B. Michael's Notebook Miscellany

Hey guys and girls,


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Signed,
Then No Sound

Rivers Cuomo = James Joyce?!?

[Suck My* Art Hole]

So we were making the drive from Albuquerque to Santa Fe this morning, and it occurred to us: What if Weezer (blue) were a concept album? The concept being one day in the life of the protagonis. Like, have you ever read Ulysses, or listened to A Grand Don't Come For Free (Joyce and The Streets, respectively)? Those two pieces follow a character(s) for about a day, and track the rise and fall of a life. Well, we think maybe Weezer does the same thing. We present the Payne Schemata of Weezer (blue).

Chapters

1. My Name Is Jonas
2. No One Else
3. The World Has Turned And Left Me Here
4. Buddy Holly
5. Undone-The Sweater Song
6. Surf Wax America
7. Say It Ain't So
8. In The Garage
9. Holiday
10. Only In Dreams

1. My Name Is Jonas

Time: 8am; Place: An Apartment in Los Angeles, California; Art: Interpretation of Dreams; Symbol: Wheel.

Introduces the protagonist, Jonas. Jonas dreams of a wheel, and his mythical, Biblical namesake. Awakes to a voicemail from his brother, a real estate developer who faces problems with his latest property: the workers are striking. End scene.

2. No One Else

Time: 8am; Place: Betty Ford Center; Art: Narrative (Old); Symbol: Photograph

Jonas' father, Harry, awakens. He's enjoying a stay in rehab for his alcohol addiction. His first thoughts upon rising are of his wife (divorced, named Polly). Polly's incessant affairs with other men led Harry to his heavy drinking; and thus, he feels his addiction can be cured if he meets a nice girl, who "leaves her makeup on the shelf" when he's away.

3. The World Has Turned And Left Me Here

Time: 830 am; Place: Shower; Art: Narrative (Young); Symbol: Photograph/Memory

Jonas, in the shower, thinks of his ex-lover, a girl named Mary whom he met at a surf party. Though it isn't certain from the text, it is implied that he pleasures himself.

4. Buddy Holly

Time: 11am; Place: Arnold's Drive-In; Art: Hallucination; Symbol: Jukebox

After showering and eating some Coco Puffs, Jonas heads off to Arnold's Drive-In, a local hangout and Happy Days-themed bar. This chapter takes course over several hours, during which Jonas drinks heavily, alone. After making several unsuccessful passes at a girl who reminds him of his ex, Jonas falls into drunken delusion and despair. Spurred by the Buddy Holly song "Peggy Sue" playing on the jukebox, Jonas begins to think he's a member of the cast of the popular 70s/80s Happy Days. A fight ensues, in which Jonas basically gets his ass kicked since he's so drunk that he can' punch or kick. His friends come in the nick of time and help him out.

5. Undone-The Sweater Song

Time: 6pm; Place: The El Rey Theater; Art: Knitting; Symbol: Superman Skivvies

Jonas is waiting outside the El Rey with his friends. They are waiting for a show to start; Jonas is still drunk, and he's introduced himself to some people as Ed. A girl, even more drunk, starts hitting on Jonas. Or maybe she's only trying to use him for a ride to a party? No one seems to know. While in line someone's zipper catches on a thread of Jonas' sweater, causing it to unravel a bit. As a joke, his friends--and later everyone--starts pulling on the thread to see if they can destroy his sweater. Someone pantss Jonas, revealing his Superman-themed underwear.

6. Surf Wax America

Time:12am; Place: Manhattan Beach; Art: Epiphany (Drunken); Symbol: Beer Keg

At the aforementioned party. The protagonist found a new pair of pants. He stands by the keg looking out at the ocean. Some people surf. He first compares the sea to a bottle of beer; later, a "thousand pound keg." (C.f., "winedark sea.") Jonas' mind wanders to a No Blood For Oil surf-themed protest he'd went to previously. This chapter introduces us to the idea that Jonas may be an alcoholic, given his persistent alcohol-themed characterizations of the ocean.

7. Say It Ain't So

Time: 130 am; Place: Manhattan Beach, further north; Art: Epiphany (Sober); Symbol: Bottle of Stevens Point Brewery Beer

Jonas is sobering up. He wanders north on the beach. Sitting down to rest, his eyes fall on a bottle of Stevens beer, which causes an epiphany in him: He's becoming an alcoholic like both his father and step father. (His mom, Polly, has poor choice in men?) Time grinds down, and Jonas begins to feel like one of the dead from the Flood. Feeling God has forsaken him, he screams "Say it ain't so!" Writhing around on the ground, he thinks up a pretty sweet guitar solo. He dreams he sees his father on the beach, then his little brother, whom he tries to strangle. He passes out.

8. In The Garage

Time: 2am; Place: Manhattan Beach, still the same spot from last chapter; Art: Garage Rock; Symbol: Twelve-sided die

Jonas dreams of being a rock musician. He dreams of black-framed glasses and Peter Criss. He dreams of dungeons and dragons, and remembers what a dork he really is. But his dream continues. He feels safe. No one cares about his ways. He belongs in the garage. But no one can hear him sing his song.

