Michael Jackson, David Foster Wallace, Authorial Intent, Intertextuality, etc.
I've been kicking around some loosely related thoughts recently and figured I should post them here in case anyone else can make sense out of them. This is all kind of loose and unformed, so it's entirely possible that this post will just be incomprehensible.
1.
I was something of a Michael Jackson fan growing up. I had tapes of Thriller and Bad, and I enjoyed them. I wasn't obsessed or anything, but I liked him. At various times over the years, I've had the thought that I should get Thriller on CD. I probably still have the tape, but I listen to tapes so infrequently that it's not really different from not having it at all. Getting the CD seemed like something worth doing, but I never felt an urgent need, so I've never gotten it.
When Michael Jackson died, I had a strong reaction that I did not want to be one of those people who reacted to his death by buying his music. On a certain level, this prevents me from buying Thriller until after the hubbub has died down. This feels kind of like his death is an imposition on me, but in practice I wasn't realistically likely to pick it up anyway.
To be clear, this is not in any way meant to be judgmental towards the many people who did go out and buy his records in response to his death. I've certainly responded that way when other musicians have died, but I don't feel like my interest in Michael Jackson makes it a response I want to have in this case.
I did, however, spend a couple of hours watching his videos. Despite being the right age to have experienced heavy exposure to Michael Jackson videos in the 80s, I mostly missed out as a result of growing up without cable. Watching them recently, I know I'd seen some before, I think I hadn't seen some in their entirety, but the iconography was still familiar, and I saw others which were entirely new.
All of this is setup for my having recently seen the Yeah Yeah Yeahs video for "Heads Will Roll," off their most recent album. I should warn squeamish viewers that this video contains stylized graphic violence which may not be to everyone's taste, beginning at about 3:00 into the video. But I mention the video because the dancing werewolf prior to that point strikes me as a Michael Jackson tribute. Watch particularly the sequence at around 1:00 in which he throws away his hat. It seems to be drawing on "Billie Jean" in particular. Other viewers may disagree with me. It's possible that I'm seeing things which aren't there, or are there but don't have the significance I'm giving them.
The video was released on May 26, before Jackson's death, which raises several questions about my response to "Heads Will Roll."
If I had seen the video before Jackson's death, and therefore before watching many Michael Jackson videos in a short period of time, would I have identified the dancing with him? The best answer I can give is that I think so. The dance moves and the costuming in this video are iconic and from the period that I've had the greatest exposure to, around the album Thriller.
If I had seen the video before Michael Jackson's death, would I have interpreted the dancing as a tribute or as a derivative copy? This one is harder, but I think I would have seen it as a tribute. There are enough different ways in which it references Michael Jackson that I read it as a tribute. If it were a copy, the similarities would be more simple. The tricky thing here is that this is dependent on familiarity. It's possible that had I not recently watched several videos, I would have caught fewer references and have viewed it as copying or imitation as a result.
My reflex is to turn these questions around. I'm not sure who deserves creative credit for the video, and if the Michael Jackson connections in particular are due to the band, the video director, the choreographer, or the dancer (and some or all of these may be the same people, but that doesn't change my questions). But assuming it's even possible to speak of the creator of the video as a single entity, I want to ask whether the Michael Jackson reference that I perceive is deliberate, and if so, what was the intended result.
Even leaving aside the fact that any possible answer would be inherently untrustworthy (if the truth is that it was a deliberate copy and the creator hoped no one would notice, it's unlikely they would just say that), I suspect that by even asking the question I'm committing the intentional fallacy.
The stated goals of the creator should not be taken as a definitive statement on how the work is actually perceived. But now I feel like I'm caught between my purely subjective view of the video and the stated intentions of the creator. I would like for a non-subjective view of the Michael Jackson's connection to the "Heads Will Roll" video to exist. If such a viewpoint did exist, I could ask it if the Michael Jackson thing is just all in my head, or sort of there but I'm blowing it way out of proportion in a reaction to his death, or I'm totally right, and even more, here's what the tribute means.
Unfortunately, I have no idea of how that non-subjective viewpoint could be constructed.
2.
