The NYT interviewer asks Conor Oberst, in "How Conor Oberst Survived Teenage Rock Stardom" (gift link).
Oberst answers: "You know, it’s really hard for me to even articulate the Trump era. Maybe at some point I’ll be able to do it. It’s like, you can’t satirize what’s already a parody. It’s already a disgusting, gross cartoon.... I’m sure it permeates everything I write, but to write directly toward, I found it almost impossible.... I mean, I’ve thought about it and I’ve had plenty of people be like, where’s the new 'When the President Talks to God'? I don’t know. It’s such an avalanche of insanity."
It is clear that the world is purely parodic, in other words, that each thing seen is the parody of another, or is the same thing in a deceptive form.... Everyone is aware that life is parodic and that it lacks an interpretation. Thus lead is the parody of gold. Air is the parody of water. The brain is the parody of the equator. Coitus is the parody of crime.
He seems intent on saying things that don't have the ring of truth.
Gold, water, the equator, or crime can each be put forward as the principle of things.
And if the origin of things is not like the ground of the planet that seems to be the base, but like the circular movement that the planet describes around a mobile center, then a car, a clock, or a sewing machine could equally be accepted as the generative principle....
Speaking of little things and the ring of truth, earlier today, I discovered this exquisite video project:
ADDED: Remember "hipster racism"?@until.found0 Day 159: I found a real diamond. 26 real diamonds found so far. somehow, every time we find diamonds, we also find coins. anyway, thank you for searching with me 🖤
♬ original sound - Until Found
Carmen Van Kerckhove coined the term hipster racism in the article "The 10 Biggest Race and Pop Culture Trends of 2006", citing "Kill Whitey" Parties... parties held for hipsters... in an attempt to "kill the whiteness inside"... Van Kerckhove also regarded the use of blackface by white people and the normalization and acceptance of such use from other individuals as hipster racism. Van Kerckhove contends... that the use of blackface by individuals such as these was an effort to satirize political correctness and racism....
Things that are not done anymore.
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40 comments:
"What is the origin and history of the idea that something/someone is beyond parody because what they already are is the parody?"
It goes back as far as hubris coupled with self-approbation. If there's one field staffed entirely by soi-disant geniuses, it's writers of popular songs.
Obrest grew up on North 55th Street in Omaha. Until 1996, I lived on North 56th St; about three blocks away.
On his block was a future federal judge, a Rhodes scholar and my favorite law school professor.
His mom taught at OPS. They moved to Fairacres; the old money big houses.
Obrest is an alum of Creighton Prep. So am I and my son. His parents didn’t dare send him to Omaha Central.
Unlike Alexander Payne, he’s done nothing for Prep. He apparently didn’t learn anything about hope and religion at Prep.
“I think people are scared. I think they’ve gone out of their way to try to intimidate all of us. It’s right before your eyes, you know? So it’s almost like, I don’t gotta tell you about it. Just, like, look at it.”
Scared? Intimidated? Not likely. He’s got FU money and an entire cohort of people who want to hear him blast Trump.
That’s just a pathetic excuse.
When I find something on my daily walks, I send pictures of it around our family chat - "today's gift from the universe." When I had a home base, I saved them all - the Pokemon card, the grosgrain hair tie, the obviously fake gold men's ring (I did put that one up on Nextdoor for a couple of weeks to see if anybody wanted it back). Now, I tend to keep them for the duration we're spending in a particular place, then make a decision about whether they should be added to the very small collection of whimsy* that I'm traveling with. But (why not?) I still try to discern a theme, even if an item doesn't make the cut.
* My grown daughter carries little toys and miniature things (the best one is a little working camera about the size of a pack of gum - she bought me one for my birthday last year) in her purse, calling it her "whimsy," and she is determined to inject more whimsy into my life. I myself have never been particularly whimsical, just sometimes eccentric.
Conor Oberst is no Bob Dylan; that I can tell you.
What a world. A youngster can achieve celebrity and success and then fade from view--and millions like me have never heard of him/her/them.
Every year, Prep sends out an annual report listing each class by name and total amount donated. Not a dime from the millionaire Oberst.
Creighton Prep couldn’t do what it does for young men if it didn’t get money from alums. My class has an endowed scholarship.
The problem with many influencer Democrats is they cannot comprehend that what they feel about Trump right now is what working class Republicans have been feeling about Democrats and neocon republicans for the last 18-years. In many ways, Trump is a funhouse mirror reflecting the udder corruption and contempt of the uniparty.
Unfortunately, Don has destroyed any chance of his administration achieving meaningful changes to the obscene power structure because of the debacle with Iran.
Prep sounds like a log cabin republican grooming school.
You have to wonder why people cling to these fantasies. It's as if, as a crowd, they are desperate for us to join in the despair. There's a constant clamor to inform us that the current administration is fake ! Fake ! Pure tyranny, except when it's pure fakery, and maybe pure parody !
They seem to be stuck in this perception that the crowd is watching a wrestling match and believing it's real, while they clamor about the kayfabe in desperation. Not seeming to realize that everybody already knows the moves in the ring are fake, they're in their seats for the show, and paying attention to what is being done, not what is being said.
Keep deporting. Keep reversing. Keep fighting. It's what the electors and most of us voted for.
"What is the origin and history of the idea that something/someone is beyond parody because what they already are is the parody?"
Susan Sontag's "Notes on Camp" did a lot to make that Idea common, but it must have gone back further than that -- to Oscar Wilde, maybe, or even further. Sontag's essay came out in book form in the year Adam West's Batman debuted on television, so everyone was familiar with the concept.
No, Howard. It builds young men for others. It is one of the best high schools in America and very important to Omaha and the nation.