9. Holiday

Time: 12am; Place: Better Ford Center; Art: Fugue; Symbol: Math Homework

It's lights out at Betty Ford. Harry wishes he could go on holiday. He's almost recovered and he's been reading this awesome book called On The Road. He's been trying to get his GED, and he's sick of the math homework. Harry wishes he was immortal, and that he could hang out with his son and be the "cool dad," but not too cool, coz otherwise he'd been an alcoholic, which is exactly what happened.

10. Only In Dreams

Time: 4am; Place: Manhattan Beach, still; Technique: Guitar Solo; Symbol: Toenails

Jonas wakes up, only to realize that he wishes he were still dreaming. Which realization causes him to reflect on the nature of dreams and reality. In dreams only can his ideal girl be in the air, in between molecules of oxygen and carbon dioxide. In reality, he would totally step on the feet of the girl with whom he's dancing at the high school prom, which he totally did. He takes his frustration out on himself, masturbating for, like, five minutes on his metaphorical guitar. Falls asleep.

*We found this image on google image search. It's not really our drawing. (Too bad!)

Sky Blue Sky; like whoa

[Dirty kats don't get feeded.]

We haven't bought a new cd since Neon Bible; but don't let that fool you. Because before that we hadn't bought a cd since before we discovered private torrent trackers. Now, naturally we picked up Spank Rock, El-P, Ratatat, Sonic Youth, said Neon Bible (again), Matmos, Battles etc on lp. We just don't usually get them right when they come out, because of the split release dates that usually accompany cd and lp releases. So imagine our surprise--imagine it, really--that's an imperative, not an invitation--last night when we were at the book store and we saw Sky Blue Sky. We were all like whoa. Our bad on the Internet versus print review thing because we just don't know when cds come out anymore. We're like ... well. No. But we live in a fantasy world.

Battles, Mirrored, Pitchfork

And after yesterday, they have to go and do something like this.

Battles
Mirrored
[Warp; 2007]
Rating: 9.1

We couldn't agree more. Tyondai "Son of Anthony" Braxton's band is tight; fierce; and sounds like militant smurfs. (We can't say more; and that's because we got work to do.)

Wilco: Sky Blue Sky, Pitchfork, Stylus, & PopMatters

[Dude looks like a lady: Aerosmith and Robin Williams were the original sellouts.]

We can't believe the new Wilco album must be coming out tomorrow. Is that right? We've been listening to it for a while now (mad props to Oink!) and we think it's O.K. What's wrong with it? It's pleasant. The sun is sunny right now! What's wrong with pleasant? We were driving around with our girlfriend yesterday, after picking her up from the bookstore. In the store, we saw a book about Merzbau, the Kurt Schwitters' exhibition. Well. Naturally we put on in the car Merzbow. It was unpleasant: ahhh, but that's the point, you say. Well, we agree; but sometimes we just want music to sound nice.

Pitchfork loves Merzbow. (Well, they don't exactly, but all Merzbow albums are rated higher than this new Wilco album.) And they hate the new MOR Wilco. Is new Wilco MOR? Who cares. Giving the album less than five-and-a-half on the Pfork scale, they say


An album of unapologetic straightforwardness, Sky Blue Sky nakedly exposes the dad-rock gene Wilco has always carried but courageously attempted to disguise. Never has the band sounded more passive, from the direct and domestic nature of Tweedy's lyrics, to the soft-rock-plus-solos format (already hinted at on Ghost's "At Least That's What You Said" and "Hell Is Chrome") that most of its songs adhere to.



We really like the first two songs there on A Ghost Is Born. WTF? What's wrong with writing straight-ahead rock/pop songs? "Dad-rock" is just another name for "sounds pleasant," and not all music sounds like Merzbow. We're glad that all music doesn't sound like Merzbow. If "Hell is Chrome" is MOR dad-rock, well then goddamnit, we fucking love dad-rock.


PopMatters' review sounds like a direct, considered rebuttal of the 'Fork's review. The little thingy under the byline (or where the byline would be, which must have a technical name, but which technical name eludes me) says, "If you're prone to confusing honest musical maturity with banality, then you'll surely miss out on the treasures of Sky Blue Sky." Which, is exactly what Pitchfork seems to have done (according to PopMatters). PopMatters ultimately gives the album a 9/10. It argues throughout that the tunefulness of the new album conceals a deeper artistic integrity and musical complexity, which sounds like, say, what the Beatles did with their music. Or something. We're only interested in scores, and PopMatters scored the album almost twice as high.


Stylus (we read this trifecta of online music mags, obvs) gives the album a "B-," and compares Wilco's new effort to what the Grateful Dead recorded in the twilight or falling-action phase of their career. I think. The reviewer made some allusion to a place that seems from context to be related to the Dead, and then he mentions them, sure. But I think Mr. Cohen here knows a bit too much about the Dead to trust his taste. We exclude Stylus from our considerations because it's too much of an MOR review. A B-??? WTF. Pick "awesome" or "shitty." Our short attention span can only parse extremes.


