It really didn't occur to me until after class Wednesday (and I was dissatisfied with the entry on Wikipedia about it, which is why I'm not posting this to the class's Facebook page), but in a lot of ways Digital Detroit reminded me of Greil Marcus' book Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century, which came out in 1989/1990-ish and which I discovered on my local library's shelf a few years ago (it has since been deleted from the collection because I was the only person who ever checked it out, apparently).
The book traces the various cultural and artistic movements throughout the century that, in Marcus' view, left very little evidence of their having existed. A lot of the work was "in the moment," and the moment was fleeting (as in the case of the French Situationists or the May 1968 revolts) or ignored in the face of more pressing concerns (the Dada art movement in the midst of the First World War). All of these things he explored as a way of talking about the punk rock movement of the mid-Seventies, specifically the Sex Pistols and their brief life (from about the end of 1975 until the American tour in January 1978, after which Johnny Rotten left the group and manager Malcolm McLaren tried to continue to cash in on the uproar over punk, but then Sid Vicious died in 1979).
Digital Detroit has an abundance of pop-culture references, ways in which the author thinks about the city of Detroit through the artifacts he uncovers (a Bob Dylan concert in town in 1965, the author's readership of Creem before even thinking about coming to Detroit, etc.). In much the same way that Jeff Rice tries to connect this cultural ephemera to his conception of Detroit, so Marcus tries to connect or suggest connections between the various art movements he cites and the brief flicker of punk rock in its initial stages (back when the movement wasn't yet codified by leather jackets, breakneck rhythms, and odd hairstyles). As John Lydon (the former Johnny Rotten) said in his memoir, the reason they put safety pins in their clothes was because the clothes were falling apart and they couldn't afford new ones, not as a fashion statement.
I think the argument Marcus was making (and which is echoed by Rice) is that these movements, however brief or "insubstantial" or unimportant in the grand scheme of things, did leave their traces in the way we relate to some certain things (like how Rice relates to the Maccabees building, once the site of a secret society whose exact purpose might not be evident anymore). It goes back to the idea of connectivity, that nothing is ever really "lost" on the internet. Marcus recently came out with a new book, The History of Rock and Roll In Ten Songs, which talks about songs and artists who might not be obvious contenders for discussion in some people's minds, but which show aspects about the history of popular music in the last century that we should pay attention to. I haven't got the time right now to read that book, unfortunately (I did read his entry on Joy Division's song "Transmission," at least, before realizing I needed to put more time into readings for my classes, and so returned the book to my local library), but I like what Marcus does in all his work (highlighting things that we might have missed the first listen or so, the first encounter with a piece of art or literature or film). Like in the case of Rice, I might not always buy that such a connection exists in the works Marcus cites, but it's never a dull read.
No comments:
Post a Comment