how strange it is to be anything at all

Here's a fascinating and moving article in Creative Loafing about Jeff Mangum and Neutral Milk Hotel. I suppose it's no surprise that the creator of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea would be so troubled - but one thing that struck me is this quotation, sent in an e-mail to Kevin Griffis, the writer of the piece, after he'd tracked Mangum down: "I'm not an idea. I am a person, who obviously wants to be left alone." Griffis wants to deny Mangum's ownership of his own story, to assert that the powerful place Mangum's music holds in Griffis's life and in those of others overrides Mangum's reticence. I don't buy it - and I think my half-conscious awareness of that sense of privacy was one reason I was somewhat uncomfortable doing the few interviews I've done. (Nonetheless, I did manage to have a phone conversation with Jeff Mangum, I believe in late 1997; the resulting article is on the web here.)

Glenn McDonald (who'd prefer his name lowercased), of The War Against Silence fame, stopped buying Guided by Voices records essentially as an ethical act: he felt that in so doing, he was placing his own (potential) enjoyment above another person's happiness. I can't go so far - if only because I don't think I'm in a position to judge whether someone I don't know personally is happy - but certainly we too often forget that the people who make music, produce films, write books, or anything else are, in addition to being the creative agents of those works, also human beings with lives of their own. Don't take this as some sort of touchy-feely, "we must not damage anyone's gossamer self-esteem" attitude - but people make art for many reasons other than wanting to be bothered by critics and fans. I've never understood the resentment some felt toward Kurt Cobain's discomfort with his fame - I think they must imagine that fame is what motivates artists, not the art itself, or thoughts or emotions underlying that art. They seem to feel that, by virtue of thinking they know something about the artist through the artwork, the artist owes them even more, as if some sort of trade has been made: "my pleasure for your soul." It's what Robert Fripp referred to as the "vampiric" relationship between fan and musician, and it's what lends an incisive knife-twist to the oh-so-hip KILL YR IDOLS t-shirts.

I sometimes wonder what music would sound like if I could pay no attention to its source, its cred-rating, its history. [And a few weeks later, I found out: see my entry for Sept. 22.] Usually, for me, those things (okay, two of them: I do try to ignore indie cred) add value to the musical (or artistic, more generally) experience - but I think I understand, to an extent, Mangum's desire to withdraw, maybe even from creating, in order perhaps to call into being a still point from which a new creation might emerge.