#11

Gertrude Stein's Geographical History of America is easily one of the most frustrating texts I have ever had to read.  No matter how much we discuss it, I absolutely cannot wrap my head around what this book is supposed to be about.  Every time I start to feel like I see a through line, I realize that there's another dimension to the text that knocks that idea out of the sky.  It's structured in a way that just drives me up the wall, and I can't seem to reconcile certain contradictions that are in there.

Firstly, there's the way one is supposed to analyze this book.  because each sentence is a riddle, you have to analyze each little paragraph or sentence for a good 20 minutes before you start to get a solid idea of what she is saying.  I feel like once you actually have all of the themes in this written down in front of you (human mind, human nature, nature of war, nature of piece.  nature of reading, writing, language, and even the point of sentience vs non sentience, etc), you could figure out what the common theme was.  On the other hand, because of how the analysis is so time consuming, I feel like almost NO human would ever spend that much time decoding this book.  It's just so incredibly tedious.  That;s what I can't tear myself away from.  This book is just so outrageously tedious, I must imagine that somehow, the difficulty is in service of the book's main theme.  No matter how I approach this though, I inevitably fail and end up stuck on the tedium again.

Worse, I am starting to feel like that's part of the point of the book, but at the same time, almost EVERY COMPLAINT that has been brought up in class has also been said to probably be "part of the point of the book," which only further raises my skepticism.  I...feel like I'm fighting myself when I read this.  Is that the point?  I just don't know anymore...

I'm sure she ultimately has something very interesting to say about the Human Condition.  I really do.  It's obvious that whatever she's saying, it relates to the habits thoughts and skills that we humans learn early on without thinking about, and she's trying to draw attention to them so that we DO think about them.  Exactly what habits, thoughts, or skills she is referring to, of course, is the challenging part that she's encoded so well, and I can respect the skill it took to do so.  There is clearly a MASSIVE amount of time and effort put into this piece, and the language is absolutely beautiful.  I completely respect her and her writing style, and it's obviously FAR more advanced than mine.  I think I might just be starting to burn out on experimental writing and challenging contemporary art in general... I probably need to step back and watch some superhero cartoons for a while.  But since the class is almost done, I'll give it my all this weekend to try and dig in and latch onto something in this book that pertains to our class.  I promise!

#10

Reading Gertrude Steins work is always a challenge.  The language is non linear, and often times non narrative.  It doesn't flow like normal language, and it doesn't care to explain itself.  The sentences don't feel like they are complete, even though they are.  The text resembles a normal essay, but it is anything but.  I shouldn't enjoy this.

Yet I kinda do.  The constant contradictions within the text make the meaning of each sentence very difficult to understand, and it becomes very easy to think of each sentence as just being a conglomerate of abstract concepts.  I actually really enjoy letting the meaning of the words simply deflect away from my brain, in one ear and out the other, and just listening to the vocal rhythm of the sentences.  The text has an almost lyrical quality to it, the way it keeps talking about ideas in literal ways.  Actually interpreting what the text means is a very different story however, and i've yet to make much progress in that department.

blog post #9

This week, listening to Douglas Kearney was absolutely fascinating.  I've never actually been so interested in the way a poet reads their own work before.  I was totally blown away and almost even immersed.  I wish I didn't have such a hearing problem, I'd love to be able to understand any of the words he was saying while he read from his book The Black Automaton.  As is, his energy and emotion from his voice absolutely carried the entire two day set for me.  I found myself hanging onto every word he had to say, especially once he started talking more about music, my personal forte.

What stuck with me the most was when he commented that he was always shocked at the number of students he meets who love hip-hop, but they cannot recite any lyrics because they do not listen.  Although I did not know this for a while, I actually have this problem, and for a long time I did not realize this was abnormal.  I simply cannot understand any lyrics when they are sung over music, just like I can't hear people talk in a loud restaurant.  As a direct result, all of the thousands of songs I know well tend to have a heavy emphasis on instrumentation, because for me, that was where the real magic was.  Since I only understand every tenth word or so, I always though of lyrics as a way to set the mood for the music, and my personal taste and areas of musical expertise are directly because of this problem.  I learned only a few years ago that there are people who pick their favorite bands based on how strong the lyrical content is, and enjoy music where the music is just a mood for the lyrics to make the real art.  As I have to manually look up words on the internet, these genre's have been slow for me to get into, since my focus naturally gravitates towards other areas. 

Talking to Kearney after the performance, I was able to hear his take on this relationship for a little bit, and he had very interesting examples of hip hop artists composing their lyrics before, after, or halfway through the writing of the music, which also fascinates me because I have never written lyrics to a song before writing all of the music and instrumentation.  I have gone so far as to write vocal melodies with "placeholder lyrics," because my value's have naturally gravitated that way.  I am currently working on writing a song, and have been toying with the idea of writing the music and lyrics simultaneously, and I now feel extra inspired that this could be a new avenue for me to explore.