Viewers find themselves in an anxious daze by the end of these museums. The final floors are skipped or else run through frantically. The way to take these paintings in is to blink them, blur them, to look a little less than needed. Such eye-pleasing two-dimensionals beg to be marred, trashed, exposed in two dimensions. A wad of gum would do it, little circles of spit, a knife to reveal the wall behind it. It has been suggested the Louvre commission some semi-fantastic copies of good size, very fine, expert renderings of one of the museum’s paintings, perhaps a collaged scene of a few, and hang them near the cafeteria to be mauled and defaced by tourists sick on beauty.
Back to the discussion on David: Michelangelo has set up more than one teenage girl for disappointment. Delicate, arrogant, naturally toned, with big hands to hold, many girls fly home heart-struck, it’s true! Flocking to the first curly-haired boy they see, looking more carefully at the football team, too much time in the library, tying the phone cord in knots, settling for a prom date, etc., etc., rooting for Italy in the Olympics. Relative to Jesus, but in a different way. One girl’s experience with both was to fall for the David, returning home only to sculpt him out of white chocolate and melt him (melt him!) on a hot plate. Then meeting a David and understanding the world’s preoccupation with Jesus, see diary entry below:
The bluest eye proposal was met by one unknowing boy who had the bluest eyes, winning, generous, butt-perfect, pleasing, spontaneous and breathing, but shy, silly, dillied all down. If Jesus was like that, then all the more explained.
If one could suspend knowledge and judgment, consider Jesus as the kind-hearted high school sweetheart who dies tragically in a car crash (and just two days before graduation!). A dead boyfriend, as we all know, is impossible to get over, having committed no crime besides stealing our hearts, etc. Breaking off a relationship with no one breaking it off, this kind of end is very hard to accept, leaving the left one thinking, if only I had driven myself, if only I hadn’t insisted on ice cream, if only the weather had been nicer, or the road had been cleared, or my purse hadn’t been lazily draped over the gear shift, etc. The world wants to meet, to speak with, the tragically died-young, the perpetual. There is no old-aged Lennon, no middle-aged Cobain. To die young is to stay young, to keep everyone wanting to stay young with you, to make them afraid to approach an age you never got to, that you were supposed to get to first.
In Japan, a young girl published an essay on Cobain’s voice. A rough translation states:
Cobain’s voice houses more than one voice. This magic of voice is most clearly deciphered on the
Unplugged
Album. I could find enough levels in Kurt Cobain’s voice to live satisfied, but the rest of my family wasn’t as fortunate.
The text goes on to question the structural make up of Cobain’s throat. Does it contain pebbles or kernels? Would the writer try to communicate with Cobain if he had not left his body behind as evidence? Does one assist a dead musician by covering his songs?
Songs have been covered since the first melody hummed in the presence of another. Monkeys covered songs way before they lost the hair. Adam and Eve used to sing while they had sex in streams. Crickets sure sing similar and leaves have a song, birds, thunder claps are a kind, not so popular or pleasing, but everyone has their music. Different car engines sound good together. An airplane duets nicely with a lawnmower. Music proves one of the most exciting and accessible art forms to cover. A number of literary covers have been produced by a junior high English class, the text only differing in handwriting. Civil War reenactments could be considered covers, but those wars are fake. A cover song holds all qualities that define a song; a cover song is definitely real. One can argue, as the text here is about to, a cover version makes a song more real, alive even, since changing the form calls attention to the original, shows the song is still identifiable as the song, even with different qualities.
Some turn into dance songs, “Always on My Mind,” for instance, sung first by Brenda Lee, popularized by Elvis, then re-covered by Willie Nelson, then turned dance by the Pet Shop Boys. Newly-turned dance covers sound careless, freed from their gloom by immortal beats. These beats keep going after the song has stopped. Beat-making machines have no off button. They must be stuffed in pillows, in closets, in sheds, buried in backyards, until the beat is needed once again.
Does a cover unleash the song? One that’s been called the best, Hendrix completely outgunning a Dylan original, throwing it far from Bob’s scratchy so-so. John Coltrane rescues “My Favourite Things” from the original The Sound of Music version. His meandering jazz masterpiece weaves in and out of melody, trilling notes out of control, and all the while the listener has the other prim version in her head. No one sings lyrics in Coltrane’s version. They are offered by the song’s ghost. Coltrane’s melody calls to mind the kittens and string. Then the instruments storm, there are hundreds of cats, way too much string.
Digital appropriation can be a form of 4th dimensional rape, as in the mash-up of Ludacris’s “What’s Your Fantasy” and Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out of My Head.” The combination of the two, referred to as “Can’t lick you out of my head,” puts Kylie’s backing dance beat over Ludacris’s dark questioning keyboard, transforming Ludacris’s lyrics into a seduction. All that’s left of Kylie’s voice is her girlish “la-la-la” chorus and it’s being used against her. Anonymous assault is common, comparable to Photoshop scandal, the cut and paste from one online chat to another, but incomparable to the questionable assault of Kobe Bryant upon Unnamed:
We stood right here and started having the you know, the foreplay happened right here … the hug goodbye thing or whatever … we just started kissing. I asked her I said you know, she bent over, and walked over on her own free will … put her foot up here all by herself and if that wasn’t consensual … Did she cry, no … She didn’t cry at all … I didn’t say she slipped off, she just you know removed herself from … I said she slid off … Slid off like when uh, that was it and I stood there like this and uh you know, put it back in my pants so you know, that was it no more no nothing … She kissed goodbye. Boom … I put my thing back in my pants when I was through and she … no, she didn’t leave, we kissed goodbye, we kissed goodbye
Other notorious ballers, the Detroit Piston Bad Boys were known for their unforgiving physical style. One of Rick Mahorn’s tactics was to foul an opponent after another Piston had already fouled him and the whistle had blown. In a display of poor sportsmanship, they walked off the court, refusing to shake hands with the Bulls after losing to them in the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals.