How to Escape

Crispin Sartwell

Description

Philosopher, music critic, and syndicated columnist Crispin Sartwell has forged a distinctive and fiercely original identity over the years as a cultural commentator. In books about anarchism, art and politics, Native American and African American thought and culture, Eastern spirituality, and American transcendentalism, Sartwell has relentlessly insisted on an ethos rooted in unadorned honesty with oneself and a healthy skepticism of others. This volume of selected popular writings combines music and art criticism with personal memoir about addiction and rebellion, as well as cultural commentary on race, sexuality, cynicism, and the meaning of life.
Preface

1. How to Escape, 2006

2. Divas, Dudes, Queens, and Studs: Gender and Sexuality as Aesthetic Expressions, 2013

3. Beatles vs. Stones: An Aesthetics of Rock Music, 2011

4. Reactionary Progressivism: Bluegrass and Political Philosophy, 2009

5. Philosophy of Punk, 2002

6. Technology and the Future of Beauty, 1998

7. I Speak for My People: A Racial Manifesto, 2013

8. I Was a Teenage Terrorist, 2005

9. Detritus, 2008

10. Tangled: What If Aesthetic Properties Were Real? 2009

11. Holding on for Dear Life: The Value of Realism in Art, 2012

12. Presence and Resistance: Process in Graffiti Art and Crime, 2002

13. Beauty, Sex, and the Banality of Pleasure, 2000

14. Guns, Dub, Technique, 2008

15. Cynicism: The Characteristically American Philosophy, 2013

16. “Don’t Mean Sheeit”: On the Necessity and Impossibility of Meaning for Life, 2010

Appendix: Art History Lexicon

Notes

Sujets

• Arts visuels
• Histoire des Arts
• Histoire des Arts
• Película fotográfica
• Popular culture
• History of art
• Philosophy
• Visual culture
• Film

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 12 août 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438452685
• Langue: English

