BLOGDIAL : We are the best

Lib Dem Vincent Cable pointedly brings up yesterday's revelation that the US is now handing out contracts for the rebuilding of Iraq, including to the vice president's former firm Halliburton, and that the US president sees war as an opportunity to hand out contracts, which for all the UK support, we have not been offered.

The prime minister flatly denies this: "I don't agree with him at all."

Eh?

I believe something is relevant when it
a) makes an impact on a large amount of people (be that having a lot of fans, selling a lot of records, or merely having popular ideas and/or

using the word relevant is a distraction. signifigant is better, and probably conveys what we are thinking about. by your measure, anything that sells alot of records is relevant, any idea that has popular currency, like pet rocks or chia pets, suddenly is "relevant". if you think that measure is sufficient, hey youre the young one, its your time, lap it up if you want.

b) makes an impact on other artists, influencing the art to come.

in what way? this is the distinction that idiots today cant make; they think that anything that reaches alot of people by definition must be good. this is clearly false, if you have any powers of discrimination.

Non-innovation is not unnecessary, however.

poor english.

The myth of the avant-garde, which began with post-impressionism, is that every new thing has be to unique,

by definition, something new *is* unique. if it is not an unseen gesture or idea, if it is a repeat of someone elses idea, then it is *not* new. Exitement comes from new thought, new horizons; it does not come from slavishly repeating someone elses new idea. It does not come from re interpreting an original idea. The exitement of a new idea is a thrill that is second to none. If you have tasted it as it happened, or via careful study, felt the strength of a new idea in history, you would never be satisfied with the chalatanry of regurgitators immitators and wanabees. The Avant-Garde, what it can produce and the beneficial influence it can have on everyone is absolutely not a myth, and the only people who discount it with a swipe of the hand are people who in some way, cant cut it.

different and important. It is exactly that - a myth. Not everything has to be innovative to the extreme.

sloppy thinking. poor english. What does "innovative to the extreme" mean?

The band Interpol is not very innovative, but in my opinion they are very good, so... whatever.

the battle cry of todays youth..."whatever".

(...) one's taste does not define relevance. Or maybe it does.
One's taste defines what one likes and dislikes, and nothing, absolutely nothing else. If anyone disagrees, prove that taste defines something other than taste, and I will believe you.

Originals have value. Copies have less value. This is true in every sense of the word "value".

I think modernism, which to an extent is the parent of cubism, is particularly relevant.
I think cubism is part of modernism. Modernism began with Manet who began to paint the modern life of the city around him. Cubism, informed by current political and theoretical language, was an extension of an artists' subjective view of the world directly in front of him (this is debatable of course). Modernism ended with Jackson Pollock, who exploded the concept of "picture" and blew the paint off the canvas with the "all over" approach. Anything (innovative) that came after is largely "post modern" but no one knows what that means yet.

What can I say about this passage? It reads like a rote recitation, of the type that you find on those essay trading sites on the net.

Its like a painter emerging today saying that she is a cubist AND that her work is relevant. That is a non sequitur.
see "the myth of the avant-garde" above. She might still be able to say something important and definitely relevant. Uncle Tupelo did it with old-timey country twang.

Old time country twang means the grand old oprey. Why would you want to listen to something that is a copy when you can hear the original? The original is always better, more pure; the people who cant understand this are normally uneducated and too lazy to go out and find the source of what they find so interesting in the music that is being sold to them as fresh.

Besides, her cubism could not be like picasso's or braque's cubism. It would be informed and about her world, and in a sense, different. It would not be part of the cubist MOVEMENT, but the style would be informed by cubism. Just how an "abstract expressionist" in these days and age is not an abstract expressionist per se. He may work like Rothko, but to different, and possibly relevant, ends.

What we (and not aparently you) want, is the exitement, astonishment and thrill of an original idea. We do not want to watch people explore the ideas of others, at least, not exclusively. We do not think that its OK

I'm not sure why I'm posting this. It doesn't ask any questions and it doesn't posit any answers. It just is. Irrelevant I guess.

You mean, "whatever". And as for the point of the post, it reaveals quite alot.

How can self-depriciation be a vehicle to critique pop culture?
Warhol eliminated his individuality, to be as a machine, to emulate the mass images, ideas, and concerns that society in general posed to him...

