The Bird Laughs

Zeitgeist (spirit of the age or spirit of the time) is the
intellectual fashion or dominant school of thought that typifies and
influences the culture of a particular period in time. For example, the
Zeitgeist of modernism typified and influenced architecture, art, and
fashion during much of the 20th century.[1]

-Wikipedia

So where is ours right now?

When the Beatles received their "MBE" (Members of the British Empire)
medals a Canadian "member" turned his in, so insulted was he, calling
them "vulgar nincompoops".

I tread lightly, therefore because maybe I'm missing something.

Truly, where are we in terms of art, dare I say musical art progressing, right now?

I share this particular song because I struggle to see the vulgarity involved, even as I use all my imaginative powers to place myself within the shoes of that Canadian in 1964. Was Bing Crosby his context? The hysteria for him and even the progression of hysteria for the next crooner in line, Frank Sinatra, seemed tame compared to the urine soaked
seats in theaters in Great Britain after a Beatles concert. Is it that to which he referred?

It's so much more, isn't it?

We are a completely different people now.

Completely.

Maybe "zeitgeist"...the word itself...no longer applies.

We have so successfully (there's another word that could be apostrophized) broken into tribal societies, myriads of diverse camps, cultures, lifestyles that there is no real commonality any longer that binds us together, other than similar DNA structures. We wander like nomads in vast deserts, each camp having their own compass, or lack
thereof. Sometimes we collide into each other, sometimes we head in different directions.

Some groups throw stones at others. Some pretend to tolerate or accept yet they too throw their own stones.

In the meantime, where is our collective spirit? Where is our song?

I hear pop music and I hear absolutely no art. No progression. No original joy, original soul, original passion.

I hear a derivative of a derivative of a derivative. So many layers, so many generations of copies that even the subtle changes and supposed creativity is but a pure theft of what once was something fresh and never heard before.

I have optimism because the journey is never over. Ever. We only have pretended to "break away" from each other in our own little tribes. We only pretend to be different. We are currently trying so hard, that many of us wear our differences literally on our skin and then provoke others into daring to judge and professing abhorrence when it happens...feigning it I should say.

In the meantime the bird flies overhead and laughs. She sees thousands upon
thousands of human tribes wandering, throwing stones, pretending to be different but from her high-in-the-sky vantage what she sees is a vast ocean, rising and falling like the tides, waves crashing into one another all the while pretending to be its own being, its own creation...permanent until the next wave hits it full force and both become one.

And that bird's perspective is what I envision as I sit here on a reflective Sunday morning, listening to a song I've heard hundreds upon hundreds of times before, yet it remains as fresh in my mind as the very first time I heard it.

A simple composition, this song, written by a twenty-one-year-old mere child in terms of a human lifespan, that child now is seventy two years old.

It is not the pinnacle of his work. Nor is it the pinnacle of the "zeitgeist" of 1964. That is precisely why I chose it for this rant. What it is for me is the embodiment of a clear, purposeful, meaningful effort to advance artistry rather than merely copy, merely succumb to a "common denominator"...that ironic value possessed by pop culture which always looks for something different...yet not really.

We have so successfully defined commonality that over the years, we, each of us,
become horrified that we are part of some collective, so we pretend to break away and yet in the ruins of our flight, we have lost the very thing that makes us human.

Our art.

Where is it now?

Where is the next McCartney?

Lennon?

Dylan?

Picasso?

Rembrandt?

Mozart?

Fellini?

Wolfe?

Stein?

Do I exists too close to my own herd, my own tribe to see where they are?

Is the bird also laughing at me?

Yes, I hope she is. I pray she is.