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Arts
Monday, February 17, 2020 — 5A
Anne
Carson
can
come
across as a writer with no clear
lineage or influences — even
as she references the work of
other authors, her poetry and
prose seem to float relatively
free of clear affiliation to any
contemporary literary trend.
Her
career
as
a
classicist
(with
a
generalist’s
flair:
she’s written about film and
modernism extensively) might
have something to do with this:
It’s possible to interpret her as
someone who doesn’t follow
a writer’s career, but works
through a set of preoccupations,
trying to draw ever more out
of them, like an academic. Her
writings also represent a specific
stylistic
preoccupation
that
she has been working out in a
similar way — the transposition
of Ancient Greek society and
literature
onto
the
formal
constraints of Modernists like
Beckett and Stein.
Her
twenty-first
book,
“Norma Jeane Baker Of Troy,”
should
be
recognizable
in
form and content to readers
of Carson. The conceit of this
work is a sort of transposition
of the plot of Euripides’ “Helen”
onto the biography of Marilyn
Monroe, and more broadly to a
mid-century milieu of writers,
filmmakers
and
celebrities.
Arthur Miller, Truman Capote
and
Fritz
Lang
all
make
appearances, or are alluded
to. The titular Norma Jeane
Baker (Monroe’s birth name)
both is and isn’t Marilyn, and
sometimes takes on other guises
entirely. The framing device
for the play, according to The
Shed’s website, is that the text of
the play is dictated by an office
manager to a typist in 1963.
This isn’t explained or included
in the slim New Directions
edition that I am reading from.
The script is mostly done in
lineated
monologue
broken
up occasionally by segments
of prose that resemble lesson
plans.
The play is really in dialogue
with two external texts — both
the play by Euripides and the
1952 Fritz Lang film “Clash By
Night.” The latter, in which
Monroe plays a small part, is
centered around an increasingly
violent
love
triangle
that
becomes
an
antagonism
between the two men involved.
The theme of both Euripides’
and
Lang’s
dramatic
works
is of a woman as a catalyst
for violence. Euripides’ play
additionally draws attention to
the way that Helen was reduced
to a prop or a symbol in the
course of the Trojan War — he
has Menelaus appear in Egypt
confused by the sight of his wife,
as he thought he had captured
her and hidden her in a cave.
The Helen Menelaus captured
turned out to be a phantom.
In
Carson’s
retelling,
this
deception (and Helen’s absence
from the site of the conflict) is
played up — Norma Jeane is,
instead of Egypt, in the Chateau
Marmont to rehearse lines for
“Clash By Night,” waiting for
her husband Arthur (Miller;
described here, clumsily, as
“King of Sparta and New York”)
and worrying after her daughter
Hermione, who she sets out to
meet at the end.
If this sounds convoluted, it’s
because it is. One gets the sense
here that there’s too much in the
ancient and in the contemporary
that aren’t effectively talking to
each other, even if Carson’s aim
is to make points about the most
broad human themes possible —
gender roles, war, storytelling.
There’s an unsatisfying back-
and-forth
between
Carson’s
muddled attempts to meld these
disparate sources and her stark,
generalized proclamations that
don’t really end up contributing a
whole lot of clarity or movement
to the form of the whole. As I
read, I kept asking myself why
these historical scenarios were
being brought together, what
good it does. It doesn’t help
that Carson frequently reaches
for a sort of cheap timeliness —
using the word “livestreaming”
for the striking image from the
Iliad of Helen sewing a tapestry
depicting the carnage outside
her window, putting a reference
to fracking into the play that
serves no real aesthetic or
thematic purpose. The whole
play has a slipshod quality to it,
pieces never quite aligning the
way you want them to.
Carson’s interest in Ancient
Greek as poetic material seems
to be in its representative
directness
as
opposed
to
modern languages — Greek
represents, for her, a sort of
symbolic bedrock for Western
culture, and she is often most
effective at her most rigorous
exegetical
mode
(e.g.
“Eros
the Bittersweet,” “The Gender
of Sound,” the notes for her
Sappho translations). “Norma
Jeane” feels markedly sloppier
than this. It relies too much on
the novelty, and doesn’t have the
sharpness I usually associate
with her work. It’s possible,
in retrospect, that some of her
other poetry traffics in this
same vagueness — her poem
“TV Men” from 1995 covers a lot
of the same thematic ground —
and this is just the first time it’s
done too crudely, too obviously,
with very little of her usual
precise fire.
Anne Carson fans, prepare
for a letdown with ‘Troy’
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
EMILY YANG
Daily Arts Writer
FORT GANSEVOORT
Norma Jeane
Baker of Troy
Anne Carson
New Directions
Feb. 25, 2020
Justin Bieber released a love
album on Valentine’s Day. There
is, quite possibly, no better way
to fall out of love with your
significant other than listening to
Changes.
It feels like a lifetime ago
since The Biebs’s last album. The
singles off of Purpose and their
massive
commercial
success
indicated that perhaps JB had
more longevity than his boyish
origins suggested. The smart
thing to do — release something
while the sea of relevance was still
at high tide. Instead, he decided to
come out with Changes five years
later, to the interest of no one.
Supposedly, this album details
the love story that led to Bieber’s
recent
marriage
to
Hailey
Baldwin. Considering the last
big release to address marriage
(here’s to you Chance), it isn’t
surprising that Changes at its best
is uninspiring and at its worst
makes a swift bid for the worst
album of 2020.
To start with, there is a serious
question to be asked about how
Justin views love. This album
depicts it as robotic. It feels like an
unending string of procedurally
generated platitudes that lack any
personality or insight into their
actual relationship. Then there’s
Justin’s idea of “spicing things
up,” which is just Bieber adding
in lyricisms along the lines of
“Struck a match, you got me litty,”
a line he thought was so clever he
decided to use it again in another
song (verbatim). Justin often
reuses lines or ideas on Changes.
How else does one reach their
goal of 17 songs and nearly an hour
of material?
The worst part: The most
memorable lines on the album
are
the
most
problematic.
Typically these lines fall into
two
categories:
uncomfortable
information about his sex life
and
hopefully
unintentional
misogyny. Examples of the former
can be found in lyrics like, “Fully
committed, you’re here for the stay
down / Look in the mirror, you’re
right for the take down.” Literally
within the first six lines of the
album, we already have Justin
looking like a predator. This type
of highly questionable insinuation
finds itself on nearly every song in
some form or fashion. The latter
category can be boiled down
to one line: “Stay in the kitchen
cookin’ up, got your own bread.”
If it was just a blanket sexist
statement then that’s one thing,
but the fact that he was trying to
use the line as an empowering
symbol for his woman shows an
almost unparalleled level of tone-
deafness. Seriously, how many
people have heard this line before
the album was dropped? 100? 150?
That means there exists at least
that many people with the same
amount of ignorance.
Musically, things aren’t much
better. Sure, the production is
overall inoffensive, but that just
makes things boring. There are
a few songs like “Habitual” and
“Available” that have something
slightly
interesting
going
on
underneath, but then are sullied
by bland trap beats. There are
trap beats on nearly every song
of the album, making everything
sound similar; the beats are used
as a crutch for bad songwriting.
The vapidness of this album
cannot be overstated. It got to a
point where a Lil Dicky feature
actually seemed enticing if only to
appreciate the trainwreck.
Perhaps the biggest problem
with Changes is that it doesn’t even
play the role of an awful album
well. At least with Corey Feldman
or Speedin’ Bullet to Heaven it feels
like an event when you decide to
listen to them. Speedin’ Bullet also
saw Kid Cudi experimenting with
his sound. It didn’t pay off at all,
but at least it showed some type
of artistic earnesty. Changes has
none of this. It is as basic as basic
can be and feels less like art and
more like advertisement. That’s
basically what this album is, an
ad for other artists to see he’s
available for collaborations. In
fact, collaborations were the only
thing keeping him relevant in that
five-year span of time. Perhaps
he should stick to what he’s best
at: flaunting his ass as a cartoon
baboon for a Lil Dicky song.