David Foster Wallace's novel Infinite Jest was published in 1996. I was aware of it at the time, specifically as my kind of novel. It's huge, nonlinear, and filled with endnotes. For whatever reason, though, I never got around to reading it, although it has been kicking around on my list of books to read someday ever since.
David Foster Wallace committed suicide last September. I heard the news at the time, and my reaction was mostly limited to, "he's the author of that book I haven't read." I didn't feel any need to pick up the book or otherwise do anything to observe his death.
Sometime in early June, I heard about Infinite Summer. Infinite Summer is essentially an online book group dedicated to reading Infinite Jest. There's a reading schedule, a blog with posts by the organizers (some rereading the book and some reading it for the first time) discussing the readings, and forums for general discussion of the book. There's also a cloud of other blogs that have sprung up around Infinite Summer as other readers blog their way through the book.
Infinite Summer sounded like an interesting idea, but I decided not to participate. For one thing, the book's huge. Just reading it would amount to a significant commitment for the entire summer. (The reading schedule began in June and extends into September.) Also, it's impossible to avoid the idea that Infinite Summer was a reaction to Wallace's death. Like with Michael Jackson, it's not so much that I think it's an inappropriate reaction as that I don't see it as my reaction.
Then I took a bus down to New Jersey for the Fourth of July. I wanted a book to read on the way down, and the book that came to mind was Infinite Jest. I figured it's a big book and it would keep me busy on the bus. I read it all the way down, and I read it on the way back up as well, and I hardly started the thing. So I've continued to read the book on the bus to and from work every day.
It wasn't too long before I checked in on the Infinite Summer website. Not as a participant, but just out of curiosity about where they were in the book. Even though I started late, I had already put in enough time to put me ahead of their schedule, and I have continued to stay ahead of them since then. I started to think of myself as not a participant in Infinite Summer, but instead on a parallel but independent reading. I'm pretty sure this attempt to keep myself separate constitutes missing the point of both Infinite Jest and Infinite Summer, but that was my plan.
And then I fell down the rabbit hole. I moved from checking in on Infinite Summer infrequently to reading daily, and then I expanded to reading and then commenting on other blogs that are participating in Infinite Summer. At this point I'm spending more time reading discussion of Infinite Jest than I am reading the book itself. I have come to accept the fact that I am a full-blown participant in Infinite Summer, even if I am still reading at my own pace.
Statements to the effect of, "read Infinite Jest when you're 23 and it will change your life" are fairly common. I'm not sure I believe that's true, but I haven't finished the book yet. What I do know is that I was 23 when the book was published, and I had the opportunity to read it then and I did not take it.
However, there are ways in which right now is the best possible time for me personally to be reading it. This is largely due to the fact that it is mostly set in an alternate version of the Boston area, 20 minutes into the future. At the time the book was published, I was working in New York. Since then I've moved to Cambridge, and I now know the area well enough to appreciate all the local references, including things like the "Live Chickens Fresh Killed" sign in East Cambridge.
Beyond that, the book is set in the near future relative to when it was written, in 1996. The book is deliberately vague about when it was set, but there are clues which lead to the conclusion that the bulk of the book is in fact set in 2009. I was not aware of this before I started reading, and would not have tried to figure it out on my own, but that is the consensus among Infinite Summer readers who have sat down and worked out when it is set.
But the real moment where I could not have had this experience of reading this book unless I was reading it right now came a couple of weeks ago. I was reading the book on the Green Line, traveling down Commonwealth Ave to see a concert at Harpers Ferry. Entirely coincidentally, the scene I was reading at that moment featured a character driving along Commonwealth Ave and passing various landmarks, including Harpers Ferry, as he raced a Green Line train.
David Foster Wallace's suicide still hangs over Infinite Jest. Depression and suicide are significant themes in the book. It's hard not to read the book and wonder which parts he was taking from his own experiences. It's also hard to not let the fact of his suicide color the reading of the book. Does the fact that the author was suicidally depressed invalidate the major themes of the book?
These are questions I would choose not to ask. Fortunately, as I have been reading the book and allowing myself to be drawn into its world, I'm finding that I think about his relationship with the book and the book's relationship with him less, but the questions are still there, lurking.
