Do you think it's even possible, in this day and age, to create a cultural thing that *isn't* beautiful and subversive and layered?

this comes across as horrible pop-relativism almost, it's not meant to!

and that's why these discusions leave me cold, 9 times out of 10.

(After I read the thread title, oh, I such the urge to post that picture of Carrot Top like you wouldn't believe.)

why in god's name? why is it given that one pop act is a 'given' but not another? this isn't an anti-rockist point.

I guess I don't mean applicability so much as attractiveness as a subject: Nirvana has more of the kind of qualities that interest the theory crowd than Girls Aloud does (their 'compromised' indie-ness, Cobain's gay-friendly stance, the wearing of dresses, Courtney, etc.).

Okay so - there's a perception in some non-ilx places that Cobain is "closer" to um Foucault then Jessica Simpson is, which ilx has (probably rightly) rejected, even though in degrees of seperation by friendship and in the senses Daddino points out this it's probably true. BUT somehow this often seems to lead to a leap that by disproving this, they've shown that Jessica has *more* to say that KC, maybe?

http://ilx.wh3rd.net/newanswers.php?board=1

& don't feel any of these reaction would be as helpful as say "well done! you have made a thing more beautiful. now go and do the same to another kid's book or if you don't feel like that maybe a rock band or the sistine chapel or something".

'In Memoriam' is mostly about Tennyson's grief for Hallam - TRUE
'In Memoriam' is partly about the way experience turns into memory and how this can be complicated - PROBABLY TRUE
'In Memoriam' is mostly about Jess Harvell - NOT TRUE

And yet, if enough people thought it was, then it would be, wouldn't it?

I think you can subscribe truth values to cultural products, but ontologically they're not the same as the truth values we apply to statements about the material world.

NV I don't believe it's possible to read IM in a way that's internally coherent and accounts for all the evidence, and to arrive at a different conclusion as to what it's mostly about, much as I don't believe it's possible to read IM in a way that's internally coherent and accounts for all the evidence, and to arrive at the conclusion that it is, in fact, a small fruit. This might be terribly pinefoxian of me - is it?

Re: stop complicating simple things: I realized that I've disliked this all my life, from a very young age. People say it often - why? Well, I suppose if we consciously "complicated" everything we wouldn't be able to get up in the morning, drink tea, leave the house - it would probably erradicate pleasure from our lives. But things can be complex and intellectually manageable at the same time - we learn the codes/meanings of things and they settle into our lives. Then new things come around that seem familiar on one level, but not on another - this, to me, is where the complexity/beauty/subversiveness comes out - in the spaces where this thing/product doesn't fit us - yet. And we wrap our knowledge around it, make it mean, while at the same time (hopefully) being somewhat flabbergasted or amazed by it. Like, Look at all these THINGS in the WORLD!

Okay... so what I mean is, things are complicated and complex, I agree. The question of validity though - one has to refer to the evidence of things, know there are multiple truths, but they are based in a history of things and culture - interpretations can be wrong. And here is a quote I like:
"For every complex problem there is an easy answer, and it is wrong."
H. L. Mencken

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