enowning
Monday, October 31, 2011
 
Pianist Brad Mehldau is thrown.
That same person who tells me to be in the moment says I’m ‘romanticizing’ when I remember a place from the past with longing. He’s right. ‘Romantic’ for me is always after, filled with lateness, whether it’s Wordsworth or Kurt Cobain. At one point there was a unity to everything, a unity that was shattered. Arriving too late, the romantic finds everything in pieces. Where there was oneness, now it’s all dualities. Nothing is ever clear-cut; there’s always paradox, irony. All you can do is make music from the remains, and sing about the brokenness. Is that all a necessary fiction dreamed up by the human imagination to tell sad stories? If so, it’s a convincing one, because it tells about time. Our being is marked by what Heidegger called Geworfenheit — ‘thrown-ness’. We've been thrown into a world of time with no choice. It’s a world full of mortality — everything is dying, everywhere. The problem isn’t so much that reality in itself. The problem is that we care.
 
Comments: Post a Comment

<< Home
For when Ereignis is not sufficient.

Appropriation appropriates! Send your appropriations to enowning at gmail.com.

View mobile version