20 Years of Nevermind

To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the release of Nirvana's Nevermind, here's two academic essays that discuss the rhetoric surrounding the grunge masterwork: the first a visual analysis and discussion of the cover; the second an examination of media coverage surrounding the death of Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain. Both were produced for professor and noted editor Jami Carlacio, through a course on rhetoric presented at Union Institute and University.

Senseless Pursuit In Grunge:

An Analysis of Nirvana’s Nevermind (1991) Cover

(nirvana_nevermind_cover.jpg, 2011)

The popularization and distribution of music during the second half of the twentieth century came to include visual images as cover art, offering recording artists a venue beyond lyrics in which to complement persuasive and political statements. Many cite the Beatles' complex efforts of collage and photography in 1967 as defining a work of music's packaging as a work of art itself, the result being Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon (1973) displayed a prism and the separation of white light into a spectrum of color, serving as a metaphor for the work of music enclosed. In 1991, at the time of the release of Nirvana's Nevermind album, images artists chose as cover art were displayed on cardboard sleeves for vinyl records, on paper labels for cassette tapes, and on square booklets enclosed in compact disc cases[1]. In order to understand Nirvana's choice of cover art, it is necessary to understand the genre of the band's music and the genesis of the band itself.

Nirvana—Kurt Cobain, Kris Novaselic and Dave Grohl—formed in the late 1980s in Washington state. Many music critics since have used Nirvana to define the genre of “grunge,” a genre of rock that gained popularity in the 1990s, drawing on traditions of punk, rock, and heavy metal music while adding a new element of psychological self-critique, and, at times, outright self-loathing. The depiction of an infant in pursuit of a hook baited with a dollar underwater serves as the cover for Nirvana's most successful album, Nevermind (1991), and this image complements the album's bleak lyrics. The infant, with arms outstretched and in pursuit of a trivial amount of money, might define Cobain's nirvana itself, as his moment of enlightenment came before the dollar was caught; for millions who purchased Nevermind (1991), and likely identified with the infant's intention and circumstances as depicted on the cover art, quests for trivial wealth continue.

Innocence and Attainment in the Deep: Visual Analysis of the Nevermind (1991) Cover

Five elements comprise the cover of Nevermind (1991) and four are built within one photograph: water, an infant, a dollar bill, and a hook on a string. The fifth element is the black text that identifies the album itself: in the lower left corner, the band’s name is written in its trademark font and underlined. Beneath that line is the name of the album, appearing almost immersed itself, in its own distinct and wavy font, restrained by the weight of the tall capital letters above. The bottom quarter of the image is a solid blue, the darkest depths of the swimming pool; this region is further weighted by the heavy rectangular imprint of the band’s name and the album’s title. All else is above; this may signify that, for all the dramatic action happening above, the material enclosed, Nevermind (1991) by Nirvana, resides below, in a darker place.

The cover is predominantly blue; the child's features are appropriately a flesh tone, and a pale light green tints the dollar bill. The hook, barely visible against the background of the surface of the water, is dragged by a visible white string that points towards the upper right corner of the image. Lights above the surface of the swimming pool set an ominous background for the infant’s pose, as the surface of the water appears to stretch limitlessly behind the baby's reaching arms. Unknown and dark markings stretch above the surface of water, almost parallel to the edge of the frame along its left side; this establishes some foreboding element in the environment above the water, as if to imply that should the infant resurface, other circumstance may be rediscovered above.

The infant floats with arms outstretched, fingers spread, and legs folded back, about to grasp the dollar with both hands. His eyes are open as he looks to the dollar. His mouth is also open, and few air bubbles emerge from his mouth or nostrils--few enough that one may wonder if the infant is breathing. His facial expression may be difficult to define, for he is perceiving the dollar and does not appear frantic about his underwater circumstance. The infant's penis is clearly visible, pointing almost directly at the last letter in the band's name. The brightest areas of the cover are in areas of visible light across the infant's arms and lower legs; the child is luminous, and provides the viewer a dramatic context for one individual's quest.

Cobain’s choice for the cover of Nevermind (1991) was an image of an infant underwater chasing a dollar bill on a hook: a lone individual, of an unsuspecting age, is caught in useless and deadly pursuit, and is rapt in unconquerable circumstance. The photograph was taken by Michael Lavine, of his son, Spencer Elden (Lehner, 2007, para. 5); the album credits Robert Fisher with “artwork, art direction, design, cover design,” Lavine is credited with “photography,” and Spencer Elden is listed as the “infant in the cover photo” (Nirvana, 1991).The scene established by these elements is one of tragic and dramatic action. At its heart, the innocence of the infant chases the new challenging stimulus of the representation of wealth. Temporarily suspending the fiction of the photograph, whoever baits a hook to lure an infant might be called an unsurpassed destructive force. This entity is not depicted, but is presumably above the surface of the water, the inventor of the drama; without the dollar dragging along and moving from left to right across the frame, only a sad drowning would be shown. The infant’s eyes look toward the bait with expectation, leaving the viewer to wonder how aware the infant may be, of the role he is playing in someone else’s larger scheme.

Trivial Pursuits: Lyrical Context for the Nevermind (1991) Cover

One voice sings on Nevermind (1991), and it is Cobain’s own, though it may as well have been the dying voice of the underwater infant depicted on the album's cover. Cobain's obituary in the New York Times identified him as being amongst a group of “grunge” musicians whose financial success was based on giving artistic embodiment to a generation's “rootless anger and dysfunction” (Ali, 1994, as cited by Kahn, 1999, para. 19). Elements of anger and dysfunction characterize the lyrics of the songs found on Nevermind (1991), as Cobain discussed themes of pursuit, failure, and innocence.

Nevermind (1991)'s first hit single, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” was widely received and popular; many critics have acknowledged its importance as an example of grunge and as a historical artifact that identifies a philosophical, if not social movement. Its chorus was, at the time of its release, a lyrical call to unification of grunge music: “I feel stupid and contagious/here we are now/entertain us” (Nirvana, 1991). Technology, new media, and a massive economy surrounding arts and entertainment had, in Cobain's view, reached a tipping point: as a consumer and participant in society, he felt incapable and tragic, in need of external stimulation like the infant on the cover. Other lyrics on Nevermind (1991) identify similar themes of inability and anger:

he’s the one/who likes all the pretty songs/and he likes to sing along/and he likes to shoot his gun/but he knows not what it mean (Nirvana, 1991, Nevermind, “In Bloom”)

come as you are/as you were/as I want you to be/as a friend/as a friend/as an old enemy (Nirvana, 1991, “Come as You Are”).

I’m so happy/cause today I found my friends/they’re in my head/I’m so ugly/that’s OK, cause so are you (Nirvana, 1991, “Lithium”).

Each song on Nevermind (1991) identifies a world in which individuals are unable to adequately meet societal and personal expectations, and Cobain's lyrics shift from first to second to third person to accomplish this argument. “Come as you are” is especially significant in this, as listeners are encouraged to redefine themselves in whatever form is most apt to create community. “I'm so ugly/that's OK cause so are you” is an especially humbling call to commonality by Cobain; friends, identity, and public and private self-image is important to Cobain throughout the lyrics on Nevermind (1991).

