A Legacy of Labor

A Legacy of Labor

Culture exists as an inherently malleable machine, taking the shape of the surrounding social environment of the era in which it exists. As technology adamantly advances, political philosophies also must adjust to changing economic climates. Sometimes, necessary change occurs naturally and subtly, while there are instances in which history reveals the importance in the innately human capacity to create, which ultimately gives birth to seemingly revolutionary thought. The addictive inclinations of the human species generates vice, whereas laziness persisted causing the domestication of food, which ultimately lead to varying forms of power structures. Individuals found themselves in newly formed positions of power, and they liked it. It is a high, and as pleasurable feelings reinforce action, abuse always seems to arise. This is where creative capacity must mitigate metastasizing social madness. This doctrine can be seen in the work of leftist authors in the 1920s and 30s. Party politics experienced a wide spectrum of Marxist realizations in definition and practice. Authors of the left, Michael Gold and Woody Guthrie, are two such artists that even though they both proclaimed themselves communists, had differing views on their role as members of the party.

The Cold War grotesquely mutated Americans perception of the word communism, as fearful policy makers created draconian public policies. They saw Communism as a threat to the very way of American life, as Americans witnessed a demagogue take complete control over foreign citizens in the name of the party. What people in positions of power failed to see, or indeed ignore, was the satiable virtues in the philosophies of the proponents of American leftist culture, and the artistic legacy the movements of the 20s and 30s left behind.

When considering the politics of leftist literature in America it is essential to examine the importance of Michal Gold’s novel, Jews Without Money. Proclaimed by many as exemplifying the “proletarian fiction” genre, Gold’s harsh portrayal of the ethnic ghettos of East-Side New York City shocked many readers who lived complacent in their relative security. His work illuminates the daily struggle of ghetto life and forces public-awareness to the plight of the immigrant working class. Jews Without Money does more to demonize and illustrate the failures of capitalism then it does extrapolate any sort of solution from the left. Gold know his Marx, and his novel insists that in order for revolution, first there must be realization. His essay “Towards Proletarian Art” is the first significant call for a distinctly American working-class culture. In the essay Gold writes:

In blood, in tears, in chaos and wild, thunderous clouds of fear the old economic order is dying. We are not appalled or startled by the giant apocalypse before us. We know the horror that is passing away with this long winter of the world. We know, too, the bright forms that stir at the heart of all this confusion, and that shall rise out of the debris and cover the ruins of capitalism with beauty. We are prepared for the economic revolution of the world, but what shakes us with terror and doubt is the cultural upheaval that must come. We rebel instinctively against that change (62).

Gold presents some interesting ideas through his linguistic capacity to create a foreboding atmosphere. Gold assumes that the masses share his ideals as he continually uses the pronoun “we”. This pronoun is essential to the Communist philosophy, but what Gold fails to understand is the intrinsic, instinctive, indignant individualism of the American psyche. Americans are rebellious in nature, but we tend to resent being told what we should know, and tend to respond better to empirically presented evidence allowing us to evaluate the situation in order to draw our own conclusions. There then arise the question, at the time of authorship did the American public realize all these things of which Gold speaks? Perhaps this is the reason why radical counter-cultural movements have a tendency to remain in the background of mainstream society, even though these movements tend to spawn a great number of culturally important artistic works.

In the same essay Gold does in fact call for a revolution, as he notes the social tendency to remain in the comforts of conservatism and writes, “We cling to the old culture, and fight for it against ourselves” (62). This statement seems to suggest the enemy as being one’s own psyche and its capacity to create an unnaturally elevated sense of comfort. This can be seen in Jews Without Money as his family continues to embrace their old way of life and even in the face of severe adversity retain their trust in the “American Dream”. Gold may be suggesting that his family’s mistake was the problematic way in which they viewed their place in American society. Their position as Jewish immigrants in a viscously intolerant society offered them little chance of ever realizing their preconceived notions of the glory in the “American Dream”, and Gold constantly reminds the reader of this. The portrayal of the plight of his father is so utterly tragic and seemingly hopeless that the reader has little choice but to sympathize with him. His constant attempts at advancement coupled with his bountiful optimism and trust in the system are endearing, and are traits that are revered in American culture, but Gold presents them with seemingly sarcastic undertones.

His father’s faith in magic reveals a tendency of the poor, working class to formulate irrational solutions from realistic problems, which Gold views as problematic. The story of the Golden Bear may illuminate the psychology of Gold’s father and also demonstrates Gold’s philosophical insistence on growth and change. When describing his father, Gold writes, “His large green eyes stared at the world like a child’s” (81), and like a child his father remains naïve to his position. The story itself is about a hunter who is advised by his mother to make for himself a new life in Turkey, which can be seen as representing foreign peasant ideas about America as the “Promised Land”. Gold writes, “My son, when you grow up you must go to Turkey. There, in the south, it is warm. The roses bloom in December, and the birds sing. No one is poor there, every one has enough. Promise me you will escape there, my son. I want to see you happy” (85). The Hunter then finds himself in a proletarian predicament as Gold continues, “But he married, and raised a family, and found himself a man in a trap. How could he take his family to Turkey? He had no money” (85). Out of hunger and the need to provide for his family The Hunter follows the tracks of a bear to its home. He discovers three cubs and a mother bear “the color of golden money”, but instead of killing the bears, the mother makes a deal with him to help him realize his dream of going to Turkey, in exchange for sparing the lives of the cubs. The reader can only assume the hunter completes his journey, but as of what happens to The Hunter in Turkey is left a mystery. Gold relates the story to both the absurdity and the necessity of such stories as he writes, “The story was the eternal fable of the man to whom the good things of life come by magic. All poor men believe in such magic, and dream of the day when they will stumble on it. My father was one of the many” (86). Gold is clearly placing his father in the category of the many individuals belonging to the proletarian class who are disillusioned about their place in society by relaying on some sort of “magic”.

