something like "Oh, we have to be all ironic because the other choice is to cry"? (Only he said it in Adorno-speak and in German.) And that's pretty goddamn emo, if you ask me. Adorno is awfully maudlin, when he's not being all sarky.


Posted by: Frowner | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:50 AM
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38

There are plenty of Persian Jews. I should know.

You've lived in West L.A.?


Posted by: Josh | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:50 AM
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39

Slol is an immigrant?
Type.
I thought he was Thomas Pynchon.
Sorry.


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:57 AM
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40

As an immigrant, I've always thought of Slol as a superior person of his type.


Posted by: I don't pay | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:58 AM
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41

Here.


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 11:58 AM
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42

38: Loved.

41: Where?


Posted by: Wrongshore | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 12:02 PM
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43

Weird.


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 12:04 PM
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44

Kierkeggaard said "Irony is the last refuge of the moralist..."

There is more to that quote, "...because he has no way of expressing..." but I haven't been able to find it twenty years. I thought it was in Sickness. May be in Concept, which is hard to find. I may be slightly off in phrasing.

I have been staring at K's phrase like a koan for thirty years. I think I could write a book.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 1:00 PM
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45

44: It might be in his dissertation.


Posted by: Wrongshore | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 1:14 PM
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46

13: I know that Japanese (in general) don't get sarcasm

17: Japanese satire exists but is incredibly amateurish.

This can't be right. Does this imply that all of the anime that I have seen was meant *completely seriously*? The kids and I watched a pokeman-style fighting show where all the characters were food and all the special powers were food related. Maybe that wasn't satire or sarcasm, but it has to be somewhere in the irony field.


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 1:16 PM
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47

OT, but this guy is about two steps away from fucking the shit out of bears.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 1:21 PM
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48

I don't understand any of the words in the link in #45, but I now understand that Kierkegaard was a fox. He looks like he should be fronting a rockabilly-jump swing combo.


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 1:21 PM
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49

45:I knew after I posted, that I should have finished with "Concept of Irony" because it could be confused with "Concept of Dread". CoI is what I meant.

Ok, I am gonna do it, at excruciating length:

Love is but the song we sing,
And fear's the way we die
You can make the mountains ring
Or make the angels cry
Know the dove is on the wing
And you need not know why

C'mon people now,
Smile on your brother
Ev'rybody get together
Try and love one another right now

Some will come and some will go
We shall surely pass
When the one that left us here
Returns for us at last
We are but a moments sunlight
Fading in the grass

C'mon people now,
Smile on your brother
Ev'rybody get together
Try and love one another right now

If you hear the song I sing,
You must understand
You hold the key to love and fear
All in your trembling hand
Just one key unlocks them both
It's there at your command

C'mon people now,
Smile on your brother
Ev'rybody get together
Try and love one another right now
Right now
Right now!"

Youngbloods, Airplane, Stone Poneys, Smith, Carolyn Hester, Kate Wolf. This, and sentiments like it, is what we were all singing while burning and bombing in the sixties.

OTOH, I saw a documentary last night on NY retro-No-Wave, bastard spawn of Sonic Youth, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs etc looked all angry noisy & chaotic on-stage but silly wankers in the interviews.

I think this is important, and I don't think anyone is condemned to irony, decadence, and anomie.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 1:37 PM
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50

Youngbloods covered Kierkeggaard?


Posted by: Wrongshore | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 2:05 PM
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51

Kierkegaard was a fox. He looks like he should be fronting a rockabilly-jump swing combo.

With that collar?


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 2:51 PM
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52

New Romantic jump swing.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 2:52 PM
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53

I now understand that Kierkegaard was a fox.

A fox with a horribly deformed penis, I believe.


Posted by: destroyer | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 2:53 PM
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54

Really?


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 2:55 PM
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55

How awesome would it be if he broke things off with Regina because of crippling wang shame?


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 2:57 PM
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56

I recall reading something to that effect in a New Yorker (Adam Gopnik?) article. It was a rumor.


Posted by: destroyer | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 2:58 PM
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57

Shit, I've lost an hour. I do believe I posted 49, and fell asleep.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 3:02 PM
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58

It was in this New Yorker article. But it reads much better in the original German.

Andere dagegen meinen wohl, daß Kierkegaard Erfolg hatte, daß er sich aber bei dem Akt eine Syphilis oder etwas anderes Unerfreuliches zugezogen hat, so auch eine unerwünschte Vaterschaft, während wieder andere das Problem resolut an jener Wurzel packen, um Volumen und Form des Zeugungsorgans zu ergründen, so z.B. ob Kierkegaard vielleicht mit einem gekrümmten Penis ausgestattet gewesen sein sollte, dessen vaginale Manövrierfähigkeit vermutlich etwas reduziert gewesen ist.

Posted by: neil | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 3:06 PM
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59

I agree, and I don't even speak German. "Wurzel packen" is a self-explanatory euphemism.


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 3:07 PM
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60

Yes, and everything said by opponents of Catherine the Great are also true.


Posted by: eb | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 3:07 PM
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61

Ah, that's not very convincing.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 3:13 PM
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62

Are probably should be is.


Posted by: eb | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 3:13 PM
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63

I'm disappointed to find that "Vaterschaft" means "fatherhood."


Posted by: destroyer | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 3:13 PM
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64

63: Only in German, though.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 3:16 PM
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65

Please tell me "zugezogen hat" means "jimmy cap".


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 3:17 PM
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58:What an article to wake up to. I never liked Updike anyway, the wanker.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 3:23 PM
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67

Youngbloods covered Kierkeggaard?

I don't know about Youngbloods, but the Clumsy Lovers did.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 3:28 PM
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68

Danes are sensible and jolly, but Danish writers are weird. Kierkegaard, HC Anderson, and Dineson.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 10- 3-07 3:36 PM
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