Possible Reasons for the Decline of Readership.

Note: I'm a bit late to this blog so I may not even be posting correctly...

One of the trickier sort of questions someone may ask you is the sort to which you clearly know the answer but it is hard for you to articulate. We had one such question in class. Why don't people read books as much as they used to? Thankfully, I was able to suppress my nature of bluring out "I don't know" as I did when my parents disciplined me as young boy and saved myself some embarrassment. Hopefully I can express my thoughts on the subject in type better than simply labeling literature "hard to relate to."

Did people really read more in the past than they do today? Could it just be a myth? I would like to see some numbers, but I dont think the literacy rate of one hundred years ago would really vibe with the idea that people read more often then. Maybe there was a group of people who read wanton amount of literature. So much that they make us think reading was pandemic. I think its important to challenge the question in the first place, but in this case, I have no answers. Only a hunch based on vague memories of American History.

Are books really the supreme medium? Are books worth more than film, the internet, art, music or even comic books and sports? I guess one could point to the large amount of masterpieces existent in books and even the historic importance of others such as The Holy Bible. Art is not really seen as a rival to books since so many see them as complements to each other. The "educated man" can be often thought a connoisseur of both art and literature. Music is such a part of us that it seems crazy when a peer cares little for any musician, and today's mainstream music is so disposable at times we leave it in the background thumping away without analyzing and breaking down its parts.

How can film be so popular and be so intellectually corrupt? There aren't many mind blowing movies and even less TV shows. Its important to note I'm talking about the mainstream here, or I would have to write pages and pages talking about it. One of the more ironic comments I've heard about the comic book medium is that it is quite base. These comments usually come from someone who is wholly ignorant of the medium that is continuously plundered for ideas by Hollywood and TV. Shows like "Lost" ape so much from comic books it could be called plagiarism. Cinema and TV have remained incredibly popular since they are relatively "easy" to digest and have been marketed masterfully. The hype summer movies and new seasons of shows get is impossible to ignore. Even with all its flaws cinema and TV do provide visual spectacles.

I'm writing this the day after a solid Super Bowl Sunday. A book can be a page turner, but somewhere out there, someone knows the ending. In sports, nothing can be predicted. Spectacular feats of athleticism spellbind everyone. How far did your jaw drop when Usain Bolt absolutely torched the competition looking like Mercury? How loud was the cheering for Lezak when he beat out the French for the gold medal to keep Michael Phelp's dream of breaking Spitz's record? The whole world chants and sings and hollers during the World Cup. 715 Million people watched Italy win over France in the 2006 finals. About one seventh of the world. No book can match how epic a sport can be.

Books may have been the premier medium in a time where all other medium either didn't exist or were limited by technology, but today, books undeniably come up short when measured in some areas against other mediums. Books have the advantages of being intensely personal and of being around for thousands of years allowing for an unmatched scope of topics to be read. The internet looks like it can do everything all the others can and more, allowing to connect to almost anybody with a computer. It is absolutely revolutionary and I don't doubt it will be the most important development in human history since electricity.

In the end, it may be that the book medium is a limited one that is kept relevant by its history and usage in scholarship. Maybe Shakespeare would have loved to lay down some rhymes on a fat DJ Premier beat rather than leave it on paper. Maybe Marx would have preferred to blog his Communist Manifesto rather than put it in a book. Maybe we should not fret the lack of usage of a medium when we have not finished realizing the potential of others.

Bear with me

First of all I must give props to Miku's bout of sickness inspired literature. The part about the phlegm was truly vivid.
In class we all had decently strong opinions about Madonna's little ditty in regards to whether it was "good" poetry or not. Several musicians were mentioned in previous blogs and it pressed me into a realm of thought that I was not completely comfortable in (which is fabulous please keep it up) which is the idea of whether or not writers like T.S. Eliot can be compared to the songwriters who wrote "She's not me". I have always been of the school of thought that there was "good" literature and "bad" literature, but isn't the epitome of good literature literature that connects with the intended audience?
I have always had disdain for bands such as Fall Out Boy (pardon me for all the fans out there) who I thought were pretty whiny and really had nothing original to say regarding youthful ennui, but then I thought about the masses of 14 year old kids who apparently felt that they had something very worthy to say. Fall Out Boy has reached a much greater audience than Mark Z. Danielewski who is said to be one of the most brilliant authors of our generation. Perhaps they are not comparable; Danielewski's writing addresses a completely different set of problems than Fall Out Boy.
I mean I can hardly understand the problems that a 8 year old faces, and I tend to dismiss said problems as "not a big deal" but to that 8 year old dammit that missing lunch box is a gigantic issue. So perhaps what we tend to dismiss as unoriginal or mundane is quite original to the audience absorbing it, because a song about a missing lunch box would be relevant to that 8 year old who has never before experienced misplacing an object of comfort.