As simple as this analysis may seem, it is in fact, much more complicated. As Gold enunciates the importance of a class realization that rejects archaic means in understanding life, he also maintains a position that everyone’s own ethnically traditional works of art should not be forgotten. It is in the art of the people in which he sees hope. Despite the sometimes-nihilistic nature of Jews Without Money there are hopeful moments, most of which occur in Gold’s description of his father’s stories and story-telling ability. These stories represent Gold’s own desire to convey the intricacies of the proletarian condition and he writes, “My father was an unusual story-teller. Had he received an education, he might have become a fine writer. I envied him then, and I envy him yet, his streak of naïve genius” (81-82). Perhaps this communicates Gold’s own motivation in writing the novel, a quest to produce a piece that displays the innate “naïve genius” of the working classes.

In “Towards Proletarian Art” Gold calls for a revolution of representation. He calls for courage; courage to be oneself, unafraid of the constant pressure to conform. He writes, “We have been bred in the old capitalist planet, and its stuff is in our very bones. Its ideals, mutilated and poor, were yet the precious stays of our lives. Its art, its science, its philosophy and metaphysics are deeper in us than logic or will” (62). Gold notes the difficulty of what he is about to propose, and understands the control that cultural norms have on citizens, yet he insists, “We cannot consent to the suicide of our souls” (62). The suicide he speaks of is the injustice of the necessity of conformity that he saw presiding over American culture. He continues with his manifesto and writes:

The old ideals must die. But let us not fear. Let us fling all we are into the cauldron of the Revolution. For out of our death shall arise glories, and out of the final corruption of this old civilization we have loved shall spring the new race-the Supermen (62).

The potency of this passage is both amazingly profound and startlingly

strange in terms of the language. It is dripping in melodrama, which may in fact be required in order to incite revolution. His insistence of a community formed by individual creativity is apparent as he suggests that we “fling all we are into the cauldron of the Revolution”, and one almost perceives an image of “the melting pot” which would indeed spell the creation of a form of new society containing a multitude of human ingredients. So, the notion of “proletarian art” according to Gold can be boiled down to its simplest form as a means for truthful representation that denies tendencies to conform to capitalist culture, and in doing so the Revolution may then begin.

As involved as Michael Gold was in leftist politics, he still remained merely an author and a philosopher like most self-proclaimed communists. Artist advocating proletarian ideals often incidentally strove toward bourgeois lifestyles. This is not the case with Woody Guthrie. Populist poet, singer, songwriter and folk icon, Guthrie’s legacy lives on in the artistry of the masses to which he dedicated his life. Woody not only created art to the masses, he created art for the masses and with the masses. He was a populist and fervent communist, yet America remembers him more for his musical contributions than they do his political affiliations. His song “This Land is Your Land” almost functions as an alternate national anthem despite its communist propaganda undertones. Indeed, that’s what Woody spent a good majority of his life doing; writing support songs for the party.

He was a member of the “Popular Front” movement, which functioned as a conglomeration of anti-fascist; leftist thinkers, scholars, workers, and artists who attempted to develop a voice for what they saw as mass culture. In the book entitled The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century, Michael Denning describes the Popular Front as:

…the insurgent social movement forged from labor militancy of the fledgling CIO, the anti-fascist solidarity with Spain, Ethiopia, China, and the refugees from Hitler, and the political struggles on the left wing of the New Deal. Born out of the social upheavals of 1934 and coinciding with the Communist Party’s period of greatest influence in U.S. society, the Popular Front became a radical historical bloc uniting industrial unionist, Communists, independent socialists, community activists, and émigré anti-fascists around laborist social democracy, anti-fascism, and anti-lynching (4).

There is some difficulty in actually defining the member base of the Popular Front because of the wide variety of other political affiliations that members proclaimed, but in the simplest terms, The Popular Front acted as a means to combat fascism. Guthrie’s work exemplifies some of the ideas of the movement, as Guthrie himself became the poster child for the labor movement and his songs were used at rallies and meetings to bolster morale. The labor movement even used the refrain of the song “Union Maid”, and in Guthrie style defiance the mantra held fast as laborist bellowed, “Oh, you can’t scare me, I’m stickin’ to the union”.

What made Guthrie so appealing was his complete immersion in the culture he advocated, propagated and cultivated. His songs moved people, not by propagandized coercion, but they portrayed Woody’s sincerity and determination. In the book Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression, author Morris Dickstein deems Guthrie, “Shakespeare in overalls: an American troubadour” (496), and this description seems to describe both the importance of the contributions he made to American culture and his vagabond type lifestyle. What Guthrie tried to accomplish, unlike Gold, was to become a representation of not only the proletariat, but also of the oppressed marginalized masses that included, beggars, thieves, tramps, vagabonds, and all sorts of social outcasts. Dickstein makes the claim that, “Unlike some other populists of the thirties and forties, Woody Guthrie was the real thing” (496). His passion for the arts and innately defiant nature created in him a desire not to merely write about his surrounding environment and postulate about overly ambitious revolutionary formulas like other leftists, but to be part of the world and experience it as he attempted to stimulate change and awareness from the inside. Dickstein also indicates Guthrie’s prolific contributions to the Popular Front movement and writes, “Woody was the latest and perhaps the greatest ornament of the “progressive” culture created by the Popular Front, a culture of songs and books, nurseries and summer camps, radio shows and newspapers” (498).

