Martin
Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2024 5:42 pm
Douglas Mercer
October 27 2024
In 1888 Friedrich Nietzsche published the book Thus Spake Zarathustra. In it he came up with the sound bite of sound bites, the slogan of slogans, the mantra of mantras, the motto of mottos, the one ready for the close up or the bumper sticker: God Is Dead. If you say the words Friedrich Nietzsche the one thing that they will trigger in the ignorant heads of the many headed monster known as the public it is this set of words. That is this is the one thing they can dredge up from their faulty and impoverished memories: God Is Dead. Nietzsche himself said that he would be the master of ceremonies and the secret narrator of the next 200 years of history and so he has proven; but as Marx said history begins as tragedy and recursively replicates itself as farce. He forgot to include the concluding part of the Hegelian triad: then it comes in total power. Of course all language is subject to what French Theorists (black berets, Gitane cigarettes, Kierkegardian existential dread, lazy days on the Seine) call semantic skidding but none more so than God Is Dead. For what he said needs to be contextualized: God is dead and we have killed him and we hold the fatal bloody knife in our hands. Who will wipe the blood from us? What festivals can there be, what rituals of atonement, what sacred holidays, what initiation rites, what incense wafting to the gods can be performed for forgiveness? Will we have to become gods simply to justify it? That will not fit on a bumper sticker, being a horse of another color.
In 1965 Time Magazine (the periodical of record) published its most famous cover of all time which was comprised of the words Is God Dead? (thereby continuing the philosopher’s narration). The cover had a background of black and the letters were red. On field of sable, always gules.
In 1975 Steve Martin did a bit where he queries: Wouldn’t it be funny (long pause) if you died? (longer pause). Of course that is funny (mock gallows humor) in itself though it’s not the joke, the punch line comes later. For if there is anything that everyone agrees is not funny it is dying. Then he says: and you went to heaven. And it was just like they said: clouds, angels, music, gates (long pause). Wouldn't you feel stupid? Oh no, in college they told us this was all bullshit (longer pause). What, you’ve been keeping records?
This is funny (if not sobering) on many levels, foremost in that it comprises a dissidence to the dissidents, a counter to the counterculture, or a reversal of fortune, which always elicits uneasy laughter as if one cannot be sure of the level of sincerity involved, if any. And secondly because anyone who has thought about it for about two seconds knows that precious little (if anything) of what we were all taught in college was actually true.
***
Las Vegas is the place where old war horse celebrities go to die when they have run out of gas and Ann Margaret was no different. Vaulting on to the world's stage in 1961 the mononymically named actress with her sultry vibrant contralto voice and energetic dancing style electrified the nation; hailing from a part of Sweden which she said was a place of lumberjacks, farmers, ice and snow near the Arctic Circle she starred in movies such as A Pocketful Of Miracles, Bye Bye Birdie, Viva Las Vegas, Carnal Knowledge and 52 Pickup. Most famously she entered into a long-standing affair with Elvis Presley, an American recording artist most famous for his chthonic arrival onto the American cultural scene in 1953, a string of ill-advised and lackluster movies, and a slow and painful decline into confusion, indulgence, diabetes, and death. In 1974 Steve Martin was pegged to be the opening act for Margaret at The Sands Hotel in Las Vegas which was quite a break for a young man hailing from Garden Grove whose career peak had theretofore been playing the banjo at a simulacra of an Old West Saloon at Disneyland. As Martin recounted it many years later after one of his performances Presley knocked on his door and after coming into his room told him: Son (he was the King so he called everyone son)—Son, you have an oblique sense of humor, pronouncing the letter o in oblique as one would in oblong rather than over: ah-blique. And that is a very excellent manner in which to characterize Martin’s humor as of the mid 1970s before he too ran out of gas: offbeat, off the wall, out of the blue, always apropos of very little. As Dickinson said you have to tell the truth but given the ignorance of the many headed monster known as the public you have to hide upstairs in an attic behind an arras and become an odd duck or an idiosyncratic spinster of sorts: and you have to tell it slant. Another way of putting that is that as far as I can tell no one has managed to wipe the blood off of us yet.
***
The thing about studying philosophy in college, and I mean really studying it, is that you learn just enough to fuck you up for the rest of your life—Steven Martin
Also Sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30 (Thus Spoke Zarathustra or Thus Spake Zarathustra) is a tone poem by Richard Strauss, composed in 1896 and inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical treatise of the same name. The composer conducted its first performance on 27 November 1896 in Frankfurt. The work has been part of the classical repertoire since its first performance in 1896. The initial fanfare - entitled Sunrise in the composer's program notes - became particularly well known to the general public due to its use in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The fanfare has also been used in many other productions. Now of course it is known to Elvis fans as the opening music for hundreds of his concerts in the 1970s. Very dramatic and everyone knew Elvis was on his way!
On May 14, 2022 Ann Margaret was awarded an honorary doctoral degree in Humane Letters by the University Of Nevada Las Vegas (the Running Rebels).
