On Tue, 19 Nov 2002 18:23:01 -0500 "Crowmeat Bob" wrote:
...was Beethoven black, as Anthony Braxton brilliantly asserts?
I don't see the brilliance in that assertion, personally.
whether or not Braxton actually believes it, I think it shows a great sense of humor. I find it brilliant because it goes straight for the godhead of white civilized culture and, instead of taking the angle that Beethoven only made structural additions to a phallocentric, heirarchical tradition, it undermines his very identity and position in that culture. Cultural purists who vehemently deny Beethoven was 'of Moorish descent' only reveal their own racism in attempting to preserve the whiteness of their cultural giants from the dark forces of historical revisionism. Or is it a case of 'reverse revisionism'?
Or maybe they simply disagree because the statement is questionable. Since Beethoven has been around for a while and rates quite high on the achievement scale (read: we still remember him after more than two centuries), maybe people have reasons to be skeptical and think twice before jumping to conclusions following what might be a purely provocative statement. On the other side, you seem to embrace that idea simply because it matches your anti-conformist agenda. And we are not in the sixties...
who gives a fuck really if he was black or white or somewhere on the gray scale, ultimately, aside from the Purists?
If you really don't give a f..k, why are you creaming your pants at the simple idea that Beethoven is of Moorish descent?
I just think it's brilliant because it 'puts a black-gloved fist up the diz of all conservative musical architects', to paraphrase someone claiming to be Thomas Pynchon.
It simply shows that you jump to conclusions faster than you think maybe because to jump fast or think slow. Patrice.