Another uniquely interesting aspect of Guthrie’s persona according to Dickstein is that his political realization came, “more out of an instinctive populism than from any ideological conversion” (500). This is evident in Guthrie’s autobiography, Bound for Glory, as Woody describes his life growing up and riding the rails. Guthrie’s simplistic language and his child-like self-characterization contribute to the sincerity of the novel and his legitimacy as a member of the masses. Through Guthrie’s narration of the novel one witnesses meaningless violence coupled with moments of endearing humanity yet Guthrie refuses to expound upon the events with any sort of philosophically analytical passages. He is simply witness to the events, which allows the reader to formulate their own conclusions as to their meaning.

The one aspect of the novel that is impossible to deny is its treatment and portrayal of the existence of everyday fascism and the importance of the role of community. An extremely potent example of Guthrie’s portrayal of the everyday struggle of the marginalized masses versus the rising tide of fascism can be found in the chapter entitled “New Kittens”. Guthrie recollects a moment in his childhood regarding the birth of kittens on his grandmother’s farm. His grandmother displays communist inclinations as she answers little Woody’s question on the labor of the animals on the farm, and she says, “I wouldn’t even have a cat or a dog or a chicken on my place that didn’t do his share of the work. Yes, even my old cat does a lot of work” (66). The farm then becomes a metaphor for American society as it is filled with diversity, yet everything has a place and offers up their unique contributions. His cousin Warren upsets this balance with a single act of fascism as Guthrie describes the incident:

He put the sharp toe of his shoe under the belly of the first little cat, and threw it up against the rock foundation. “Meow! Meow! You little chicken killers! Egg stealers!” He picked the second kitten up in the grip of his hand, and squeezed till the muscles bulged up. He swung the kitten around and around, something like a Ferris wheel, as fast as he could turn his arm, and the blood and entrails of the kitten splashed across the ground, and the side of the house. Then he held the little body out toward Lawrence and me. We looked at it, and it was just like an empty hide. He threw it away over the fence (80).

Little Woody makes an attempt at becoming the savior of the family of cats, but Warren’s size and power is no match for the small child even though his intentions pervade. It is this innate desire to protect the weak from being prayed upon that motivates Guthrie’s enduring involvement in the Popular Front and its ongoing quest to secure the rights of American civilians seeking representation. Guthrie not only sought to help procure the rights he felt were inherited by every American, his ability to create meaningful cultural work that appeals to the masses has earned him a place in history as a champion of American ideals. The image of his legacy seems to supersede the realty in his existence and Dickstein manages to create an appropriate description as he refers to Guthrie as a “disembodied folk spirit” (497).

The contributions of Gold and Guthrie to American culture remains undeniable even if the Cold War and the McCarthy era transformed the connation of the word Communism to mean everything un-American as fear permeated into American society. The fact is, the culture of the American left and the corresponding movements strove to empower the people and utilized doctrines already set forth by the U.S. constitution as well prominent leaders such as Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln’s speech on the battlefield of Gettysburg encompasses these ideologies as his words still retain potency as he urges the American people not to accept anything less than a “government of the people, by the people, for the people”. The genius of this philosophy is what created the United States of America in the first place, as Americans have always held this “core democratic value” with the utmost respect, pride, and dignity. Gold’s attack on capitalism and Guthrie’s battle against fascism were simply formulated out of a growing sense of the betrayal of an increasingly power hungry government controlled by greed. Even though the corresponding movements in which Guthrie and Gold were involved are considered “counter-cultural”, they merely refused to be marginalized and in doing so begged the question, “what does it mean to be an American”.

Red

Detroit Coloring-Book

Red

I

Not empathetic in retro-
spect on ironic distance
from destruction.

Apostle not apathetic
only oblong on
color in face.

Proletarian whose mobile
device allow a knife
to enter the third-rib.

Is it blood?

II

Documentaries that silence
desire dubbed
dead on standing.

Fingers on gun
gleaming and gaming
slide round town.

Project tiles lie
in pot holed streets
lost in neglect.

Stop lights are stop signs.

III

Men are indeed from
Mars and Venus and
Detroit of course.

Corvettes are caring
dogs that slobber all
over your pants.

Holes are everywhere
failing once again
to fill themselves.

Angry capitalism.

IV

There is misogamy in making
menstruating policies
that leak everywhere.

Plug it up or plug it in
playing out running thin
sopping up sin.

Pile it on baby
that rouge in French

Je me suis fache.


Red, white, and blue.

V

St. George on the Red-
Crosse Faery Queen
olive sans pimento.

Pit pat sit sat pit
bull bites leather
couches in basements.

Under the clay beard
blank starring lips
unpart for green.

It is not the Sun.

VI

Aesthetics by subtracting
all but the tongue
lying in gutters.

Playful are the squirrels
who chatter with asphalt
ground into the earth.

Daylight escapes cracks
retreating like the “Engines”
running from Col. Custer

Made in Michigan.

VII

Cherries and Fordism
flagrant foul Thomas
hope basket no basket.

Wings are all white
playing in a city act
noir in nature.

Suburban students migrate
every weekday their walking stick
pick your escape Helm.

Perception of the head.

VIII

Class realization saunters
toward the edge of toilet
water simply waiting.

Flushed flashed abashed
toxic in toxic out
cranial capital crash.

Corporate patronage died
when equality never
lived in empire apples.

Aggregate culture.

IX

Condensed communal cuts
prance around broken glass
and puncture skin.

Rabid and lounging and
begging for anything
never say never had.

And on the heart
on the ground
into the mother.

