Just curious, Charles, when you're done w/ your intellectual masturbation, do you clean up w/ a towel or do you use kleenex?

(Not like I like her, but...) Ayn Rand? She got more people "thinking different" through a couple of cheesy novels than if she had written tomes on Objectivism. <cringes for onslaught from Objectivists, let alone C. Mudede>

So now we see philosophy and jazz are your highest art forms, fiction a distant second, and poetry not even mentioned as literature. Of course, then, you declared war on poetry--like all reactionaries you have declared war on what you don't understand. If it's literature that has as its highest register the condition of music (pace Zukovsky) and yet the intellectual daring of philosophy, we need look no further than Nathaniel Mackey, a contemporary poet equal to all your "laws." Of course you might not be able to draw yourself away from the Zizek film long enough to pick up a book (and what does it say that you were left unimpressed until you saw the IMAGE of a philosopher?), but maybe you will come around. Until then, I suggest the great TUG OF WAR take place over a glorious stack of Nathaniel Mackey books. Which side will your arts editor be on? Poets or Journalists? Until then, poets, I urge you to join the TUG OF WAR! You have nothing to lose but the cultural obsolescence imposed upon you by the likes of Mudede!

The following is the opening of Harold Pinter's 12/8/05 Nobel Prize acceptance speech: "In 1958 I wrote the following: ‘There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.’ I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art."

That noted, I lament: your relentlessly apodictic writing style has worn me down, like a predictable jazz solo, to the point of probable no-return: ambivalence. I am unfortunately no longer consistently drawn to your theses-filled musings about arts, music, and philosophy, as I once always was, and suspect this sudden tipping of the scales has much to do with the manner in which you march your grand statements about, week after week. After week. Your pomposity no longer strikes me as the unavoidable (and captivating) byproduct of a studied, fiery intellectual, but rather as an overcompensatory indulgence seemingly strutted about for the primary purpose of masking the contrived cores that typically pepper the writings of capable, proud men ill-suited to their journalistic roles. Perhaps it is not your fault that you've been thoroughly miscast into an authoritative "Black-American" role at The Stranger. You look the part, but you ain't the guy. Ironically, my urban-America-bred honkey ass (RIP Mr. Pryor) is more Black-American (culturally) than yours is likely to ever be. But, of course, I ain't qualified to fill the "Garrett Morris" slot that you've so opportunistically embraced (and understandably so). Simply put, it (the casting) is an artistic compromise. Your recent tenure at The Stranger has been characterized, to these ears, by the continually disagreebale pseudo-expert soundings of a square peg being authoritatively stuffed into a round hole. Therefore, I ask: Is this the fundamental flaw at the root of your Rooster-complex? Has the REAL Charles Mudede's artistic growth been stunted? Is this the cloudy conflict needling away at the nature of your art? Whatever the case, it is clear that you need not complement your talent, and treasured kernels of truth, with a persistent array of needlessly oversized idea-parade balloons. Embrace the truth (be yourself). Come down to Earth. Unless, of course, you are content to stay put round these piece-o-cake parts, like a self-absorbed snake-oil scribbler on a high-flying roll, and hold the attention of only the easily impressed, amused, confused, and deceived (including, it appears, "the man in the mirror").

Say it ain't so, Joe... er, Charles. Take care.

"I'm not a postmodernist; truths exist, they are out there, and we must labor to determine them."

I agree. And one of the truths that I've labored to determine is that issues regarding literature and music (and, indeed, all art) are subjective by their very nature. The objective truth is that there is no such thing as good or bad art. The subjective truth will vary from person to person.

Truth for real? Nah, just bullshit.

I'm sure everyone will strike down comics as literature. But read Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis. Fiction has to hold truth to become slightly popular, with the exception of novels that are made into movies. Transmetropolitan is all about the value of Truth. It's about realizing the president is a power-hungry bastard, and doing everything to kick him the fuck out. Twice. It's about the responsibilty of the fourth estate, and the lack of cajones is the collective news media front.

And Jazz is not the end of the line. Whoever wrote this must be 80. Right? They must've never heard Led Zeppelin, or sat through Punk. Music that truly expresses the here and now, and the feeling of being human. A lot of music doesn't hold up which is true, and Coltrane stopped seeing the truth when he quit heroin. Odd eh?

Standup is also a form that expresses the truth. Especially people who get branded 'alt' comics because apparently, saying 'fuck' and the truth makes you alternative.

Hah. Truth indeed, to the general population of a retirement home.

-SH.