Reflections on Seeing Leonard Cohen in Concert

Sean Michaels in McSweeney’s:

Tickets for this Leonard Cohen concert were very expensive. I paid $180 for this ticket. Because I’m a music critic, it’s tax deductible. Also, I thought I’d sell a review to someone, but in the end no one wanted a review. Sitting in the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, I think about what I would write if I were reviewing this for Rolling Stone or Pitchfork. “He seems at once smaller and larger than his songs. And, while I never need to hear ‘Democracy’ or ‘Boogie Street’ again, because they were terrible, I also never again need to hear ‘Who by Fire’ or ‘Sisters of Mercy,’ because they were beautiful.”

“Malgré les prix gonflés,” Leonard says, wryly, “j’espère que vous n’êtes pas déçus.” Despite the inflated prices, I hope you are not disappointed. While Leonard is playing “I’m Your Man,” I do some math. If the concert is three hours long, that’s just $60 an hour. Or $15 for 15 minutes. Which is about the same price as a taxi. Or laser tag. This concert is far, far, far better than riding a taxi or playing laser tag. Leonard, I am not disappointed.

(Via 3 Quarks Daily.)

—Bryan Klausmeyer

Transcendental Revolution

No Useless Leniency:

How does Deleuze resist the problem Althusser courts – that of functionalism, in which the depth of ideological structuring appears to prevent any rupture with such a ‘system’? Deleuze argues that to perform this rupture requires the power to raise the false existent sociability to the level of a ‘transcendent exercise’ that can break this regime of commonsense. This ‘transcendental object’ is revolution as ‘the social power of difference, the paradox of society, the particular wrath of the social idea.’ (Deleuze 1994: 208)

—Bryan Klausmeyer

Nick Cave’s Love Song Lecture

Nick Cave, from a lecture in Vienna:

As I said earlier, my artistic life has centered around desire or more accurately, the need, to articulate the various feelings of loss and longing that have whistled through my bones and hummed in my blood, throughout my life. In the process I have written about two hundred songs, the bulk of which I would say, were love songs… I am proud of these songs. They are my gloomy, violent, dark-eyed children. They sit grimly on their own and do not play with the other songs. Mostly they were offspring of complicated pregnancies and difficult and painful births. Most of them are rooted in direct personal experience and were conceived for a variety of reasons but this rag-tag group of love songs are, at the death, all the same thing - life lines thrown into the galaxies of the divine by a drowning man.

—Mark Elliot Cullen

‘An insane choice’

Obvious, but also very true. I don’t understand why the Obama camp isn’t pouncing.

—Mark Elliot Cullen 4 Comments

Guitar Praise

A concerned parent says:

“My kids have begged me to get them Guitar Hero and I just couldn’t bare the thought of some of the lyrics they would be embedding into their minds. Guitar Praise has music that they are familiar with and love already, as well as lyrics that they can memorize and think on that are full of truth!”

—Mark Elliot Cullen 1 Comment

New Census Numbers: Poverty, Income, & Health Insurance

Think Progress breaks down the numbers: according to the U.S. Census Bureau, which just released new figures this morning, there are approximately 37.3 million people living in poverty in the U.S. (12.5% of population), as well as 45.7 million who are uninsured (15.3% of population). (Via Matthew Yglesias.)

—Bryan Klausmeyer

Control: The Fate of Joy Division

Kevin Martinez of the WSWS has an interesting review of Control, a documentary film directed by Anton Corbijn about the band Joy Division, as well as some other interesting historical and biographical details surrounding Ian Curtis.

—Bryan Klausmeyer

… in prison!

When Obama chaffed McCain for forgetting how many houses he owns, Rogers huffed, “This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years — in prison.”

Yeah, it’s from a Maureen Dowd column, sorry. I couldn’t resist the pause.

—Mark Elliot Cullen 2 Comments

Commemorating the Haitian Revolution

Interesting write-up on the Haitian Revolution, the construction of “blackness” and Haiti’s first independent ruler, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, over at Lenin’s Tomb.

—Bryan Klausmeyer