palmtocheek

We'll Meet Again

Johnny R.I.P. ... From an Ilxor:

I suppose that this was expected in the end makes it a bit easier to take. It's different from other artists dying because when their careers are over you no longer know them as the artist, but with Johnny, we knew who he was now, quite intimately so present was the image of (his) death in his music. And that makes it wrench slightly more, that Johnny's fight is ultimately lost, that the survivor is dead. It is a testament to what a man he was that he can die at such a great age and still hit you with a sense of your own mortality.
-- Ronan, September 12th, 2003.

Things Slipping Past

I don't usually recommend the Globe on music but here's a nice one on the Clientele. Concert Monday!

Gropius Hates Fun?!

Sounds great at first:

Rhetoric that treats aesthetic quality as a mark of goodness and truth—or as a sign of evil and deception—is profoundly misleading.... The challenge is to learn to accept that aesthetic pleasure is an autonomous good, not the highest or the best but one of many plural, sometimes conflicting, and frequently unconnected sources of value.

The passage is from Walmart-defender Virginia Postrel's soon-to-be-released book. Best to save my comments till after I've done the reading, which I will indeed do so long as all the contrarian book-selling red flags (she thinks Gropius is "pleasure-hating"???) are accompanied by enough thoughtfulness to advance what could be an interesting debate on aesthetics. Everything Postrel writes demonstrates her particular libertarian-friend-of-the-future niche in the thought market, which is fine for the political arena ... but aesthetics? Guess we'll have to read and discuss. This is officially the first Palm.to.cheek Bookclub assignment! Go go go!

My Autumn's Done Come

Here's to Labor Day 2003, the new cool spell and this latest attempt to keep up with the mounting pile of interweb bile. Yeah, this blog is better than my last three and it's better than yours. At least that's what I'm going for.