The infant on the cover of Nevermind (1991) embodies Cobain's lyrical attitude: one of cynicism, that an individual may decay into mental illness (“I found my friends/they're in my head”) or self-destructive behavior, in their seeking to make sense of their world, and before any enlightenment may truly occur. Many of the lyrics on Nevermind (1991) reflect brutal and tireless self-evaluation, creating a world in which personal discovery and accomplishment may result only in revelations of emptiness and inability: not chasing a thousand or even hundred, but a one dollar bill alone.

A Rhetoric for Grunge: Implications of the Nevermind (1991) Cover

The cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind (1991) tried to capture the existential struggle of an innocent generation, lured by money that moves on a stringed hook, pulled by another. Cobain’s original title for Nevermind was “Sheep,” but he accepted Nevermind for its poor syntax as well as the creed it implies: lazy abandonment of a task at-hand, as in the pursuit of the dollar underwater—Nevermind, for such pursuit puts one’s very life at stake, a fact his own suicide may have sought to prove. To what extent did the ‘grunge’ movement, if not wider society, abandon its deadly ‘underwater’ pursuits of wealth?

Cobain’s attitude regarding the nudity on the cover held little regard for widespread public appeal; perhaps he was aware to what extent the production and success of Nevermind (1991) would be baiting a major monetary hook; perhaps Cobain's disdain for existing frameworks for profit in the music industry drove his choice of a naked infant for the cover. The prominence of the infant’s penis, against the deepest blue of the background, pointed downward toward the last letter in the band’s name. Cobain answered Geffen Records’ concerns about this nudity, by the concession that the genitals be covered by a sticker that sought to be more offensive than the image itself, reading: “if you’re offended by this, you must be a closet pedophile” (Wikipedia, 2011, para. 24). Cobain's solution proved more offensive to Geffen, and its marketing executives; in this, Cobain's attitude triumphed, and the cover was published as fully displaying the child's penis.

The metaphor of the hook baited with money may have become less of a metaphor since this image was first publicized. The infant, at age seventeen, was offered $1,000 by a photographer to recreate the image (Patterson, 2008, para. 4), and CNN's headline “Naked “Nirvana” baby still chasing dollars” (2008) noted the bitter irony. Twenty years after the release of Nevermind (1991) most of Cobain's generation, and the generation that has followed still values generating income and wealth, swimming, often at great peril, to obtain such. In the process, many have risked or lost innocence and humility in the process. Some may have come to seek to identify with the unseen force that drags the hook, and some have followed the bait itself blindly.

Twenty Years Underwater: Legacy of the Nevermind (1991) Cover

Against the grain of larger-than-life musical performers of the 1980s, Nirvana front man and songwriter Kurt Cobain helped establish categories of “grunge” and “alternative” in the 1990s. The cover of Nevermind (1991), conceived by Cobain himself while watching a documentary on water births with bassist Novaselic (“Nevermind”, n.d., para. 24), initiates a viewer’s thinking about the juxtaposition of innocence and a simultaneous struggle for wealth-- and not much. Interpretation of this image remains salient and political, for the pursuit of wealth alongside loss of innocence may continue to characterize an American dream.

Works Cited

Benjamin, W. (1936). The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. In Marxists.org. Retrieved from http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm

Harris, C. (2008). Nirvana baby—all grown up—re-creates classic Nevermind cover image. In MTV News. Retrieved from http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1598985/nirvana-baby-recreates-classic-nevermind-cover-image.jhtml#more

Kahn, S. (1999). Kurt Cobain, martyrdom, and the problem of agency. In Studies in Popular Culture. Retrieved from http://pcasacas.org/SiPC/22.3/kahn.html

Lehner, M. (2007). Nirvana baby talks about the famous album cover. In People. Retrieved from http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20051839,00.html

Nevermind. (n.d.). Retrieved from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevermind

Nirvana. (1991). Nevermind. [compact disc]. New York, NY: Geffen.

nirvana_nevermind_cover.jpg. [Image file]. Retrieved from http://sleevage.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/nirvana_nevermind_cover.jpg

Patterson, T. (2008). Naked ‘Nirvana baby’ still chasing dollars. In CNN Entertainment. Retrieved from http://articles.cnn.com/2008-12-11/entertainment/nirvana.baby_1_nirvana-grunge-album-marks?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ

Weinstein, D. (1995). Alternative youth: The ironies of recapturing youth culture. Young, 3, 2-12. doi: 10.1177/110330889500300106

List of number-one albums of 1992 (U.S.). (n.d.). Retrieved from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-one_albums_of_1992_%28U.S.%29

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Tragic Infotainment: The Death of Kurt Cobain

“Infotainment” is form of journalism that has developed alongside new communication technologies within the public sphere; as a form of media, infotainment is often sensational, the portrayl of individuals' irrational or unexpected behavior. Three examples from the media, two published recently after Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain’s suicide, and one from a 2004 Dateline feature on conspiracy theories regarding Cobain’s death, make specific journalistic use of celebrities’ personal tragedy. The evolving definition of infotainment is important to an understanding of a modern conception of the public sphere, as an abundance of major media promotes the actions of celebrities as news. Three examples of how journalists seek to manufacture consensus using Kurt Cobain's legacy and importance a musician and pop icon help identify how infotainment may be transforming the public sphere.

Infotainment and the Public Sphere

The public sphere has come to include television, print media, and a host of evolving electronic sources, including archives of previously published material. As defined by Jurgen Habermas in “The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article” (1964), the public sphere “mediates between society and state, in which the public organizes itself as the bearer of public opinion” (p. 102). Rooted in the democratic notion that the public may seek new knowledge, Habermas' definition views the public sphere as performing mediation between two entities; the relationship is symbiotic, as the public develops opinions that in turn inform the media's choices in presentation. While communication technologies have grown in popularity, establishing additional realms in which the public is to construct and disseminate its popular opinion, the relationships of power established by Habermas (1964) are salient to an understanding of how infotainment is created and disseminated, and why its popularity continues.

Infotainment is a term often used to describe a form of journalism available across print, television, and electronic media. “The label “infotainment” is emblematic of concern and criticism that journalism is devolving from a medium which conveys serious information about issues affecting public interest, into a form of entertainment which happens to have fresh “facts” in the mix” (“Infotainment,” 2011, para. 2). Definitions vary, though themes of media, celebrity, entertainment, and information are common. Some scholars cite the rise of cable television networks in the 1980s and 1990s as providing a framework for new tides of programs that blend information and entertainment: emerging from a wealth of new and technological opportunities for producers, networks, and advertisers to connect with their audience, infotainment may represent a devolution in this communicative relationship.

Infotainment and the Propaganda Model

To what extent does a focus on infotainment release reporters and networks from journalistic responsibilities? Reporting the news of celebrities, however tragic, may involve less risk to reporters, networks, and advertisers than other forms of journalism: the rise of reporter personalities during the 1980s included Oprah Winfrey, Phil Donahue, and Geraldo Rivera. Each made a shift from traditional journalism into hosting programs that focused on personalities. While the transformation of these hosts' early talk shows into modern forms of infotainment warrants separate study, these changes are important to an understanding of modern infotainment.