I don't want to overexplain my thinking, especially since I don't know where I'm going with this yet, but the connection I see between "Heads Will Roll" and Infinite Jest is that both make me very aware of my unique subjective experience of them and push me towards asking questions about the creator's relationship and intentions with the work.
1.
I was something of a Michael Jackson fan growing up. I had tapes of Thriller and Bad, and I enjoyed them. I wasn't obsessed or anything, but I liked him. At various times over the years, I've had the thought that I should get Thriller on CD. I probably still have the tape, but I listen to tapes so infrequently that it's not really different from not having it at all. Getting the CD seemed like something worth doing, but I never felt an urgent need, so I've never gotten it.
When Michael Jackson died, I had a strong reaction that I did not want to be one of those people who reacted to his death by buying his music. On a certain level, this prevents me from buying Thriller until after the hubbub has died down. This feels kind of like his death is an imposition on me, but in practice I wasn't realistically likely to pick it up anyway.
To be clear, this is not in any way meant to be judgmental towards the many people who did go out and buy his records in response to his death. I've certainly responded that way when other musicians have died, but I don't feel like my interest in Michael Jackson makes it a response I want to have in this case.
I did, however, spend a couple of hours watching his videos. Despite being the right age to have experienced heavy exposure to Michael Jackson videos in the 80s, I mostly missed out as a result of growing up without cable. Watching them recently, I know I'd seen some before, I think I hadn't seen some in their entirety, but the iconography was still familiar, and I saw others which were entirely new.
All of this is setup for my having recently seen the Yeah Yeah Yeahs video for "Heads Will Roll," off their most recent album. I should warn squeamish viewers that this video contains stylized graphic violence which may not be to everyone's taste, beginning at about 3:00 into the video. But I mention the video because the dancing werewolf prior to that point strikes me as a Michael Jackson tribute. Watch particularly the sequence at around 1:00 in which he throws away his hat. It seems to be drawing on "Billie Jean" in particular. Other viewers may disagree with me. It's possible that I'm seeing things which aren't there, or are there but don't have the significance I'm giving them.
Click to viewThe video was released on May 26, before Jackson's death, which raises several questions about my response to "Heads Will Roll."
If I had seen the video before Jackson's death, and therefore before watching many Michael Jackson videos in a short period of time, would I have identified the dancing with him? The best answer I can give is that I think so. The dance moves and the costuming in this video are iconic and from the period that I've had the greatest exposure to, around the album Thriller.
If I had seen the video before Michael Jackson's death, would I have interpreted the dancing as a tribute or as a derivative copy? This one is harder, but I think I would have seen it as a tribute. There are enough different ways in which it references Michael Jackson that I read it as a tribute. If it were a copy, the similarities would be more simple. The tricky thing here is that this is dependent on familiarity. It's possible that had I not recently watched several videos, I would have caught fewer references and have viewed it as copying or imitation as a result.
My reflex is to turn these questions around. I'm not sure who deserves creative credit for the video, and if the Michael Jackson connections in particular are due to the band, the video director, the choreographer, or the dancer (and some or all of these may be the same people, but that doesn't change my questions). But assuming it's even possible to speak of the creator of the video as a single entity, I want to ask whether the Michael Jackson reference that I perceive is deliberate, and if so, what was the intended result.
Even leaving aside the fact that any possible answer would be inherently untrustworthy (if the truth is that it was a deliberate copy and the creator hoped no one would notice, it's unlikely they would just say that), I suspect that by even asking the question I'm committing the intentional fallacy.
The stated goals of the creator should not be taken as a definitive statement on how the work is actually perceived. But now I feel like I'm caught between my purely subjective view of the video and the stated intentions of the creator. I would like for a non-subjective view of the Michael Jackson's connection to the "Heads Will Roll" video to exist. If such a viewpoint did exist, I could ask it if the Michael Jackson thing is just all in my head, or sort of there but I'm blowing it way out of proportion in a reaction to his death, or I'm totally right, and even more, here's what the tribute means.
Unfortunately, I have no idea of how that non-subjective viewpoint could be constructed.
2.
David Foster Wallace's novel Infinite Jest was published in 1996. I was aware of it at the time, specifically as my kind of novel. It's huge, nonlinear, and filled with endnotes. For whatever reason, though, I never got around to reading it, although it has been kicking around on my list of books to read someday ever since.
