The Last Tape by Alex Niven

Author:Alex Niven [Niven, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-78279-544-5
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
Published: 2014-10-31T00:00:00+00:00

NOT SIMPLY FOR THOSE MOMENTS’ SAKE: A RETROACTIVE MANIFESTO FOR LATE-TWENTIETH-CENTURY POP MUSIC

BEARD

June, 1968. Allen Ginsberg visits Ezra Pound at his Venice home. Pound is old and will not speak; Ginsberg is younger, full of beard, garrulous, enveloped in marijuana smoke. Provoked by silence, or perhaps out of sheer playfulness, Ginsberg plays Pound a series of records by Bob Dylan, Donovan, The Beatles. Pound remains silent, but occasionally taps his cane along with the music. On hearing the lyric no one was saved in Eleanor Rigby, he seems to smile, but otherwise maintains total silence.

Nobody knows what this means.

At about the same time, the critic Theodor Adorno writes: “It is uncertain whether art is still possible; whether, with its complete emancipation, it did not sever its own preconditions”.

Later, in the eighties, another German critic says: “If one wanted to refute Adorno’s approach, one would have to start with his social analysis and prove its results to be inexact by, for example, discussing historico-politically and philosophically another social agency he overlooked; one that would permit progress (and political engagement) to be conceived of”.

What an intriguing thought.

TASTE

Here is a picture of James Joyce:

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