The extent to which television news coverage became focused on the actions of individuals-- often celebrities-- may provide an example of the Propaganda Model, a widely-regarded framework that identifies relationships of power and hegemony in media coverage, established by scholars Herman and Chomsky (1988). Television as a key component of the Propaganda Model, which is based on the “systematic and highly political dichotomization in news coverage based on serviceability to domestic power interests” (Herman and Chomsky, 1988, para. 93). The Propaganda Model views the consolidation of media corporations as problematic, as economic opportunities drive choices in what the media actually covers.

The public's complicity in the low journalistic standards of infotainment is essential. In a May 2000 USA Today article, social critic Michael Medved (2000) cited television audiences as the primary reason for the rise in infotainment in the media: “we allow television to be our main source of news, and this leads to three critical distortions in our lives: self-pity, a shortened attention span, and superficiality and subjectivity” (para. 5). Medved (2000) defined exact “distortions” that come as the result of the public's widespread acceptance and lack of criticism of the television news. These “distortions” are applicable to the new forms of media that have become widespread during the twenty-first century; much scholarship regarding the relationship between attention span and cable television has determined a specific and detrimental relationship.

Complications arose following the publication of Medved’s article in 2000, not only in an increase in electronic forms of media, but in the events of September 11, 2001 in New York City. “The attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001,” wrote Owen Pikkert (2007) in “Function after Form: The Democratic Detriment of Episodic Television News,” “have greatly increased American interest in the news” (p. 55). While interest in the news increased following a national tragedy, to what extent was this interest answered by the system identified by Herman and Chomsky (1988)? “Serviceability to important domestic power interests” (Herman and Chomsky, 1988, para. 93) remains a characteristic of across genres of media. Infotainment—keeping celebrities newsworthy—may not only aid in distorting our understanding of “superficiality and subjectivity” (Medved, 2000, para. 5), but may be a way for media corporations and their advertisers to maintain existing relationships of power and economy.

Rock and Roll Suicide: An Example of Infotainment

Media coverage regarding the death of Kurt Cobain serves as an example of infotainment. Kurt Cobain’s body was discovered by a workman installing a security system on the morning of April 8, 1994 in the greenhouse attached to his suburban Seattle home. Across three chronological examples, the drift from the facts of a rock celebrity’s suicide to infotainment on speculation regarding Cobain’s choices, and the choices of his widowed wife, Courtney Love, is apparent.

April 9, 1994: Seattle Post-Intelligencer

This article from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on the day following the discovery of Cobain’s body is interesting for its corporate authorship—three reporters were credited in the byline—and the structure of the article reflects perhaps what was a hasty entry into the public sphere. The article’s lengthy headline, “Cobain’s Suicide Note Ended With ‘I Love You’; Gunshot Death Shocks Nirvana Fans, But Some Say They Saw It Coming” (Goldsmith, Raley and Hadley, 1994) seeks to include information that both releases the knowledge of Cobain’s suicide only after his portrayal as a loving individual, before including fans’ opposing reactions. The article’s opening line is laden with descriptors of Cobain himself: “Rock superstar Kurt Cobain, the scruffy kid from small-town Washington who swept to fame singing of youthful alienation, was found dead yesterday of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head” (Goldsmith, Raley and Hadley, 1994). A comma separates the Seattle paper’s glowing description of Cobain from the facts of his tragic death.

The organization of the article is unique in how it makes use of Cobain’s background, as well as the first source cited, Gary Smith, the electrical contractor who found Cobain’s body (para. 5-6). Details regarding the suicide note and speculation regarding its contents are then revealed, as the article’s focus shifts to Cobain’s personal relationships and history: “In the note, according to a source close to the investigation, Cobain said he loved his wife and daughter. The last two lines said, “I love you. I love you.” Cobain wrote that he did not want the life of his 14-month-old daughter Frances to turn out like his own. Cobain’s boyhood in the timber town of Aberdeen had been disrupted by his parents’ divorce when he was 10” (para. 8-9). Compassion and empathy for Cobain is established in the description of these parts of his life.

The article proceeds to describe how “three […] guns had been take from Cobain by police at a different home last summer and later returned to him” (para. 13), and that his mother’s missing persons report, filed a week prior, was acted on by police: “[Police Capt.] Wingstrand said he wasn’t convinced Cobain was actually missing. “It was something I felt was not unusual that he would disappear like that,” he said. “I thought he may not have been truly a missing person but a person who didn’t want to be found””(para. 21). The article allows for readers’ speculation as to Cobain’s motives and intentions during his last days and hours, and provides a spectacle by which one may compare one’s own behavior: neighbors’ observations include that “the singer didn’t look well and was seen last week wearing a heavy coat on a warm day” (para. 24). The coat Cobain was seen wearing, the repetition in the suicide note, the attitudes of the police: these details may be of interest to fans of Cobain, but may also establish a vouyeristic account of a personal and individual tragedy.

April 22, 1994: Entertainment Weekly

Weeks after the discovery of Cobain’s body, Entertainment Weekly ran a photograph of Cobain on their cover, and an extensive and challenging feature article (April 22, 2004). After lengthy description of the crowd that gathered at Cobain’s Seattle home during his funeral, reporter Dana Kennedy organizes research regarding Cobain’s death around answering these questions: “What led Cobain to take his own life at a time when his careers as a musician and father were supposedly on track? Why didn’t anyone stop him?” (para. 6). Kennedy (1994) recounted Cobain’s last month, including the details of his drug overdose in Italy during Nirvana’s European tour, before refocusing her driving question: “Did anyone try to come to his aid? Or was he such a valuable franchise that those who profited from his career were reluctant to take a stand?” (para. 14).

Cobain’s relationships, to his record producers, managers and band mates is discussed, before Kennedy (1994) identifies how Cobain’s wife, Courtney Love “is taking some of the blame in her very public mourning over Cobain’s death, she has always been a lightning rod for controversy. She cemented her out-of-control, wild-babe image with her emotional, pretaped reading of portions of Cobain’s suicide note at his vigil, sometimes crying while she spoke his words, sometimes swearing at him. By all accounts, Love is a dangerous combination of flamboyant instability and focused ambition” (para. 23). Kennedy (1997) uses her description of Cobain’s funeral to establish Love as a celebrity herself, responding with her own unique rhetoric to the suicide of her husband.

Kennedy (1994) concluded by refocusing on Cobain himself, and his choices: “Cobain had talked about death like some people chat about the weather. In the end, he may have been so determined to die that no one could stop him” (para. 28). Entertainment Weekly, as a magazine focused on the nature of celebrity in the public sphere, discussed the suicide of Cobain as an event that involved professional and personal relationships, and one that involved choices and elements (including guns and drugs) unfamiliar to a general audience. This obituary provides ample context regarding an individual's tragic choices, citing far more details than initial media coverage of Cobain's suicide.