Let's turn again to PopMatters. (We're really done with Pfork's divisive qua a fortiori polarizing reviews; nah, just kidding!) At the beginning of the review, the PopM says,

There is already considerable opinion and criticism in print and on the internet regarding Wilco’s sixth studio album. I’m writing this review approximately one month after the band streamed Sky Blue Sky in its entirety via its website (and the subsequent file-sharing leak of massive proportions) and one month before the album’s official release on aluminum poly-whatever.

[The noodles is boiling over, kid. The fix is in!]

This section gave us pause. Three big music online music magazines review the new Wilco album a month before its release--all on the same day?? This sounds like a conspiracy of Oliver Stone-ian proportions. What gives? Did the Big Three get together in a smoky back room somewhere and decide to review simultaneously the new Wilco album, thereby scooping traditional print media, whose natural restrictions already place them at a temporal/scoop disadvantage, which disadvantage only swells when the Allied Powers carve up Berlin a month in advance? We rather see the editors of the three, Stylus, Pitchfork, and PopMatters videoconferencing with their MacBooks, drinking Shasta and smoking parliaments in run-down but expensive apartments in various cities. Well. Really who cares? Much like ESPN pressured John Kruk to pick the Pirates as division champs, which he apparently admitted on radio, we think the three online mags drew straws: short one rips it, middle one stays lukewarm, and long one loves it. Either way, we can't see a better way at least to generate interest in the album than to conspiratorially ally in order to give the new Wilco album an aura of critical ambivalence.




UPDATE: Tiny Mix Tapes sides with PopMatters on the matter. They also reviewed the album today. Weird.

Let's Get Out of This Country

We would like to declare a moratorium on the use of the term "chamber pop." It doesn't mean anything. Belle and Sebastian/Elliot Smith/The Decemberists don't write chamber music, and their music isn't written in a chamber (despite evocative cover art featuring Kafka).

The closest teleological cousin we can think of to "chamber pop" is Chamber Music, Joyce's (terrible) book of poetry, which title, though, puns on and refers to the tinkling sound of a woman making water in a chamber pot. So when critics (it's always critics, the lice between the sheets of great art) use the phrase "chamber pop," what they're doing is pissing all over your record. So critics: stop using it.

And Amazon? There is no genetic trait linking Evanescance; Sigur Ros; Rufus Wainwright; Goldfrapp; and Brian Wilson. Except overwhelming whiteness. So is that what Amazon thinks chamber pop means, namely whiteness?

Cowboy Boots

Blues hasn't influenced* rock & roll music as much as country & western has:

-Few black rock bands
-Cowboy boots always look badass
-Tight Jeans
-The open C chord
-Telecasters > Gibson 335
-Slide guitar is stupid


*Style, of course, is everything in music.

Why Bother: Neon Bible [Special Edition]

Welcome to Why Bother: {subject matter here}, a new feature of then no sound, which we've named after that one Weezer song that goes, why bother, 'ts gonna hurt me, 'ts gonna kill when you desert me... The title should should explain what it's all about.

Not feeling very capable today, we can't figure out how to make that photo above be at work done here. (That is, we're not feeling very capable, etc--dangling participles be damned.) But d'you see all that stuff up there? That's a box with a moving 3-D hologram-type thing; a sleek, plastic sleeve for the CD; a lyrics book; a matchbook-sized flipbook, which presents the same image that you see on the cover of the aforementioned box; and a larger flipbook that seems to depict a meteorological-eyed view (viz., high above satellite image) that turns into people. Right.

Yesterday, we paid $21.50 (incl. NM sales tax) for the Arcade Fire's Neon Bible [Special Edition], straight cash, yesterday because the LP is mysteriously unavailable, and we got the leak, like, back in January: so we thought we should, you know, support the band; and whatnot.

So it's not about the money or anything. We ask only: why bother making a 3-D holographic box, a matchbook-sized flipbook depicting what's already on the box; and a larger flipbook that depicts some inscrutable subject matter. This is the kind of shit that we only lose, and even if we didn't lose it--what, are we supposed to listen to the music and flip the flipbooks, or gaze at the box? We just don't understand why so much glossy paper, so many staples, and all those 3-D holographic plastic sheets were used to produce what amounts to exterior and interior packaging for a CD that, on its own, is very good and needs only, maybe, the lyric sheet and some candles or, well, fire of some sort, to accompany it. Why couldn't they have spent their time ensuring the LP release coincided with the CD release--rather than designing all that stupid shit?

Wittgenstein + Interpol (band)

This little bit is probably the worst thing I've written in a while because I had in mind the whole time Derrida's critique of Husserl's so-called "metaphysical presupposition."

Wittgenstein responds to the challenge posed most strongly by Descartes’ Meditations: having been deceived in the past, how is it that humans can know anything for certain, secure objective knowledge? In order for philosophy and science to proceed, it seems as if this challenge must be satisfied—Cartesian knowledge must be grounded on something immovable. Therefore, Descartes situates the source of knowledge in the uniformity of nature and a priori truths, all of which fall under the concept of the Cartesian rational God. If there is a God who isn’t a deceiver, then humans can know things with certainty. Descartes metaphysical presupposition is that there is a rational God; this God is the ground for the possibility of objective knowledge, and this ground falls before all experience. Only by supposing the existence of God can humans have certainty, and therefore knowledge.

