Monkeywrenching the conversation ...

Posted almost 5 years ago
About a day ago Ivy posted a comment on my "One for the Left Coasters" post.He made the bold statement that, "monorail doors" was "indeed art".I would have to agree with him.Lets look at this another way.Ivy goes out one day and purchases himself a coffee mug.It's a wonderful mug. The sort of mug that doesn't skimp on "mugness". Though it's not beautiful, it is easy on the eyes. It absolutely does the job he bought it for, an alternative to holding coffee in his hands. Go forward 1 million years.Future Man goes through the ruins of what was once Ivy's house.They find Ivy's mug and they too are struck by its' "mugness" and the mug's uncanny ability to hold liquids. Future Man then asserts that Ivy's mug is of great historical importance and it will give them valuable insight into the ancient and often brutish lives of the Bucks County primitives.It is at this point Future Man books the mug on a well publicized museum tour titled something like "No Longer A Myth: "Buckscountyopithecus":http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Buckscountyopithecus" and declares what was once a perfectly ordinary, thoroughly mediocre household item is now, capital A "Artefact". I know, I know get to the point.Ivy is correct in labelling the 2 Disney clips as art. They had to be scripted, recorded, then processed. Ultimately, for mass consumption. Yet I can't help but think they are more artefact than art.Like many of the clips Subsonic has on his site, these 2 clips are incidental. They were created to enhance the "experience", not to be the "experience". By separating the sounds from their surroundings I have moved these clips, more than less, from the incidental to the crucial.Just as the mug from before was incidental to Ivy's life, but when taken out of the context of the everyday and placed in a museum, it becomes "the greatest mug ever made".As a side note.Is it me or are The Stranglers the most underrated band in history?Did anyone else ever hear if they sold their souls to the Devil for Rock and Roll fame?

Comments (1)

  1. ivylander says I am, because you're more or less a local guy, I have to ask whether you've ever been to the Mercer Museum in Doylestown. It's a pretty good illustration of what you're talking about. Mildly eccentric scion of rich Philadelphia family in the last 19th century sees beauty in everyday objects, begins going around buying the contents of entire farms and households at auctions and estate sales, amasses a collection of thousands and thousands of items that everyone takes entirely for granted, and opens a museum. It's one of the coolest museums I've ever known, and no one to whom I have recommended it has ever been less than enthralled.
    Permalink posted 04/20/2007

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