April 2, 2004: Dateline MSNBC

Ten years after the suicide of Cobain, authors Ian Halperin and Max Wallace released Love & Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain, a biography of Cobain that asserted incorrect conclusions regarding Cobain’s death had been made, by the police, his family, and the medical examiner’s official report (“Justice for Kurt Cobain,” n.d., para. 4). Reception of Halperin and Wallace (2004) was rarely critical; this discussion will briefly examine Dateline MSNBC’s article from April 5, 2004, as a further entry of infotainment into the public sphere regarding the death of Kurt Cobain. Halperin and Wallace (2004) executed a media tour during the week of April 8, 2004, to promote their book; this tour included a variety of entries into the public sphere, including national television broadcasts (Dateline MSNBC, NBC Today, CourtTV, and CNN), syndicated radio programs, and print media, including articles in the New York Daily News, Newsday, and a number of independent media outlets (“Justice for Kurt Cobain,” n.d., para. 6-8).

MSNBC’s article is credited to Matt Lauer (2004), and its introduction makes little modern reference regarding Cobain’s death; its relevance ten years later is assumed to still be considered “news” in the public sphere:

It ended and began with his death. Ten years ago, on April 8, 1994, the spokesman for an angst-ridden generation, rock singer Kurt Cobain, was found dead in his house in Seattle. It was an apparent suicide. Brilliant and fatalistic, the lead singer of Nirvana helped popularize grunge, underground rock music which his band brought into the mainstream. Journalists Max Wallace and Ian Halperin have written extensively about Kurt Cobain (Lauer, 2004, para. 1-2).

Lauer (2004) elevated Cobain’s legacy to one of a pioneer both in a genre of music (“grunge”) as well as one who aided in the popularization of a previously “underground” music. Wallace and Halperin’s research identified the role of drugs in the lives of Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain, and sought to detail their relationship. Lauer (2004) uses clips from his interview with the authors to complement his own characterization of a personal relationship: “They had the perfect outsider credentials. He came from a broken blue-collar home in rural Washington. She’s the daughter of an heiress and a hippie writer, manager of a band that became The Grateful Dead. She had a troubled childhood, spending time at juvenile hall. At 16, she was a stripper. For both, music was their gateway” (para. 4). The MSNBC article devoted attention to Love, including an October 2003 fiasco involving painkillers and the police (2004, para. 20). As the focus shifted to current and living celebrities including Love and her daughter, Lauer’s (2004) embrace of sensationalism is blatant; while a new book monopolizes on conspiracy theories regarding Cobain’s death, Lauer’s attention turned to Courtney Love: “Then last month, there was a raunchy rampage. In one wild night, she seemed to unravel. First there was an impromptu peep show on David Letterman, and later that evening, performing at a concert, Love allegedly threw a microphone stand into the audience. One man’s head was gashed open. There was another arrest, another charge” (para. 22).

Infotainment and the Construction of Twenty-first Century Celebrity

Sensationalism in reporting the news of celebrities continues to be lucrative; as part of Herman and Chomsky’s (1988) system of constructing public opinion, infotainment as provided by the examples above represent the continued glorification of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, as “news” built of the exposure of individuals’ poor choices. In this, the viewers of television and the readers of the news take part in a relationship of power, receivers of a complete media product built of others’ personal trials and challenges, one that seeks to render public opinion regarding the importance of celebrities like Kurt Cobain.

Works Cited

Burton, G. (2004). Media and Society. Available from http://www.myunion.edu/Library-Login.aspx?url=http://site.ebrary.com/lib/tui/Doc?id=10161342

Chomsky, N., & Herman, E. (1988). In Manufacturing Consent. Retrieved from http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Herman%20/Manufac_Consent_Prop_Model.html

Cobain, K. (n.d.). Kurt Cobain’s suicide note. Retrieved from http://kurtcobainssuicidenote.com/kurt_cobains_suicide_note.html

Goldsmith, S., Raley, D. & Hadley, J. (1994, 9 April). Cobain’s suicide note ended with ‘I love you’; Gunshot death shocks Nirvana fans, but some say they saw it coming. Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Retrieved from http://www.btinternet.com/~teppic2000/KurtCobainCase/Article9th.htm

Gould, M. (2004). Suicide and the media. Retrieved from http://www.columbia.edu/itc/hs/medical/bioethics/nyspi/material/SuicideAndTheMedia.pdf

Habermas, J. (1974). The public sphere: An encyclopedia article (1964). New German Critique 3, 49-55.

“Infotainment.” (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infotainment

Kennedy, D. (1994). Remembering Kurt Cobain. In Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4645881/

Medved, M. (2000, May). Television news: Information or infotainment? In USA Today. Retrieved from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1272/is_2660_128/ai_62590573/

Lauer, M. (2004). More questions in Kurt Cobain death? In Dateline. Retrieved from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4645881/

Pikkert, O. (2007). Function after form: The democratic detriment of episodic television news. The McMaster Journal of Communication, 4, 1.

Stockwell, S. (2004). Reconsidering the fourth estate: The functions of infotainment. In Australian Political Studies Association, University of Adelaide. Retrieved from http://www.adelaide.edu.au/apsa/docs_papers/Others/Stockwell.pdf

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[1] An abundance of unique products of media existed at the time of the release of Nevermind (1991); theorist Walter Benjamin (1936) provided salient discussion on how, through replication, images may gain persuasive and political power, in his essay “The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction.”

R.I.P. R.E.M.

I was standing in my backyard, looking at the clouds above the edge of autumn leaves that is mid-September in New England, when I heard Sirius/XM DJ Franny Thomas explain how after thirty-one years, REM was calling it quits: the End of the World As We Knew It, As It Contained REM. She then played “Country Feedback” from the 1991 Out of Time album, a song whose balladeering was a new kind of wistful and expressive in its time, and back in my day. I was eleven or twelve years old when I picked REM’s Out of Time from a mail-order-music gimmick in a comic book (alongside Clapton’s Unplugged); that compact disc shined in its gray digital glory, all through the metamorphoses of junior high and high school and off to college, wailing out along with “Near Wild Heaven” and resiliently in the choruses of “Shiny Happy People” across all those trickier years. I remember watching frontman Michael Stipe’s erratic dance of lost religion on MTV, on a television in a living room in an age that seems such a distant place now: “I thought that I heard you sing/I think I thought I saw you try/But that was just a dream,” and doing that dance in dark corners of cafeterias and gymnasiums, beneath the balloons and streamers of a school dance, and all of us there, in rented formal wear, danced and shook and did continue our transformation, in time to the stoic beat of Bill Berry. We grew up and graduated from those transitional places, and may have carried with us some of the music. I also had a cassette tape of Out of Time—perhaps discovered in a free pile, or picked up for cheap, knowing it was worth passing to someone who hadn’t discovered the lament and melancholy that was the postmodern vision and gateway to grunge on which we’d ride out the century: “these barricades can only for so long/her world collapsed early Sunday morning” (“Belong” from Out of Time).

