On Beauty and Being Sincere

(From 10-13-2008, Originally likemikeposts.com)

I can´t help but feel humble by all that is fleeting in the things I find myself chasing. I don´t know what it is, exactly. But for a while now, I am drawn to this sudden realization in countless spaces I can´t often fully identify. However, I have been finding a newborn ability to recognize, and experience this fleeting light in places I am tempted to describe as poetic. I think that they mostly have to do with music. Music lends such breath to our substance and relevance.

Like Matt for instance- does this not make any person want to a) travel all the world b) love and dance with all the people or c) and even just once have the capacity to express this clearly?

Elaine Scarry in her somewhat abstract book On Beauty and Being Just outlines her thoughts concerning how beauty perpetuates itself. The hand wants to draw the bird on a pole or the laughter of the child. We all recognize what is beautiful in things, however we find difficulty in identifying beauty in and of itself, that is, unattached to any one object or image we can also recognize. What is important is that we all seek to perpetuate it.

In the spirit of perpetuating beauty and embracing the creative or expressive process, I have been recently, obsessively, focused around the musical styles of Iron and Wine and the newly found musical premise and soundtrack Once. Glen Hansard, the front man and writer for the Frames, Swell Season, and Once, mentioned before playing in the most amazing concert I think I've ever seen in his song (Your Face, I think) that he searches for what he refers to as the pure drop: literally a kind of distilled fruit mooonshine that has yet to be dilluted in any way. It relates to music and beauty because he was talking about looking for the beauty that Scarry might argue is the least inspired or most authentic- that is, the least intentionally diluted. The poets go for originality and sincerity in truth seeking, I think.

It's like- no one knows where the first stone of beauty came from that started the waves we perpetuate to move us. We don't even know what the stone actually is- but we always want it. How could we define the moment that Beauty was first here and seen by an eyeball? And when did we realize we could move it around too?

If you want to (pseudo) experience or at least see how this works in context, enter "Sunset Soon Forgotten" into youtube. What I thought was most interesting is that there are no actual Iron and Wine performances of this piece here. The work and subject matter itself represents the fleeting and inspirational nature of this beautiful song. The lack of actual Iron and Wine performances represents all the different perpetuations or reflections of the original pure drop that is not actually available in this case.

We know what beauty, art, and music are. But do we actively search for what is most true, most pure, most original, most relevant? Or do we passively make purchases that come from some detached source or authority that merely pushes into further perpetuation and reflection, farther from our own pure drops?

This is the thought that guides the music I am writing, thoughts about the poetry I am reading, and most importantly, the mix tapes that I am working on.

I leave in Peace and Beauty.