Wittgenstein doesn’t take direct aim at Descartes, though. Rather, he finds a similar type of metaphysical presupposition in a most unlikely place, G. E. Moore’s philosophy. In his attempt to prove the existence of an external world, Moore makes a metaphysical presupposition when he says, “I certainly did at the moment know that which I expressed,” by holding up two hands. He presupposes that he can say meaningfully, and with certainty, the he knows a fact of the type “I have two hands.” Wittgenstein’s criticism is not that such knowledge is impossible, but rather that an utterance like “I know I have two hands” is probably nonsense. That is, Moore presupposes that he can merely, unproblematically say, “I know I have two hands.”
When philosophers use “I know…” Wittgenstein says, “I want to reply ‘you don’t know anything!’—and yet I would not say that to anyone who was speaking without philosophical intention.” This asymmetric response to different utterances of “I know…” gives a demonstration of Wittgenstein’s notion of knowledge and its attendant utterances: knowledge is heavily dependent on a context, and the sense or meaning of the utterance “I know…” depends on the context in which it is used. Moore’s use of “I know…” lacks an appropriate context, and it therefore rests on the same type of metaphysical presupposition that Descartes makes in his Meditations. Moore’s utterance lacks a context within which it would make sense; and Moore’s thinking that it does make sense presupposes a transcendent sense of meaning that must be “further back” from the beginning. For Moore, the meaning of “I know I have two hands” is pre-given and predetermined. The role of context is supposed to replace meaning’s reliance on pre-givenness and predetermination.

The major criticism that Wittgenstein levels against Moore is that he tries to refute the claim that one cannot know things about the world with the claim that he can know; and the way in which Moore makes this claim is by saying things like “I know I have two hands.” The problem with skepticism—and the realism that Moore attempts to prove in order to refute skepticism—is that the meaning of both the skeptic and the realist seems to hang in mid-air. But this is not to say that Wittgenstein’s aim is to ground knowledge. The attempt to ground knowledge is precisely what Wittgenstein tries to end. His aim seems paradoxical: he both tries to point out the groundlessness of our knowledge, and to point out the objectivity of our knowledge. Therefore, Wittgenstein’s project in On Certainty is to remove the desire for a ground to objectivity.

However, I forgot how good is Interpol. Man. This is like my second or third favorite video ever maybe.



I think I saw that the director, Italian whats-her-name, directed a film or a music video or something. She's the one that's dancing.

When I chirp shorty chirp back

[Girl Talk]

I'm just saying, but this Girl Talk is pure synergy. Big Music should buy this dude so that he can make crazy, legal tracks and just destroy. Eh. About T.I., he sez,

T.I.: "What You Know"
This was pretty much the rap anthem of 2006. I really like the synths on it.

which is quite the understatement. (Ironic, coming from the most recent king of overstatement, if such a title could be said to exist.) Buzzsaw synths, faux-choir synths, string section synths--fucking Christ. I've loved this song since I first heard it driving around Albuquerque over the past summer. Even though my car doesn't have a CD player, moments like these make me realize I'm never wanting for music. I'd never have heard this song otherwise.

Why Hip-Hop Sucks in '06

On a whim last night I decided to download off bit torrent to go out and buy a bunch of hip-hop (using hip-hop as the general label covering rap, old school, trap music etc.) albums that I'd never heard. I want to really get into hip-hop. My favorite albums as of two days ago were probably not the all-time classics: 1) 36 Chambers; 2) Illmatic; 3) Endtroducing...; 4) the best tracks of the two Kanye albums; 5) A Grand Don't Come For Free.

So I got a shitload of albums last night: The first two Eric B. & Rakim; Low End Theory; Raising Hell; The Chronic; Hard to Earn; By All Means Necessary; Straight Outa Compton; Doe or Die; Let's Get Free; Dr. Octagonecologyst; It Takes a Nation; E 1999 Eternal; A Book of Human Language; The Infamous; Masters of the Universe; and Funcrusher Plus. I loaded up only hip-hop albums on my ipod. I really can't connect w/Tupac; I only have that one song with the jacked Bruce Hornsby piano hook. So fuck all y'all haters: Tupac sucks. Just one man's opinion.

I do things like this project of trying to get really into hip-hop all the time. I don't know why. I still listen to non-hip-hop at home. I got Slint's Spiderland last night, which is fabulous. Will Oldham even took the picture on the front cover! What an awesome album. I'm listening to the Killers' new album, Sam's Town. It's OK so far: This is my first listen. There aren't any immediately horrible-sounding songs (c.f., that song on Hot Fuss with the chorus: "I got soul but I'm not a soldier"). Eh.

I was thinking last night that Aristotle necessarily begs in the Metaphysics the question of Intelligence's being the first cause and first substance. Using something like a primitive hypothetic-deductive form of reasoning, Aristotle simply posits the existence of a surprisingly large number of things, of which he proves a surprisingly little number. I feel I could modus tollens his modus ponens and end the argument with as much ambiguity and doubt as his reasonings (at times). I admit it's deeply unsatisfying for there to be no cause as such; but it should be incumbent on Aristotle to prove such a claim. Kant, I think, does a better job of proving his metaphysics. Well, I'm still working on that. I haven't read nearly enough Aristotle. He's in no way a source of my opprobrium. I'm merely skeptical as to how convincing Aristotle makes his argument.