Wounded consumer wound.

X

That can of coca-
cola spilled on electric
city jonesing for more.

Stained glass in patches
of burnt grass seeping
through cracks of concrete.

Rusty rocking horse
convulse back and forth
with shrieking swings

Play at your own risk.

XI

The river plants
industrial enigmas that
spew forth cuss words.

The atmospheric ears
lose hearing while
gaining more than bargained for.

Foreground sit on foreheads
before pimples can pop
expectations must squeeze.

Transform garbage to coins.

XII

Drive for you must be
the consumer of creation
lines upon lines upon graves.

Dirt no longer covers
the privates of form
and hard it has become.

Undone or maybe undead
feed on the collapsing
capillaries advancing back.

Pick your prison.

XII

The fruit has fallen
on steel sticks
applesauce are appletinis.

Tiny creatures find
the best places to hide
in plain stripped sight.

Another adaptation allowing
hierarchies to flower
beautifying le droight.

Reversal of the right.

XIII

Fire the whole line
conflagration of the many
dousing the few with doses.

Pile of sticks or
faggots en fuego
the sparks breathe.

Over under on top bottom
ambiguity in abstractness
unabashed and ungendered.

Do you have a light?

XIV

Sandstone center of worship
decays on the main vein
lacking oxygen oxymoron.

Onward backward Woodward
asphalt jungle in need
of no fault insurance.

Nuance no ants or
bears that mine iron ore
to the feed the family.

Bare arms carry bastard babies.

XV

O Great Metropolis you
can’t find sleep and gaze
upon yourself with bloody eyes.

Cracked stanza standard
moment moving glass
confuse mirror neurons.

Narcissus rediscovered in
Greektown but history
can find fancy first in French

Je me joue.

XVI

The Sun rises in
Windsor winding its
way wanting the West.

Above seas of suburbs
vessels are docked
indignant in isolation.

Once fish fins and gills
are legs and lungs that
scream “Let’s sprawl y’all”

It’s all mine mine mine.

XVII

So Majestic you seem
from afar but foreigners
find fake magic.

Even the greatest man-made
magician can’t mask
the realities of the flesh.

Houdinied are the arts
or sang real leaking
from absurd arteries.

Mars again prevails.

XVIII

Here the West donates the Bloods
and Crips infused Marx
and Hollywood and drugs.

Street corner apprentices
appropriate the only
remaining cogent good.

Scratched arms reach for
cracked stonings of
war planes flying high.

Bumpy ride with smoke for spokes.

XIX

Painful politics in plain
placation are destroyed by Mayors
who refuse to go down on the town.

Oaths lack meaning as
marriage merely mitigates
misanthropy and masturbation.

Once self-satisfied in standing
leaders lusty like lice
rape an already empty core.

Give her back her sex appeal asshole.

XX

Out of passion rising
tides of indignant
creativity flourish in formula.

The music of mo-town
misplaced and misunderstood
remains laughing in legacy.

Soul food for sad ears
revered and raunchy races
cohabitate crash communities.

We are crash test dummies.

XXI

In the summer sun one
no longer sees children splashing
water from red hydrants.

Pictures of simpler times
forgotten on flowered
wallpaper hang on abandonment.

Too much vacancy to
mother father squatter
daughter son undone.

Build a new home.

XXII

Bridge one two out
of park into two nations
buying many the munchies.

The socially abused of
course abuse socially
constructed means for menial methods.

Mind your mouth bum
Je ne suis pas a toi
Understand I only carry credit.

Carry my State of being.

XXIII

She is a cultural work
in herself out spoken out
of time in industrial independence.

She needs love to linger
lick cake from fingers and
She will entertain you.

Come back to Her You
who have divorced your
own body every body.

Don’t abort that baby again.

XXIV

Miscarriage your miscreant
for as sad as it seems
it’s better this way.

Bloody water gets
hotter and hotter and
boils over eventually.

It’s okay don’t worry be
happy in Her once again
and again and again.

And again.

XXV

Warrior paint once under
eyes now lie under lips
ready to be kissed and kicked.

Headdress on regress on
boobs and booties winking
sinking thinking how to dress.

Riding Hood seeking
goods sitting flirty
everyone riding dirty.

Supply demand Uncle Sam.

XXVI

People mover mugger mover
take people to places
they can get to with cars.

Only Downtown no
Midtown no University
campus as we march.

Field of Mars no
crops grow here as
soldiers gather around.

Combatant constituents cringe.

XXVII

Burlesque performer from New
York tells the audience
she prefers the Dirty D.

Piano and fingers with
comedic eyes funny lips
timed change countdown.

Only took 18 seconds to
become Sarah Palin
what the fuck happened?

Politicians are performers.

XXVIII

Call me out for wearing
a white fedora and skills
and games and domination.

Political satire laughs
at Alaska for electing
another reason to laugh.

Democracy in circumspection
singing filling bubbles
education in culture.

“No one will be left behind”.

XXIX

Northern Lights W. Baltimore
crowded and drunk with
pride for our city.

Beautiful girls perform
with the love of the arts
and take off most of their clothes.

Purely original in standing
sitting crouching laying
down leaving clothes behind.

Drink another and another.

XXX

Time to clean up
the bar the city the
trash the leftovers.

But even leftover can
taste good while
promoting prostate health.

Begging for half-pennies
empty pockets are lusty
for lips all too diseased.

Problems probe healthcare Jobe.

XXXI

Sitting on some old
rotting picnic table in
my courtyard Ole Cass D.

Laundry drying almost
done someone tries to
start their old ass car.

Reheheheh and nothing
obnoxious tunes and Ebonics
don’t help as the hood cats laugh.

Another day in the D.

XXXII

The breeze is at least
pleasant and natural and
calms the chaos somewhat.

The returning birds sing
R and B and Red breasts
puff up in pride.

Gray black and red orange
bricks make up the scene
with indifference they sit.

Common Spring needs a new ignition.

XXXIII

Start thug spark plug
finally gets it started
“Y’all goin’ to da sto?”

Straight out da alley
bickering “What you did?”
roll on rust no Rolls Royce

Odyssey toward Warren and
Woodward onward to ward
off feeling inadequate.

Motor City Mortar City.

XXXIV

Clothes are dry heat
dot dot red dot shirt
back inside no bark.

Full basket put down
now going Downtown
to visit my Indian girl.

Vestment not away there
is no delay for
anything today tomorrow.

Where are my keys?

XXXV

Big cats play the American
game on big screens
La Casa De la Habana.

The bartender is beautiful
dark and serves me well
drinks and thinks.

The love of my life
force no divorce distance
heart in hand on bottles.

Shiner Bock Latin Rock.

XXXVI

“I’m going to interact with
the people around me” says
Sir Thomas Forget Me Knot

Beer on him bartender
asks “What you drinkin?”
“I’ll have a Shiner Bock please”.

Fox stop light you fight
for no reason season
sang non-smokers light.

Abused by you for you.

XXXVII

Lefty hook little nook
too many television sets
on off the walls.

Commune in signature
singular on stance
glance take a chance karaoke.

“See them dancing” “Oh”
“Baby got back” like them
round around town.

Beep beep beep.

XXXVIII

People are aware that
I’m well aware of their
stare redshirt flirt.

Stimulus package attack
chatter on green tile
spotted and cracked checkers.

Play chess on the ground
around town around
lines screaming show tunes.

“Start spreading the news”.

XXXIX

Not “New York New York”
town midtown city
D dwell I fell in.

Love in class she
sat flash back sit
back my meow meow.

Feline incline little
“town blues are melting”
in Ole Detroit Detroit

Karaoke flash dreams.

XXXX

No more show tunes in
sound never ends music
rock now stood stand.

“Skip da dip” Sanskrit
flashing coin slot games
scream for play money.

Whole? Hole? Feedback
is too much for ears
Ezra head Pound sound.

Fail at objectivism.

XXXXI

Red Hot Chili Peppers “gotta
put it in you” “give it
away now” fall drunk.

Linoleum lines lie wet
lips click clack slip
slap stick comedy kiss.

K V lives here in the
D Heart Plaza stall
crawl party brawl.

“Give it away na”.

XXXXII

Commune downtown left
turn uncrown up
down inside in frown.

Rows of head stories
curious eyes shadow
lies feverous flesh flies.

Time sign time cosine re
sound “push it real good” hand
ornament orifice.

Friend interlude dude.

XXXXIII

Still at Lefty’s bar
exam cotton eyed
Sam uncle Sambo

“Calling yes sir I’m talking
to you” no scrubs no
racist just faceless.

Not done never
fades the flashing
fluid flowing in going.

Go dog Go dawg Go.

XXXXIV

Hey singer harbinger
look good for
me and everyone.

You sound almost as
good “Born and Raised
in South Detroit”.

“Took the midnight
train” meet device
slate slice street lights.

Towers tarantulas as tripe.

XXXXV

Large glass all but
empty circle consent
spires “Iris” with a twist.

Oliver Twist or Charlie
Dos Passos or rich
or broke breast plate.

Red-Crosse Sidney kidney
damnation English Eden
Milton playing the bard card.

British band-wagon Canon.

XXXXVI

Hockey time in Hockey
Town ice skate
rebate tax faceoff.

The black boxer Joe
Louis and Zukofsky have
I had too much?

Beer no reappear empty
glass too fast relapse
perception no decision.

I write for the letter I.

XXXXVII

Wayne whine and wine
chant cheat no repeat
no repeat handle mine.

Graduating and yet and
yet set stand free
hand in pen is grand.

Crowd loud not merely
loud enough stuff
stats stake high stake.

State rakes sweep.

XXXXVIII

Words that tumble
about in sing song
ping pong tag along.

He really “feels the break”
Santeria what do
you “really wanna say”?

How Sublime one in
a dime satiable bass
consumer bass earthquake.

People have a unique smell.

XXXXIX

Back to poesy woe
is me “Mambo Num 5”
fifth third Reich raid.

For no reason fascist
attack song bird
be heard please be heard.

Assail the core for
more and less equal
sequel smile safe.

Turn to 3 then 5.

D

Must leave luxury
nature calls exit
sign behind Wayne.

“To the left” always
to the left sometimes
to the left never.

Sundown ultimate
incarnate intake
entail ego fail.

Communal in life and death.

DI

Pay the bill go
word Scrabble game
object Stein beer stein

You and they and
you never will
be in Detroit with me.

Dead lines dead words
dead poet dead
society alive and alive.

Hear ear here hearsay.

DII

Miss Michigan meet Miss
America mirror voir
sweet and sour sighs.

Look in looking out
about people shout hands
together clasp cringe.

Unhinge stress dress
confess serpent scribe
am I amie.

French in friend help defend.

DIII

Language barrier no
barrier bare baron
bear claw flow flaw.

Tonal seesaw he
haw tumble in
the straw law.

Student broke no
joke loans mail
chain mail future fail.

Try not to be too worried.

DIV

One pill two pill red
pill blue pill white
pill kill reality.

Walking pharmacy cry
crime culture time
bars mime not mine.

Cash crop drop drip
castle hustle flow
faint saint sand.