Thanks for the recommendation. I will add Georges Bataille's "The Solar Anus" to my bathroom reading.
Folk music was over by 2006, and if hipster wokism was around in 2006, it's over by now too.
"It’s already a disgusting, gross cartoon...." - Trump hatred and the hatred of normal, hardworking people that voted for Trump is now just a tired cliche. It's unoriginal. Artists are supposed to push limits. This is just another the music industry's lemmings.
Howard:
About a dozen doctors in my Prep class.
I've never heard of Conor Oberst. And I'm guessing he's never heard of me. So we've got that going for us.
And at this point I'm starting to think that everyone is six degrees of separation from Dave Begley. I'm trying to figure out my connection. Gotta be some Midwestern thing.
Oberst seems to have managed to survive teenage rock stardom by not having any hits. I'm an old fogey and not exactly on the cutting edge, but he's apparently 46 years old, so he's been famous for 30 years or so without me never even hearing his name?
With a name like Oberst, he is a ready-made Demo-Nazi candidate. Does he have any ties to Maine? CC, JSM
Does "The Solar Anus" have anything to do with that weird thing that Josh Brolin was doing a few years ago?
I don't really want to know...
I get it. I’ve spent the last 30 years thinking the current Democrats were beyond further parody only to have them consistently prove me wrong.
Mick Jagger is 83 today. Is he a parody of what he once was?
So much a self-parody that he is beyond parody? Or was he always a parody of something?
Question on reading Temujin 10:57
How many degrees of separation is a commenter from someone who is one degree of separation from another commenter?
I, too, never heard of of Conor Oberst who struggled through stardom without me being aware he was a star and consequently struggling with the unbearable weight of universal recognition wherever he went. I could have helped by naming some streets where he'd be safe in quiet, green leafiness. He could pick up small objects from the sidewalks, oh, wait, no sidewalks. Anyhow, acorns, twigs, fallen leaves, seed pods. He could have walked along, discarding his sunglasses, and whatever other bizarre objects he had on his persona, thus creating an interesting walk, an art object for someone else. Down to the river to watch the current swirling, the fishmen fishing, the sun setting, the moon rising. Turn and run? from the oblivious natural world back to fame, wealth, women, cars, cheering crowds and the whole weight of himself?
Forget Oberst's answers, the questions says all you need to know about today's NYT.
'...How Conor Oberst Survived Teenage Rock Stardom...'
I dunno, maybe by not ever being a star? He looks like he's trying to be Roy Orbison's grungy second cousin.
Never heard of Conor Oberst. Thank you, God.
Our Hostess introduces us to a lot of weird shit. I like that about her but there's such a thing as "a bridge too far".
I am a musical omnivore (no - rap/hip-hop is NOT music). Rock 'n' Roll will never die but Folk's staying power is beyond match for all not slaves to the 'cool new thing'
“Conor Oberst is no Bob Dylan; that I can tell you.”
But then again, neither is Bob Dylan.
Who?
Fogeydom has its advantages. I've never heard of Conor Oberst, nor of any of the bands he's been part of. Life is serene without having to deal with silly twits who get asked silly questions by silly writers at the New York Times---which itself is beyond parody.
I have never heard of people far more famous than Oberst. There are some rap artists who are able to fill up stadiums that I have never heard of. He might very well be famous. There are a lot of celebrities that I never heard of......There's a fine line between parody and homage. David Bowie told Mick Jagger that he wasn't stealing his act, bur rather offering a homage to it. Okay, but an overweight David Bowie not so much......I glanced through the interview. Apparently Oberst has been troubled with addiction issues, brain cysts, and false rape accusations. My guess is that these things have caused far more griefs in his life than Republican Presidents, but isn't it nice to pretend otherwise. It makes the world far more manageable.
“ What is the origin and history of the idea that something/someone is beyond parody because what they already are is the parody?”
Obviously a parody of a parody is simply a normal thing. A negative of a negative.
Had to look it up to see Oberst was Bright Eyes. I've heard of and heard Bright Eyes. Oh well. Good luck to you, old man!
Begley,
Conor is the stereotype of the Jesuit educated. Self-Righteous. Arrogant. Entitled. Ignorant.
He’s beyond parody.
"I’m sure it permeates everything I write, but to write directly toward, I found it almost impossible."
A lack of specificity is endemic among anti-Trumpers.
The bar for rock stardom seems to have been lowered considerably.
“But I did get pointed to the 1927 work by Georges Bataille, intriguingly titled "The Solar Anus":
It is clear that the world is purely parodic, in other words, that each thing seen is the parody of another, or is the same thing in a deceptive form....”
Plato’s cave significantly predated Bataille.
Biden and Kamala were both pretty damned funny. You didn't even need any satire effort at all, but so many skipped that low-hanging fruit. I wonder why.
Conor, we hardly knew ye. Apparently, literally.
It's not a great song. Looking at the lyrics all these years later, I find about 3/4s of the criticism of Bush valid, but overall I'm repulsed by the notion of mocking the earnestness of someone's religious faith just because I happen to disagree with their politics. And you certainly can't pull the same trick with Trump, because he's never pretended to be overtly religious.
I recall the opposite, that comedians and satirists felt hampered during the Obama era, because there wasn't anything funny about him.
He sold drugs. His mother-in-law lived in the White House. He thought Austrian was a language and pronounced the p in "corpsman." A middle-schooler could come up with something about those.
A principle abbreviated in the aphorism “You can't burlesque burlesque.”
Most of the left leaning (aka FAR left today) people I know find Trump a parody when the version of Trump they accept IS a parody of the actual man.
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