Can you really take it with you? What's the real basis of the difference between something that is really happening, and something that is only on the screen, something that is only on a record or on a page?
This review entry is going to veer away from the rock focus of the blog and talk a little bit about the concepts of the dead and the image. One of my interests, fairly well unrelated to bootleg music DVDs, is a five year and counting attempt to make any sense out of the Spanish language. I was reading a text by Carlos Fuentes on the death of Hemingway, and figured that I could hit two birds with one stone by translating it for this blog. This arose from the consideration that Hemingway, for those of you not big on the stuff that they forced you to try and read in high school, ended his very successful career as a entertainer in the very same way as Cobain- by blowing his brains out with a shotgun. Now, from c
ertain perspectives, when you draw par
allels between the two suicides, or any two suicides for that matter, the lines are false. What could be more unique and personal than all of the private contradictions for which suicide is the inescapable conclusion? Nevertheless, we, the living, project upon these figures a sort of myth or cliché that is part of the general idea of rock and roll: the hero dying at the peak of his powers- their devotion to them is so strong that they are unable to exist after their disappearance.If you have a better grasp of Spanish than I do and you discover some errors in what I've done, I'd appreciate it very much if you'd let me know. If you're some sexy Spanish speaking muchacha who is willing to give me some private lessons, that would be even better...
.....A year before dying, Ernest Hemingway finished, in his country estate on the Cuban coast, A Movable Feast, the title comes from an expression coined by Hemingway himself:
'If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a movable feast.' The words not only express the nostalgia of a writer affirming the vitality of his vocation in the Parisian twenties, it also reveals the conscious of a man in search of his true image. A Movable Feast is the tragic document of Ernest Hemingway in search of Ernest Hemingway. The result, with respect to literature, is happy: the hard, brilliant, and austere style of the old author bridging the distance in order to discover another man- in order to create an objective personality. From a human viewpoint, the result is saddening: Hemingway knew that that Hemingway, the young, true Hemingway, was not the emasculated Hemingway that a year later would commit suicide. Are we only that which we truly are that single day, that day in which will, necessity, and chance: the sum of our destiny- unite themselves in order to offer us our greatest possibility? Can we- or should we -continue living after this moment? When we have arrived at a compromise with life that permits us to repeat the old gestures and maintain with them the illusion of a lost authenticity. "My new theory (was) that you could omit anything if you knew what you omitted and the omitted part would strengthen the story and make people feel something more than they understood." The familiar style is present, I daresay like never before- In the posthumous book, that which is unspoken, doubts, terrible and solitary, are the material for memoirs that achieve the level of great literature.
-casa de los dos puertas p. 105 bold italics mine
Un ano antes de morir, Ernest Hemingway terminò, en su finca de la costa cubana, A Movable Feast. El tìtulo deriva de una frase dicha en conversaciòn por el propio Hemingway: " Los que tuvimos la suerte de vivir en Paris nuestra juventud, sentimos que permanece dentro de nosotros furante toda la vida y a donde vayamos, pues Paris es una fiesta en movimiento."
Las palabras no sòlo expresan la nostagia de un escritor que en Paris de los años vientes afirmò su vocacion vital. Ademas revelan la conciencia de un hombre en busca de su verdadera imagen. A movable feast es es documento tràgico de Ernest Hemingway. El resultado, literariamente, es feliz: el estilo duro, brilliante y austero del viejo escritor aprovecha la distancia para descubrir el caràcter de otro hombre, para crear un personaje objectivo. Pero, humanamente, es doloroso: Hemingway sabe que aquel Hemingway, el joven, el verdadero, ya no es el Hemingway enmascarado que un ano despuès habrìa de sauiciarse. Somos sòlo lo que fuimos un dìa, el dìa en que la voluntad, la necieisidad y el azar- la suma del destino- se reunieron para ofrecernos nuestra màxima posibilidad? Podemos o merecemos vivr dispuès ese momento? Hemos de llegar a un compromiso con la vida que nos permita repetir los gesos, y con ellos mantener la ilusiòn, de una autenticdad perdida? Mi nueva teoria- escribe Hemingway en este libro - " Mi nueva teorìa- escribe Hemingway en este libro- (era) que uno podìa omitido cualquuier cosa si uno sabìa que la habìa omitido, y la parte omitida reforzarìa la historia y harìa que le gente sintiera algo màs de lo que entendia."El famoso estilo de Hemingway està presente- me atrevo a pensar que como nunca- en esta libro pòstuma: lo no dicho, preguntas terrìbles y solitarias, son la materia de unas memorias que alcazan el nivel de la creacion literaria.