I dodged in and out of the REM catalog in college, until someone turned me on to their 1998 Up. This electronic experiment came after Bill Berry’s departure from the band and the dumping of their longtime producer Scott Litt. Up may have been the turning point in their career—I won’t profess to know my detailed REM history, but have had a deep experience with two of their works. I do know they didn’t tour in support of Out of Time, and were hesitant to do so in support of Up: I never saw REM live, but the long drives I took thumping “Lotus” and “At My Most Beautiful” from massive speakers buckled into the back seat of my old Buick may have brought me closer to understanding the creative and spiritual vision of Michael Stipe: “the bull and the bear are marking/their territories/they’re leading the blind with/their international glories/I’m the screen, the blinding light/I’m the screen, I work at night” (“Daysleeper,” from Up). If Stipe was concerned with the stock market’s pissing ground in 1998, no wonder the last decade of the band’s output has been musically and lyrically dour: “I don’t think it’s that easy, we’re lost in regret/now I’m trying to remember the feeling when the music stopped” (“Outsiders,” from 2004’s Around the Sun). I’m glad Michael Stipe, an individual who has publically and privately emerged through his life, emerges now a liberated, neo-postmodern poet with a trademark bald gaze, one who was keen enough to see that we and Madonna were Losing Our Religion in 1991; it remains his democratic and participatory task to make sense of what we’re losing, or gaining, these days. One may hope that Stipe, Peter Buck, and Mike Mills each do not fade into their own artistic obscurity and become consumed by the raw awesomeness of their last-century legacy (see Beck). I am grateful for having been Out of Time for decades; for having been embraced the space-cadet synths and melodies of Up. Stealing from Blake as elegy: if it truly is the “End of the World (As We Know It),” as the pop culture anthem resonates, what we know of this world that is ending will be due in part to REM’s songs of innocence and songs of experience.

After the Flood with They Might Be Giants: September 11th, 2011 in Norwich, Vermont

It was the first full moon since the storm: central Vermont had been devastated by floods due to Tropical Storm Irene less than two weeks before They Might Be Giants were booked to play the Upper Valley Arts Center, a summertime facility near the intersection of Route 5 and Interstate 91 in Norwich. On two Sundays prior—on the terrific afternoon that preceded the New Moon, and one of the darkest nights I have ever known-- the heavy rains had come too fast for too many riverside drives and homes. So much of Vermont had been washed away: cows, farms, the rich topsoil that sustained so many farms, bridges and bridge abutments, first and second-story buildings, homes, businesses, desks and desktops full of business, incoming and outgoing. Two Sundays prior the Green Mountains may have been as dark as they’ve ever been, since people got here: the ground suddenly too soft, too unstable. The storm appeared to have drawn its path across the ridgeline of the mountains, from Wilmington to Waterbury, disabling and isolating communities in its path. This was not the plight of the small nook in the woods that is the Upper Valley Arts Center, whose lot sits across from a Subaru dealership: having been braving roads still under construction to gain access to my home, I was proud to park my red Forester beside far shinier vehicles, wheels that had yet to see the spray of mud that is the revision of the crust of the earth, the remains of backroads best left to symmetrical all-wheel drive. Posters in downtown Norwich advertised the evening’s concert, and each eerily, ironically bore the Giants’ new album-logo: a pink, cartoonish, and jacked-up hearse. There was new power in showing this image to the people of Vermont, two weeks after the natural environment turned cruel, and ate so much infrastructure.

But a new and bright and completely full moon rose between the tall pines, out beyond the twilight glimmer of the Subaru dealership: I had been looking forward to the reappearance of the moon, the progression of its phases as not a metaphor but some true sense of ritual and renewal: and while the moonlight would reflect for the first time upon so much rubble in so many brooks, creeks, and streams, new and sad reflected light on the banks, where the water receded and left behind chunks of others’ lives, the white plastic-canvas of the performance tent began its smooth glow in the full moon’s shine. The last of summer had been furiously swept away, and the cool breeze that whispered outside the tent reminded one of fall—was itself the very reason the leaves on the trees were beginning their own seasonal ritual of transformation, bursting forth from the solid idle green into varying stages of drying, turning tan. The tent was big enough for the crowd; there couldn’t have been more than five-hundred of us, mostly sprawled across blankets and in low-slung foldable chairs, taking in the sunset, moonlight, music, and beer (coolers permitted). The lot was perhaps five acres of cleared, gently sloping land, and John Flansburgh described it best later in the night, when he and Linnell donned their handpuppets from a corner of the spacious tent, backed against a wall with faux windows of translucent plastic: “this is the best wedding reception I’ve ever been to!” the puppet exclaimed, its image projected tall onto the sloped ceiling of the tent through a projector. If John Linnell has always had his keyboard from which to stand, stoic and confirmed in the center of the stage, Professor Flans is interested in moving around the stage more than ever: and this is not specifically so he can perform massive Who-like arm revolutions, hammering out the thrash of syncopation and harmony, but so he can really Do Whatever He Wants. John Flansburgh, looking like a Beat poet in a light blue searsucker jacket, droopy mustache and unshaven black facial hair, and translucent sneaker, played his electric guitar wirelessly, roaming around like never before: he sang a song from far backstage, behind Marty’s see-thru kit; jumped forward and backward through choruses and riffs; dualed with Dan Miller on a number of occasions, and almost knocked necks with the bass. Flans had a far-off gaze behind his spectacles, and behaved unpredicatably. He tapped the mic as part of the opener, “The Guitar,” before taking a truly weird and especially-distorted crunch-rock chord solo—was he digging how his tweed amp sounded, its small speaker reverberant in the tiny tent? It got wild quick; never too quick at a They Might Be Giants show. “When Will You Die,” the next tune, taken from the new album, brought on the video feed: to this song, different weapons of destruction—a knife, a gun, a fist—flashed as Linnell wailed and the moon rose. The crowd had pressed forward; Flans warned the crowd between tunes, among much witty banter: “if anyone touches the stage, the show is over.” “Withered Hope” continued Flans’ madness, as horn parts were replaced by the heavy chunkiness of the electric guitar: the band became thunderous as they heard each other, warmed up and functioning as a unit through the raspy melodrama that was Linnell’s singing. In “Your Racist Friend,” a live favorite of mine for its provocative and uncomfortable nature and funk, Dan Miller took a solo on his electric that involved one of the oddest, harmonized solos I’ve ever heard: it was both an act of technical proficiency and instrumental know-how. It was amazing, one of the few Dan Miller highlights from this Giants show; he’s always been a bit expressionless, but seemed more of a distant character on this gig than others I’ve seen.