Quixotic quicksand stand.

DV

Drug companies keep
full company reap
and sow and rape.

Castrated community
can’t give glory stories
stagnant for need.

Sad survival of the fit
est un tragedie cult
torture prison tenants.

One and undone all fun.

DVI

Justice for who or whom
grammatically incorrect set
size prize penalty.

Learn to read right and
Wright and convince the
masses they need this and that.

Cass corridor mass
odor Oh door open
close book page.

Doggy ear every letter.

DVII

Obama care scare
skin kin can create
hate no hate debate.

Lost in stacked
cracks the skull ball
and chain gang game.

Too much deaf ism
schism classism calm
before the storm reform.

What is left?

DVIII

Perhaps too much rye
whisky Jack attack
rhyme over reason.

Season not right fight
left jab knife stab
fluid blood druid drole.

Laugh staff minority
A minor D minor
The Big Sea major.

The choir sings of creation.

DIX

Marx bad word absurd
another abolitionist agitator
realist rant Red Army.

Rough rider one
sider wrong
Roosevelt teddy bear.

FDR deal steal
from the rich niche
poor donor boner.

I am Robin of the Hood.

DX

New popular front bunt
sacrifice signal stats
for mass benefit concerts.

Sellability vs. skill subject
position Fordism make
things efficient by design.

Producer consumer pack
O brother where are thou
sign these papers please.

Where does the artist lie?

DXI

Money can buy anything
but not everything art
induction production.

Use abuse Miss
used confused broke
passion back mountain.

Fountain head dead
object truth subject
to sail scrutiny.

No more Clues Clucking Clams.

DXII

I am here I am
here I am Ian Pay-
son please pay son.

There is more and
Moore to be read red
perceive things unsaid.

Reason in rhyme
convention pension
planned parenthood for progress.

Poet voice rejoice hear.

DXIII

More than Gold I
see hope trans parent
eye ball see through walls.

Times are hard so
they say unafraid I
feel like you and you two.

Three four million score
class teachers seek
students who understand.

I am still here.

P.S.

The purpose of my “Mashumentary” project was to present copyright issues in media form. I used media from the Internet to create a “media mashup”, a new work legal under fair use. There is some information that I gained in my study that I didn’t put on the video due to awkwardness, so I will provide it here.

Survey

I found that within the people I surveyed, most people were in a group that might be defined by the term copy moderate. There is a good majority of people who just don’t know, don’t care, and who don’t really understand copyright law. Others still may buy CD’s, but don’t think file sharing is ethically wrong. Some feel as though the super capitalist ways of the companies controlling media have sucked the teat of greed far to long and need to embrace the coming revolution.

Interview with singer, songwriter, and recording artist Jim Bizer.
Responses by Jim are notated by ***.

Ian: How long have you been playing music?

***Jim: I started playing French Horn, and guitar shortly after, at age 8; so I’ve been playing music for 44 years.

Professionally?

***I played my first paid performance at age 14 and have continued since then – this is my 38th year as a professional musician.

Recording?

***First started experimenting with a sound-on-sound recorder in high school. Acquired a 4-track tape machine when I was 22 and made many “demo-quality” recordings, some of which I gave to friends, some of which I used for promotional purposes. From the mid 80s to the early 90s, I did quite a bit of work in pro studios, including production of my own songs (in hopes of a record contract), sessions as a sideman on guitar, bass and keyboards on other artists’ projects, as well as producing music for television and radio. It wasn’t until 2001 that I finally released an independent commercial recording of my own songs. Since then, I have released another solo CD, one as part of a band, contributed to numerous compilation recordings and recently released a duo CD with Jan Krist.

Do you belong to a record label?

***I never did land that elusive “record deal” and in retrospect, I’m just as happy I didn’t. The Yellow Room Gang, a songwriters’ collective that I’m part of, has an informal “label name” to help support each other’s independent recordings.

What was the first medium in which you recorded your songs?

***Recorded on reel-to-reel tape and distributed on cassette tapes.

What impact has the changing trend toward electronic media and the Internet. i.e. file sharing, had on your work?

***Definitely a double-edged sword – the Internet has made global distribution possible for independent artists and having songs (and video) available for streaming on the web has tremendously simplified the submission process for getting gigs. The flip side is that recorded music is now so easy to duplicate and share that a lot of music that once would have been purchased is being given away, which makes it much more difficult to make a living at writing and producing music. I haven’t been heavily impacted by this (yet): working in the “folk” genre, there’s still a strong emphasis on physical recordings. My music is available on iTunes, Rhapsody and numerous other download sources, but the large bulk of my sales are CDs (maybe because one person downloaded my tunes and is now giving them away…)

What are your general feelings toward file sharing?

***Ambivalent – this brings up the entire issue of combining art and commerce. Part of me is uncomfortable charging for and putting a price on my art. Another part of me wants (and feels I deserve) remuneration.
File sharing is great way to get lots of people hearing music they wouldn’t hear otherwise: good thing. File sharing means many people will never pay for the music they listen to, making it much harder, perhaps impossible, for the 98% of recording artists who are barely getting by: bad thing.

How does one protect their intellectual property? Should definitions be revised?

***It’s clear that the new technology has made the old system of compensation obsolete. Perhaps some improved method of copy protection could restore viability, but certainly at the cost of convenience and everybody would hate it. Should we abandon the concept of intellectual property altogether? But then how would we support artists and inventors? Sorry to say, I don’t have answers.

There are artists around who have their work available to the public to share, download, add, and revise. These individuals call themselves the copyleft. How do you think these sorts of sites and communities will change music? Do you think this is a bad thing?

