Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Guggenheim



No one qualifies statements like I do. No one.

Ok, no one qualifies like I do except for that statement. That was nakedly unqualified.

But in general I'm the master of sussing out qualifying conditions and parsing out exceptions to generalized statements. I'd like to think of my self as King of the Analogy, but the truth is I'm probably just King Equivocator. So let me bold here for a moment.

The music selection I chose for this, a snippet of Radiohead's Paranoid Android is simply the most beautiful section of any song in the history of rock. Period.

Without exception.

True, it helps that it's basically stolen from Mozart's Requiem, but beauty is beauty. Even stolen beauty. Which is not to say it's my favorite song; it's just the most beautiful. (In rock, not all music. Dang! I can't help but qualify.)

Now since I suffer from what one of my colleagues has described as a pathological need for confession, I will now indulge that pathology. When I hear this song, I no longer cry. But I did cry, oh, the first seventy times I heard it. There was no resisting it. Like a freakin' faucet turned on full force the waterworks came. But after listen seventy-one even the most beautiful rock music in the world begins an inevitable slow descent to "meh...."

Which is what makes Bach a miracle, but that's a point for another post.

As for the photos, well, I liked a fair number of them just fine, but none stood out for me as especially outstanding. I couldn't choose which one or two to select, so I decided to give you the whole shebang. Hope you enjoy.

7 comments:

Andy D. said...

I like the montage, and the music does highlight it well.

It is very interesting to me what a demonstration of "just how subjective is musical taste" this entry is. Although I like the passage just fine, and I do like Radiohead in general, this passage doesn't get near my own personal level of "the most beautiful passage in rock." Listening to it, I wasn't sure what to expect, but when it was over, I kind of thought, "Well, it didn't strike me as the most beautiful."

And that's not a criticism of it. It's just, it didn't hit me that way I guess.

Could I name my own "most" beautiful? I'm not sure I could pinpoint one; I'm frankly not sure I have ever thought about it, trying to name just one... But there are several others that I think move me personally greater than or equal to this one.

Very interesting.

A.

timekeeper said...

AD--you just know how to dangle out that carrot, don't you? A discussion of the most beautiful rock music? It's almost too easy.

I loved the music and the photos. Especially since I was expecting photos of the art and not the "great heights". It made me want to go there more than any pictures of the outside. Well, there's always the 50th birthday trip in my future. :)

Andy D. said...

wiggle wiggle.

Claudia said...

Cool beans! And yes, I too now feel the need to go back to NY for a trip to the Guggenheim. Hey, Chris O'Riley, classical pianist and all round cool dude does shows where he plays Radiohead tunes.
Bach is good.

Oooh, my word today is "Bangshme". Love it!

Susan Hasbrouck said...

That's because there are more than one or two that are just super. Nice spread!

Anonymous said...

Anonymous is commenting on your blog on a huge drop-down projection screen right in front of you and you don't even see it.

Fail?

Fail.

Your new groupies smell really bad.

Andy D. said...

We've been getting more information from the Chilean miners, than from you on this blog. Are you still alive?

A.