The Strokes

Back in aught one, when I was a freshman, I ordered from ebay a special, U.K.-version of the Strokes' Is This It. It cost me $40, I think. I don't know why: But this morning when I was in the shower I was singing along to a song in my head and that song was The Modern Age.

I was in London when the Strokes' second album dropped. I bought it. (Two U.K.-versions, sweet!) Well, not so sweet. But that one song that sounds like the soundtrack to a prom, Under Control, well. That one's pretty much the best song they did. OK. (Side note [one that I think I've made before--but goddamn it's important]: This Ryan Dombal from Pfork wrote a track review of some stupid shit the Strokes did recently and he and I agree, the Strokes are better at these slow, dancy soul-ish songs.)

I was in Santa Fe when the Strokes' last album leaked to the Internets. I got it and I deleted it in the same sitting. Fuck the Strokes, fuck David Cross, fuck expensive music videos--fuck Juicebox.
So when I was taking a shower this morning (got to wrap this up, time to go to an eye exam) I was thinking and singing and I was thinking about why the Strokes suck now.

1) They don't tell stories anymore (c.f., New York City Cops, Soma, Modern Age, Barely Legal [basically all of Is This It].)

2) They don't sound lo-fi anymore. Not that they ever sounded like Bob Pollard, but the albums get more and more clearer and less and less awesome-sounding.

But I still think they were the most important band of the aughts.

Music

A few things. I might get bronchitis soon if I don't quit my ways. I need to rest. I'm going to Zozobra, which is a kooky New Mexico tradition in which is publicly burned a huge old man upon whom you're supposed to project all your darkest fears.

I finally get The Knife.

I finally got Joanna Newsom's Ys. (A great story: Pfork leaked the album. Great.)

Indietorrents is awesome.

I apologize for this being such a link-happy post; but I'm really wiped out and I need to save my strength for drinking lots of beer and dodging bullets.

Ruth Minnikin

This morning I answered an email from Ruth Minnikin. She's a singer that sounds kind of like an old lady; or a young girl. I'd say she's kind of like Joanna Newsom in that you can't describe her voice well. Well, that's why God made mp3s. (And Real Player streams.)

Ruth Minnikin - Angel At the Dawn (from Wrestle the Future to the Fucking Ground [itself a good thing.])

Ruth Minnikin Says

To be rerecorded for my new album. The words came from a war poet's poem written in 1917 by James Lyons from Manchester (public domain). I wrote the melody and music after being asked to donate a song for a British compilation (it hasn't been released yet).

Manhattan + Wittgenstein + Pop

The sweet, sweet sensation of burning in the back of your throat. Bulemia? Crack? No, silly: Drinking a Manhattan. Blogging from the patio, drinking a Manhattan and working on my thesis. Fridays do not get much better. I haven't made any signifant leaps. I think, maybe, that I understanding Wittgenstein perfectly. I'm going in circles and confusing myself.

Wittgenstein puts it well when he says, “The difficulty is to realize the groundlessness of our believing” (166). This isn’t to say that our beliefs are unjustified; but they may appear unjustified if we keep asking for justification on top of justification. Such an interrogation of justification leads inevitably to an infinite regress. When we set out to test an empirical proposition there must be something that is not justified. Wittgenstein asks,

Now am I to say that the experiment which perhaps I make in order to test the truth of a proposition presupposes the truth of the proposition that the apparatus I believe I see is really there (and the like)? (163).

and I believe the answer must be, “No.” It’s not a criticism to say that “scientific disinterest” or the “scientific method” is itself a presupposition. To criticize the scientific method, say, in such a manner—i.e., to say that the scientific method itself presupposes the validity of its methods and that there is such a thing as the outside world—is to share similar presuppositions. Such a critic shares, for instance, the presupposition that the world exists. He shares the presupposition that a method must be valid to have value. He shares the presupposition of the criterion of truth. He is already within “our system,” so to speak. To have such an argument makes manifest a shared system of discourse, a shared culture. This point answers in affirmative Wittgenstein’s question, “Doesn’t testing come to an end” (164)? In a way, a person sacrifices his good faith facility for doubting when he acts with certainty. If you can ask a question, such as “How do you know you’re not dreaming?” I wouldn’t know how to respond. For if I am dreaming, then I’m also dreaming your question—it would seem that this state of affairs would render your criticism senseless. (If I have a dream in which someone tells me that I’m the President, should I expect to be President upon waking?) On the other hand, shouldn’t your questioning whether I’m dreaming be proof enough that I’m not dreaming; that is, unless you happen to be dreaming. (I don’t know what it would be to exist as a figment in someone’s dream.) The clichéd response to a situation in which one thinks she may be dreaming is to pinch herself. The underlying assumption behind the act, I think, is to give oneself a painful enough stimulus to awaken from any sleep. It’s conceivable that one would then awaken into another dream. But even in dreams, one would eventually start acting, doing things. If you went through your whole day in a dream, and as you went to bed that night you woke up to the real world—faced with another day to go through—your two days would be indiscernible.

