Oh, holy shrine of aural pleasure!

(You all thought of something dirty, didn't you? Cretins!)

Okay, here's another thing that's been rolling around in my head for a while, so everyone put their rant helmets on.

Like most people, I love listening to music, and there are some singers and bands and genres I like more than others. There are others I can't stand. But I try to be respectful of everyone's tastes and to keep an open mind. One thing I can't stand though, is music elitism. This takes many forms, obviously the most common is "This artist is the best in the world and everyone else is crap". Most people don't necessarily say it like that, but that's the implication. Usually, it has something to do with technical skill. I reject that as a basis for greatness. Certainly, a musician had best be able to play his/her instrument to be considered great, and obviously there must be some talent but...Yngwie Malmsteen is considered the fastest guitarist in the world but that doesn't change the fact that his music has no soul. Equally as annoying is "Oh, you like X type of music? Do you like Y artist? Well then you don't know anything about X music!"

A slightly subtler, but personally more vexing form of musical elitism is having a problem with covers. Now, I realize that some covers totally suck, and I also realize that 'totally suck' is a normative term and a matter of opinion. Fine, we can argue over whether this or that cover is really bad, but that is different from what I'm talking about.
Here are my reasons for hating the haters. Or at least hating the hating.

1. It used to be...before records, before any form of preserving music through technological means...that the only way for an artist to have his/her songs heard elsewhere was by someone ELSE covering it in some other King's court or in some other tavern. Covers are the only reason we still have some old songs. That is how music used to be perpetuated.
2. It is NOT being disrespectful. Most people who cover a song, especially if they are really trying, are doing it as an homage, out of respect for the original. I mean, think about it. Everyone sings their favorite songs. Musicians don't live in some other dimensino where they don't get to do what everyone else does. If you get paid to sing anyway, then there's nothing wrong with singing the songs you'd like to, that you'd be singing regardless.
3. Most importantly: NO ONE IS SACRED. WTF, people, why is it that someone can cover THIS band and no one minds, they even support it, but when an artist covers THAT band, oh bob, the world is freaking OVER...?! It doesn't make any flipping sense. I know, I know, sometimes it seems like some bands have no business touching another because of difference in genre or style or (for some odd reason) morality, but it isn't our place to decide that. We don't get to say who plays what.

Here are my two biggest peeves: Bob Dylan and Pink Flloyd.
First of all, listening to Bob Dylan is like having your ear object raped with a screwdriver. I know he's a great poet but seriously, I cannot listen to him sing, and I know this for a fact because I have to at least 2 days a week since my boss loves him.
So when My Chemical Romance covers 'Desolation Row' for Watchmen, I do not get up in arms about it. For one thing, I like MCR WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY more than I like Bob Dylan. Secondly, even if it doesn't quite 'fit' the original, it fit the movie (in my opinion) and it made a lot of sense to me. I enjoyed listening to it. Now, I'm down with arguing that if you're going to change a song a lot, you shoudln't really be singing it, I understand that. It does seem a little strange. On the other hand, Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies only does punk covers of songs, usually showtunes. And I like their version of 'What I Did For Love' a lot more than the version from A Chorus Line. I think if an artist wants to get a little expiremental with their music...well that IS kind of their job isn't it?
Now, there is something equally appealing about staying more or less true to the original song while improving on it. I give you exhibit 'Nightwish-Phantom of the Opera', which has all the original elements of Andrew Lloyd Webber's classic rock opera but with someone who sings a lot better than Sarah Brightman does. Again, just my opinion, but my point is that we can't just sweep away all covers as bad AND we can't pick and choose which ones we are willing to accept as legitimate.

Next...there are a LOT of good reasons not to like KoRn. And I respect pretty much all of them. I like listening to KoRn under certain circumstances and only for short periods of time. I like...maybe four songs. So don't get me wrong, if someone were to say 'Yeah, I don't like KoRn', I would nod and say 'That's cool, I understand that.'
What I do NOT understand is rejecting them as a band because they covered 'Another Brick in the Wall Part 2'. I mean, seriously, of all the decent reasons, this one just seems dumb. Pink Floyd is not some holy parliament of music. To be honest, they don't really do a thing for me, yet their fans are among the most elitist people I've ever heard. I like the KoRn version more, I think it expresses what I personally take to be the meaning of the song better. Obviously, I coudl be misunderstanding the song, and maybe that's just how bad they butchered it but if I had to choose which of those two I was going to listen to, I would take KoRn over the original. Heresy, I know.

It just aggravates me because I don't consider these bands/artists the paragons of musical greatness. I mean, no one gets really upset when someone covers the Beatles. And when Metallica did Queen's 'Stone cold Crazy' they got a friggin' GRAMMY out of it, and even Queen likes their version more than the original. So if we aren't going to get violent over the Beatles and Queen...two bands that I would definitely consider Greats before either Bob Dylan OR Pink Floyd...why do we freak out over others? Metallica loved it when KoRn covered them, they thought it was cool. It's a form of flattery.

