I'm quickly becoming persuaded your essay writing is every bit as enjoyable as your songwriting and musical composition. Your points are always thoughtfully argued, while your prose style sparkles with nerdy brio. For what it's worth, I spent the next two hours immersed in God Only Knows - on the internet, I might add, which made it fairly frictionless to discover. Thanks!
I thoroughly enjoy that you're using the internet to share your non-musical thoughts with us as well as the musical ones. Long may that continue. I'm in the midst of reading Shoshana Zuboff's book and accordingly have also become more disturbed about our gadgets spying on us, but I also think that--just generally in society, not in this essay necessarily, or in Zuboff's book--there's a tendency towards helplessness in the face of our digital overlords and an all-or-nothing approach to combating "the algorithm" that I find problematic.
Before I play devil's advocate any further, I do honestly applaud your fortitude in giving up the internet for an entire year, but those of us who are weaker can (and should and have the ability to) mediate our use of it. We ARE still in charge in many ways--we can turn off notifications and our location, we can curate our social media feeds and listen deliberately rather than being fed algorithmic content, we can use our phones to find a recipe rather than to order from one of those 4162 restaurants. Ani DiFranco said "every tool is a weapon if you hold it right," but I would invert that and declare that every weapon can also be a tool. And we can still attempt to hold this one correctly, even if parts of it are owned by billionaires.
And now I'm going to go use the internet to listen to your new album (which I adore) a few times. Because I can do that.
Imagine the thrill of your headline! I thought it was a column of sex advice from Gabriel Kahane :) Then I read "friction and tedium." Oh dear, it really is a column about sex. I tease of course. I've been thinking about your writings and about composers. For the past many years, I have had a composer biography among my current books. And as a past (failed or reformed - who knows?) musician, I remain in love with music. (BTW, was never a fan of the Beach Boys but did check out the song you talked about.) Many composers' lives are uncomfortable for their individual reasons and as a result of their place in the world and in their worlds. Some had it pretty well - Rameau, Haydn, Brahms, dot dot dot, Philip Glass. But many have been tormented by inner and outer influences - Beethoven, Berlioz, both R and C Schumann, Schubert, Chopin, Scriabin, Eastman, come to mind. (And let's not forget in the world of painting - Mr Van Gogh cut off his ear... hmmm.) Reading your writings makes me think most of Berlioz, who struggled to bring his music to the public, hiring musicians from his own pocket who wouldn't rehearse, never getting the ultimate prize in Paris at that time - an invitation from the Paris Opera. His inner lives and inspirations - Shakespeare and his obsession with Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet and the actress Harriett Smithson - kept him going at times. I'm also thinking of the painter Duccio di Buoninsegna, most of whose paintings are lost, who had to choose between feeding his children and buying paints. To bring it back to the first sentence - he could have timed his sex with his wife better and had fewer children. Anyway... this ramble is rambling on too long. Not meaning to project anything onto you and please keep making wonderful music, Gabriel!
And you can write a fine essay as well. I really enjoyed the deep musical dive into "God only knows" (such a stunning work and did you ever see the video that BBC did of it with pretty much every famous musician in Britain?) as well as the ode to the joys of "friction". You don't have to sell me on that. This old Luddite hippy missed the "internet revolution" while raising kids in Humboldt County and only got (partial use of) a computer about 10 years ago. And I still use a flip phone- to the intense amusement of everyone I know.
I could....bla bla bla, but the shorter way to say it, for the french talker I am is just: Thank you for the words, thoughts, music and the rediscover of this song! receive my feelings of a pure and deep love. Anne
I enjoyed this quite a bit, especially the narrative of the Brian Wilson intro. As a non-musician, I've never heard music written about in this way. And the connection between that narrative and the defense of a smartphone-free world is really interesting. Thank you for a good read!
I'm quickly becoming persuaded your essay writing is every bit as enjoyable as your songwriting and musical composition. Your points are always thoughtfully argued, while your prose style sparkles with nerdy brio. For what it's worth, I spent the next two hours immersed in God Only Knows - on the internet, I might add, which made it fairly frictionless to discover. Thanks!
I thoroughly enjoy that you're using the internet to share your non-musical thoughts with us as well as the musical ones. Long may that continue. I'm in the midst of reading Shoshana Zuboff's book and accordingly have also become more disturbed about our gadgets spying on us, but I also think that--just generally in society, not in this essay necessarily, or in Zuboff's book--there's a tendency towards helplessness in the face of our digital overlords and an all-or-nothing approach to combating "the algorithm" that I find problematic.
Before I play devil's advocate any further, I do honestly applaud your fortitude in giving up the internet for an entire year, but those of us who are weaker can (and should and have the ability to) mediate our use of it. We ARE still in charge in many ways--we can turn off notifications and our location, we can curate our social media feeds and listen deliberately rather than being fed algorithmic content, we can use our phones to find a recipe rather than to order from one of those 4162 restaurants. Ani DiFranco said "every tool is a weapon if you hold it right," but I would invert that and declare that every weapon can also be a tool. And we can still attempt to hold this one correctly, even if parts of it are owned by billionaires.
And now I'm going to go use the internet to listen to your new album (which I adore) a few times. Because I can do that.
Imagine the thrill of your headline! I thought it was a column of sex advice from Gabriel Kahane :) Then I read "friction and tedium." Oh dear, it really is a column about sex. I tease of course. I've been thinking about your writings and about composers. For the past many years, I have had a composer biography among my current books. And as a past (failed or reformed - who knows?) musician, I remain in love with music. (BTW, was never a fan of the Beach Boys but did check out the song you talked about.) Many composers' lives are uncomfortable for their individual reasons and as a result of their place in the world and in their worlds. Some had it pretty well - Rameau, Haydn, Brahms, dot dot dot, Philip Glass. But many have been tormented by inner and outer influences - Beethoven, Berlioz, both R and C Schumann, Schubert, Chopin, Scriabin, Eastman, come to mind. (And let's not forget in the world of painting - Mr Van Gogh cut off his ear... hmmm.) Reading your writings makes me think most of Berlioz, who struggled to bring his music to the public, hiring musicians from his own pocket who wouldn't rehearse, never getting the ultimate prize in Paris at that time - an invitation from the Paris Opera. His inner lives and inspirations - Shakespeare and his obsession with Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet and the actress Harriett Smithson - kept him going at times. I'm also thinking of the painter Duccio di Buoninsegna, most of whose paintings are lost, who had to choose between feeding his children and buying paints. To bring it back to the first sentence - he could have timed his sex with his wife better and had fewer children. Anyway... this ramble is rambling on too long. Not meaning to project anything onto you and please keep making wonderful music, Gabriel!
And you can write a fine essay as well. I really enjoyed the deep musical dive into "God only knows" (such a stunning work and did you ever see the video that BBC did of it with pretty much every famous musician in Britain?) as well as the ode to the joys of "friction". You don't have to sell me on that. This old Luddite hippy missed the "internet revolution" while raising kids in Humboldt County and only got (partial use of) a computer about 10 years ago. And I still use a flip phone- to the intense amusement of everyone I know.
I could....bla bla bla, but the shorter way to say it, for the french talker I am is just: Thank you for the words, thoughts, music and the rediscover of this song! receive my feelings of a pure and deep love. Anne
"Words and Music" is also the title of one of my favorite books, a fascinating history of American musical theater by Lehman Engel. Good on you.
I enjoyed this quite a bit, especially the narrative of the Brian Wilson intro. As a non-musician, I've never heard music written about in this way. And the connection between that narrative and the defense of a smartphone-free world is really interesting. Thank you for a good read!