bohemian like me?
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
-Oscar Wilde
Have our passions become a quotation? That I have chosen to quote this statement about our tendency to quote is in itself an oddity of you think about it. For as it says, most people tend to express their own feelings and emotions through the words and art of others. That is the purpose of art you could say, to stimulate emotion. Art and music can be used as tools to intensify, provoke, direct, or even alter an emotion. Nowadays especially in our North American reality of affluence and excess, many of us can afford to live the life of an "artist". You know, one of those artistic types with their theories and their opinions and their trendy coffee shops. What a life they lead, congregating at various hip spots with like-minded friends, picking apart the complex subject matter of a painting or the "multitextured layers" of a song. Like an art parasite, they feed off the self-expression of others, contorting and frothing in a desperate attempt to forge an identity. Who they are is determined by what music they listen to, what TV they waste away their time watching and what movies they may deem "BRILLANT" perhaps based on that rave review in Entertainment Weekly.
Our culture provides various helpful entity skins to wear. The rocker chick, the bohemian, the punk, they are readymade to pick and choose from each with their own unique baggage. So which suit fits your needs? How should strangers perceive you? Why should you care? Well people nowadays are going to try to label you anyways. You see the human brain cannot possibly apprehend the entire contents of a person’s persona. Frustrated, the mind searches desperately to understand this new being that had been thrust at them. Uuuuhhh...big boobies...spiky thingies...euro-mullet.... After pondering this outer shell, the person is content with their assumption. All warm and fuzzy and snuggled up in a blanket of ignorance.
I guess we can feel better about ourselves for being well versed in the triviality of popular culture. Taking the Oscars seriously, screaming out the answers to rock and roll jeopardy, knowing the names of all the famous painters at the art gallery, hey even voting for your favorite Canadian idol are all fun ways to be active parts in the overblown farce that is popular culture. Art is made by manipulating the ideas and images of others in a way that people somehow manage to call individual. Constantly reinventing new ways to twist and boggle the mind.
Participating in that kind of shiz can make you feel like the biggest tool ever. And if you vote for canadian idol, you very well MIGHT be...
Even if art can be overexposed and analyzed by the leeches of the entertainment industry (Entertainment Tonight, MTV, Much More Music with their brain numbing countdowns *shudder*), art is still one of the joys of life. Experiences and feelings can be impossible to understand or express. If a song or a work of art can help a person find beauty and meaning in their lives, that’s a beautiful thing.
Lets not get lost in hollow identities based solely on the thoughts and opinions of others. Let us not lead our lives in mimicry. Talking about the art and music of others and enjoying it is a beautiful thing. So is making our own.
I apologize for the disjointed opinions and any preachy tendencies in this rant, I mean well.
-Oscar Wilde
Have our passions become a quotation? That I have chosen to quote this statement about our tendency to quote is in itself an oddity of you think about it. For as it says, most people tend to express their own feelings and emotions through the words and art of others. That is the purpose of art you could say, to stimulate emotion. Art and music can be used as tools to intensify, provoke, direct, or even alter an emotion. Nowadays especially in our North American reality of affluence and excess, many of us can afford to live the life of an "artist". You know, one of those artistic types with their theories and their opinions and their trendy coffee shops. What a life they lead, congregating at various hip spots with like-minded friends, picking apart the complex subject matter of a painting or the "multitextured layers" of a song. Like an art parasite, they feed off the self-expression of others, contorting and frothing in a desperate attempt to forge an identity. Who they are is determined by what music they listen to, what TV they waste away their time watching and what movies they may deem "BRILLANT" perhaps based on that rave review in Entertainment Weekly.
Our culture provides various helpful entity skins to wear. The rocker chick, the bohemian, the punk, they are readymade to pick and choose from each with their own unique baggage. So which suit fits your needs? How should strangers perceive you? Why should you care? Well people nowadays are going to try to label you anyways. You see the human brain cannot possibly apprehend the entire contents of a person’s persona. Frustrated, the mind searches desperately to understand this new being that had been thrust at them. Uuuuhhh...big boobies...spiky thingies...euro-mullet.... After pondering this outer shell, the person is content with their assumption. All warm and fuzzy and snuggled up in a blanket of ignorance.
I guess we can feel better about ourselves for being well versed in the triviality of popular culture. Taking the Oscars seriously, screaming out the answers to rock and roll jeopardy, knowing the names of all the famous painters at the art gallery, hey even voting for your favorite Canadian idol are all fun ways to be active parts in the overblown farce that is popular culture. Art is made by manipulating the ideas and images of others in a way that people somehow manage to call individual. Constantly reinventing new ways to twist and boggle the mind.
Participating in that kind of shiz can make you feel like the biggest tool ever. And if you vote for canadian idol, you very well MIGHT be...
Even if art can be overexposed and analyzed by the leeches of the entertainment industry (Entertainment Tonight, MTV, Much More Music with their brain numbing countdowns *shudder*), art is still one of the joys of life. Experiences and feelings can be impossible to understand or express. If a song or a work of art can help a person find beauty and meaning in their lives, that’s a beautiful thing.
Lets not get lost in hollow identities based solely on the thoughts and opinions of others. Let us not lead our lives in mimicry. Talking about the art and music of others and enjoying it is a beautiful thing. So is making our own.
I apologize for the disjointed opinions and any preachy tendencies in this rant, I mean well.