Re: Different Strokes

When we were told to read “She’s Not Me” without looking up the context, I thought that perhaps this poem was not what it appeared to be on the surface. Maybe it wasn’t about a woman who is bitter about another woman taking her man. I tried to guess as to what it could actually be about—basically, I was looking for the “hidden meaning.” Well I’m not that creative so I ended up with nothing and it turned out that it truly was a self-explanatory song.

I realize that I was overanalyzing something that held no deeper meaning. However, what if no one ever tried to read beneath the surface? For example, we discussed Moby Dick during our last class. The first time I read through Moby Dick, all it was to me was a story about an obsessed man hunting a white whale—not very meaningful. The second time around, with a lot of guidance from my English teacher—I realized I had missed the whole point of the story! If everyone who had read Moby Dick “back in the day” had been as oblivious as me, then it might not have been given the proper recognition as classic literature.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I agree with Brandi. I think the person reading has the power to decide whether or not something is considered poetry or literature.

A Short Poem

I will not be in class tomorrow

I may not even be alive.

There's tons of meaning in that, hidden under the phlegm. Totally kidding. I hope I don't get in trouble for this. I'm very ill as I have been most of the weekend, and can't really sit up long enough to read all the entries. If/when I return, I will enthrall you all with The Tale of the Draining of my Tonsil Abscess. I hope I haven't grossed anyone out, my apologies if I have. Have a good class tomorrow!

Re: Different Strokes

I think it's relevant that the artists you named as poetic wrote their own lyrics and Madonna likely at least had some help. The musicians you named created their work start to finish. Madonna may have started as a musician with authenticity in mind, but by the point this song came out, she was well-worked into a record company, out for making the money. I'm not saying that pop songs can't be really great or that they can't be poetic, but I think something churned out by a record company definitely has a strike against it.

I'm aware, too, of the thin ice I'm on by saying commercial endeavors aren't literature (Shakespeare's plays, Dickens novels, etc), but I think it's more possible to keep your soul out of a song produced for money versus a play or novel produced for money. One simply spends less time with it. A play, novel, or a complex piece of art will invariably receive the mark of its creator, but I'm pretty skeptical about pop music sometimes.

In the 20's and 30's, in the era of ragtime, there was a place called the Brill Building where composers, producers, and singers worked together to quickly churn out songs assembly-line style. We studied this process and the structure of said songs in my History of Rock class, but I never really felt the songs were even on the same level as musicians working to write everyone their own and with something clear to say. I was convinced in the last couple minutes of class to maybe put this song in my anthology, but I'm still not really impressed. I suppose I am on the fence on this particular song. It was uninspiredly written for money, but the "she's really hot but you should stay with me anyway because this is real" sentiment is pretty deep and worth noting. It reminds me of Shakespeare's Sonnet 130: http://www.albionmich.com/inspiration/mymistresseyes.html

Rollercoaster Rules Regarding Literature

In Eagleton’s account of the history of the ideas and criticisms of literature, he makes clear the fluctuation of the definition of literature. The definition in recent history morphs to fit each period’s fixation. In the time of Wilde flamboyancy, literature is assessed in a more subjective manner, focusing on the implications brought in by the reader and the context of the poetry. It was the answer to the “spiritual hungering” ignited by World War I. However, when academia became more scientific and institutionalized, so did the literary criticism. This account of English literature further perpetuates what he introduces in the first chapter, that literature is functional rather than ontological. In the eye of the beholder.

Artists often, not always, respond to the demand of their public, and produce works that appeal to the time. They are not removed from society, and can be affected by culture obsessions as much as Joe Blow. I wasn’t in class to experience the Madonna song in full, but I do know Madonna as a product of the 80’s. She has been able to adapt for almost thirty years to cultural shifts. Although the song lacks the verbosity and subject matter usually associated with “good” literature, it is inescapably a reflection of the current state American culture. In this way, is it literature? This song came out last year. Our culture is obsessed with making fame accessible. The television spews reality TV. Everyone wants their fifteen minutes. This song pulls Madonna down from her Kingdom of Pop and humanizes her; she gets her heart broken, too. It is almost hubris to hear Madonna jealous. I’m not sure I would spend more than I just did considering the social implications of her music, but it does contribute to our debate on literature.

On an absent note, is there any music or articles not on the syllabus that I need to read? Tweet me!

Different Strokes...

The other day in class, we discussed whether or not the Madonna song, "She's Not Me" should be published in a book of poetry. Most of the class suggested before knowing who it was by or the context it was written in, that it did not qualify as poetry, and I would agree with that. But what qualifies a work as a poem? I might consider some of Bob Dylan, The Smiths, The Shins, Mates of State, The National and many others music to be poetic both on paper and in song, but why not Madonna?

It might just be that most people are partial to a particular type of music, and if pop dance music isn't something you would normally listen to, you probably won't be keen to consider the lyrics as deep and insightful. And that goes for other types of music as well, that I don't consider poetic. So it might just really be the reader who decides what makes poetry, poetry.