This situation is a fine analogy for the kind of phenomenon that Wittgenstein describes. Our everyday action is as ungrounded as a dream action. This isn’t a criticism, because criticism seems to imply a higher standard than what’s actually before us. A potential critic our system of action, certainty, belief and knowledge comes from one of two places—a higher vantage or a different system altogether. Wittgenstein’s point is that there is nothing higher. The system that he sees everyone using is, simply put, a human system. A god would be higher, but it would be neither wrong nor right; for, “In order to make a mistake, a man must already judge in conformity with mankind” (156). There must already exist a practice to which to compare any given thing.

* * *

I've rediscovered the Kings of Leon. I was in London when the hype landed, which, after thudding, had little impact anywhere else. I guess America had had enough of CCR. But the Kings manage to compress, say, the greatness of Proud Mary into 2.5 minute pop songs. Their second album, Aha Shake Heartbreak got such a bad rap; but I think it's significantly better than their debut. The song structures are weird! They're like the southern Bob Pollard (sometimes) with songs that last well under 3 minutes. Some of them are just a hook, or a chorus. For this the were rewarded how??

Their music is often referred to as Southern Rock, although it doesn't rock at all-- it lacks force, velocity, and power.

Well, then. You know what--fuck Pitchfork. Forget I namechecked CCR. Forget how critics overuse words like 'damaged' when describing unconventional genre-fuckers. The Kings are awesome. They make damaged pop songs. They seem to have fabricated their backstory, but that shows they were on the cutting edge of American Art. (C.f. LeRoi, JT; Frey, James; Blair, Jayson.)

Oh yeah, how's about this. I couldn't remember that Blair guy's name. (Popmatters had a great story on him, though; I shoulda remembered.) So I Googled searched in Google's portal for "ny times disgraced journalist" and the first hit was a bingo! I feel so lucky.

Pop

The epilogue of yesterday's post meant this: I think that the kids are frontin just a little too hard. I'm not a music historian, but my guess is that pop music is something like impressionism (was)--a rebel, unconventional artform that's scorned by the high-art crowd and embraced by the starving, skinny artistes. Something like that.

But aridiculous thing strikes me: It's all pop music. Radiohead, Jay-Z, the Beatles, the Knife, the Beach Boys, Matmos, Missy Elliot, Aphex Twin, My Bloody Valentine etc. Those bands aren't jazz, they're not classical etc. Labels [blah blah blah--labels]. But rock music is a subset of pop music. 3 minute songs with some variation of drums, bass, guitar and singer. Of course, the drums, bass and guitar may be created on a laptop, and they might actually be little strings of pitch and tone that were synthesized on protools. There might not be a singer. But all music that get's talked about on the blogs and the zines is pop music. When pop bands start composing on sheet music, or riffing on Greensleeves--then I'll change my opinion.

The passage supra was deemed unworthy for human comsumption.

Explanation Comes To An End + The Knife

A few propositions of On Certainty deal with coming to an end.

The series of propositions starting with 24 begin for the first salvo against sloppy usage. Flying in the face of the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend logic, Wittgenstein takes issue against a target of Moore’s. (It’s in response to Moore that Wittgenstein writes On Certainty.) Wittgenstein settles his sights on the idealist—a philosopher of little faith—who doubts whether he actually has two hands. Such a doubt, Wittgenstein says, occurs only in a specific language game (I.24). But one shouldn’t take this view too far. For example, it might seem that calculations are unimpeachable; we’re tempted to say that a rule, such as a formula, guides our actions; and such a rule logically excludes our making a mistake (I.26). Wittgenstein is quick to point out any such rule would contain a caveat, “‘in normal circumstance’” (I.27). The very application of such a disclaimer, limited as it may be, shows Wittgenstein’s emphasis: The primary medium of expression is action, not logic. That is, logic does not prescribe actions to which human life needs must fit. There exists the possibility that a rule, which possess the steel-clad rectitude of a logical form, may run afoul in its application; or in its application, a rule may be subverted or adapted. Take for example the expression “2X + 1”. It would seem that this expression gives us a rule for generating odd numbers. If you were to think that, then you were probably raised in a western culture that takes for granted the teaching of simple algebra to its students. A form of life can be imagined, though, for which the expression “2X + 1” is a rule for generating even numbers or nonsense. Even in a western culture, one’s application of the expression “2X + 1” may not generate a series of odd numbers. If, for example, the expression was given on a math test in a question for which X is supposed to equal infinity. Or the expression could be given as a piece of graffiti on the side of a building. If the building on which the expression was scrawled happened to be a mathematics classroom, would the expression have a different meaning if the building happened to be an English classroom? The meaning of the expression as a piece of graffiti is poorly defined.