Regardless of how Dan Miller or anybody else feels about it, they and the crowd will always be at the mercy of John and John’s antics and whims: “Clap Your Hands,” a long-played kids’ song that the Giants use to engage the crowd, now involved a tight electronic clave fill, some noodling and further electric guitar thrash from Flans, and a building up of steam. The crowd—ranging from young families to dozens of children, with and without earplugs—stomped, clapped, and jumped as they were told, and the tent raged. What happened next may have been a new invention of this tour: a virtual and musical battle between the Apes and the People. The crowd was divided, and the chanting of each side of us in the tent was to be along with either John and John, or Marty, Dan, and Dan: after setting it up, explaining it to the crowd not more than once, Flans appeared giggly: and it did work too well. The lights flashed and we threw our fists in the air; Flans had said repeatedly, “get ready for some beautiful music.” It was strange and out of tune and out of sorts; it was a psychedelic event. Dan Miller picked at his guitar strings with his teeth; Linnell wailed on his accordion. The sixteen-bar jams from each band were each epic in their gratiuitous rock parody; it was a battle. “The people win,” announced Flans in stoic monotone. The crowd, Apes included, roared, so much so that the band was startled, unsure of how to calm down enough to play the next, far more serious and sensitive tune from the new album: “Cloisonne.” It is a Flans original, and was this night a fine display of the Giants’ latest songwriting and music theory, as well as their diligence and practice in rebuilding studio-based originals in a live-band setting. Marty moved to the keys; John Linnell played what Flans called the “bass saxophone,” brought out the punchy notes that held together Flansburgh’s achingly-sweet melodies: amongst other nonsense, the live performance of lyrics such as “you’ve got a friend in law enforcement/don’t go calling law enforcement” was weirdly tender. These words may stand for other things to us, the audience, than what they mean to their author. The Giants aren’t self-effacing; they are gracious professionals on tour and on stage, respectful of themselves and each other and their audience. Though I’m guessing Flans made an Elvis-like dash for the bus shortly following the tour, as their merchandise table featured autographed copies of the new album in CD ($15) and vinyl ($20), not to mention an enormous white poster featuring the giant pink hearse ($25). Flans showed off the gatefold vinyl to the crowd at one point, and made some faint allusion to being with the ‘in crowd,’ “especially in Vermont.” There was much interaction with the crowd, eye contact and laughter: this was not John and John’s first pseudo-wedding reception, but it was likely the first time Flansburgh, during the projected-puppet segment, got goofy and forced his hand puppet’s eye into the camera as he bellowed into a microphone, “are you uncomfortable yet?” They were having fun, hiding behind a kick drum that served as the video camera’s stand. The puppets were given a “Free Ride” intro and outro by the band—quite a kickin’ and brief jam—and John and John sang (as the projected puppets) a song I didn’t recognize, and is labeled “crazy” on the setlist (NOT the Patsy Cline number, Black Sabbath, or any other cover). The puppet thing was pretty funny and inventive; they used the trading-off nature of the song’s vocal lines to give a reason for each puppet to fill the frame. Back in the instrumental saddles, they played “Celebration”—a strange new (?) song, before a set of hits old and new: “Particle Man,” “Dr. Worm,” and “You Probably Get That A Lot,” the latter being from the new album. Dan Miller took another interesting solo in “Particle Man,” but otherwise remained in the background, to the foreground of Flans’ bouncing around the room and Linnell’s gaping mouth bent towards the mic, his hands like paws, clamoring at the keys. Dan played keys during “Dr. Worm” while Linnell played accordion; Flans stood idle by the drumset, appeared to be taking a moment to recharge. “You Probably…” featured Linnell singing alone, and not playing anything, as Dan Miller played the keys, and everybody kept it cool through the inventive triplets and cascading beats. Later, Dan Miller took a nominally-thrashing solo on the acoustic guitar, though his spotlight moment before “Istanbul” seemed short and rushed: there had been a War between Apes and People, and there was little space left for instrumental contemplation. The set ended, and the first encore began with the night’s choicest moment: Linnell and Flansburgh, on sax and stylophone respectively, performed “Lie Still, Little Bottle.” Linnell kept the melodic pattern afloat as Flans tinkered with the small electronic device and its wired pen (it too had a wireless transceiver in it, so it was cordless and self-contained). Marty was present for the song’s few drum hits; otherwise, Flans’ snapping and idiomatic cool-jazz vocal made perfect sense. This is the 21st century arts scene, as much as any other: the self-contained band in a self-contained bus, bringing along with them a host of lights, equipment, and ideas. The night rambled on, through their back and front catalog: “Judy is Your Vietnam” and “Careful What You Pack” were not in the set to be crowd-pleasers, but statements from two men whose lives have been spent thinking of ways to express themselves. Neither song is an especially amazing work of craft, but in the live setting, but represents the distinction between Flansburgh and Linnell as kids’ musicians and their other efforts. The moon rose during “Fingertips,” even higher into the sky as we listened to the fragmentary and episodic work they had been playing for years. Last year at Bonnaroo, their latest merchandise was “Here Comes Science,” the third in their triology of Grammy-winning educative children’s albums. With “Join Us,” and with this extensive fall tour, They Might Be Giants have returned as an adult band, one that drew out young and hipsters, who seek an experience beyond music, but to participate and interact with others on a human (or ape-like) level, to see puppets projected onto the wall of a tent and to follow someone’s flying fingers through a guitar solo. The full moon lit the highway on the journey home-- let it be known there are many, many roads around Vermont that are as passable as ever, huge swaths of the state that saw only rain and wind, and suffered no damage—and the sky held clouds that played like musicians and made patterns with the reflected light. The deep shades of mountains, the illuminated valleys below, still full of homes and people and roads and lives. “Join Us,” as the recent album title beckons. Flans made mention that they had played in Vermont before, “but they weren’t giving it their all then,” he said with a laugh. Any venue located in a tent is preferable to the cavern that is Higher Ground, in my estimation. Before that South Burlington show a few years ago, I had caught the Giants during a far different and more innocent time: November 3, 2001 at the Pickle Barrel in Killington, just weeks after the events of September 11th. On this moonlight night almost ten years later, and on the anniversary of the Twin Towers’ fall, the Giants stepped up to an enormous plate and delivered, a night of recklessly loud and thrashing rock music, of simple and artistic happening, and of puppetry—some of humanity’s oldest responses to tragedy and loss.
For maniacal fans, a setlist I was given by a guitar tech is transcribed below.

Intro<-full please
guitar/when die/withred/racist/ana
dudes dump/bird/clap/battle
cloisonné
crazy—camera!
spoiler
free ride/celebration
particle/dr worm/prob
_____________
alphabet
careful/judy
can’t
meso/Istanbul
____________
lie
fingertips
dead [ANA crossed out]
__________
damn

The Best Christmas Rock-N-Roll Song of 2011: A Goodbye to Borders Books and Music

Somebody asked me recently to describe why this video marks a new level of awful in the history of recorded anything. It's some guy's cheesy Christmas song, with a pretty bad original accompanying music video. Check it out for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Xsg1Wo36hY

From the opening sequence, the plastic keys and the lead guy’s three stretched fingers that form a C chord are a bad omen of the mediocre effort to come. The synthetic jingle bells give way to a sourly compressed beat that includes a digital conga, and the hero appears: squinting in the sun outside of his trailer, wearing a hand-painted psychedelic helmet that makes one think he’s about to engage in a risk, perhaps fall off of something. No such luck. His head bobs as he scowls through typical holiday sentiments: “a Merry Christmas/let’s have a party,” and “come on you people/embrace the good not the evil.” If he—the musician, lead singer, and main actor—can’t look anything but disconcerted, maybe even embarrassed that he’s wearing a necklace of those gaudy fake holiday lights, sitting before a stuffed Santa and three drugstore ornaments on a fake pine, how are we, the viewer supposed to feel? There’s a Beatlesesque music break at 0:33, but any redeeming musical structure is overshadowed by the lead guy’s directorial debut: in a different shot, framed by two wall sconces and a fake wreath, the hero tries to get it on holiday-style with a woman who looks like his sister, baiting her with his muscles, mistletoe, and a small and pathetic version of the twist before appearing with his shirt off. After two choruses there’s nothing to do but a dramatic spoken verse before another fake tree in which his babble earns him the right to kiss her on the cheek. She grins and pulls away; back to another disturbing headbobbing chorus. The music gets overmodulated as keyboards increase in size and number, pulling out all the stops (or at least all the presets) on the keyboard, really the only instrument. Yeah, it's bad; what does it mean for the way we Eat Art these days, when just about anybody can come up with a song that sounds like a synthetic Traveling Wilburys rip-off with Christmas lyric, and put themselves out there as eternally ridiculous?

