r/SubredditDrama • u/[deleted] • Aug 28 '15
John Cage inspires thoughtful discussion in r/classicalmusic: "This is my middle finger to all of you who oppose me. I am god in this dimension. Look at it. Look at my middle finger."
/r/classicalmusic/comments/3iop6r/listening_to_john_cage_is_like_chewing_sand_well/cuibhvs11
Aug 28 '15
Fabricating some bollocks meaning behind making an entire four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence to point out that the "audience is music". Bull-fucking shit.
No! Not the point!
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u/Nerdlinger Aug 28 '15
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u/MechaShitlord Aug 28 '15
Damien Hurst is a stupendously good artist, but he operates at such a rarefied level that it's hard to recognise. He might not even fully realise himself quite what he is doing.
He's SO good you don't even realize how good he is. HE DOESN'T EVEN REALIZE. Having said that...
Yes, the works themselves are trite and unoriginal.
Well damn. At least he has that rare, top quality of being good but nobody knowing it.
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u/Shyguy10101 Aug 29 '15
Now I feel a little guilty for finding it funny.. as I said elsewhere on the thread, I do actually like "The Shark", as it seems to have been called since the original (pretty nice) name is hard to remember. Hirst really does seem to me to sum up everything wrong with modern art - it's all about the name, the investment and the status, and the actual art is almost forgotten. That he can actually say stuff like this and still be taken seriously as an artist is beyond me:
Hirst said that he only painted five spot paintings himself because, "I couldn't be fucking arsed doing it"; he described his efforts as "shite"—"They're shit compared to ... the best person who ever painted spots for me was Rachel. She's brilliant. Absolutely fucking brilliant. The best spot painting you can have by me is one painted by Rachel." He also describes another painting assistant who was leaving and asked for one of the paintings. Hirst told her to, "'make one of your own.' And she said, 'No, I want one of yours.' But the only difference, between one painted by her and one of mine, is the money.'"
I am always interested to learn though and give someone a fair chance, so what am I missing here?
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u/TheLadyEve Aug 28 '15
Damn, I like John Cage, but I didn't think it was that controversial to not be a fan. Controversial to argue his importance to American music, sure, but not everyone is going to like avant garde stuff.
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u/piwikiwi Aug 28 '15
There is a difference between not being a fan and thinking it is worthless. Saying that a composer is shit is nearly always downvoted in r/classicalmusic but saying you don't like something is not.
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Aug 28 '15
A: Rachmaninoff was a talentless, sloppy, and derivative hack whose music only appeals to hydrocephalics, pederasts, and sexually-repressed spinsters.
B: Well, that's pretty insulting. Let me tell you why I admire Rachmaninoff's music...
A: I was just stating my opinion! Music is subjective!! Stop oppressing my subjective opinions!!!
That's about how these conversations always seem to go.
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u/macinneb Aug 28 '15
Sounds like an accurate criticsm of rachmaninoff :P j k I'm learning some of his preludes now don't hate me.
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u/[deleted] Aug 28 '15
Apparently that thread alone was not enough to contain the godlike dimensions of his middle finger, for he made a whole nother post to keep the acrimony going....