The point of the argument is that doubts about meaning and certainty appear and disappear depending on the language game in which they’re employed. For this reason one couldn’t say that a particular expression has a fixed, absolute or sublime meaning. The one thing that runs through all use and meaning is action. Wittgenstein offers a cryptic remark,

What is ‘learning a rule’?—This.
What is ‘making a mistake in applying it’?—This. And what is pointed to here is something indeterminate. (I.28).

that I take to manifest the general meaning of the whole work. There’s a tension in the above quote in that it seems both definitive and absolutely vague. The two things Wittgenstein calls “This” to which rule and mistake point are “indeterminate”. This passage, then, doesn’t seem very illuminating. But the next passage sheds light on it; the overall meaning is about as obscure as a full moon. Wittgenstein says, “Practice in the use of the rule also shews what is a mistake in its employment” (I.29). The critical words are “use” and “employment”. The reason why “This” can’t refer to anything in the text is because it refers to not to another piece of text, but rather to another context. Learning a rule is not a logical process that can be prescribed by something higher. Learning a rule is accomplished in a world of action. The process is something like a child who walks underneath the dining room table. He’s playing with a toy, and his attention is wholly spent on his play. He’s short enough to walk underneath the table, and so he doesn’t even bother looking up as he does it. But one day the child is too tall and he his head smacks soundly against the table’s edge. There is no universal, prescriptive rule for when the child will hit his head. But at some point he will hit his head on the table, and he should have learned a rule; this rule will be different for all children. Thinking that a rule can universally prescribe a course of action is like thinking that this child can tell other children not to walk under tables when they reach 1,500 days old.

To return to calculations, one might be certain that given the expression “2X + 1” she could derive all the odd numbers. But, as Wittgenstein says, “One does not infer how things are from one’s own certainty” (I.30). To think that one’s certainty entails a particular action is to get it all backwards. Rather, certainty is manifested by certain actions. If I saw you look both ways and then run across the street, I wouldn’t have to ask you if you were certain of your being able to avoid traffic. Your actions as good as told me. Likewise, in calculating an expression for deriving odd numbers, one doesn’t infer that she’s correct from her being certain of her calculations. Her certainty is tied to a range of experiences. Among those experiences are her training, education and memory. Wittgenstein says,

If someone is taught to calculate, is he also taught that he can rely on a calculation of his teacher’s? But these explanations must after all sometime come to an end. (I.34)

which begins a reductio ad absurdum argument against trying to entail from certainty a particular way of acting (rather than entailing certainty from a particular way of action): Why are you certain of your calculation? One may respond that she’s read about a particular theorem in her textbook. Why are you certain of the textbook? One may respond that her teacher gave her the textbook, and besides which her teacher told her the same thing. Why are you certain your teacher is correct? One may reply that her teacher went to a fine university and her teacher’s teachers are all regarded well in their fields… Etc. All those things can be said to contribute to one’s certainty. But nothing can justify a priori one’s certainty.

Certainty is something of a dirty affair. It cannot be gotten by reason alone. If it could, then explanations for being certain would not “come to an end”. But this expression seems somewhat vague. For it might seem that the foundation of certainty would be one’s final explanation. It seems, maybe, that the final explanation—and not, as I would have it, action—is the foundation of certainty. But what would this final explanation look like? Would it be something like, “I’m certain because my teacher said so” be the final explanation for one’s certainty over a calculation? This explanation doesn’t seem to carry the finality that one would expect certainty to carry. For the question can always be posed: Why? In language such explanations will never come to an end. The whole history of thought can be pointed to as an explanation of why one is certain of a calculation. But when one acts is the point at which such explanations come to an end. One might be asked why he’s certain a particular bridge will hold the weight of him and his automobile. A swarm of explanations can be given; and they will be given to no great effect. This isn’t to discount modern engineering. But after the engineers have been interrogated and all their explanations exhausted, what’s left? The final vote of certainty is to act. You drive across the bridge. Action is the period that punctuates a final explanation.

In other news

I don't get The Knife, recent indie music blog darlings. I think, maybe, that they're this year's version of Annie. I didn't really get Annie, either. The pop-oriented obsession that the P'fork displays is a little too studied, affected, for me: Small-dicked middle managers driving Corvettes; deeply repressed gays who just seethe with homophobia; dance-phobic indie kids that claim to love Annie, The Knife and whatever the latest Top 40 single (Toxic, Get Ur Freak On, Promiscuous etc.)--they've all got something to hide, and this hidden thing naturally expresses itself in some way. Not to get all Freudian, but aren't there a few doctoral theses waiting to be written about indie's love of pop?? No?

Wu-Tang + Cold War Kids + Wittgenstein

I have to say, I'm kind of bored with this so-called blogging thing. But it's tres useful for me to type up things in the morning after having slept on it or whatever. I don't believe in sleeping on things. Moving on to some other things I've been doing lately.


Wu-Tang is da bomb!

The Cold War Kids will be the next big indie thing.

