An Evening Paper in Moscow
Addiction ate the art
Speaking of distractions. Ted Gioia: The State of the Culture, 2024. Some noteworthy illustrations from the noteworthy post.
And this noteworthy image. You can place a religion based on text in front of the art. I remember back in the day in the Clubhouse some dude who works in Chabad PR, asked me why I don’t like Ticktock. Like the great Speed Levich uses to say, “everybody likes Ticktock”.
And you thought artists had it tough back in the day?
Even the dumbest entertainment looks like Shakespeare compared to dopamine culture. You don’t need Hamlet, a photo of a hamburger will suffice. Or a video of somebody twerking, or a pet looking goofy.
Instead of movies, users get served up an endless sequence of 15-second videos. Instead of symphonies, listeners hear bite-sized melodies, usually accompanied by one of these tiny videos—just enough for a dopamine hit, and no more.
This is the new culture. And its most striking feature is the absence of Culture (with a capital C) or even mindless entertainment—both get replaced by compulsive activity.”
Of course, there are several steps on the left outside the frame, like hand writing and printings. What he calls a “slow traditional culture” is already the modernity. Just a hundred years of the fast moving history.
Speaking of dopamine culture. What’s up with those writers who write articles and posts consisted of a short sentences, like tweets. One of those writers, Ted Gioia resonates. I notice here, art posts get a very low views count. I thought this must be illiterate chabadnicks, but there is something bigger here.
Since I am in the mood for borrowed images.
I Chabad I always heard the first, never the second.
Patrick Bruel
Hell, let’s go full dopamine here.
Patrick Bruel is an Algerian Jew (he even sings Shlomo Artzi’s great song Island in Hebrew). He has that dashing, handsome “Mediterranean look”, and crazy musical talent. Here he is in concert in 91. I sometimes wonder why Americans don’t hear melodic musing? And why do American women like Taylor Swift? I tried to listen to her on YouTube and nothing, I can’t get past the opening noise. I also don’t understand why hard and fast, very loud African techno beat dominates frum and Chabad music today.
Patrick Bruel is one of those French Algerian Jews that looks (and thinks) Ashkenazi. The others (that I know) are Derrida, Bernard-Henri Levy.
Speaking of a cultural mixture.
Patrick Fiori and Patrick Bruel, Corsica
This is a Corsican (universal) hymn.
Patrick Fiori’s mother is Corsican and his father Armenian. He looks Armenian. In this clip, Patrick Bruel plays and sings as Patrick Fiori’s Corsican grandfather. You figure the rest. I will give a hint, the young girl is Patrick Fiori’s mother, and later in the clip, Patrick Fiori’s real mother with her “father” played by Patrick Bruel.
Jean-Paul Belmondo (Ennio Morricone - Chi Mai)
The genius Ennio Morricone, who wrote this music for a stupid 1980s film with Jean-Paul Belmondo. But the music is so magnificent, it transcends, yeah, play it at the funeral. With the cameo by Patrick Bruel.
I wanted to write about the magical stage of the Élysée Palace. Inshallah the next funeral. I also wanted to write about the ideal of French beauty, versus Wasp beauty. Well, just look at Belmondo and Bruel… Or Lars von Trier’s muse, Charlotte Gainsbourg. Figure it out!