Extrait

HOW
TO
ESCAPE

How to Escape
magic, madness, beauty, and cynicism
C RISPIN S ARTWELL
Published by
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS
Albany
© 2014 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
Excelsior Editions is an imprint of State University of New York Press.
For information, contact State University of New York Press.
www.sunypress.edu
Production and book design, Laurie Searl
Marketing, Michael Campochiaro
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sartwell, Crispin, 1958-
How to escape : magic, madness, beauty, and cynicism / Crispin Sartwell.
pages cm — (Excelsior editions)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-4384-5267-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4384-5266-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Philosophy, American—21st century.
I. Title.
B948.S271 2014
191—dc23
2013034876
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In loving memory of my father ,
Franklin Gallagher Sartwell
Contents Preface I How to Escape, 2006 II Divas, Dudes, Queens, and Studs: Gender and Sexuality as Aesthetic Expressions, 2013 III Beatles vs. Stones: An Aesthetics of Rock Music, 2011 IV Reactionary Progressivism: Bluegrass and Political Philosophy, 2009 V Philosophy of Punk, 2002 VI Technology and the Future of Beauty, 1998 VII I Speak for My People: A Racial Manifesto, 2013 VIII I Was a Teenage Terrorist, 2005 IX Detritus, 2008 X Tangled: What If Aesthetic Properties Were Real? 2009 XI Holding on for Dear Life: The Value of Realism in Art, 2012 XII Presence and Resistance: Process in Graffiti Art and Crime, 2002 XIII Beauty, Sex, and the Banality of Pleasure, 2000 XIV Guns, Dub, Technique, 2008 XV Cynicism: The Characteristically American Philosophy, 2013 XVI “Don’t Mean Sheeit”: On the Necessity and Impossibility of Meaning for Life, 2010 Appendix: Art History Lexicon Notes
Preface
The items here probably represent the “light” or fluffy side of my authorship, which might be unfortunate, because the light side is also a rather dark side. They range from a personal essay on addiction to a satire on race to an amazing “solution” to the question of the meaning of life itself or, thinking about it from another angle, to the question of the meaning itself of life, or perhaps to the question itself of life’s meaning.
The centrality of the arts for understanding historical and contemporary culture, and our coming rapture/damnation by comedy in the cynical ecstasy at the end of history: these are related underlying themes of many of these essays. Often I apply ideas and taxonomies from art history and aesthetics to various sorts of materials, for example to gender and sexual orientation, or to popular music forms, or to the structure of history, and then try to let the material remap those disciplines. I don’t insist that any particular one of these essays constitute philosophy or aesthetics or anything else; I’ve tried to follow from thing to thing, idea to idea, fiasco to calamity, rather than worry about where precisely I was in the disciplinary maze.
Some of these essays reflect engagement with stage and parlor magic and sleight of hand; a number discuss or obviously reflect obsession and addiction; a number display a lifelong love of popular music; a number reflect engagements with my favorite writers and questions about writing. All of these obviously have various autobiographical connections, and I suppose they are all attempts to determine what you can see from here , wherever “here” is now: including, white heterosexual middle-aged person; aficionado or enthusiast; daddy, American, me, etc. I’m happy to let these connections emerge explicitly, or not.
As I’ve gone on writing, I have tried to get less showboaty and more obviously committed to subject matters other than myself, though it might not seem that way. Nevertheless, “I” weaves in and out here, and I do think that even academic writing—which this may be or not—should be more personal insofar as persons, with their passions and pathologies, still lurk behind it or create it in some way. The “I” changes in different essays, but I am not going to be precious about it: by “I” I mean me. I mean me perhaps at different moments or moods; certainly “Detritus” was written at a nadir, and I’m doing better now, and would have something happier to say about myself. I am content even if uncomfortable leaving that essay as a trace of then. It’s not, on the other hand, that I’m “a different person” than I was in 2008. If only. But you know how we end up being transformed without meaning to be, under necessity, like ramshackle ships of Theseus.
Most of these texts were read in some form as lectures/multimedia extravaganzas; others were pitched to various sorts of publication with varying success. Thanks to the Theory and Art of Magic Conference, Slippery Rock University, Notre Dame, East Tennessee State, Southern Illinois, Concordia College, Cal State Chico, Oregon State, Gettysburg College, the Nordic Society for Aesthetics, Duquesne, the International Country Music Conference, and others who hosted me on occasions when this material was presented. Parts of pieces appeared in Harper’s , the Los Angeles Times , The Rolling Stones and Philosophy , How Does It Feel to Be a (White) Problem? , and Tricksters and Punks of Asia . All the papers have been at least somewhat revised, though they are still to be taken as representing the time they were composed. For example, “How to Escape” was written before the killing of Osama bin Laden. In some cases, related blog entries from eyeofthestorm.blogs.com or related journalism by me from various sources have been annexed.
Near the end of his life, my father, Frank Sartwell, gave me editions of Mencken’s autobiography and Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary with an air of passing on key bits of family lore. For him, as for his father—both newspapermen in DC—Mencken was the greatest of their own kind, or what they aspired to be: irascible, politically perverse, hilarious, hard-drinking bastards who knew everything, especially about writing. And Dad took me to see the Seldom Scene, Thursdays at the Red Fox Inn in Bethesda, Maryland.
For better and disaster, the effects of Judith Bradford and Marion Winik on the thought and prose style of this book, and the experiences represented, are obvious, at least to me. I think Arthur Danto’s influence is pervasive; oh, probably Richard Rorty’s too. I read Heinrich Wölfflin’s Principles of Art History in high school and am still battering my old Dover edition; amazing how something like that can infest your thinking. Throughout, art historical concepts, stylistic characterizations, and terms designating periods ( soul , for example, or classical ) should be understood as sketched out in the lexicon, pp. 179–91. Thanks to Andrew Kenyon for collaboration on this volume. The city of Baltimore and the countryside of south central Pennsylvania. The Maryland Institute College of Art and Dickinson College.
As usual, you should blame those people and institutions, rather than the author, for all the infelicities, fatuities, solecisms, barbarisms, contradictions, absurdities, and blunders you find here.
I
How to Escape
2006
In the days after American and Northern Alliance forces took Kandahar, Osama bin Laden escaped from the caves of Tora Bora into Pakistan, handing his cell phone to a decoy and dissipating into the mountainous terrain. Repeatedly after that, the US government came to believe it knew where to find him. He was the target, for example, of the March 28, 2002, raid of a rented house in Faisalabad, Punjab Province, that netted his lieutenant Abu Zubayadh. But he escaped again and again. It quickly reached the point where—until he popped up spectrally on Al Jazeera—he might have been alive or dead, here or there, or, seemingly, both and all at once.
From the point of view of his potential victims, Osama’s elusiveness might have been the most dangerous of his achievements because it hinted at something miraculous: all the world’s police and intelligence and military, armed with everything from satellites to suitcases full of cash, couldn’t nail him down. It’s not killing but escaping death that begins to create a cult. The longer bin Laden evaded capture or death, the more dangerous he became, not necessarily as a terrorist but as a symbol.
The association of escape with transcendence is so intimate that saviors and spiritual heroes are always marked by their ability to escape: Jesus from the sealed tomb, Buddha from the cycle of becoming. Indeed, there is a sense that a real hero, or monster, or anyone who seems to have outgrown the mundane—someone who partakes in the divine or satanic—cannot be killed, and so such people are forever being rediscovered after their deaths: Bob Marley, Elvis, JFK, Hitler, Marilyn. There are people who believe that each overcame death and transcended suffering.

Most padlocks have four tumblers at the top of the key chamber. Each tumbler is spring-driven and consists of a driver and key pin housed in a vertical case. When the right key is inserted into the lock, the drivers are pushed up into the hull above the sheer line, while the key pins remain below, allowing the cylinder to turn. There are various ways to pick such a lock, but the classic technique is this: You take a tension wrench, place it into the bottom of the key chamber, and apply a slight torque, enough to “bind” one of the pins. Then, using a hook pick, a half diamond, or perhaps a snake, you “break” that pin, pushing its driver into the hull. When all four pins are broken, the te