October 27 2024
In 1888 Friedrich Nietzsche published the book Thus Spake Zarathustra. In it he came up with the sound bite of sound bites, the slogan of slogans, the mantra of mantras, the motto of mottos, the one ready for the close up or the bumper sticker: God Is Dead. If you say the words Friedrich Nietzsche the one thing that they will trigger in the ignorant heads of the many headed monster known as the public it is this set of words. That is this is the one thing they can dredge up from their faulty and impoverished memories: God Is Dead. Nietzsche himself said that he would be the master of ceremonies and the secret narrator of the next 200 years of history and so he has proven; but as Marx said history begins as tragedy and recursively replicates itself as farce. He forgot to include the concluding part of the Hegelian triad: then it comes in total power. Of course all language is subject to what French Theorists (black berets, Gitane cigarettes, Kierkegardian existential dread, lazy days on the Seine) call semantic skidding but none more so than God Is Dead. For what he said needs to be contextualized: God is dead and we have killed him and we hold the fatal bloody knife in our hands. Who will wipe the blood from us? What festivals can there be, what rituals of atonement, what sacred holidays, what initiation rites, what incense wafting to the gods can be performed for forgiveness? Will we have to become gods simply to justify it? That will not fit on a bumper sticker, being a horse of another color.
In 1965 Time Magazine (the periodical of record) published its most famous cover of all time which was comprised of the words Is God Dead? (thereby continuing the philosopher’s narration). The cover had a background of black and the letters were red. On field of sable, always gules.
In 1975 Steve Martin did a bit where he queries: Wouldn’t it be funny (long pause) if you died? (longer pause). Of course that is funny (mock gallows humor) in itself though it’s not the joke, the punch line comes later. For if there is anything that everyone agrees is not funny it is dying. Then he says: and you went to heaven. And it was just like they said: clouds, angels, music, gates (long pause). Wouldn't you feel stupid? Oh no, in college they told us this was all bullshit (longer pause). What, you’ve been keeping records?
This is funny (if not sobering) on many levels, foremost in that it comprises a dissidence to the dissidents, a counter to the counterculture, or a reversal of fortune, which always elicits uneasy laughter as if one cannot be sure of the level of sincerity involved, if any. And secondly because anyone who has thought about it for about two seconds knows that precious little (if anything) of what we were all taught in college was actually true.
***
Las Vegas is the place where old war horse celebrities go to die when they have run out of gas and Ann Margaret was no different. Vaulting on to the world's stage in 1961 the mononymically named actress with her sultry vibrant contralto voice and energetic dancing style electrified the nation; hailing from a part of Sweden which she said was a place of lumberjacks, farmers, ice and snow near the Arctic Circle she starred in movies such as A Pocketful Of Miracles, Bye Bye Birdie, Viva Las Vegas, Carnal Knowledge and 52 Pickup. Most famously she entered into a long-standing affair with Elvis Presley, an American recording artist most famous for his chthonic arrival onto the American cultural scene in 1953, a string of ill-advised and lackluster movies, and a slow and painful decline into confusion, indulgence, diabetes, and death. In 1974 Steve Martin was pegged to be the opening act for Margaret at The Sands Hotel in Las Vegas which was quite a break for a young man hailing from Garden Grove whose career peak had theretofore been playing the banjo at a simulacra of an Old West Saloon at Disneyland. As Martin recounted it many years later after one of his performances Presley knocked on his door and after coming into his room told him: Son (he was the King so he called everyone son)—Son, you have an oblique sense of humor, pronouncing the letter o in oblique as one would in oblong rather than over: ah-blique. And that is a very excellent manner in which to characterize Martin’s humor as of the mid 1970s before he too ran out of gas: offbeat, off the wall, out of the blue, always apropos of very little. As Dickinson said you have to tell the truth but given the ignorance of the many headed monster known as the public you have to hide upstairs in an attic behind an arras and become an odd duck or an idiosyncratic spinster of sorts: and you have to tell it slant. Another way of putting that is that as far as I can tell no one has managed to wipe the blood off of us yet.
***
The thing about studying philosophy in college, and I mean really studying it, is that you learn just enough to fuck you up for the rest of your life—Steven Martin
Also Sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30 (Thus Spoke Zarathustra or Thus Spake Zarathustra) is a tone poem by Richard Strauss, composed in 1896 and inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical treatise of the same name. The composer conducted its first performance on 27 November 1896 in Frankfurt. The work has been part of the classical repertoire since its first performance in 1896. The initial fanfare - entitled Sunrise in the composer's program notes - became particularly well known to the general public due to its use in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The fanfare has also been used in many other productions. Now of course it is known to Elvis fans as the opening music for hundreds of his concerts in the 1970s. Very dramatic and everyone knew Elvis was on his way!
On May 14, 2022 Ann Margaret was awarded an honorary doctoral degree in Humane Letters by the University Of Nevada Las Vegas (the Running Rebels).
