Re: Good Dog Bad Dog classic album

[John Paul Davis <johnd at antioch-college_edu>]

rhys daily wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Jan 2003, John Paul Davis wrote:
> 
> 

> 
> 
> i meant by using the word 'literate' it implies or infers that there is
> more to the language than meets the eye.

Ah. I see. I knew what she meant - she meant "literary" - I was being 
purposefully obtuse.

>


> 
> shallow biblical references or not - you might not like me saying this -
> but i will. when i hear music, i t reminds me of stuff i've read.heard in
> the bible. it happens - why? cos it's a reference in my mind. its linked.
> it's associative.

I don't mind you saying that at all. Why would I mind that?

> 
> so if i say - wow - that song really made me think iof X in the bible',
> that's not a bad thing - nor is it shallow.

No, it's not, but it's entirely different from saying that a peice of 
art is worthwhile simply because it's got a lot of references to the 
Bible in it.

> 
> i think she cuold've noticed better things than heart and angels and stuff
> - that's as much renaiassancey as biblical.
> 

Indeed. But I'd say that Linford's use of angel imagery is more Biblical 
than Renaissance.


> 
> 
> then accordint ot htat logic, if i followed it correctly, the LOTR series
> would be absolutely NOT about antyhing christian 

By itself, it's not "Christian". Tolkein worte neither an allegory or a 
parable. If I had to name a primary well of images and ideas that 
Tolkein drew from, I'd say pagan mythology, not Christianity.

>- even though you can see
> allusions to this in the same way you do with a parable (which are
> admittedly incomplete analogies) all over the place. and to WWII. like it
> or not, the worldview you have, the world you live in touches/taint/s
> tarnishes/polishes your works.

True. But again, that's distinct from the point I was making, whcih is 
that writers/artist leave us clues as to *their* meanings. Of course 
interpretation can happen, and of course life experience/epistemology 
affects interpretation. But it's one thing to say, as you do above, that 
   a peice of art makes you think of something, and another to say that 
the artist meant for you to.
I do think there are things artists do mean for us to "get" - with some 
artists that categoryu is smaller than with others. with Tolkein, I can 
say with fair assurance that he did not want us to "get" Christianity 
out LOTR any more than he wanted us to "get" Marxism. One could do 
fairly succesful Marxist or Christian readings of LOTR, but that's a 
*reader response* reading, not one based specifically on the text.

To put it another way, using your interprative model I could justifiably 
claim that LOTR was "about" Wicca and filled with Wiccan philosophy and 
images. I'd be wrong if I said that though.


> 
> 
> ok. it seemed that way - when what seemed ot be a sinlge paragraph touched
> off this horror/upsetness

A single paragraph in a 5 paragraph essay is a large portion. And it was 
really two paragraphs.


>>
>>Hmm. Have you ever met anyone "Satanic"?
> 
> 
> hm (: i meant someone who follows the Satanic religion.


I'm not familiar with the Satanic religion. Have you ever met anyone who 
subscribes to it? By this I mean have you ever personally met a person 
who says "I worship Satan?"


>>But it kind of actually unravelled it - she couldn't talk about the
>>music itself- she felt she had to justify it with the comment about
>>BAPM.
> 
> 
> i can see how it could come across as justificaiton. i guess i appreciated
> she listened and found something deeper in it.

Er. Except this was my whole beef with her - BAPM is something 
*shallower*, not something deeper. Depth might've included something 
more than counting the number of times the words "Jesus" and "angel" 
were used.

>  since i can appreciate the spirit in
> which she tried and i see that it seems like she got something good. 

See, I have no idea in what spirit she wrote it, because I am not privy 
to knowledge about people's motives. But I do know that *what she wrote* 
says some pretty weird stuff. I'm not entirely sure that the effect on 
her was entirely good.


>  it sounded
> like you didn' tlike christians looking at pop culture. 

What I wrote was:

"That's intended, I think, as a selling point, which suggests something 
about who their percieved audience is, people who want justification for 
consuming mainstream "pop" culture (and fast food! and getting tattoos, 
explicitly forbidden in Leviticus!)but who also want to feel good about 
getting some kind of undefined spiritual cash value.  The songs are 
"pop" culture but they have a whole bunch of Biblical references so 
they're "ok" for gelicals to consume?"

And also:

"Not that community in unChristian - it's very Christian - but a 
preoccupation with consumables ("pop" culture) and a definition of the 
self centered in the stuff one buys and eats and listens to is corrosive 
to community (and I'd argue, to faith). One doesn't see the very 
Christian ideas of responsbility and   social morality enter in here - 
no one seems to be asking not if Starbucks is yummy or if the Bible 
allows us to drink coffe but the more important question - is giving 
money to Starbucks moral? Is giving money to the racist/mysogynist/hate 
monger Eminem, no matter how good his movie is, moral?"

In short, I'm wanting her to look at pop culture *deeply* instead of in 
the shallow way she does: "OtR mention angels and have a lot of Biblical 
references, so they must be okay/safe"


> 
> 
> o bad. you should really be critical of what you take in. i agree. but how
> did an otr review of an album become unthinking consumption? not sayin
> gyou said this - just trying to tie things in.

Because the comment about BAPM and the straining to make songs mean 
stuff they don't (supposedly 'Christian' stuff like the End of the 
World) made me wonder what the point was - the review says either 
shallow stuff or nothing, and I wondered at the goals of such a review - 
the only purpose seemed to be that justification and a perhaps purposive 
misreading of the lyrics to make them fit into an acceptable evangelical 
paradigm. So I checked out the rest of the site and saw a larger 
pattern, and also saw big absences. Why is Starbuks promoted on the 
site?  Why is In-and-Out Burger? Why isn't "8 Mile" discussed in terms 
of Eminem's deliberate misrepresentation of poor whites, or his 
participation in a modern minstrel show, or his whoilesale marketing of 
hatred and mysogyny? Does Jesus like mysogyny and minstrel shows now? 
Or are they "okay" because Eminem is an (so-called) artist? The 
avoidance of Eminem's sins *and* the focus on BAPM in OtR songs seems 
like two different ways of justifying.

- John



-- 
John Paul Davis
Center for Community Learning
Antioch College

++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Ned Flanders: Let's just agree to disagree
Principal Skinner: I don't agree to that
Mrs. Krabapple: Me neither
++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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