Life—
that means for us
constantly transforming all that we are
into light and flame
—also everything that wounds us;
we simply cannot do otherwise.

–excerpt The Gay Science, Preface, §3 by Friedrich Nietzsche

Last night I watched the Grammy Awards on CBS.  I was indifferent to most of the two hour show.  It is a spectacle, as is every award show.  Spectacle compels attention and eye-balls are what advertisers desire.  This is a circular affair:  higher ratings (increased numbers watching) converts to a greater value per minute for the commercials for future award shows.

No doubt my inclination to deconstruct the business side of things, including the annual extravaganza broadcast from Los Angeles gets in the way of rapt enjoyment of what is offered.  Something else figures into my indifference.  Much of the music as a medium of inspiration is lost on me.  Music arises from the cutting edge, or better expressed, the “bleeding edge” of culture.  Youth is likely to recognize the pain of dysfunction, the injury of what homo sapiens do to one another, the wounds.  Music traces the heart and the margins of our experience.

I am senior to a majority of the individuals, to the bands making the music.  Another generation and more has taken the place of mine to shape the culture, to offer criticism, to illuminate a better tomorrow.  Another generation, new voices, new mediums (tktok, streaming), new logic — for pressing to the fore the life and death concerns of non-white communities, of women, of non binary individuals quest for what we owe each other, and so on.  Certainly a yawning deficit remains with respect to justice in American society.  There’s much work to be done.  But for me, the culture has moved on, and it’s as if much of the music is in another language.

A segment of the Grammy Awards is a memorial to the artists who have died since the last awards show.  Kacey Musgraves, Sheryl Crow, Mick Fleetwood and Bonnie Raitt performed while the images and the names of artists whose contributions are complete, were displayed in turn for moments of reflection, and of felt grief.

Yes, tears came when Christie McVie was remembered, all the more as Mick Fleetwood beat a somber rhythm on the drum.

I felt nausea at the thought that my generation is rapidly passing into memory.

A song for today:  Gypsy composed by Christie McVie