fusillo

@Godbowl: The cameramen is the least Keatonian film by Keaton. :-) Please read "memorie a rotta di collo" (Feltrinelli), it's a captivating read. :-) @Pretazzo: Shall we team up?. :-) @easycure: "The parody has, let's say for convenience, a 'genre' reference" >> This is where you are mistaken. The parody of a genre "is" that genre, with an attitude that can be either irreverent or not. For example, Zappa's album "Cruising with Ruben and the Jets" is a doo-wop song album, but it's also a parody. Oh, does the fact that it is a parody put it above Doo Wop? Not at all. You listen to it and say: Here are some nice Doo Wop songs. ;-) Then if you say Zappa's music lacks expressiveness, you're not making a personal statement that can be traced back to the old "I don't like it", which I certainly wouldn’t dare to argue about (at the beginning of my first intervention I prefaced with De Gustibus). You are making a "heavy" statement with a claim to objective truth. Expressiveness is not just a simple embellishment; it is an essential quality for good music. Without that, sitting at the piano or guitar means not playing but merely exercising your fingers. Expressiveness is what separates a good musician from a mediocre one. If you grant Zappa a certain authorial greatness, you should also acknowledge the expressiveness of his music. And if you don't recognize it, it follows that Zappa becomes a mediocre assembler of notes. Take "Strictly Genteel," which has an almost anthemic progression, or "Peaches en regalia," a formally perfect piece without the lengthy Zappa-style instrumental digressions, almost singable and without quotes or parodies. These and many other pieces by Zappa are extraordinarily expressive and, moreover, original.

"Therefore, certainly to practice satire, there is a need for a spirit of observation..."

Buster, in his films, behaves according to the laws of the reality in which he is placed, without applying any psychological, philosophical, or intellectual overlay. It is no coincidence that Buster was the greatest inventor of mechanical gags (see the chase between the two trains in "The General"). So, surely, satire requires a keen sense of observation, but that does not mean being detached (how can you be detached if you are a “man of the masses”?). To return to Zappa, you can define his music however you like, but once again, what I dislike is the consideration of Zappa as an “intellectual.” He was certainly well-educated, he was certainly intelligent, but he definitely despised the academic arrogance that the citation game often leads to and that, it seemed to me, your discussions wanted to relegate him to as well. Goodbye.

Dear Godbowl, I really like your comment: I’m a fanatic of Buster Keaton, and I’ve even featured him on Debaser, reviewing Bill Frisell's albums with soundtracks written for some of his films. But allow me to say that you’re quoting him out of context. Buster certainly had an acute sense of observation, but the lack of expressiveness on his face isn’t due to applying some philosophical concept, or wanting to elevate himself as a judge of the surrounding reality, or detaching himself from it. Such things are completely foreign to him. Buster was a simple person who enjoyed simple, practical things. If you’ve read his beautiful autobiography, you know that when he was very small, he performed with his father in vaudeville. Dad Keaton used to throw little Buster from one side of the stage to the other. When Buster fell, if he started to cry, scream, or even laugh, people would laugh little. If he remained impassive, people laughed much more. This field experience is what led to his "Inexpressiveness." But if you translate all this into coldness and detachment, you’re making a mistake. I remember reading in a book an article by Moravia about the differences between Keaton and Chaplin: For Moravia, Buster is a "man of the masses": he falls in love, after various adventures he gets married, has children, becomes terribly bored with a nagging wife and six kids who are always whining, and then dies (see the ending of "College"). Does this sound like the fate of a cold and detached man to you?

In your easycure response, there are two things that don't convince me. One is the reasoned approach to music which would eliminate empathy. Zappa was a composer. He thought about his compositions, reasoned them out, wrote them, and performed them. Why should he come across as non-empathetic? Then, by that logic, any classical or modern composer would seem non-empathetic: any composer puts known stylistic elements into their compositions but reinterpreted according to a personal style, whether serious or humorous. And then satire concerns the lyrics. When it comes to music, I mentioned parody, and as I’ve said before, someone who creates parodies for a purely "mechanical" reason does not abstract themselves from the musical context they operate in; on the contrary, they dive right in. But even for someone who does satire, the situation isn't like that, because why do you say that someone who does satire is detached? Someone who reflects on their own private or social condition or on the condition of others, or on the current powerful figure whose decisions have effects on everyone, no one excluded, and makes jokes about it that are funny also because those who laugh fundamentally recognize them as true—how can you consider them detached?

Then Zappa may have said a lot of bad things about the world of rock and the orchestral world. But even the sharpest people sometimes say things that aren’t entirely shareable. Zappa was a product of Los Angeles in the sixties. Certainly, a more elaborate and refined product hidden behind an apparent Freak attitude. But that doesn’t change the fact that he actively participated in that cultural milieu. Doing satire doesn’t mean being "Sociologists" (by the way, I don’t know where Frank said this about himself, although I don’t deny that he might have said it). Doing satire means reflecting on what happens around you and expressing it in a comedic form. You provoke thought and laughter at the same time. It seems to me there’s nothing pretentious about that... Whether Frank generated followers or not doesn’t seem like a big problem to me...

In my opinion, while respecting personal tastes, you are making a wrong argument. What does it mean that Zappa was doing "metamusic" and not seeking the expression of his own self? When I hear a Zappa piece for the first time, I recognize it as his, even without reading the album notes. This means that he infused his work not only with his "craft," which he learned on his own, and his knowledge, but also with a lot of himself. Then, when you say that Zappa is self-referential, you fall into contradiction when you then say that he made parodies and satire. Someone who is self-referential references only and exclusively themselves, completely disregarding what surrounds them. And making parodies does not mean positioning oneself as a judge of what others produce. It means exaggerating the compositional styles of others to the point of making them comical. In this way, you mock the subject of the parody, but by citing and reworking it, you also assert a substantial respect for it. Zappa loved all good music without genre distinctions. He listened to Stravinsky as well as "stupid songs," or "surf music," "Doo wop," etc. And all these influences can be found in his work.

LET ME TAKE YOU TOOO THE BEEACCCH / LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LAAAAAAA...

Nice review. I don't have this record, but I have "Noir" by Rava which includes "Tango for Vasquez y Pepita" and "Theme for Jessica (Tatum)": beautiful.

And what do you think, Funghetta, is it possible that Fred sang Jeeg Robot? ;-)