***It could be a good thing creatively. It may mean that eventually people will not be able to sustain a career making music. Which may not be entirely bad – it might help solve the art vs commerce dilemma. Seriously.

The advances in electronic media have undoubtedly transformed the way we listen to music and how we view all media. The explosion in popularity of the mp3 format has created a monster: a living creature; a society of online personas sharing screens. A society created on a foundation springing from the idea of sharing. Napster, and the proceeding online revolution made it possible for individuals to obtain music and other media without going to the record store. This has affected the way artists produce and distribute their music. So this raises the question, how is this affecting our culture?

***Also interesting that most often, people consume music privately, listening to their personal music players that no one else hears. In the past, listening to music was a collective experience (even whether some wanted to listen or not!)

My Web Report

Ever since I was old enough to read I was playing video games. I can remember sitting in my family room, controller in hand, maneuvering a little pixelly character named Mario across an equally pixelly environment, evading and conquering hordes of pixelly villains to save the beautifully pixelled princess. Video games have come a long way since then and the industry’s evolutionary process has always intrigued me. So, for my “State of the Web” report I decided to evaluate the two links leading me to an article entitled "Game Master"and a video named" Gaming 2012" which is a podcast. The article appears in a subcategory of the site called profiles, which is exactly what the piece is. John Seabrook is the author of the profile and appears on the video. When perusing the site I found the New Yorker headline with the man in the top hot and monocle alluring, but found the plethora of advertisements quite annoying. There’s a lot going on the page and a hundred different links to click hyperlinked to countless words. This distracted me from the article a little but when I clicked on “view as a single page” I scrolled down and all the extra noise faded away.

The article, written in 2007, is basically about Will Wright’s life and his career as a computer game designer. It depicts the life of Will Wright and what lead him to create these games and the various ways in which he came up with the idea for them. The narrative is charming at times, but toward the middle it became a little tedious as I found myself less and less interested in Will Wright’s personal life and wanted to read more about Spore. Along with the narrative on Will Wright’s life, Seabrook takes you through a rough outline of the history of video games and correlates it to the story. Seabrook relates how he came up with the idea of some of his games. The most interesting of the stories is how he came to realize the idea of The Sims. Wright wanted to connect more with his daughter so he created a digital dollhouse, which evolved into the game known as The Sims. Seabrook makes note that much of Wright’s inspiration came from books. The idea for The Sims spawned from “A Pattern Language” by Christopher Alexander and “A Theory of Human Motivation” by Abraham Maslow while his game SimEarth was based on the Gaia hypothesis by James Lovelock. Spore, however was derived from Drake’s equation and “Power of Ten”. All this leads up to the discussion on the video game spore, and Seabrook speculates if Spore will change gaming like The Sims did.

The video is helpful because it puts faces to names. In the video Will Wright conducts a basic overview of the game Spore. He conveys his motivation for making the game and what he hopes it will accomplish. He mentions the importance of hands-on learning and admitted that it was his education at a Montessori school that programmed him to be the way he is. At this point Wright quickly walks through the game, after which John Seabrook interviews Wright about the themes found in the article.



I’m not entirely sure how to go about completing the second part, but whenever I see questions with numbers attributed to them, this makes me compelled to answer them as they appear.

1. I picked this site because I have always been a huge fan of video games and have been a hopeless nerd gamer for most of my life. I actually didn’t know anything about spore before I read the article and video actually inspired me to purchase the game.

2. When I first entered the site my impression was that of annoyance. I started reading the article and a pop up appeared asking me to subscribe to The New Yorker magazine, obscuring my view of the text. Clicking around the link on the site is amusing, and there are a lot of articles and blogs available. I was a little annoyed with the way the beginning of the text was laid out, because in the middle of the text there is a randomly generated cartoon that has no relevance to the article. I clicked on the link for the cartoon kit, which made me register for the site. After which, however, I was able to screw around with the kit, which is somewhat fun.

3. I wasn’t very impressed with the layout of the site, and as I said the pop-up ad was very annoying. The other aspects of the site weren’t bad. The type is easy to read and the excess of links on either side fades away when you view the article as a single page.

4. The New Yorker is commonly regarded as a legitimate publication. The author John Seabrook is a well regarded journalist and has been writing for The New Yorker commenting on technology and pop-culture since 1993. Since The New Yorker is a business and attempting to make money, there are a lot of advertisements, which in my opinion distract from the scholarly content of the article.

5. Though not explicitly mentioned in the article, the evolution of literacy is now also tied with multimodal texts, such as video games. The common conception of video games is that they increase illiteracy, and is turning the younger generation into fat lazy slobs. Will Wright seems to present a different model that glorifies gaming as a learning tool.

6. The article and the video seem to merely focus on how the game may change gaming while I wanted there to be a little bit more about how it may change literacy. In order to make a correlation to class themes I needed to extrapolate it from passing comments.

7. I would recommend this site to other students and my friend purely for the content. The advertisements are frustrating, but what can one expect from a business’ website?

Is the Internet Causing Idiocy?

I find the notion that the Internet is making us dumb a paradox in which the many different facets of the issue culminate to create a whirlwind of confusion. I tend to disagree on the fact that the Internet is making us “dumb”. It may be making us lazier, or fatter, but not dumber. The argument that the easily accessible wealth of knowledge available on the Internet is corrupting our brains and in turn causing idiocy seems a little extreme. The underlying problem is not whether the Internet is making us dumb, because the capacity of the human brain will never change, it’s how the Internet is changing the way we view and store knowledge. Nicolas Carr, writes in his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, “My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles.”

