Learning Is Dumb

I mentioned yesterday, I think, that I visited a showing of rock and roll photography. There was a lot there that I liked, and yet there was something rather repellent to me. It really was fascinating to see all of the pictures and to get some background on them, and yet there was an attitude pervasive through the gallery that I didn't care for. What it amounted to was a high-minded, philosophical tone that I don't think fits well with that sort of music.

 The way I think is well-encapsulated by the Rolling Stones song "It's Only Rock And Roll (But I Like It)." Rock is not the music of the cultured ivory tower elites. It's supposed to be a thumb in their eye. When academic types start talking about what it all means, that's rock getting co-opted, and you can be sure then that it's not long for this world in its true form. That's what bothers me about all the analysis. It doesn't sound much like it's in the spirit of the music.

 To me, the music is best anyway when it's not heavily laden with a lot of deep thinking. Like jokes, rock becomes a lot less fun with a whole lot of examination. I feel the same way when people start getting all poetic about baseball, which likewise wilts under the weight of heavy concepts like renewal in spring and what balls and strikes are symbolic of. Do such people play the game? Watching a game hardly seems recreational at that point. I did still enjoy the exhibit, although I felt terribly stifled.

It might as well have been the British Museum for all of the anarchic, playful fun that there was to be had there. How can you mount a Polaroid of Courtney Love with four-letter scrawled on it and then expect people to be solemn and ponderous. I must have been the only person just looking to have fun there instead of gathering material for some thesis. Normally study illuminates a subject, but in this case I'd say we'll be better off if we don't try to learn anything from rock.