Great stuff! I love the idea of the Internet as a manifestation of the collective unconscious. But while "leaving the Internet behind" might be a necessary condition for the creation of great art, I don't think it is a sufficient one. Your discussion of 20th century novelists suggests a pretty steady decline - indeed, in the eyes of future art critics, will the output of the latter half of the twentieth century hold a candle against the output of the first half in any art form apart from popular music and film/TV? Scapegoating is a favourite pastime on the Internet, but there is a danger that the Internet itself becomes the scapegoat for something we've lost a long time ago.
Hi Sam, I really enjoyed this piece. If you're not familiar with Follies, I never pass up an opportunity to recommend it to anyone who loves Sunday in the Park with George. Of all the recordings out there, the 1985 concert has Mandy Patinkin, and the 2011 revival, my favorite, has Bernadette Peters.
And you're not mistaken about Sondheim's pedigree. In addition to being mentored by Oscar Hammerstein, he also studied under Milton Babbitt. He really was a very different breed of musical theater composer.
Will definitely check it out! Follies is one I haven't heard much from. The Hammerstein mentorship is an interesting story, and I remember an interview somewhere where Sondheim talked about Babbitt and their shared sense of math as well as music. I also feel vindicated w/the Reich comparison after just discovering their mutual influence and admiration for each other here--
Sam, this was really great. Quickest 'click subscribe' ever for me. Both Sondheim and the original painting by Seurat are the perfect vessels for what you're getting at here. My mom used to keep a CD of the soundtrack of Sunday in the Park With George in the car, and we'd listen to it religiously on road trips, and it's just the perfect musical. Same goes for Seurat's painting, which i think i've seen like 40 times in Chicago. Both of those pieces contain the entire world, and you could spend your whole life looking at the Seurat yet you'll always see something new, it's phenomenal. It's the kind of Great Art that is rare nowadays. And I think you're right about artists needing to move away from the internet. Great piece man.
If you're seeking where authentic professionalism lives, I would check out some of the behind the scenes documentaries on sports and performance on Netflix. Like "Receiver" (the sequeal to last year's "Quarterback"), about NFL players. Or "America's Sweethearts" about the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, or Katseye about the production of a new mass-produced girl group. Or even the ones at a junior college level, like Cheer or Last Chance U.
“The Internet teaches us to play a lose-lose game of playing at authenticity. But great art teaches us an artifice containing a deep, central truth. Our contemporary art needs much more of that theatricality and artifice. ”
One might go further: authenticity is in some sense the antithesis of the internet, with its medium independence, its anonymity, etc., and so the desire for it has a certain pathos.
2) I am somewhat mystified about why you read, and even reread, things that you neither enjoy subjectively nor really respect.
3( Coincidentally, my last post was on/around Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte. You will note the children. And on (digital) photography, with this question of authenticity lurking, questions clarified by advertising, social media, and now AI.
2) I can't know if I'll enjoy something until I read it. And believe it or not I do think Rooney is a pretty good writer, who has probably helped some people think more than they normally do, and I have quite a bit of respect for her! I just don't believe in the limits she has placed on her characters, or herself.
I loved this essay. It totally hit home with me. I'm actually halfway through Levy's book and have reacted to it with a similar degree of perplexity. I feel like it can't be blamed for reflecting such a common mode of consciousness, and maybe it's even a service to reflect it, but when you step back for a second, you realize just how much has been lost. Simultaneously, I've been reading D.H. Lawrence's The Rainbow, which is everything that the internet fiction you talk about (Rooney, etc.) isn't. Lawrence is so intensely aware of emotional and sensual lives of his characters and the greater life of nature. He has a gift for taking a common experience - hoeing a garden, hitting on someone at a bar, going on a ride at a fair - and making you feel like you're seeing it all and experiencing it all for the first time. It's the famous Tolstoyan gift, de-familiarization. Accessing the strangeness hidden in the mundane. Reading Levy's book, it's interesting to consider how all of the praise I just heaped on Lawrence wouldn't have any place in her project, perhaps intentionally. Her book is dealing with a world of words (I'm on the section where she reflects on different terms from internet slang) that is totally divorced from the affective life of the body and spirit. A purely mental world of confusion and doubt - and, indeed, presiding over all, shame. The narrators in her stories and her characters (if they really are characters, exactly) worry about how they're coming across, worry about what other people think of them. But it's unclear if they're really *experiencing* anything. It's curious.
"A purely mental world of confusion and doubt" is very well said - I suppose Levy might argue she's reflecting the disembodied sense of being too-online. And I've wanted to read Lawrence for some time (only knowing some of his wonderful poetry and the film version of "Women in Love") so I'll take this as a sign that I ought to soon!
Great stuff! I love the idea of the Internet as a manifestation of the collective unconscious. But while "leaving the Internet behind" might be a necessary condition for the creation of great art, I don't think it is a sufficient one. Your discussion of 20th century novelists suggests a pretty steady decline - indeed, in the eyes of future art critics, will the output of the latter half of the twentieth century hold a candle against the output of the first half in any art form apart from popular music and film/TV? Scapegoating is a favourite pastime on the Internet, but there is a danger that the Internet itself becomes the scapegoat for something we've lost a long time ago.
You could very well be right MJE, depressing as it is. Wish I had an answer to that part.