I know this is all really subjective, but I'm hoping that my fellow philosophers understand at least the concept that I'm fighting against here. Covering another band is not a good reason not to like someone, and no one is so special that they can't be loved enough that another band will pay their respects in their own fashion.

Consider all ye selves warned.

The Wisdom of Kerbouchard-First Installment

Greetings, fellow philosophers.
I have been running this idea through my head for a while now and am finally getting around to putting it into action. This marks what will hopefully be the first of a weekly installment here in the IF of EH that will bring a smile to your face and perhaps add thoughts to rumble around in your mind.

Louis L'Amour is best known for writing some of the greatest Westerns of all time, and deservedly so. Lesser known among his works is a novel, called The Walking Drum, set in the 12th century about a French Corsair (that's gentleman pirate, for you uninitiated) named Mathurin Kerbouchard who is traveling the world to exact vengeance on the man who killed his father and destroyed his home. Not the most original of plot premises, I know, but what makes this book one of the Greats is the philosophical meanderings that Mathurin goes into regarding all sorts of topics from religion to politics to love. I strongly encourage everyone to read it, but in the mean time, I will be posting some of his tidbits of wisdom here ever Saturday/Sunday (depending on how late at night it is) for your pleasure. Because like Mathurin "...Learning to me is a way of life. I do not learn to obtain position or reputation. I only want only to know."

Tonight's topic: Love! (Okay, so there'll be lots of these, I'm just going with the first one. Mat got around. Freaking James Bond of the Byzantine Empire.)

"What is love? Perhaps for a time I loved her [a woman he courted earlier]; perhaps in a way I love her still. Perhaps when a man has held a woman in his arms, there is a little of her with him forever. Who is to say?
A ruined catle, an ancient garden, a moon rising over a fountain...love comes easily at such a time. Perhaps we loved each other then; perhaps we do not love each other now, but we each have a memory.
Love is a moment of stillness that sometimes a word can shatter to fragments, or love can be a thing that endures, a rich deep current that flows unending down the years.
I do not think one should demand that love be forever. Perhaps it is better that it not be forever. How can one answer for more than the moment? Who knows what strange tides may sweep us away? What depths there may be or twists and turns and shallows? Each life sails a separate course, although sometimes, and this is the best of times, two lives may move along together until the end of time.
Listen to the music out there. Is the song less beautiful because it has an end? I believe each of us wishes to find the song that does not end, but for me, that time is not now."

This has been an IFoEH production of The Wisdom of Kerbouchard. Tune in next time, same place, roughly same time. =)

Into the Madhouse

Wow, it's been a while since I posted. I apologize for nothing. This will hopefully be short, but you know how I get.

I recently received and read 'Batman: Arkham Asylum'. It was incredibly scary, but very well written. One of those 'DO NOT READ BEFORE GOING TO SLEEP' type works. And like all good pieces of literature, it got me thinking.

Graphic novels are frequently recognized for the social commentary they are (obviously not all of them, but many got their start that way, and many are still utilized in that fashion), philosophically offering answers to that tantalizing question, "What If?" What if the world was set up differently? What if PEOPLE were set up differently? Of course, there has to be SOME similarity to our own world, or we would not be able to relate at all, and this is where things truly become interesting. If one little X or Y factor is changed, but the rest of the known universe remains the same, what happens?

Something like Arkham is the perfect conduit for exploring the darkness of the human soul from a safe distance. The Reader is allowed the luxury of thinking 'That's alright, this isn't talking about the real world', even while feeling shivers threaten from the knowledge that it very easily COULD be...

This book was highly quotable, and I wanted to share some of my favorite parts and the meaning and thought processes it inspired for me, so hopefully it will generate discussion.

An obvious starting point would be the idea of Evil. Dr.Arkham founds this hospital as a way to try to help people considered 'unhelp-able'. As a Special Ed teacher (at least in spirit), I find this a laudable ideal, something I wish more people strived for. I WANT to believe that no one is beyond help, beyond redemption.

But that is part of what the graphic novel allows us...the chance to see, without consequence to ourselves the existence of true, unadulterated, unchangeable EVIL. The villains Batman puts away (not all, but a great majority) will never stop being evil. It is a comfortable categorization that we don't frequently get in the real world, Evil and Good, but it raises many UNcomfortable questions. Such as: WHY can't some people be helped? I usually think of it as a broken soul. This then questions moral responsibility. If they "can't help it", can we really punish them? Theoretically, this is what the Asylum is for, more hospital and less prison.

Craziness is something we have a hard time grasping, which makes it great writing material.

Speaking of craziness:
"The Joker's a SPECIAL case. Some of us feel he may be BEYOND treatment. In fact, we're not even sure if he can be properly defined as INSANE. It's quite possible we may actually be looking at some kind of super-sanity here. A brilliant new modification of human perception. More suited to urban life at the end of the Twentieth Century...He CREATES himself each day. He sees himself as the Lord of Misrule, and the world as a theatre of the absurd."

