Kevin Bronson on November 21st, 2008

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Chapter 3 Greetings from Chicago, Part I:

• “Every age has its own complacent failures of intelligence, and we have learned in our own time to laugh at the ‘reasonable’ point of view that was fashionable in the eighteenth century and the moral point of view of the nineteenth century, but it looks as if this new sort of ironic belittlement were likely to become characteristic of our own.” ””Edmund Wilson

It’s been difficult to write these entries amidst the somewhat unenthusiastic press (can we still call it that?) surrounding our current tour. I don’t mean difficult in that I’ve been having trouble coming up with topics ”” difficult in terms of choosing whether to engage it. The negative reactions have been, for the most part, fairly consistent, and with little or no difficulty, one can find these on the Internet or in your local papers (for those of you who still like to do it the old way). I probably shouldn’t read any of them myself, but from time to time, I do.”  Some of what I’ve seen is fair and well taken. However, some of the reviews I’ve read seem to have little or nothing to say about the actual music or musicianship, instead tending to focus on tangential issues. I realize I’m not being very specific, but to do so would place me within a system which I want no part of. My focus is to play ”” which, by the way, has been no simple feat the past week as winter colds have ravaged the band.

As I like to do from time to time, I’d like to make a small digression that I hope will help illuminate some of the issues floating around out there. A very short while ago we lost one of the most important voices to emerge within American letters in recent times, the author David Foster Wallace. As most of you probably know, he recently committed suicide in his home in southern California. After the news of his death was reported in the media, a wide range of responses quickly emerged, including articles, essays, blogs, etc.”  Since we live in an age where just about every article found on the Internet contains a “comments” section, I was able to read people’s responses to this tragic event, which I was particularly affected by. While most were touching and heartfelt, there were others who used this space to criticize Wallace for taking his own life, his postmodern writing style and his popularity. Reading these comments made me wonder if the commenters didn’t realize that David Foster Wallace was a real human being beyond an author and teacher. It’s not a question of whether people have the right to voice their opinions, but why they would spill vitriol that doesn’t serve any higher purpose.

One of the best tributes to David Foster Wallace was provided by the book critic Michael Silverblatt.”  As someone who interviewed Wallace numerous times on his show, “Bookworm,” Silverblatt, rather than speaking for Wallace, replayed portions of these interviews and let the author speak for himself.”  In thinking about his own work, his own obsessions, and his role as creative writing teacher, Wallace discussed one of the major themes of his work:”  the various cultural forces at work (including language itself) that makes it difficult or impossible to represent or talk about the authentic.”  Depending on what side of the postmodern spectrum you find yourself, this can be either a good or bad thing.”  Grossly oversimplifying for the sake of brevity, for Wallace, this was most likely a sad thing.

So, this dilemma ”” or crisis in representation ”” is very much part of our current cultural moment, and it’s been around for a while.”  Guy Debord wrote about it in the “Society of the Spectacle” in 1967, and it’s had a healthy life since then in numerous disciplines: aesthetics, philosophy, ethnography/anthropology, literary studies, etc. I’m by no means saying he was the first person to highlight this issue, but the particular historical moment he represents is still relevant to us now.”  In fact, I don’t see it going away anytime soon.”  But we’re still human beings, and we still have emotions no matter how much they are mediated by culturally produced codes.

As a band, I think we go up there every night and attempt to convey some notion of the truth””both as individuals and as a collective. But we’re stuck in this moment too. We’re quite aware of the age in which we live, and I feel our musical choices reflect it.”  We’re not outside it either. To think that we are would be extremely naïve.

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Editor’s note: Sample reactions from the Smashing Pumpkins tour: Rolling Stone, Hipsters United, Pitchfork, Fluxblog, Stereogum.