Re: Bored people.

[Gregory T Romero <gregory.romero@yale.edu>]

On Tue, 29 Apr 1997, Matthew C Gamber wrote:

> 
> When I subscribed to this discussion list, I suspected the bulk of the
> conversation would include Glenn's work process, his theoroies on
> interpretation and advancement, and an extention and application of them
> into other media.  Then after a deal of dissection and discovery, people
> would gain some enlightenment from the spinoff of their own ideas and then
> put concept into reality.  I figured that a continuation of what he began
> would be a proper form of memorial to suit the immortality that he always
> wanted. This is not what I see here.
>
   Matt,
          Though I can understand your frustrations somewhat, I must ask
you, really, what the hell do you expect?  This is not the Frankfurt
School e-mail list, it is a discussion group for GG's fans.  Some fans
like the singing sounds he makes on records, some like all the mufflers he
wore in the summer time, and some fans are interested in his technological
philosophies and his writings on Schoenberg.  I personally apologize for
not making radio documentaries and the like, but I wonder, what have you
done to make "a proper form of memorial" besides asking  whether or not he
"did dog"?

> I see a public of fans who rival the kind of people Glenn wanted so
> desperately to avoid.  Subscribers risk turning him into an icon.  It is
> as though he is put in a cage on diplay with all of his unique
> characteristics and he is observed like a baboon in the zoo.  Though his
> achievements were exceptional, he remains still, and always, a human like
> you and I, subject to all the faults and weaknesses we all are.  
> In a quest to discover everything short of what time he urinated during
> the day, I can't figure in why anyone would denouce any account, no matter
> how insignificant (or slanderous) it may seem.  If the a publication
> doesn't live up to the glory of making him a hero, then it must be trash.
> How can one learn all there is to know about someone or something if they
> don't recieve every aspect from every angle possible.  Kazdin spent close
> to fifteen years working with the man.  Still, people throw out his
> account since it was not favorable towrds Glenn in every aspect. 
>    
> I believe you people are bored and can't create your own life and instead
> live vicariously through a dead man's private life to make up for the
> lackluster of your own.
> 
> Quit stroking his head like he was your pet.
>  M. Gamber
>  
    I love your generalizations.  I'm sure most people on this list are
aware of GG's faults.  Your point about the Kazdin book is valid.  I've
seen it dismissed far too many times as being written by "a disgruntled
recording engineer."  I've read the book and Kazdin is clearly an
intelligent person and probably one of the few people that actually got to
see and could understand GG's creative process.  The weakness with the
book, I think, is that it concentrates too much on Kazdin's psychological
analysis.  It's not the fact that it's Kazdin's analysis that bothers me
so much as it is the fact that I think most psychological writing of this
kind is bullsh*t.  It's too bad Kazdin didn't try to explain more about
what GG was actually trying to do in the studio.  
     If you want to hear GG criticized, then fine:  his late Mozart
sonatas stink, he was an atrocious writer with the most heavy-handed and
mannered style I've ever seen, I personally think his whole
artist-in-isolation schtick was just a cop-out from a fear of society, and
his humor, like yours, isn't funny.  There you go.  
     Finally if the discussion bothers you so much, why don't you try to
change it.  I don't recall your trying to start threads very often.  I
sometimes try to start serious threads in place of discussions about
things like miniature reproductions of GG's piano chair, etc, and I am
often ignored, but big deal.  If people want to discuss GG's chair, then
fine.  I'm not going to write moronic one liners that make Herbert von
Hockmeister seem like a comedic genius.  
 
     Greg Romero
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gregory T. Romero
Yale University 
P.O. Box 204921
New Haven, CT 06520