I don't know. Maybe I'm just sensitive because I'm going to reach a milestone age tomorrow, but I'm sick to death of headlines like the one on the current Special Issue of Smithsonian magazine. (Fall 2007) It is . . .
37 Under 36: America's Young Innovators in the Arts and Sciences
I don't know about you, but the vaunting of the spectacular achievements of our youth make me feel completely inadequate. It always has, even when I was considered young, mostly because the tone is that if you haven't made it by a particular youthful age, the implication is that you'll never make it. As if all of us must achieve something noteworthy enough to make it into a magazine. As if those of us who don't simply aren't worth breathing the air on this earth. I do not begrudge people their accomplishments, au contraire! Amen and hallelujah to them for what they've done. And, amen and hallelujah to those who plug away at tasks that aren't deemed noteworthy by society, but that are crucial nonetheless. (You go, Mike Rowe!) But, quit attaching an age to the accomplishment, as though somehow we're all supposed to be so impressed by the wunderkind, merely because of the age, without factoring in all of the support the kid has had in getting to where he's gotten.
Because we can't seem to help ourselves on the whole age vs. achievement issue, I'd like to point out my favorite article on the subject, published by Wired Magazine in July 2006. (Yes, I still have the print version.) It's called "What Kind of Genius Are You?" and looks at the research of David Galenson, who studied age and achievement and found that those who blossomed early tended to peak early, but that there were plenty of genius types who didn't hit their creative strides until much later in life. There's still hope for those of us over 36.
P.S. I forgot a link that came through The Rake's Secrets of the Day email today. Apparently, I'm not to only one interested in the accomplishments of older folks. Lizz Winstead, who co-created The Daily Show, is looking for guys over 40 who've always wanted to be in a rock band, but life got in their way, for a reality show called "Ready 2 Rock." Here's a link to a video of Winstead describing the project.
Labels: accomplishment, age, creativity, daily show, david galenson, genius, lizz winstead, mike rowe, rock, smithsonian, the rake, wired magazine
# posted by Anonymous @ 6:20 PM
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Something Dave Matthews recently said spun me into a mental riff.
According to an article called “Matthews Battles to Get It Right on the Stage and in Life” by George Varga on SignOnSanDiego.com (of the Union-Tribune), Matthews doesn’t like to do interviews because he doesn’t care for how the media oversimplifies things. The quote from Matthews:
“Because of what it is, ‘rock journalism,’ like much of the other mainstream media, is an attempt to sell an oversimplified, nicely packaged vision of the world that will be palatable and easy to travel, when the truth is far more confusing. I can assure anyone that gets their news from the mainstream media that there’s a far more inspirational, complex and breathtaking world out there than the one portrayed to us in general by the purveyors of information.”
You bet. Rock journalism is trying to sell something. Music, for one, but also the glamour and gossip of the rock scene, all in an effort to sell publications and advertising. It’s about readership. If you give people something juicy, they’ll let it dribble from their chins while they eat it up. Sales soar. Ka-ching!
Whether that news is palatable is another story altogether. I have never cared for rock journalism’s concentration on the underbellies of performing artists – the sex and drugs part of the equation, not to mention the liberal shots of liquor. Fine, musicians are human. They have peccadilloes. It’s a rare article about Dave Matthews that doesn’t mention his alcohol consumption. You’d think the guy was a raging alcoholic, and maybe he is, but I doubt it. Raging alcoholics tend to have difficulty remaining upright, let alone maintaining a productive and profitable creative life. But rock journalists keep writing this aspect of Matthews’ life because it connects with the majority of their readers. Besides, who has time to go any deeper? Rock stars are busy. Rock journalists are busy. Time is money. Tick-tock, tick-tock. Get the story out to readers.
Without making excuses for the mainstream media, which, as Matthews and many other critics point out, have plenty of flaws, how can they possible give us the entire, complicated story? The reality is that no one, not even the great PBS documentary directors of our day, can tell the full story on anything. If one could, there’d be no reason to revisit topics, to reexamine the truth, which can be slippery and multi-faceted. Instead, the story is revealed in dribs and drabs over time.
This is the way of all creative works, not just the machinations of rock journalists. The products of creativity, be they songs or books or paintings or stories in the mainstream media, are necessarily distillations. Why does Matthews continue to write songs? I’d venture to guess that, like most artists, he can’t capture everything he wants to express within one song. Neither can rock journalists, or other purveyors of mainstream media, serve up everything they’d like to say in one story or report, even if they desperately wanted to. The flaw is not only with mainstream media’s oversimplifications, it is with all of us who don’t have the patience to allow the story to unfold. We want the final story immediately, so we can make decisions and live our lives accordingly. We won’t be satisfied with any less.
If you want to get a bigger picture of Dave Matthews, you can’t read one article in Rolling Stone and take it as gospel, the last word. You have to listen to his band’s music and his solo music, follow the band’s website, and see the films he’s been in, plus read material and comments posted by fans, along with reading what rock journalists have to say about him. Even then, you will only get a glimpse of the fullness of his being.
Extrapolate this process to any news item and you can begin to see why the mainstream media chooses oversimplification. This does not mean they’re off the hook, however. They could be telling us more of a story than they do; building upon what has gone before, rather than resorting to banal questions like the examples Matthews gives in the SignOnSanDiego article. How many times should he have to answer, “What’s your favorite color?” Has any rock journalist ever asked him, “What’s your favorite note?”
Labels: dave matthews, dave matthews band, dmb, journalism, mainstream media, music, rock, rolling stone, telling the whole story
# posted by Anonymous @ 5:56 PM
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