The Internet has not changed our mental capacity, merely the way we process information. But, hasn’t changing technology always done that throughout history? The written word changed the way we stored knowledge, and with every advance in technology since that point has increased the efficiency in which knowledge is spread. In addition to the way we stored knowledge, these advances changed the way we view knowledge. We’ve become increasingly ADD and this due in part to the medium in which we view, and document our lives. In the past the human brain has been compared to work like a clock, now we say the human brain works like a computer. So, in reflection, if anything the Internet is making us smarter, not dumber. It may be changing the way we think, but who can say this is a bad thing? I guess time will tell.

“The Rising tide of mediocrity”

Abstract

“Reading a book requires a degree of active attention and engagement. Indeed, reading itself is a progressive skill that depends on years of education and practice. By contrast, most electronic media such as television, recordings, and radio make fewer demands on their audiences, and often require no more than passive participation. Even interactive electronic media such as video games and the Internet, foster shorter attention spans and accelerated gratification. To lose such intellectual capabilities—and the many sorts of human continuity it allows—would constitute a vast cultural impoverishment.” (http://www.nea.gov/pub/RaRExec.pdf).



Edward Jones was bored. He sat in a classroom he didn’t want to be in. He starred blankly at the back of his instructor’s greasy, semi-balled head. He yawned. He rummaged through his black, north face backpack, His fingers wrapped around the smoothly metallic, cold skin of his favorite ipod. One earbud. Then the other. Then, he was dead.

Doodles riddled his notebook. Blankness ravaged his brain. Looking down at his English textbook he evaporated. But it wasn’t the story behind the words. It wasn’t found in the pages in front of him. It was something else. He imagined himself in his cushy swivel chair, sitting in front of his top of the line, personal computer, monster in one hand, mouse in the other, ready to do battle. His mind convulsed with excitement. Aroused thoughts sparked his longing for the upgrade he was about to receive. His character grew in front of his eyes. He lived for upgrades. His lust for respect had brought him to this perfectly mundane life, living inside the experience machine. There he fought without painful repercussions. Rebirth was common there. Birth. Growing. Death. Rebirth. Growth. Everything inside there is arbitrary.
Data stream of consciousness. Constant ones and zeros.

His iphone vibrated. Edward woke up. Edward’s alarm always went off on these days. Time to go home. Edward thought everyone hated him. He would slink around barely behind the scenes. His attempts to socialize always ended in failure, or worse. As time past, his delinquency fast forwarded. He finally took refuge in the one place he felt at home. The mothering nurturer. The fountain of knowledge. The future of our deaths. Lost in some instantaneous stimulus in digital euphoria, he was god. When lost inside, he often liked to pretend his victims where actual, real individuals. The thought of their deaths brought Edward much happiness.

Knock!
Knock!

Edward returned from his cyber consciousness with dislike.
“What do you want?” He screeched.
“Edward! Have some respect! Its your father. Shut up and let me in.”
“No”
After a little pause, Edward thought better about the situation, reluctantly got up to open the door, and walked back to his computer, uninterested. His father sat down on his son’s bed, and played with his fingers.
“What are you doing there son”.
“Playing The Great Experience Machine”. Robotically responded Edward.
“That sounds fun”.
Edward became lost again and left his father with his fingers.
“I have something to give you. My father gave it to me when I was your age, so I thought it’d be appropriate to pass it on to you.
Edward’s father paused in attempt to conjure some sort of response.

Click, click click click click click

“I know how much you like those fantasy games so it thought it’d be perfect, because this is one of the greatest, epic adventures ever written.”

Click click click click click click click click.

No words
“I can see you’re busy. I’ll just leave this here for you. Enjoy.”
Edward’s father gingerly set his father’s book on Edward’s pillow, got up, left the room, and shut the door.
Edward twitched, stopped playing, and picked up his book.



Post Script

“…our faith in positive social and cultural change was not misplaced.”
“Cultural decline is not inevitable.” (http://www.arts.gov/research/ReadingonRise.pdf)

Some Noise

I have become increasingly intrigued with the website opsound.com. They call the bringing together of sounds and music a “sound pool”. I was curious to see how one uploaded a song to the website so I did just that. The site declares that, “All material for the sound pool will be released under a Creative Commons license (the "Attribution-ShareAlike license"), a copyleft license in the spirit of open source software license which allows for all kinds of copying, remixing, use, and reuse while retaining an attribution to the original artist.” I clicked on the link and it lead me to another site entitled “Creative Commons”. It basically said that by the terms I’m agreeing to, I’m free to share and remix as long as everyone on the site is cool with it. Fair enough. I then thought it prudent to peruse the Creative Commons website, but found to my dismay that in order to get to the good content I had to donate 25 bucks, which every college student may agree it might as well be 1000. Sigh. Anyway, back to the story about uploading my music to this sound pool. I had to provide a name for the band, an email address, a song title, and a URL. This gave me a little frustration; because I was under the influence I could upload my song directly from my computer. Ah well. Lucky for me I have a musician’s page on MySpace which has been dormant for at least 9 months. Despite my twinge on anger I entered my MySpace URL and song name into the required fields and voila, one of my songs is now available to a number of artists to listen to and remix. If anyone is curious to see if this experiment worked you may go to the website and search the band name IJP, that’ll be me.

As a little bit of a post script to this blog I attempted to download Amplive’s remixes of Radiohead’s In Rainbows (after watching that film on copyright in class), and to my dismay every time I tried to do so I got an error message. It is my belief that corporate lawyers finally got the best of him and he was forced to take it off the internet. I hope this wasn’t Radiohead’s doing. If anyone has information on this please respond.