Understanding what Wittgenstein means by “certainty” is central to understanding his work. The concept of certainty runs through all of Wittgenstein’s philosophy. Indeed, it seems as if this concept is a clue that connects Wittgenstein’s early and late philosophy. More than any other philosopher, Wittgenstein seems to have completely reversed his thinking about his subject matter. The Tractatus-Logico Philosophicus seems to differ entirely from the Philosophic Investigations. But with his final work, written almost on his deathbed, flies in the face of the dichotomy that is commonly drawn to describe the alterity between the TLP and the PI. On Certainty offers a range of thought that draws on both the TLP and the PI. The thread that runs through these works is woven of Wittgenstein’s use of words and phrases like “proposition”; “fact”; “to know”; “to be certain of”; “picture” and “form of life”.
Wittgenstein’s remarks in OC bear out an unexpected consequence: Certainty is not a language game. Language games belong to language. (It is true that in a language game there is significantly more than language itself in play.) Rather, Wittgenstein assigns to certainty a kind of non-linguistic prominence. He says that certainty is beyond justification. It is, “as it were, as something animal”. Utterances are offered as justification. If I’m asked if I’m certain that the world exists, it’s nonsensical to reply, “Yes, I am certain.” Such a reply justifies nothing. The justification for certainty is “something animal” in that it is non-discursive; I justify my certainty by acting. Wittgenstein asks rhetorically, “Does a cat know that a mouse exists?” The sensible answer is that the cat does not know that a mouse exists. Or, if a cat could speak, it would make no sense for the cat to say, “I know that mouse exists”. The cat’s certainty of the mouse’s existence is shown by its stalking the mouse. This is the type of certainty to which Wittgenstein refers when he says that certainty is “something animal”.

To move on, this point naturally moves toward another entry in the Wittgenstein Glossary. Why is it nonsensical to say that the cat doesn’t know that a mouse exists? The cluster of remarks implies (correctly) that it is nonsensical for a man to say that he doesn’t know that his hands don’t exist. This fine distinction hangs on Wittgenstein’s use of “to know”. OC was written in response to a G.E. Moore essay in which Moore says that he knows that he has two hands. Nothing will ever convince him otherwise. Wittgenstein’s criticism of Moore can be summed up by saying that he thinks Moore misuses “to know”. He equivocates its meaning with the meaning of a phrase of the type “I am in pain”. The latter cannot be doubted. Therefore, Moore thinks the former cannot be doubted. Wittgenstein uses “to know” in a very specific way. (Although, he does say, “I would like to reserve the expression ‘I know’ for the cases in which it is used in normal linguistic exchange”. )

Wittgenstein says that “to know” expresses a relation between a subject and a fact. There are various times when sensibly we use “I know”; i.e., it would make sense to say, “I know my bicycle is locked to the parking meter”. There is a fact—“my bicycle…”—and “I”, who has taken into account the fact. There seem to be a class of propositions that are not facts. This distinction gives a clue as to why Wittgenstein criticizes Moore’s usage. “That I have two hands” is not a fact. This proposition forms part of my world-view, which is a necessary condition of my making judgments at all. I am certain of such propositions.

Wittgenstein says that one could not give up such a proposition for fear of giving up his whole system of beliefs; such a proposition has the character of a rule. In this way, certainty relates to a large portion of the PI, which deals extensively with rules and rule following. There are propositions of which we are certain, and there are propositions that we know. (I ignore for now propositions that we believe.) The latter have the character of empirical knowledge. Wittgenstein says, “it is always by favor of Nature that one knows something.” I take this to mean that propositions that we know can be confirmed or denied. These propositions relate to what Wittgenstein calls “facts” in the TLP. Propositions assert a state of affairs, to which they may or may not agree. When Wittgenstein says, “The world is all that is the case”, he means that the world is composed of all propositions that correctly express the facts. Propositions of which one is certain differ from propositions that one knows. Just one example of their difference is that the negation of a proposition of which one is certain makes no sense. If I say, “Water will freeze at 100 degrees Celsius”, then something may be wrong with my entire world-view. I may not know what the words “freeze” or “water” mean.

As I said above, certainty cannot be justified with words. A result of this phenomenon is that we believe things for which we have no good reason to believe. Wittgenstein says, “At the foundation of well-founded belief lies belief that is not founded”. Part of what this means is that a belief in the efficacy of an analgesic in relieving a headache is founded ultimately on a whole system of beliefs—e.g., in modern medicine, in advertising, in experience and so forth—that mutually support one another.

Bill Simmons + Music

An intensely argued, well-crafted and sustained assault against the Sports Guy's music preferences.

What further infuriates is that Simmons is not an anomaly in the music-writing world; he is the norm in a guild that overvalues the music of its youth. The reason that the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and other artists of the mid-‘60s to early ‘70s are regarded as the greatest of all time has less to do with their particular talents and more to do with the fact that they are the favorite bands of the people who own all of the music largest publications and television networks. So, I’m not blaming Bill Simmons for his obtuse view of the music world, but I am criticizing him for perpetrating like he has an educated opinion of the matter.

Temptation + Dead Rockers

I think yesterday constitutes my resolve's failure. I'm tempted to write about music and literature since those are the things on which I spend most of my time. Yesterday I wrote about Mel Gibson, a man whose descent boasts a celerity heretofore unknown in Christendom. What an ass. But I tried vainly to couch my inane commentary in ethical terms. (I still think everyone's a racist.)

Well, I tried. Yesterday, Love's Arthur Lee (pictured above) died from acute lymphoblastic leukemia at the age of 61. I'm sure the Hype will fill with Love songs, just as it filled with tracks from the Madcap Laughs when Syd Barrett died. I wonder if that oldspouses' tale of death's tripartite longing, the dreaded dying in threes, will be vindicated. Who's next?

Anyhoo. I'll be writing about philosophy next week. I have to work on my MA thesis and I'll have to do some more philosophy to do that. Be advised.