Word: musicalization
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...book introduces seven formally related dialogues, conversations between distant and disembodied voices that lapse into parallel monologues and back again. None really work, although "The New Music," an allegory of lost innocence and hopes of renewal, comes closest. As Samuel Johnson pointed out, stories must be readable before anything else; Barthelme instead gives us ghosts chattering non sequitus. The great thing about the book is that you can flip six or seven pages and not even notice. Consider this passage from the opening of "The Crisis...
Barthelme clearly feels that there is nothing left to be done; his wistful reminiscences in "The New Music" or his older story. "At the Tolstoy Museum," bears this out. Barthelme yearns for a simpler day, when authors wrote epics instead of this artsy noodling. As he writes in "The Crisis," "Three rebellions ago, the air was fresher." One sometimes wonders why these people who think there is nothing left to write end up killing so many trees. But Barthelme cares about art; perhaps more than any other contemporary figure, he is trying. I am left with this mental picture: Barthelme...
...opposite spheres has brought forth more myths, more detailed ignorance and more ambitions than any other perception of difference. For centuries Europeans and Americans have spellbound themselves with Oriental mysticism, Oriental passivity, Oriental mentalities. Translated into policy, displayed as knowledge, presented as entertainment in travelers' reports, novels, paintings, music or films, this "Orientalism" has existed virtually unchanged as a kind of daydream that could often justify Western colonial adventures or military conquest. On the "Marvels of the East" (as the Orient was known in the Middle Ages) a fantastic edifice was constructed, invested heavily with Western fear, desire, dreams...
...Toope carefully enough, he certainly clamps down on Lizellen La Follette, who plays the virginal Agnes. Her dull monotone and glazed stare were intended, one supposes, to convey her innocence. But we only know that she embodies purity and goodness because others characters tell us she does. Soft violin music accompanies her entrances. All La Follette's performance suggests is that Agnes lacks personality...
...NOTEBOOK: The unquestionable highlight of the weekend was the taped organ music played between innings at Navy's Bishop Stadium (which features the renowned Foster Memorial Scoreboard...