There's a reason the Joker is such a rich character. We, here in the civilized world of the Normal, NEED him. He reminds us where the Line is. The Joker has no boundaries, allowing us to glimpse the consequences of that, thereby reinforcing the need for such boundaries. But, it's interesting to note that these issues may not come from him being crazy, as such, but broken in another way. When they show him an inkblot, his response is frightening in its poetry:
"Well, *I* see two angels screwing in the stratosphere. A constelation of black holes, a biological process beyond the conception of Man. A Jewish ventriloquist act locked in the trunk of a red Chevrolet."

On another limb of the Crazy tree is Two face. Again the poetry of insanity comes through.
"The Moon is so beautiful. It's a big silver dollar, flipped by God. And it landed scarred side up, see? So He made the world."
Despair is a really broad door to insanity, I think. When nothing matters...well, nothing matters, and there's a reason there are only two kinds of true Nihilists: Crazy or Dead.

The Mad Hatter provides a very intriguing insight to the state of mind. It follows a line of thinking that many theists argue for the existince of evil. Evil is part of a much bigger plan than we can see. And while this may be the case, it doesn't change the fact that the evil is affecting us HERE, NOW and sure seems unfair.
"The apparent disorder of the Universe is simply a HIGHER order, an IMPLICATE order beyond our comprehension. That's why children...INTEREST me. They're all MAD, you see. But in each of them is an implicate adult. Order out of chaos. Or is it the other way around?
...Sometimes...sometimes I think the Asylum is a HEAD. We're inside a huge head that dreams us all into being.
Perhaps it's YOUR head, Batman. Arkham is a LOOKING GLASS. And WE are YOU."

This is another one of those Batman staples that makes it so fascinating to numerous generations. Batman KNOWS, he's afraid that he IS just like the criminals he puts away. The line between them and him is so thin, they are really just reflections of each other. But it's also a constant struggle, requiring him to remind himself that he is on THIS side of that mirror and they are on the OTHER side.

Dr.Arkham: "I see now the virtue of madness, for this country knows no law, nor any boundary. I pity the poor shades confined to the Euclidean prison that is sanity. All things are possible here and I am what madness has made me. Whole and complete and free at last."
Batman, in response to the question of "What ARE you?":
"Stronger than THEM. Stronger than this place. I have to show them."
"That's INSANE."
"Exactly. Arkham was right; sometimes it's only madness that makes us what we are.

Or Destiny, perhaps."

Batman destroys the electrical system which I think was holding them in. I'm not sure, this part was a little unclear to me. But he tells them their free, to which the Joker replies that they had always been free. Thanks to Two-Face, Batman gets to go free as well, but not before the Joker gets in one last laugh:
"Parting is always such sweet sorrow, dearest. Still, you can't say we didn't show you a good time. Enjoy yourself out there.
In the Asylum.
Just don't forget--if it ever gets too tough...
there's always a place for you here."

I know I'm saying a lot of the plot and whatnot, but I really hope you'll read the book because it's quite good, even if it will leave you questioning practically everything. At the end, there are these little sayings by each of the main characters in the book. Two-Face has my favorite.
One one side, it says 'Mr.Apollo. I am a lawyer. Yes.' and then recites the first part of the Preamble to the Constitution.
On the other side it says: "Mr.Dionysus. I am a LIAR. NO.
We the acid scarred victoms
of history
of evil and hypocrisy
EXALT crriminals to office
Vietnam El Salvador Chile
With Lovely missiles roaringbombs
of the RICH and the WHITE and the PIOUS
And BURN CHILDREN and Torture Women
Forever and ever AMEN"

Both say "God Bless America"

And you know what's scary? They're BOTH RIGHT. The frightening part of all of Arkham is that the Evil...the Fears, the Nightmares, the Monsters locked in there...They are not WRONG. Isn't insanity a normative term? Who decides what is 'normal'? We do, and occasionally the reasons for this is flimsy and easily thrown off. So while someone like the Joker reminds us we NEED boundaries, he also laughingly points out the ridiculous nature of those same lines.
Joker: "And who is this PURE foil? LO, in the sagas of old time, Legend of Scald, cometh he not in Green...like Spring?
O, thou water that art air, in whom all complex is RESOLVED!

Oh YES!
Fill the churches with dirty thoughts!
Introduce HONESTY to the White House
Write Letters in Dead languages
to people you've never met!
Paint FILTHY words on the
Foreheads of CHILDREN!
BURN YOUR CREDIT CARDS
and wear high heels!
Asylum doors stand OPEN!
Fill the suburbs with Murder and Rape!
DIVINE MADNESS!
Let there be ECSTASY, ecstasy in the streets!
LAUGH and the WORLD laughs WITH YOU!"

I hope you've enjoyed this foray into madness. This is a pretty barebones assessment, but like I said, was hoping to generate discussion.

To you, fellow philosophers.