Hi Sam, I really enjoyed this piece. If you're not familiar with Follies, I never pass up an opportunity to recommend it to anyone who loves Sunday in the Park with George. Of all the recordings out there, the 1985 concert has Mandy Patinkin, and the 2011 revival, my favorite, has Bernadette Peters.
And you're not mistaken about Sondheim's pedigree. In addition to being mentored by Oscar Hammerstein, he also studied under Milton Babbitt. He really was a very different breed of musical theater composer.
Will definitely check it out! Follies is one I haven't heard much from. The Hammerstein mentorship is an interesting story, and I remember an interview somewhere where Sondheim talked about Babbitt and their shared sense of math as well as music. I also feel vindicated w/the Reich comparison after just discovering their mutual influence and admiration for each other here--
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Zbobkioa8E&t=2054s
Sam, this was really great. Quickest 'click subscribe' ever for me. Both Sondheim and the original painting by Seurat are the perfect vessels for what you're getting at here. My mom used to keep a CD of the soundtrack of Sunday in the Park With George in the car, and we'd listen to it religiously on road trips, and it's just the perfect musical. Same goes for Seurat's painting, which i think i've seen like 40 times in Chicago. Both of those pieces contain the entire world, and you could spend your whole life looking at the Seurat yet you'll always see something new, it's phenomenal. It's the kind of Great Art that is rare nowadays. And I think you're right about artists needing to move away from the internet. Great piece man.
Beyond heartening to hear, Michael. Thanks so much for the kind words.
V much enjoyed this piece, subscribed!
Thank you so much!!
Phenomenal
If you're seeking where authentic professionalism lives, I would check out some of the behind the scenes documentaries on sports and performance on Netflix. Like "Receiver" (the sequeal to last year's "Quarterback"), about NFL players. Or "America's Sweethearts" about the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, or Katseye about the production of a new mass-produced girl group. Or even the ones at a junior college level, like Cheer or Last Chance U.
This might be the most wonderful thing I’ve read on here. In this silly corner of the Internet. Thank you
Oh my gosh thank you so much!!
Kudos & thanks. Three responses.
1) This was fantastic, and I restacked.
“The Internet teaches us to play a lose-lose game of playing at authenticity. But great art teaches us an artifice containing a deep, central truth. Our contemporary art needs much more of that theatricality and artifice. ”
One might go further: authenticity is in some sense the antithesis of the internet, with its medium independence, its anonymity, etc., and so the desire for it has a certain pathos.
2) I am somewhat mystified about why you read, and even reread, things that you neither enjoy subjectively nor really respect.
3( Coincidentally, my last post was on/around Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte. You will note the children. And on (digital) photography, with this question of authenticity lurking, questions clarified by advertising, social media, and now AI.
https://open.substack.com/pub/davidawestbrook/p/sunday-afternoons-quilts-as-paintings?r=13evep&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Again, thanks and keep up the good work.
1) Thank you!
2) I can't know if I'll enjoy something until I read it. And believe it or not I do think Rooney is a pretty good writer, who has probably helped some people think more than they normally do, and I have quite a bit of respect for her! I just don't believe in the limits she has placed on her characters, or herself.
3)I'll check it out.
I loved this essay. It totally hit home with me. I'm actually halfway through Levy's book and have reacted to it with a similar degree of perplexity. I feel like it can't be blamed for reflecting such a common mode of consciousness, and maybe it's even a service to reflect it, but when you step back for a second, you realize just how much has been lost. Simultaneously, I've been reading D.H. Lawrence's The Rainbow, which is everything that the internet fiction you talk about (Rooney, etc.) isn't. Lawrence is so intensely aware of emotional and sensual lives of his characters and the greater life of nature. He has a gift for taking a common experience - hoeing a garden, hitting on someone at a bar, going on a ride at a fair - and making you feel like you're seeing it all and experiencing it all for the first time. It's the famous Tolstoyan gift, de-familiarization. Accessing the strangeness hidden in the mundane. Reading Levy's book, it's interesting to consider how all of the praise I just heaped on Lawrence wouldn't have any place in her project, perhaps intentionally. Her book is dealing with a world of words (I'm on the section where she reflects on different terms from internet slang) that is totally divorced from the affective life of the body and spirit. A purely mental world of confusion and doubt - and, indeed, presiding over all, shame. The narrators in her stories and her characters (if they really are characters, exactly) worry about how they're coming across, worry about what other people think of them. But it's unclear if they're really *experiencing* anything. It's curious.
"A purely mental world of confusion and doubt" is very well said - I suppose Levy might argue she's reflecting the disembodied sense of being too-online. And I've wanted to read Lawrence for some time (only knowing some of his wonderful poetry and the film version of "Women in Love") so I'll take this as a sign that I ought to soon!
This was a really great read and your ability to keep me going to the end , despite the extreme length of the post is really something.
A very kind compliment, thank you
Wow, a great piece of writing! While your view of DFW hurts me a bit, I take solace in the existence of the footnotes…
I’m definitely going to spend some time with the Sondheim works mentioned in the article and the comments. Thanks!
Thanks! And I could very well be wrong about DFW! Maybe I'll even re-read Infinite Jest someday and find it brilliant (I do think it's good)
A little benediction: may Sally Rooney finish the hat. May we all.
A good benediction and well put
You're recreation of Emerson is genius. It arrested me - stopped me dead in my tracks.
Well now you're just buttering me up (but thanks, for real)
Only because you smacked me down