There’s already something hideous and huge and new about YouTube, and the way it enables the creative Everyman to busy themselves, creating content for their portals, channels, and feeds. But with every new platform comes new challenges, and guidelines to be broken—and here we’re talking YouTube, where the picture-worth-one-thousand-words has morphed into minutes of synchronized audio and video, using equipment one –tenth the size (or smaller) of the post-VHS behemoths of even a dozen years ago. The act of “getting on TV,” no matter what you were doing, meant a lot more in the 1980s than it does at present; for those that create content, the act of getting recognized is not only a goal, but one performed automatically, qualitatively assessed through site analytics. Google is happy to keep track of who’s watching, even if the creator doesn’t care (though one should). There’s lots of schlock out there on YouTube--why torment some guy with a trailer and a keyboard, whose holiday wish, however egotistical, is that everyone should take their shirts off and make out? YouTube is ripe with human banality, stupidity, and ego; is this guy’s C-chord song really so bothersome? Maybe; maybe not (3 likes/5 dislikes as of this writing).

What is more interesting is what’s changed in the way we consume media: whether we report in via Facebook or Twitter, and whether or not we let widgets hand us data across our desktops, whether or not we are In On It and have let Google or some other database merge our contact lists and profiles, our streams, feeds, favorites and preferences—wherever we choose stand on the spectrum of Digital Identity, we are in a new world where content providers’ bravery may not be over- or underestimated. Osi’s contribution stands alongside clips from Hollywood blockbusters, uploaded America’s funniest injuries, and endless hours of dancing or comically-staggering animals. The new ways to Get Published—YouTube among them—might help make sense of the collapse of Borders Books and Music: bookstores were conceived at a time when out-of-work creative maniacs may have written furious letters to publishers, and musicians composed thoughtfully, planning for recording sessions and revising. Bookstores were at their heyday before the hard drive, and many creative kooks used lots of postage to get themselves noticed back then (Wikipedia says Borders hadn't made a profit since 2006). Some kooks got contracts and got published, and some showed up on the shelves of places like Borders-- who, after a sluggish holiday rush, ended last year by holding off on paying back publishers for books that were already on the shelves. Today those shelves are emptying out of unwanted bestsellers and “How-To” libraries, of philosophy and gardening, of jazz manuals and historical biographies: all one may want to know is likely downloadable. There is little need for the trip to the store to bring in content, and less postage needed to send it out: a rudimentary knowledge of graphic design will build a functional, efficient site, workable enough to host creative content, whether you’re Osi the musician or Danielle Steele. This digital frontier is closing in; the general disappearance of print materials marks something like the Louisiana Purchase in magnitude in this ongoing content-hosting virtual land grab. We consume without driving to the store—we don’t buy CDs or books—don’t have use for either (and no space here in the trailer anyway).

So we control, critique, vet, assess, and evaluate what media we choose to let into the house; the infinite number of channels available to flip through has morphed into YouTube nonsense, including Osi’s contribution. Maybe we won’t be surfing the web for long—a year or two more—before the way we follow suggestions or links may itself turn our heads toward What We Like to See. Social bookmarking and search-keyword-codes are being worked together on this likely as you read this, that our browsing may become more fully our own, and knowable, our trends assessed, themselves to be bought and sold. This wasn’t the case browsing the emptying shelves of a liquidating Borders in central Massachusetts-- one of the remaining 399, each of which will close by the end of next month--where I bought Moleskin journals and a five-pound bag of organic Mexican coffee, and browsed tall rows of disappearing print (the travel section, including racks of maps, was virtually untouched). In the corner of the coffee shop, a PA system—two mic stands, speakers, mixer, an amp, and all the cords—flashed me back to happier, social times of youth. Like many stores, the Borders Books and Music in northern Delaware hosted local singer-songwriters on Wednesday evenings; this was a frequent stop on my crowd’s adolescent cavalcades through the summer. Though the music wasn’t usually very good, the ability of individuals to perform in a coffee-shop corner of a corporate bookshop located in a strip mall for forty-five minutes to a crowd built of more-or-less their peers sought a far different notion of community and music than Osi’s “Best Christmas Rock-N-Roll Song of 2011,” or many other YouTube attempts at reaching out and touching someone, via music video sensibilities. Maybe if that corporate creative outlet was still in artists’ common creative consciousness—a shooting for human notice and widespread local success face-to-face, with homespun CDs for sale besides—aspiring folks like Osi may cut down some on their keyboard overdubs, learn more chords, or forget about focusing on any shtick that involves him taking his shirt off, and making public via YouTube a song about how he got laid at Christmas. Borders CEO Mike Edwards, in his July 21, 2011 farewell email: "For decades, Borders stores have been destinations within communities--places where people have sought knowledge, entertainment and enlightenment and connected with others who share their passions." I wish I could be in the small café corner of a Borders Books and Music tonight, to see Osi perform his best and most original through a small PA—pressured, as we the audience get caffeinated and impatient. It’s asking for a whole different ethic, but one that improves one’s oversight of the less-useful, frivolous artistic splurges—the ones creative maniacs like Osi have a propensity towards. And people would browse others’ creative endeavors, fiction and non-, captivated by something other than the live drone of performance emanating from the far corner of the carpeted, cavernous store. People choose from long waist-high racks one alphabetized CD over another, as amplified original human music—a voice, a guitar, a C chord—carries itself over the shopping audience. Goodbye, Borders Books and Music; hello, Your Best Songs of 2011. We listen and watch, more overtaken and alien than ever, edging ever deeply towards becoming our own reflective vee-jays, our heads bobbing along to our own self-importance, in costumes only we care about, carrying ourselves along virtual, frameable, irresolute digital windows around the world, piped in like we own the place.