In that case, he should be using a totally different technique to make a noise, and should not in any way be making rock. Even the most dumb person can see that, by your definition, he should be "mechanizing" his work, "eliminating his personality" this means forsaking the ego centric, antiquated and pointless vehicle of rock, and finding something else, analagous to the way that work was produced at the factory. This is obvious.

Can a critique of pop culture be relevant when its delivered by a practitioner of it?
Again, I will point to the fame of Andy Warhol. He dealt a severe insult to pop culture by successfully selling his mechanically-produced, un-individual art as unique objects of art. What a jerk!

Andy Warhol is "A Jerk". My word, how on earth did they let you in to where you are studying??!??!?

Andy Warhol loved the objects that he reproduced; do your homework!!!

So you are saying that all past movements, philosophies and styles or genres are irrelevant because they are no longer contemporary, so one should not work or think within these boundaries as they were created for a time which has past?

No. Do whatever you want, make whatever you want, but dont decieve yourself in to thinking that what you are listening to or making is what it is not. Discerning people want new ideas, frown upon charlatans and hucksters and can tell the difference.

I'm not arguing, in a way I agree. I am trying to understand.

there are no two ways about it. This is binary. You are either for real, or lost in the morass. Ten out of ten for trying.

I don't agree however, with the statement that cubism is irrelevant.

You are confused; cubism is not irrelevant, but it is a closed door as far as innovation is concerned. Everest has been climed for the first time; it cannot be climed for the first time twice. The real people look for new challenges; no one knows where they are, but when they are found, you know and the thrill of it is trancendent.

I think modernism, which to an extent is the parent of cubism, is particularly relevant. However I don't think an artist or thinker should constrain themselves to a particular set of ideas, but should digest and interpret those ideas within their own ideas/knowledge/scope.

If it is not your aim to throw down the gauntlet, to leave your mark on history, to be you or as Miles Davis said, "to play like yourself", if you are not even aware that you should be striving in this direction you are just wasting time.

I don't know enough about anything really to back up what I just said, and I know that's very dangerous.

10/10 for humility.

I'm not sure that rock is completely irrelevant either. Rock in the basest sense may be. Rock as in Elvis, Bill Hayley, Bruce Springsteen or Shakin' Stevens ... Even Godspeed! or Sigur Rós...

If you were to hear or read personal accounts of what rock did when it burst onto the public conciousness, particularly the effect of Elvis, you would not have typed that extraordinary list. Rock was seen as a true threat to the fabric of society. It was banned, widely despised, caused riots, and changed everyting, forever. Your list is a perfect example of what I am talking about; the measurable difference between an immitation and the genuine article. You need to carefully study the history of rock so that you can put the acts that you hear into a context that will expose them for what they really are.

I don't think any of the current whatever-name-it's-got-recycling-led-zepplin-and-deep-purple bands are particularly relevant. Neither do I believe ElectroClash is a particularly interesting or relevant movement. Because neither of these 'movements' are adding anything new to the styles and sounds they've appropriated.

To reapeat myself, if I want to listen to Deep Purple, I put on "Machine Head". I dont need to listen to a gaggle or 20 year olds immitate DP. Anyone with sense knows this. Anyone who has been exposed to Deep Purple will immediately have the illusion of the immitators shattered.

It doesn't stop a few songs to come from these places to sound good, to be 'good' songs

we agree on this, but how often does it happen? it is a very rare event I would say.

but taste and relevance are different. Taste and relevance are also quite subjective. Taste is ultimately subjective. But relevance can be subjective on a few levels, but it's not a prerequisite. I think we're talking about relevance in a wider sense than personal relevance.

It is this "personal relevance" that allows Deep Purple immitators to flourish; "I am the first person ever to hear this great music". The false idea that this music belongs to the young generation that is getting into these immitaion bands.

If these groups had no effect on the wider music ecosystem it wouldnt matter what they played, but the fact is that, like a weed, they grow ferociously and push out the plants in the garden that you want, use up the precious recourses of the soil (your time) and kill the beautiful flowers before they get a chance to see the light.

This is why these groups, and thier ignorant apologists are the enemies of everyhing we love. If only we could Shock and Awe these people into oblivion!

Even more fantastic

Un-fucking-real

French Connection? I think not!

The Case of the 'Deadly' Drone

PSI Ops in full effect

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A U.S. diplomat resigned from government service Monday in protest at President Bush's preparations to attack Iraq, the second to do so in less than a month.

transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool'