however, now, if u go to art galleries or whatever, its predominantly a bunch a tshirt maken fools doing wheat pastes and cute cartoons. purely visual joints. which i theorize has widened the gap between any sort of lit/art bond.
Disagree. I think documentaries have taken a huge stride forward post-2000 in terms of general awareness within popular culture. I'm not claiming they're better made in this decade but movies like "Bowling For Columbine," "Super Size Me" and "An Inconvenient Truth" ("March of the Penguins" too) have been embraced in a way that docs haven't been in previous generations.
It's definately true that docs blew up in a big way post-2000. In fact, if you ask me, that is *the* story of the film industry in the past few years. I think, though, that "Super Size Me" (in tandem with the rise of digital video) is most notable for ushering in the current glut of wanna-be, fly-by-night docs whose main historical significance is precisely their forgetability. The messages they contain may stick in people's minds and they may shape debate on certain issues. and that's a good thing, but as "cinema" they often leave a lot to be desired and little to be remembered. It seems that increasingly audiences are being asked to judge these films by whether we agree with the message or are happy to see certain information being relayed to an underinformed public, rather than on creative techniques, experimentation, etc. etc. In that regard, It's becoming pretty damn hard to distinguish some of these successful docs from any given talking head piece on the history channel or MTV expose.
Disagree. I think documentaries have taken a huge stride forward post-2000 in terms of general awareness within popular culture. I'm not claiming they're better made in this decade but movies like "Bowling For Columbine," "Super Size Me" and "An Inconvenient Truth" ("March of the Penguins" too) have been embraced in a way that docs haven't been in previous generations.
Yeah, but in ten years (or five years) I don't think super size me will be relevant at all. I thought Bowling For Columbine was one of the best documentaries I have seen (both theme-wise and definitely on a technical level) but it already seems irrelevant.. I certainly wouldn't put it in my top films of the 2000's even though when I saw it I rated it pretty highly.
I agree they are being embraced now though like never before but many of them are exposes or calls for change that are more relevant to the now and not so much to the future.
Is youtube becoming the new cinema? Is anything that's happening on line (besides downloading) gonna have long term effects on the movie industry?
I'd say no.. there is something about the cinema and the movie theater experience that can not be replaced. It's a unique experience to see a movie on a giant screen with giant sound and to see it in a public theater with strangers. It's also a place where teenagers can go on dates. For that reason alone we will most likely always have the cinema. Teenagers have been the leading ticket buyers for some time but I haven't checked that stat lately but I would think it's still true.
The cinema is something like vinyl.. it should have probably died by now but it didn't.. and that can probably be attributed to something 'special' about it that may or may not be completely tangible.
I would say the 60s. Moreso the early 60s. There were so many original ideas and uncovered ground which originated from that era. There seems to be the same, hippie-centric, 'fight the establishment' theme by the end of the decade, though. The late 70s and especially the 80s were filled with rip-offs. The 50s had a lot of impressive special effects, when you consider the limited technology.
The cinema is something like vinyl.. it should have probably died by now but it didn't.. and that can probably be attributed to something 'special' about it that may or may not be completely tangible.
I agree with your point that cinema isn't on death's door (as a social institution even if the quality of cinema has, arguably, fallen the fuck off).
But it's not a big intangible secret - one major reason that cinema took off in the early 1900s with the advent of the nickelodeon is that it was cheap and accessible for working people who could treat the theater as not just an entertainment venue but also a space for social interaction and congregation: "theater for the masses".
In that respect, the force and power of sharing a cinematic experience with a crowd of people is something that a home system can never duplicate, no matter how good the sound or picture you have. DVD sales have definitely chipped into the movie theater business and hey - I don't think that's a wholly bad thing insofar as it just means that people are diversifying their means of cultural consumption. But the movie theater is as in much danger of extermination from the spread of home theater as music concerts were in danger of extinction from the phonograph or radio. We're talking two very different kinds of cultural experiences and the social power of a movie screen is something that I don't think is likely to fade anytime soon, if ever.
however, now, if u go to art galleries or whatever, its predominantly a bunch a tshirt maken fools doing wheat pastes and cute cartoons. purely visual joints. which i theorize has widened the gap between any sort of lit/art bond.
so on point.
You two sound like a bunch of grumpy old JA dudes Is this some kind of ethnic solidarity + shared cynicism?
For real: my wife is an art critic in LA and she visits art galleries weekly. While the Shepherd Faireys of the world may have increased their presence (not the least of which is in the cafe where I spend a lot of time, Venice Grind), they've hardly taken over the art scene in Los Angeles (let alone anywhere else). Maybe the Chinatown gallery scene has been overtaken by that element but out in Culver City, Santa Monica and downtown, there's plenty of non "tshirtmakenfoolsdoingwheatpastesandcutecartoons" art going on. Ask Anthony Pearson - he's more wired into that scene than any of his and from what I've seen of his work and that of his colleagues, no one is trying to appeal to license their images for skateboard decks and limited SB Dunks to be sold out of UNDFTD.
Meanwhile, Yuichi - I know you're sick and bored and what not but c'mon man. "It's about instant gratification, instant rewards, instant feedback. Our values are being lost in the mix, wouldn't you say?"
On one level, yes, "our values" are probably being lost insofar - if your values never evolve or allow for change, then as things change around you, then your values will inevitably become seen as anachronistic.
I'm not waving the banner for emoticon-overloaded, thumb-skilled text messengers. But the question here is: are these new modes of communication meaningful for the people engaged in them? Do they convey not just information but also emotion? I really don't believe that young people today lead LESS emotionally rich lives than we did. Or our parents did, even though I'm sure, for their generation, us Gen Xers probably came off as aliens or robots or whatever too. I can't predict/imagine what the world will be like when my daughter is 18 but while I definitely won't presume the world will be better, I also won't assume it's going to be stripped of an emotional core in favor of techno-festishism.
Or lattes with handjobs. (People have to watch Idiocracy to get that last joke).
If you go back 100 years or so, the advent of motion pictures and the phonograph LP were both castigated by the cultural elite as examples of how technology was "killing the human element" and evacuating emotion from social life by replacing cultural forms such as theater and live music with experiences media-ted through technology and machines. And while, without doubt, something was lost in that transformation of American cultural lives, I think it's hard to argue that recorded music and movies have been tremendously emotionally inspiring in their own ways as well (at least I thought so earlier today when I had Donny Hathaway's "Lord Help Me" on repeat for about 6-7 repititn'tions).
Lastly, back to Shig:
Here's what's real about American lit reading habits. The news isn't pretty. But it doesn't mean you should be filling out that death certificate either:
"[U.S Census Bureau] answers show that just over half [of Americans] ??? 56.6 percent ??? read a book of any kind in the previous year, down from 60.9 percent a decade earlier. Readers of literature fell even more precipitously, to 46.7 percent of the adult population, down from 54 percent in 1992 and 56.9 percent in 1982, which means that in the last decade the erosion accelerated significantly. The literary reading public lost 5 percent of its girth between 1982 and 1992; another 14 percent dropped away in the following decade. And though the number of readers of literature is about the same now as it was in 1982 ??? about 96 million people ??? the American population as a whole has increased by almost 40 million."
So yeah, people read less. But still, 96 MILLION PEOPLE regularly read literature. That hardly makes it seem like a cultural form on life support. As to whether or not there's been a major movement in lit since the Beats, well, I can't say. But people still read.
Even movie-watching, internet browsing, text messaging, MP3 listening housewives.
i say 60s and 70s cause of the kind of stories that would pop up. i used to see some strange flicks when i was younger than have just disappeared into space, really strange stories and good acting that couldnt reply on technology, frills and good looks.
i have been noticing after the 3am hour rolls around AMC(yes laugh) has been showing some different type films that you just wont see anyone running.
odub, im not arguing that book reading is dead. though, you cite info that show that it is dying. im saying literature, as any sort of sway on culture, is dead. there are more things interesting, as far as cultural, happening in media. im not an art critic. im not a writer. but if you are hanging onto the idea that society still cares about what people write, than you, my friend are the old dude. there are far more educational programs instituted that put cameras into young peoples than pens. i cant cite us census graphs n shit cuz i honestly dont care that much about it, but it is fact. even within media literacy, which is a fledgling field at that, there is already movement in understanding video game literacy. yes, video game literacy. lit, in the old crusty writing books sense, is dead.
as far as some sort of classical sense of art still being viable. sure there is. never said it was dead. but please dont kid yourself into thinking its not dying either. i mean, motherfuckers still make marble sculpture like back in roman days or whatever, but i hardly think you or anyone finds that as a thriving artform. screenprints and tshirts is the wave of the future. sad as that may seem. fuck you andy warhol.
Just so we're clear here: when did society - writ large, across class lines - ever "care about what people write"? Have there been lit movements that have attracted BOTH middle/high class intelligensia AND working class stiffs?
I'm not challenging this idea, I genuinely want to know (or at least clarify) what's been the fundamental change. It seems to me the intellgensia still care very much about literature. It may be that mass culture hasn't been bound to books or magazines in quite some time (but even that's not exactly true if you consider the phenomenal rise of men's magazines in the 1990s for example). I'm just trying to ascertain, at what point in American history, did society as a whole care for the same kinds of literature/reading material.
As for the rise of pop art; I don't think you'd actually want to see a surge in neo-Greco-Roman revivalism as "art" worth celebrating (we have the Getty and that's enough). I think there's a *trend* in a small, but visible field of pop art that gets blown out of proportion. "Classical" values in art aren't on life-support just because Beautiful Losers took over the YBC for a few weeks. And sure, the various permutations of pop art are likely to continue to grow but mostly because it blends so well into the consumer realm. That doesn't inherently suffocate other kinds of art markets that have rarely tried to target the popular (Thomas Kincaid aside).
What I see out there is not that art or lit are dead or even dying but they now have to share space with an ever-expanding panoply of other cultural forms and choices (on that note, I'm not clear why video game literacy isn't as relevant as traditional literacy). But if we're talking about "fine art" - that's a field of high culture that has rarely crossed into the working clsss masses that make up the "mass" in "mass culture."
odub, im not arguing that book reading is dead. though, you cite info that show that it is dying. im saying literature, as any sort of sway on culture, is dead. there are more things interesting, as far as cultural, happening in media. im not an art critic. im not a writer. but if you are hanging onto the idea that society still cares about what people write, than you, my friend are the old dude. there are far more educational programs instituted that put cameras into young peoples than pens. i cant cite us census graphs n shit cuz i honestly dont care that much about it, but it is fact. even within media literacy, which is a fledgling field at that, there is already movement in understanding video game literacy. yes, video game literacy. lit, in the old crusty writing books sense, is dead.
as far as some sort of classical sense of art still being viable. sure there is. never said it was dead. but please dont kid yourself into thinking its not dying either. i mean, motherfuckers still make marble sculpture like back in roman days or whatever, but i hardly think you or anyone finds that as a thriving artform. screenprints and tshirts is the wave of the future. sad as that may seem. fuck you andy warhol.
In all seriousness, I would say 1915 - 1925. They had a retrospective on silent movies at MOMA about 7 or 8 years ago. It went on for about 9 months and included over 300 silent movies from the golden age. I worked about four blocks away, and because most movies then are only a little over an hour, I snuck out and probably saw about 200 of them (I was a member so it was free, which by the way is one of the best $125 that can be spent in this city). Anyhoo, watchingthose movies on a big screen with a live piano accompaniment (sp?) is really something else. That was the age of the cinimatographic masters who develope the language of film; the frame, the editing, lighting. Its like watching dreams. Beutifully hand tinted prints.
let me first say that anything i say is based purely on observation and the half ass CA public education i received. so take that for what its worth. but as far as society as a whole caring about what people write. i mean, im no genius but there was this book called the bible that all kinds of goofballs following it. id say it qualified as a cultural movement in society. and the folks that were in it were rich and poor and ugly and sexy and smart and dum. yes?
now, i know you are asking specifically for instances in american history. and the only thing i can tell you is that art works in a "trickle down" fashion. meaning tha t the artists are always at the vanguard of culture. then the rich folks catch a whiff. then us common folk. what im saying is that its a matter of timing. maybe all these strata arent on the same page at the same time. but what youre asking about is more revolution and not a movement.
however, people and art are now more informed by visual media. now, however far fetched video game art may seem, i think you foofie folks would call it interactive multimedia. the bourgeois call it virtual reality. and theres a bunch of weirdo arty types doing interactive media/virtual reality in galleries and museums or whatever. culture, especially the youth, are more able to negotiate interactive media a lot better than grown folks from a bygone generation. i mean, ever see your parents play dance dance revolution? or fuck it, ever watch them play pacman?
as far as pop art goes. ok, admittedly i dont know what beautiful losers, ybc, or thomas kincaid are. but get real, big kid. dont for one second think that art hasnt always been aimed toward the popular. i mean, what exactly do you mean by "fine art"? do you consider film "fine art"? how about photography or music? those are all mass produced forms of art. hell, painting and sculpture are mass produced forms of art. it is produced for the masses, is it not? i mean, sure, there's only one "original", but anyone with working eyes can look upon the mona lisa or the venus titties. i think maybe youre getting materialism and art confused. is it about owning the art or merely enjoying it that makes something fine?
screenprinted $200 tshirts are hanging in galleries, i think we are agree on that. however, you seem to somehow distinguish between mass produced prints and something youre calling "fine art". just because a certain piece of art can only be in the hand of one, does not make it any less worthy as art. warhol was pretty much playing on that whole dogma of "fine art", that, when you really think about it, is a misnomer.
there are dying forms of art. doesnt mean theyll ever really be "dead". humans are too nostalgic to let it happen. books will always be written. someone will chip at some hunk of marble. but youre notion of "fine art" makes me sad. or perhaps i am misunderstanding you?
oh and i know i've recommended this book here before, but i can't stress how engrossing & entertaining it is. completely fast read
oooh i love this book, so gossip-y
as for best decade i'm interested in hearing more arguments against the 70s because thats sort've become the default answer hasn't it? Not that the argument doesn't seem eminently sensible but i want to hear more.
First of all, I think you'd be interested to know that the Westside finally has a GOOD ramen joint after suffering through literally half a dozen weaksauce spots on Sawtelle.
Santouka, inside the Mitsuwa on Centinela. They took over the space vacated by the closure of Tampopo. Same Santouka as in the Mitsuwa in Torrance and I think, Garden Grove(?). The shio ramen is fucking righteous in case you ever feel like crossing West of Fairfax (not that there's really any good reason to do this most days).
Lemme work backwards: The popularity of pop art in the form of post-skateboard design types like Shepherd Fairey (who lead the much chattered about Beautiful Losers show at the Yerba Buena Center (YBC) up in S.F. back in 2005) certainly has increased. But shit, graffiti was hot in the gallery scene during the uptown-meets-downtown days of early '80s NYC but that trend burned out rather quickly, at least in terms of the mainstream gallery scene (it still circulates but it never became dominant, especially on the national scene).
My point is not to inflate the proverbial molehill into a mountain. The art scene always burns through fads here and there but there's still arty art being made all the time, in multiple mediums. I really think the idea that "good art" is dying out is purely on some eye of the beholder tip (not unsimilar to the debate over whether hip-hop is dead or not, right?)
Back to the state of lit, my point was that you keep insisting that literature is a dying art (or actually, already dead) but I'm still confused (and that may be my limitation) as to where the evidence for this is. You keep making it seem like it's clear as day but as I noted - almost 100 million Americans are active readers of novels. Is that number smaller than in years past? Yes...but in terms of sheer numbers, I just can't see how this means that literature is moribund.
Tween lit...that's a movement. Harry Potter? That's a movement. Romance novels? A movement. These are all forms that encourage people to read and to actively discuss books. Perhaps you don't respect these literary movements but I think they're "real" enough, especially for those actively engaging in it. Housewives read. Teenagers read. And the people who've always read - the intelligensia, the literati, etc. - they still read. And insofar as this is true and insofar as the publishing industry hasn't gone the way of penny arcades and radio dramas, I think the death knell of literature in American society is premature.
But rather than drag this out, I'm more than happy to agree that we have different perspectives on the matter and if you want to insist that lit is dead and I want to hold out a candle for it, that's cool.
So long as you agree that Santouka is that hotness.
well professor dub,
let me first say that anything i say is based purely on observation and the half ass CA public education i received. so take that for what its worth. but as far as society as a whole caring about what people write. i mean, im no genius but there was this book called the bible that all kinds of goofballs following it. id say it qualified as a cultural movement in society. and the folks that were in it were rich and poor and ugly and sexy and smart and dum. yes?
now, i know you are asking specifically for instances in american history. and the only thing i can tell you is that art works in a "trickle down" fashion. meaning tha t the artists are always at the vanguard of culture. then the rich folks catch a whiff. then us common folk. what im saying is that its a matter of timing. maybe all these strata arent on the same page at the same time. but what youre asking about is more revolution and not a movement.
however, people and art are now more informed by visual media. now, however far fetched video game art may seem, i think you foofie folks would call it interactive multimedia. the bourgeois call it virtual reality. and theres a bunch of weirdo arty types doing interactive media/virtual reality in galleries and museums or whatever. culture, especially the youth, are more able to negotiate interactive media a lot better than grown folks from a bygone generation. i mean, ever see your parents play dance dance revolution? or fuck it, ever watch them play pacman?
as far as pop art goes. ok, admittedly i dont know what beautiful losers, ybc, or thomas kincaid are. but get real, big kid. dont for one second think that art hasnt always been aimed toward the popular. i mean, what exactly do you mean by "fine art"? do you consider film "fine art"? how about photography or music? those are all mass produced forms of art. hell, painting and sculpture are mass produced forms of art. it is produced for the masses, is it not? i mean, sure, there's only one "original", but anyone with working eyes can look upon the mona lisa or the venus titties. i think maybe youre getting materialism and art confused. is it about owning the art or merely enjoying it that makes something fine?
screenprinted $200 tshirts are hanging in galleries, i think we are agree on that. however, you seem to somehow distinguish between mass produced prints and something youre calling "fine art". just because a certain piece of art can only be in the hand of one, does not make it any less worthy as art. warhol was pretty much playing on that whole dogma of "fine art", that, when you really think about it, is a misnomer.
there are dying forms of art. doesnt mean theyll ever really be "dead". humans are too nostalgic to let it happen. books will always be written. someone will chip at some hunk of marble. but youre notion of "fine art" makes me sad. or perhaps i am misunderstanding you?
O-dub, have you gone to Ramen-ya on Olympic yet? Just several blocks down from Sawtelle. You need to get there. You get bang for your buck as well.
Yuichi,
I've been to almost EVERY ramen joint on the Westside. I kid you not. Ramen-Ya is cool if you're broke and want to have a passable (read: better than Asahi...but not by much) bowl of ramen for $5 but seriously dude, the ramen there is otherwise. I do like their curry ramen as comfort food but their shoyu and shio ramen are both pretty mediocre and to me, that's the gold standard.
Asahi, Ramen-Ya, Kinchans, and Chabuya are all considerably flawed in their own way. That whole Sawtelle strip (plus Ramen-Ya around the corner) is almost as bad a joke for quality ramen as J-Town up in S.F. (which is actually even worse). None of those places come close to fucking with Daikokuya downtown or Shinshengumi in Gardena. But Santouka is - by far - the best ramen I've had in Southern California thus far. If you haven't tried yet, get familiar with it...the one in West L.A. should be more convenient to get to than the one in Torrance.
Comments
so on point.
It's definately true that docs blew up in a big way post-2000. In fact, if you ask me, that is *the* story of the film industry in the past few years. I think, though, that "Super Size Me" (in tandem with the rise of digital video) is most notable for ushering in the current glut of wanna-be, fly-by-night docs whose main historical significance is precisely their forgetability. The messages they contain may stick in people's minds and they may shape debate on certain issues. and that's a good thing, but as "cinema" they often leave a lot to be desired and little to be remembered. It seems that increasingly audiences are being asked to judge these films by whether we agree with the message or are happy to see certain information being relayed to an underinformed public, rather than on creative techniques, experimentation, etc. etc. In that regard, It's becoming pretty damn hard to distinguish some of these successful docs from any given talking head piece on the history channel or MTV expose.
Yeah, but in ten years (or five years) I don't think super size me will be relevant at all. I thought Bowling For Columbine was one of the best documentaries I have seen (both theme-wise and definitely on a technical level) but it already seems irrelevant.. I certainly wouldn't put it in my top films of the 2000's even though when I saw it I rated it pretty highly.
I agree they are being embraced now though like never before but many of them are exposes or calls for change that are more relevant to the now and not so much to the future.
I'd say no.. there is something about the cinema and the movie theater experience that can not be replaced. It's a unique experience to see a movie on a giant screen with giant sound and to see it in a public theater with strangers. It's also a place where teenagers can go on dates. For that reason alone we will most likely always have the cinema. Teenagers have been the leading ticket buyers for some time but I haven't checked that stat lately but I would think it's still true.
The cinema is something like vinyl.. it should have probably died by now but it didn't.. and that can probably be attributed to something 'special' about it that may or may not be completely tangible.
I agree with your point that cinema isn't on death's door (as a social institution even if the quality of cinema has, arguably, fallen the fuck off).
But it's not a big intangible secret - one major reason that cinema took off in the early 1900s with the advent of the nickelodeon is that it was cheap and accessible for working people who could treat the theater as not just an entertainment venue but also a space for social interaction and congregation: "theater for the masses".
In that respect, the force and power of sharing a cinematic experience with a crowd of people is something that a home system can never duplicate, no matter how good the sound or picture you have. DVD sales have definitely chipped into the movie theater business and hey - I don't think that's a wholly bad thing insofar as it just means that people are diversifying their means of cultural consumption. But the movie theater is as in much danger of extermination from the spread of home theater as music concerts were in danger of extinction from the phonograph or radio. We're talking two very different kinds of cultural experiences and the social power of a movie screen is something that I don't think is likely to fade anytime soon, if ever.
You two sound like a bunch of grumpy old JA dudes
For real: my wife is an art critic in LA and she visits art galleries weekly. While the Shepherd Faireys of the world may have increased their presence (not the least of which is in the cafe where I spend a lot of time, Venice Grind), they've hardly taken over the art scene in Los Angeles (let alone anywhere else). Maybe the Chinatown gallery scene has been overtaken by that element but out in Culver City, Santa Monica and downtown, there's plenty of non "tshirtmakenfoolsdoingwheatpastesandcutecartoons" art going on. Ask Anthony Pearson - he's more wired into that scene than any of his and from what I've seen of his work and that of his colleagues, no one is trying to appeal to license their images for skateboard decks and limited SB Dunks to be sold out of UNDFTD.
Meanwhile, Yuichi - I know you're sick and bored and what not but c'mon man. "It's about instant gratification, instant rewards, instant feedback. Our values are being lost in the mix, wouldn't you say?"
On one level, yes, "our values" are probably being lost insofar - if your values never evolve or allow for change, then as things change around you, then your values will inevitably become seen as anachronistic.
I'm not waving the banner for emoticon-overloaded, thumb-skilled text messengers. But the question here is: are these new modes of communication meaningful for the people engaged in them? Do they convey not just information but also emotion? I really don't believe that young people today lead LESS emotionally rich lives than we did. Or our parents did, even though I'm sure, for their generation, us Gen Xers probably came off as aliens or robots or whatever too. I can't predict/imagine what the world will be like when my daughter is 18 but while I definitely won't presume the world will be better, I also won't assume it's going to be stripped of an emotional core in favor of techno-festishism.
Or lattes with handjobs. (People have to watch Idiocracy to get that last joke).
If you go back 100 years or so, the advent of motion pictures and the phonograph LP were both castigated by the cultural elite as examples of how technology was "killing the human element" and evacuating emotion from social life by replacing cultural forms such as theater and live music with experiences media-ted through technology and machines. And while, without doubt, something was lost in that transformation of American cultural lives, I think it's hard to argue that recorded music and movies have been tremendously emotionally inspiring in their own ways as well (at least I thought so earlier today when I had Donny Hathaway's "Lord Help Me" on repeat for about 6-7 repititn'tions).
Lastly, back to Shig:
Here's what's real about American lit reading habits. The news isn't pretty. But it doesn't mean you should be filling out that death certificate either:
"[U.S Census Bureau] answers show that just over half [of Americans] ??? 56.6 percent ??? read a book of any kind in the previous year, down from 60.9 percent a decade earlier. Readers of literature fell even more precipitously, to 46.7 percent of the adult population, down from 54 percent in 1992 and 56.9 percent in 1982, which means that in the last decade the erosion accelerated significantly. The literary reading public lost 5 percent of its girth between 1982 and 1992; another 14 percent dropped away in the following decade. And though the number of readers of literature is about the same now as it was in 1982 ??? about 96 million people ??? the American population as a whole has increased by almost 40 million."
So yeah, people read less. But still, 96 MILLION PEOPLE regularly read literature. That hardly makes it seem like a cultural form on life support. As to whether or not there's been a major movement in lit since the Beats, well, I can't say. But people still read.
Even movie-watching, internet browsing, text messaging, MP3 listening housewives.
i have been noticing after the 3am hour rolls around AMC(yes laugh) has been showing some different type films that you just wont see anyone running.
so my opinion is 60/70s
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-gabler25feb25,0,1197253.story?coll=la-sunday-commentary
as far as some sort of classical sense of art still being viable. sure there is. never said it was dead. but please dont kid yourself into thinking its not dying either. i mean, motherfuckers still make marble sculpture like back in roman days or whatever, but i hardly think you or anyone finds that as a thriving artform. screenprints and tshirts is the wave of the future. sad as that may seem. fuck you andy warhol.
Just so we're clear here: when did society - writ large, across class lines - ever "care about what people write"? Have there been lit movements that have attracted BOTH middle/high class intelligensia AND working class stiffs?
I'm not challenging this idea, I genuinely want to know (or at least clarify) what's been the fundamental change. It seems to me the intellgensia still care very much about literature. It may be that mass culture hasn't been bound to books or magazines in quite some time (but even that's not exactly true if you consider the phenomenal rise of men's magazines in the 1990s for example). I'm just trying to ascertain, at what point in American history, did society as a whole care for the same kinds of literature/reading material.
As for the rise of pop art; I don't think you'd actually want to see a surge in neo-Greco-Roman revivalism as "art" worth celebrating (we have the Getty and that's enough). I think there's a *trend* in a small, but visible field of pop art that gets blown out of proportion. "Classical" values in art aren't on life-support just because Beautiful Losers took over the YBC for a few weeks. And sure, the various permutations of pop art are likely to continue to grow but mostly because it blends so well into the consumer realm. That doesn't inherently suffocate other kinds of art markets that have rarely tried to target the popular (Thomas Kincaid aside).
What I see out there is not that art or lit are dead or even dying but they now have to share space with an ever-expanding panoply of other cultural forms and choices (on that note, I'm not clear why video game literacy isn't as relevant as traditional literacy). But if we're talking about "fine art" - that's a field of high culture that has rarely crossed into the working clsss masses that make up the "mass" in "mass culture."
let me first say that anything i say is based purely on observation and the half ass CA public education i received. so take that for what its worth. but as far as society as a whole caring about what people write. i mean, im no genius but there was this book called the bible that all kinds of goofballs following it. id say it qualified as a cultural movement in society. and the folks that were in it were rich and poor and ugly and sexy and smart and dum. yes?
now, i know you are asking specifically for instances in american history. and the only thing i can tell you is that art works in a "trickle down" fashion. meaning tha t the artists are always at the vanguard of culture. then the rich folks catch a whiff. then us common folk. what im saying is that its a matter of timing. maybe all these strata arent on the same page at the same time. but what youre asking about is more revolution and not a movement.
however, people and art are now more informed by visual media. now, however far fetched video game art may seem, i think you foofie folks would call it interactive multimedia. the bourgeois call it virtual reality. and theres a bunch of weirdo arty types doing interactive media/virtual reality in galleries and museums or whatever. culture, especially the youth, are more able to negotiate interactive media a lot better than grown folks from a bygone generation. i mean, ever see your parents play dance dance revolution? or fuck it, ever watch them play pacman?
as far as pop art goes. ok, admittedly i dont know what beautiful losers, ybc, or thomas kincaid are. but get real, big kid. dont for one second think that art hasnt always been aimed toward the popular. i mean, what exactly do you mean by "fine art"? do you consider film "fine art"? how about photography or music? those are all mass produced forms of art. hell, painting and sculpture are mass produced forms of art. it is produced for the masses, is it not? i mean, sure, there's only one "original", but anyone with working eyes can look upon the mona lisa or the venus titties. i think maybe youre getting materialism and art confused. is it about owning the art or merely enjoying it that makes something fine?
