QUOTE FOR THE DAY: Nick Hornby:
"All these years later and Suicide still feels like a shot in the head," an enthusiastic reviewer remarked when their first album was re-released; a couple of decades ago, that would've been enough to make me want to buy it. ("A shot in the head! Wow! Even The Clash only felt like a kick!") Now, however, I have come to the conclusion that I don't want to be shot in the head, and so I will avoid any work of art that sets to recreate that particular experience for me. It's a particularly modern phenomenon, this obsession with danger. And, in the end, it's impossible not to conclude that it has been borne out of peacetime and prosperity and over-education. Would the same critic have told someone coming back from the Somme that a piece of music "feels like a shot in the head," one wonders? And if he did, would he really expect the chap to go charging off to his local music emporium?
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
No comments:
Post a Comment