Bieber effectively ruins
Valentine’s Day with LP
DEF JAM RECORDINGS
DREW GADBOIS
Daily Arts Writer
Changes
Justin Bieber
Def Jam Recordings
ALBUM REVIEW
ALBUM REVIEW
“Body music” is what Ralf Hütter
of the pioneering German electronic
music group Kraftwerk called their
1978 album The Man Machine.
While not the most reflective
example of Electronic Body Music
(EBM), it does share the confusing
mix of qualities that make EBM so
enticing. Not nearly as groovy as
house, not nearly as rigid as techno,
EBM straddled the line between
the danceable and the experimental
and while it laid low after its heyday
in the 1980s, it’s making a bit of a
comeback.
The roots of the genre can be
traced back to Kraftwerk of course,
as well as another German band DAF
(short for Deutsche Amerikanische
Freundschaft). Their most iconic
album, the 1981 release Alles Ist Gut,
is a classic example of the rather
dirty, grimy yet somewhat sensual
sound that characterizes the genre.
For the most part, the sound on cuts
like “Der Mussolini” and “Alle Gegen
Alle” are relatively simple in terms
of arrangement, with very precise,
metronomic drums and catchy synth
riffs. The most enticing part of these
tracks (as well as most on the album)
is Gabi Delgado’s deep, powerful
incantation-like
vocals.
Delgado,
the son of Spanish immigrants,
also flirts ironically and in a way,
reclaims Fascist imagery (as in the
aforementioned “Der Mussolini”),
paving a way from the outset for a
genre that is meant to be provocative
and controversial.
Throughout the 1980s, labels in
Germany and Belgium promoted
body music throughout Europe,
with groups heavily influenced
by the aforementioned DAF, as
well as equally provocative groups
like Front 242 and Nitzer Ebb
(many detailed histories may be
found online). Its influences also
spread halfway across the world to
Australia, in particular to a Sydney-
based band called Severed Heads.
The group was a pioneer in its usage
of tape looping and other sound-
generation techniques, combining
their experimental streak with a
talent for pop — the best example
of which is their biggest hit, the
1983 track “Dead Eyes Opened.”
Originally a hastily added track to fill
out a cassette, the single became an
unlikely hit among non-commercial
radio stations in Sydney. The track
begins with a hypnotizing, if fairly
standard
electro-poppy
synth
pattern. Around a minute in, they
incorporate a recording of a British
crime journalist describing a brutal
double murder, and about a minute
later, the group incorporates a
brutal set of industrial noises they
are well-known for, creating a
fascinating juxtaposition between
the rather innocuous synth riff and
the dissonant harsh sounds they
introduce. The six-minute track
feels five times its length, and while
“Dead Eyes Opened” is not quite
the best example of “pure” EBM, it
achieves the main goal of the genre,
to induce a hypnotic, primal trance.
While EBM died down slightly
with the advent of other genres in
the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, its sounds
have again widely permeated techno
and other more mainstream types
of dance music in the last few years.
Artists like Broken English Club (see
“Plague Song”) and Phase Fatale
have infused their techno with
the characteristic “buzz” of body
music to create a new and exciting
hybrid. Frenchman Terence Fixmer
has collaborated extensively with
Nitzer Ebb’s Douglas McCarthy
to create similarly EBM-infused
techno, with the latter’s vocals on
tracks like “Chemicals” adding
that extra edge that harkens back
to the genre’s heyday. Moreover,
labels
like
the
Berlin-based
Aufnahme+Wiedergabe and Fleisch
Records have led a renaissance of
EBM in the country of its origins.
Proof of the cyclical nature of dance
music as well as the enduring appeal
of the sounds and attitudes that EBM
embodies, these artists and labels
continue to push the genre forward
for new audiences.
SAYAN GHOSH
Daily World Music Columnist
Sayan Ghosh:
Electronic Body Music
DAILY WORLD MUSIC COLUMN
If this sounds
convoluted, it’s
because it is. One
gets the sense
here though
that there’s too
much in the
ancient and in the
contemporary
that aren’t
effectively talking
to each other
Not nearly as
groovy as house,
not nearly as rigid
as techno, EBM
straddled the
line between the
danceable and the
experimental