screenprinted $200 tshirts are hanging in galleries, i think we are agree on that. however, you seem to somehow distinguish between mass produced prints and something youre calling "fine art". just because a certain piece of art can only be in the hand of one, does not make it any less worthy as art. warhol was pretty much playing on that whole dogma of "fine art", that, when you really think about it, is a misnomer.
there are dying forms of art. doesnt mean theyll ever really be "dead". humans are too nostalgic to let it happen. books will always be written. someone will chip at some hunk of marble. but youre notion of "fine art" makes me sad. or perhaps i am misunderstanding you?
as for best decade i'm interested in hearing more arguments against the 70s because thats sort've become the default answer hasn't it? Not that the argument doesn't seem eminently sensible but i want to hear more.
please blurt out something like "PIE!" or "CRABCAKES FUCK YEAH!" so i can feel safe again
i almost went to macaroni grill for the first time ever this weekend. but i didnt.
First of all, I think you'd be interested to know that the Westside finally has a GOOD ramen joint after suffering through literally half a dozen weaksauce spots on Sawtelle.
Santouka, inside the Mitsuwa on Centinela. They took over the space vacated by the closure of Tampopo. Same Santouka as in the Mitsuwa in Torrance and I think, Garden Grove(?). The shio ramen is fucking righteous in case you ever feel like crossing West of Fairfax (not that there's really any good reason to do this most days).
Lemme work backwards: The popularity of pop art in the form of post-skateboard design types like Shepherd Fairey (who lead the much chattered about Beautiful Losers show at the Yerba Buena Center (YBC) up in S.F. back in 2005) certainly has increased. But shit, graffiti was hot in the gallery scene during the uptown-meets-downtown days of early '80s NYC but that trend burned out rather quickly, at least in terms of the mainstream gallery scene (it still circulates but it never became dominant, especially on the national scene).
My point is not to inflate the proverbial molehill into a mountain. The art scene always burns through fads here and there but there's still arty art being made all the time, in multiple mediums. I really think the idea that "good art" is dying out is purely on some eye of the beholder tip (not unsimilar to the debate over whether hip-hop is dead or not, right?)
Back to the state of lit, my point was that you keep insisting that literature is a dying art (or actually, already dead) but I'm still confused (and that may be my limitation) as to where the evidence for this is. You keep making it seem like it's clear as day but as I noted - almost 100 million Americans are active readers of novels. Is that number smaller than in years past? Yes...but in terms of sheer numbers, I just can't see how this means that literature is moribund.
Tween lit...that's a movement. Harry Potter? That's a movement. Romance novels? A movement. These are all forms that encourage people to read and to actively discuss books. Perhaps you don't respect these literary movements but I think they're "real" enough, especially for those actively engaging in it. Housewives read. Teenagers read. And the people who've always read - the intelligensia, the literati, etc. - they still read. And insofar as this is true and insofar as the publishing industry hasn't gone the way of penny arcades and radio dramas, I think the death knell of literature in American society is premature.
But rather than drag this out, I'm more than happy to agree that we have different perspectives on the matter and if you want to insist that lit is dead and I want to hold out a candle for it, that's cool.
So long as you agree that Santouka is that hotness.
Yuichi,
I've been to almost EVERY ramen joint on the Westside. I kid you not. Ramen-Ya is cool if you're broke and want to have a passable (read: better than Asahi...but not by much) bowl of ramen for $5 but seriously dude, the ramen there is
Asahi, Ramen-Ya, Kinchans, and Chabuya are all considerably flawed in their own way. That whole Sawtelle strip (plus Ramen-Ya around the corner) is almost as bad a joke for quality ramen as J-Town up in S.F. (which is actually even worse). None of those places come close to fucking with Daikokuya downtown or Shinshengumi in Gardena. But Santouka is - by far - the best ramen I've had in Southern California thus far. If you haven't tried yet, get familiar with it...the one in West L.A. should be more convenient to get to than the one in Torrance.