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INFLUENCE
February 17, 2009
Let's try to think seriously
about "cultural influence",
and the recurrence of tropes, But first I have to calm down
and what channels it all might a bit, and breath a little,
flow through. and forget about Greil Marcus.
And perhaps, CHALKBOARD_TRACES
about what we
This is The Process: can expect in
the future.
You identify a simlarity
between the ideas of A and B,
then you look for knowledge
of A by B, then failing that,
you look for less direct
links (a third party that
knows of A and is known by
B)-- and when that process of
tracing knowledge fails, when And when you can
it looks truly unlikely that identify a rough
B could've been "influenced" cycle, like a veering
by A, *then* you have a very between Apollonian
interesting piece of data: and Dionysian poles,
you may have found a case of then it's not at all
independent convergence, you unreasonable to make
may even be staring at a a prediction...
Universal, a clue to a Perhaps you now know Knowing that,
fundamental of human nature. where the culture can you
is going. prepare for
it? Can you
direct it?
You can draw a
line from Picasso
through Pollock And that "line" is Let us say that there are
and Rauschenberg the identification connections and/or
to Kerouac and of parallel parallels worth following
Burroughs to get attitudes: a between the "Lettrist
to the punks, and retreat from International" and
one might make orderly control, "Anarchy in the U.K.".
stops at dada/SI an embrace of
along the way. messiness, perhaps Is there any reason to
of spontaniety. think that these are
more interesting, than,
say, tracing a line
It *might* be true from Beat to Punk?
that the young punks
of the late 70s had no (William
knowledge of the line Burroughs
they were treading -- is not
that any chains of mentioned
influence here are It strikes me as far more in "Lipstick
purely imaginary, or likely, that the New York Traces".)
at least untraceable. punks were seeded with
intellectuals who knew And is
It may be true in full well what they were there some
some sense that it doing, and that *these* reason
doesn't matter so people became strong we're not
much if the punks influences on the later, talking
knew much about more ignorant punks. about, say,
modern art: ideas existentialism?
can be in the air, Patti Smith,
passed around, and Richard Hell, Or the
end up in the heads Tom Verlaine, romantic
of people who don't and David Byrne poets?
really know much were not people
about their source. who turned up
their noses at
OTAKU_INFLUENCE literature. The art school
renegades of
It also could be that there's a Talking Heads
cycle of conformity and rebellion and their fans
built into the human psyche, that certainly knew
parallel behavior can recur skipping their way around
generations, without any obvious Picasso and
influence between the players, Pollock.
simply because it's built into the
logic of the situation... when AUTHENTICALLY_STUPID
Apollonian control is dominant, one
either goes along, or does not, and
when one chooses not to, the
Dionysian emerges, dancing a jig TRAGEDY
eerily reminscent of something seen
generations ago.
The pendulum swings,
it's momentum constrains
it to the dwell only at
the two extremes.
But we may hope that
it precesses... There may be small,
external forces
that can carry it
somewhere new,
though it may look
as though it just
rushes back and forth.
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