It has been brought to our attention that John Adams-yes, the composer-is also a blogger. Well bowl me over. Here is a new post from him about watching Fox News on someone else's screen whilst on Jet Blue! O"Reilly looks like an angry, dyspeptic dad who's not enjoying his Twelve Step regime and relates to his family by insulting them. The facial gestures are pained, ironic...'Can you believe it? How stupid can you get?' Hannity is the thick-necked would-be jock with the close-cropped military haircut. He's a jolly back thumper, a wet towel-snapping NASCAR kind of guy with attitude. He's REASONABLE, for chrissake.... Glenn Beck looks like a four year-old whose dad is going to come over and beat the shit out of you if you don't let him win at least one Monopoly game. He has a petulant, spoiled brat look-a pudgy blond Middle American Mussolini."
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
11
I recently learned that Beck is from Mount Vernon, Washington, which is not "Middle America." As much as it might like to be.
That's an insult to pudgy blondes, Middle Americans, and Mussolini.
Mussolini = Duce of Fascism.
Glenn Beck = Douche of Facism.
At least Mussolini could play the violin.
Great, I find this out the day after GeoCities is wiped away. Who knows what animated GIFs of Adorno and Heidegger Mr. Shaker Loops might have had there...
Oh hey, lookie here, another artistic elite from the coast who never ventured inland and who, like Cintra Wilson and the proprietors of Peopleofwalmart, mistakes criticism of substance for making fun of how people look.
Beyond that, he's lying. The shortest Jet Blue flight from Oakland to New York JFK takes over five hours. That means that "Every time I look up from my book there they are, the patriots: O’Reilly, Hannity, Beck" cannot be true. Especially since there is no Fox programming block that runs all three of those shows together. They break it up with Red Eye or Greta or Shep. But never all three together or repeating together.
Speaking of Fox news personalities, Adams may want to check his biography which begins,"One of America’s most admired and respected composers,..." or his claim to have done "groundbreaking operas" (Nixon in China?), or that he calls is book Hallelujah Junction "A New York Times Most Notable Book of the Year" when it was included in the "100 Notable Books of 2008" as "among the most readably incisive autobiographies of major musical figures." Because all of this personal ballooning seems just like the bio slight of hands of those from the Fox news channel he so seemingly detests (e.g., the photo he uses of the post reads "New York Times Bestselling Author Sean Hannity."
If ever there were a group of artists sheltered by the ivory tower and protected by its hypocrisy, it would be composers in Post-WWII United States.
You get a job in a university music department and that's it -- no need to write music that people actually listen to or care about (cf. Milton Babbitt, "Who cares if you listen?").
This is not to say that universities shouldn't be hothouses for our more rarefied flowers. Nor should artists have to labor feed the popular maw. I mean to say that Adams and his ilk should use their extremely privileged -- and protected -- position as intellectuals to make statements that are actually intellectually substantive.
Oh Abe. My affection for you is at an all-time high and then you bring up that tired l'Affaire Wilson: David v. Goliath v. J.C. Penney. p.s. She didn't make fun of the way people look!
Um. Then I don't think we read the same column.
I don't think this is peopleofwalmart at all. Peopleofwalmart really *is* just about making fun of unstylish people. It's pointless and mean. But Adams is just using a literary device. He sees some faces on TV, and he reads into them, conjuring visions of their personalities and lives, which he illustrates by describing the way they look. O'Reilly's looks are described only inasmuch as they reflect Adams' idea of O'Reilly's constant inner state. Hannity is described as "the thick-necked would-be jock with the close-cropped military haircut. He’s a jolly back thumper, a wet towel-snapping NASCAR kind of guy with attitude." But none of that is actually a criticism of Hannity's looks. It's a character portrait. I mean, it may not be nice to say "she looks like she has terrible taste in music" or "he looks like a man who only dates crazy women" but it's not the same as "he's fat and therefore contemptible." The whole post is about Adams watching Fox with the sound off and how that experience relates to what he's reading about the "emptiness of forms" and how they "capture the imagination." And the picture he's using to illustrate this post is the cover of one of Hannity's books, so that "NY Times bestselling author" line isn't Adams making fun of anyone. It was was put there by Hannity's publisher.
The people are the heroes now: behemoth pulls the peasants' plow!