David Foster Wallace committed suicide last September. I heard the news at the time, and my reaction was mostly limited to, "he's the author of that book I haven't read." I didn't feel any need to pick up the book or otherwise do anything to observe his death.
Sometime in early June, I heard about Infinite Summer. Infinite Summer is essentially an online book group dedicated to reading Infinite Jest. There's a reading schedule, a blog with posts by the organizers (some rereading the book and some reading it for the first time) discussing the readings, and forums for general discussion of the book. There's also a cloud of other blogs that have sprung up around Infinite Summer as other readers blog their way through the book.
Infinite Summer sounded like an interesting idea, but I decided not to participate. For one thing, the book's huge. Just reading it would amount to a significant commitment for the entire summer. (The reading schedule began in June and extends into September.) Also, it's impossible to avoid the idea that Infinite Summer was a reaction to Wallace's death. Like with Michael Jackson, it's not so much that I think it's an inappropriate reaction as that I don't see it as my reaction.
Then I took a bus down to New Jersey for the Fourth of July. I wanted a book to read on the way down, and the book that came to mind was Infinite Jest. I figured it's a big book and it would keep me busy on the bus. I read it all the way down, and I read it on the way back up as well, and I hardly started the thing. So I've continued to read the book on the bus to and from work every day.
It wasn't too long before I checked in on the Infinite Summer website. Not as a participant, but just out of curiosity about where they were in the book. Even though I started late, I had already put in enough time to put me ahead of their schedule, and I have continued to stay ahead of them since then. I started to think of myself as not a participant in Infinite Summer, but instead on a parallel but independent reading. I'm pretty sure this attempt to keep myself separate constitutes missing the point of both Infinite Jest and Infinite Summer, but that was my plan.
And then I fell down the rabbit hole. I moved from checking in on Infinite Summer infrequently to reading daily, and then I expanded to reading and then commenting on other blogs that are participating in Infinite Summer. At this point I'm spending more time reading discussion of Infinite Jest than I am reading the book itself. I have come to accept the fact that I am a full-blown participant in Infinite Summer, even if I am still reading at my own pace.
Statements to the effect of, "read Infinite Jest when you're 23 and it will change your life" are fairly common. I'm not sure I believe that's true, but I haven't finished the book yet. What I do know is that I was 23 when the book was published, and I had the opportunity to read it then and I did not take it.
However, there are ways in which right now is the best possible time for me personally to be reading it. This is largely due to the fact that it is mostly set in an alternate version of the Boston area, 20 minutes into the future. At the time the book was published, I was working in New York. Since then I've moved to Cambridge, and I now know the area well enough to appreciate all the local references, including things like the "Live Chickens Fresh Killed" sign in East Cambridge.
Beyond that, the book is set in the near future relative to when it was written, in 1996. The book is deliberately vague about when it was set, but there are clues which lead to the conclusion that the bulk of the book is in fact set in 2009. I was not aware of this before I started reading, and would not have tried to figure it out on my own, but that is the consensus among Infinite Summer readers who have sat down and worked out when it is set.
But the real moment where I could not have had this experience of reading this book unless I was reading it right now came a couple of weeks ago. I was reading the book on the Green Line, traveling down Commonwealth Ave to see a concert at Harpers Ferry. Entirely coincidentally, the scene I was reading at that moment featured a character driving along Commonwealth Ave and passing various landmarks, including Harpers Ferry, as he raced a Green Line train.
David Foster Wallace's suicide still hangs over Infinite Jest. Depression and suicide are significant themes in the book. It's hard not to read the book and wonder which parts he was taking from his own experiences. It's also hard to not let the fact of his suicide color the reading of the book. Does the fact that the author was suicidally depressed invalidate the major themes of the book?
These are questions I would choose not to ask. Fortunately, as I have been reading the book and allowing myself to be drawn into its world, I'm finding that I think about his relationship with the book and the book's relationship with him less, but the questions are still there, lurking.
I don't want to overexplain my thinking, especially since I don't know where I'm going with this yet, but the connection I see between "Heads Will Roll" and Infinite Jest is that both make me very aware of my unique subjective experience of them and push me towards asking questions about the creator's relationship and intentions with the work.