I've been reading Art and the Degradation of Awareness. It was this man's swansong, in truth, a work of fury, invective, and barely-restrained contempt for the post-modernist ultra-capitalist cultural meaninglessness he perceives the Western world to have been subsumed in, at the expense of true artistic expression. I'd say that although he paints certain things in very absolutist colours, and doesn't take certain thriving modernist art-forms (mostly musical) into account when painting his doomy portrait, his heart is absolutely in the right place, his rhetoric is astonishing, and his efforts are indeed heroic. Next I've got to read his poetry, which I've heard is very good. Anyone else stumbled across him?
― Just got offed, Thursday, 20 December 2007 22:58 (eighteen years ago)
i only read 'bomb culture', homes. it's pretty seminal "imo". written right at the end of the counterculture -- autumn 1967.
― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Thursday, 20 December 2007 23:20 (eighteen years ago)
"Bomb Culture" is the famous one but sadly irrelevant to my post-1979 paper. I'll still read it at some point. A&TDOA feels like an incredibly important work that took a lifetime's experience and energies to complete.
― Just got offed, Thursday, 20 December 2007 23:25 (eighteen years ago)
he wasn't a snob when he wrote 'bomb culture' anyway. part of its deal was that brit working class youth had picked up on jazz before the poshos and that.
― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Thursday, 20 December 2007 23:29 (eighteen years ago)
Well, I only threw 'Snob' in because a little devil's advocate in my cerebellum was crying "all that jazz" at me. I'm firmly in the 'Hero' camp. He tears New Labour, drug culture, and post-modernist poseurs to absolute shreds. It's great fun.
― Just got offed, Thursday, 20 December 2007 23:32 (eighteen years ago)
Unfortunately it was the wrong kind of jazz. xp.
Oh, this takes me back...'Bomb Culture' was one of those books that were de rigueur in every squat I ever sat in from the late 70s on. Along with The Female Eunuch and Alternative London. It was strange to see him acting (Friar Tuck!) later on in life. I'm glad you bought him up though Louis I want to track that 'Art and...' book down now.
― Ned Trifle II, Thursday, 20 December 2007 23:38 (eighteen years ago)