More about Borders Books and Music liquidation, including-- probably for only a short time longer-- interesting "Executive Biographies" at http://www.borders.com/online/store/BGIView_mediaexecutivebios

More content from Osi—full name “Kevin Shawn Sparrowhawk OSI Thorton Osgood”—may be found at http://www.time-and-death-will-end.com/

Keep Austin Surreal

If Philadelphia has as its recreational counterpoint in the Jersey Shore, and New York has always had its run of New England for its good times—from the Poconos northward, and east—Texas deserves to always hold Austin at its heart. Surrounded by semi-greenish hill country and otherwise very little, the city of Austin hangs its hat on a far different hook than the rest of the big-oil-rich/piss-poor-migrant state. Don’t dare assume it’s all about the music, either: it takes much more to Keep Austin Weird (unofficial motto; variations include “Keep South Austin Weirder” and “Keep Austin Thirsty”). It is the home of South By Southwest, the gaggle of post-pop punks and outa town bands who invade the city for two weeks in the spring: and if that’s a “festival” in central Texas, then I can assure you, there’s a festival happening right now on West 6^th St., one that comes replete with all the rights, privileges, recklessness, art, music and bombast therein.

Austin—downtown, but also out across the range of the tasteful-to-almost decrepit communities—has a distinct and personal vibe: like Boston in its transitory (or not) collegiate populations, and there’s smart people doing techy things most anywhere you look. But Austin is also like some artistic communities farther backwoods in New England: one may promote themselves as a musician, artist, seer, knower and do-er, however appropriately on the sidewalk, and, because there's such a populace of these types, there's a sense of critique unique to that hot central Texas town. The Austin Motel, a wonderfully chintzy treasure on South Congress Street, is a good example of this: take a vintage motel, complete with 1950s-green-and-pink bathroom fixtures, and extend the artsy, thrift-store décor farther than any contemporary may expect, including a wealth of ornamental lawn sculpture to discover around the pool, carefully selected wall art to ponder inside, and, importantly, massive venetian blinds to keep out the sun in the morning—because it comes, in Austin, and may be the biggest reason that people change their behaviors (start or stop drinking, for one). And of course, the room air conditioners at the Austin Motel are new, and can run full-blast cold, something the compressors of the 1950s likely couldn’t keep up with (and may not have had to).

One refab’d motel doth not an arts scene make (Breezewood Pennsylvania represent!), however. What’s next door, down the street? The Snackbar: the kind of diner you’d want if you were taking your grandparents to lunch, or auditioning a blind date before plunking down big bucks another time. Across the street: more food, a blues club (I missed Junior Brown, and at least 500 other acts, over my 72-hour, family-wedding-based tear); up the street, a vinyl record store that forgot to open, a shop featuring a fanatical diversity of nifty and reasonably-priced Latin and South American imports, arranged carefully on absolutely overpriced furniture: true antiques, imports, weathered by its travels, expensive charm in its oxidized hinges and hardware. What else? More food, being sold out of Airstreams and Winnebagos (“ah, they’re set up for summer,” you may saw, if it wasn’t always summer): small-batch ice cream, fried pickles, all manner of barbecue, and selected brave vegans discovering new ways to involve setain and rice noodles into their on-the-go fare. What else? A cleverly-disguised antique cooperative, where many booths featured deer, goat, and cat skulls, bleached by the Texas sun; I bought a scrapbook containing someone else’s religious fanaticism, a collection of newspaper clippings about tent revivals from Kansas to Texas, a pair of copper ashtrays shaped like natives’ canoes, and a Turbo Iced at Jo’s, a lovely little establishment built with the expressed purpose of sitting around and getting wired, beneath the quaint and colorful corrugated metal roofing of the shop’s sitting area. South Congress Street—on the other side of the river—may be one of the few places on the earth where the domesticated meets the non-local, and those lines of identity come to not matter at all: someone had spray-painted “I Love You So Much” on the side of Jo’s, in big, red cursive letters. I was stopped by some locals—he was from somewhere rural in Texas, and she was a Massachusetts transplant—and asked if I’d snap their photo in front of the newly painted message.

Where else are the locals, the college students, and the visitors alike? Floating in Barton Springs, the sixty-eight degree spring-fed body of water that beckons relief from the heat: slipping down an embankment over paying the two bucks to use the public access area, plunging into the cool water fully, and standing up refreshed, as the flow is mostly only waist deep. The natives sought refuge in Barton Springs, believing the water to have healing powers; after a record number of days of temperatures over 100, the magic still feels alive. On Sunday afternoons, the “Electric Circus” is a reasonable drum circle, as if there wasn’t reason enough to lie in the shade and keep cool after splashing around—the sound of the drums was haunting, so don’t forget to bring yours.

I had more than one resident of Austin describe how their economy has so far appeared “recession-proof”—there has been no bubble, no implosions of foreclosure or fallout from others’ bad economic decisions. Without having much knowledge of Texas’ unique tax structures and small business incentives, nothing seems too pricey in Austin: from the coffee cups at St. Vincent De Paul thrift shop on South Congress, to the fried mac-and-cheese sold out of an Airstream two blocks away. On 6^th Street, a host of bars—not unlike Beale Street in Memphis, or Burlington’s Church Street—offered a reason to keep moving while one drinks. Because there’s a band in each front window, and they’re all trying hard for your attention (easily transferred, after only a few Shiner Bock or Blond beers, or something made of Tito’s, an extravagantly good vodka—both made in Austin). Each bar has its characteristics and décor; the best way for a band to get to play in any bar is to spend time there, making friends with the bartenders and staff. Band merch was always present, in some corner of the drinking parlor; one guy passed out Camel Lights to the dozen or so left in the Red River Street club. I’m sure there is a restaurant that averages $100 per entrée in Austin, but I didn’t find it: not that I was looking, but even downtown’s fanciest joint, The Driskill Hotel, had a sidewalk sandwich board advertising their drink specials, where the opulence was free, but shut down early. The city-wide 2 AM closing time brought a team of Austin Police on horseback wandering down the pedestrian streets; sitting on the sidewalk leaning on a tree, some guy in a Hawaiian shirt strummed his acoustic and made up a song about The Police, as if it was Sting’s band patrolling the after-hours grid of downtown. Five minutes later, over the ownership and possession of a backpack that had been abandoned on the floor of the bar hours earlier, a yelling match nearly got physical, but enough drunk people stumbled around and between the pair.

So it’s worth asking: is Austin really for real? I mean, is this live music mecca actually where it ALL happens, from a hip art scene to a barbecue-based city-wide culinary fascination, to as many drum/bass/guitar-or-keyboard combos as one can stomach. Late one night at Headhunters (720 Red River Street), an acoustic guitar player and percussionist were making a racket—the finest racket one might desire from the unusual and fascinating pairing. Hoards of bats emerge nightly from the biggest bridge in town; why they took up residence there may or may not be obvious, but one can assume they’re keen on helping keep Austin weird. Many folks told me the wristbands visitors purchase during SXSW aren’t hardly necessary; others suggested I hit some of the alternative-to-the-Alternative scenes, or to come any other time of the year. Or, to catch the Film Festival that precedes SXSW by one week, and see the city gearing up. But perhaps they always are, geared up and motivated, if only for another cold beer or a one-dollar Irish Car Bomb. There's a lot of neon in that town, and it's still lit. What keeps Austin weird—and as real as it’ll ever be-- has as much to do with the Locals Knowing How to Party as much as the Party Staying Local: there’s miles of hot, vacant Texas surrounding the streets and bars and buildings. Those who hang together in the southern heat do not hang separately, but gather in shade and with celebration, across many degrees of revelry, not limited to poetry, music and tattoos.