The image seems like a rather casual aspect of the world- all the more so now given that it's all just pixels raining down across the heavens. Do non-famous people even have an Image?....You and I...We post our images. Our acquaintances pretend to be interested in them for a few moments, but soon there will be mountains and mountains of digital videos and conversations...and we and our acquaintances will all be forgotten...All the words and images we post...grains of digital ones and zeros that no one will ever bring up on a screen again...
Theme From Carmen
Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam
Aneurysm
Drain You
School
Floyd The Barber
Smells Like Teen Spirit
About A Girl
Polly
Breed
Sliver
Love Buzz
Pennyroyal Tea
Negative Creep
On A Plain
Blew
Lithium
Rape Me
Territorial Pissings
Those of you with a little intuition should be able to conclude by now that this Nirvana concert rocks out pretty hard...Nevermind had been released, but the momentum of its popularity was still building and the band is only playing in a medium sized club. It's single camera and not pro-shot- but the shooter is actually on stage with the band in front of the drums and facing the crowd: the chaos at the edge of the stage. A front line, really, manned by a few bouncers and steadily assailed by crowdsurfers. Sometimes. the rowdy audience gives the songs more energy. Other times, it forces the band to fuck them up- but the fact that it's not all scripted and done before it began is what makes it such an enjoyable show.
The height of the show's mayhem is included in thirty seconds of the Nirvana: Live! Tonight! Sold Out!! vid. During "Lovebuzz", Cobain surfs the crowd. When he makes it back up on stage, one of the bouncers punches him in the back of the head and sends him sprawling. The crowd chants "...bullshit...bullshit...bullshit..." and tense confusion takes place for a good four or five minutes. The possibility of a riot crosses everyone's' mind. The band gets back up and plays for another half hour with nearly the same intensity as before.
I watched the Nirvana: Live! Tonight! Sold Out!! thing again in order to get in the right frame of mind for doing this all justice. This bootleg looks a lot better than how the video appeared on that product. Whoever mastered it for the bootleg did a hell of a job. As for Live sold out, if you find Nirvana even tolerable, I'd say that it is essential viewing...Again and again, you see television hosts and programs, malicious facades of human beings and life, all trying convey their only real message: that one must remain convinced of how important television is. Sometimes, the band finds it easy to make it all look stupid by not taking it seriously. Other times, they only pay some poorly thought out cliché lip service to objecting to it -winding up in the vague paradox realm of the famous Rolling Stone cover. How do you control your image and make it say what you want to say what you want it to say? What other forces threaten to take control of your image?
.......It isn't paradoxical that Hemingway, who ended by sacrificing his literary talent to his public image, is now made complete by encountering, in the lost Hemingway, his greatest fictional character. The concision of A Movable Feast, direct and realistic, effectively hides an uncanny scaffold of corridors extending by means of a game of infinite mirrors. Who is Ernest Hemingway? That is the enigma of this novel of memoirs. Old friends of Hemingway told me recently, in New York, that in his last years the writer had arrived at a total confusion of personality. Hemingway did not know if he was Lieutenant Frederick Henry, the guerrilla Robert Jordan, or the actor Gary Cooper.
No es paradójico que Hemingway, que terminó por sacrifcar su literatura a su imagen personal, acabe ahora por encontrar en el Hemingway perdido su mejor personaje. La concisión de la escritura en A movable Feast, directa y realista, esconde efectivamente un andamiaje fantástico de corredores alargados por juegos de espejos infinitos. Quién es Ernest Hemingway? Tal es el enigma de esta novela de memorias. Viejos amogos de Hemingway me decían recientemente, en Nueva York,, que en sus ultimos años el escritor habia llegado a una confusión se personalidad total. Hemingway no sabía si era el teniente Frederick Henry, el guerrillero Robert Jordan, o el actor Gary Cooper.
...So which image belongs to who? And how is it decided? By the real people beneath them all? What do they look like?
There are other aspects to move onto here, other thoughts and remarks...but they are far from Cobain, now long dead. I've no motive to omit anything, my friends, for any reason, literary, or otherwise. It's just that this disc has stopped turning in my player. Time permitting, we will return to this inquiry by means of some other rock and roll occasion.
And P.S.
Big up http://www.nirvanaarchive.com/ which looks like a nice overview of the nirvana boot universe.
PPS if what brought you through here was an interests in literature of the Spanish language - I've got another blog which is more related to this theme...some discussion of Octavio Paz and other authors: check THIS
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