Things artist say about their work you don't believe

[installLSC]

I was listening to Jethro Tull's "Thick As A Brick" album today and was reminded that frontman and lyricist Ian Anderson has long denied that it's a concept album. The odd thing is that when I read the lyrics (http://remus.rutgers.edu/JethroTull/Albums/ThickAsABrick-lyrics.html) I swear it's a relatively straightforward song about how society and its wars harms a sensitive man, much in the vein of Pink Floyd's "The Wall". What things has an artist said about one of their works that make you say "I don't believe that for a second"?

[etv78]

John Lennon's contention that "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" was based on a drawing by one of his kids. It's pretty clear it's about an acid trip. (not to be an ass but don't bother with a cite confirming the kid picture story)

[WhyNot]

Tolkien's claim that his works have “no allegorical intentions …, moral, religious, or political..." Riiiiiiiight. And I've got a shiny new ring to sell you.

[runner pat]

Thomas Kinkade: I am a serious artist.

[ZipperJJ]

John Lennon's contention that "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" was based on a drawing by one of his kids. It's pretty clear it's about an acid trip. (not to be an ass but don't bother with a cite confirming the kid picture story)

Hahaha I came in to say this. I was just thinking about it the other night, for no apparent reason.

[Lobohan]

George Lucas says he had the prequel trilogy planned out from the get-go. Bullshit.

[panamajack]

John Lennon's contention that "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" was based on a drawing by one of his kids. It's pretty clear it's about an acid trip. (not to be an ass but don't bother with a cite confirming the kid picture story)

Are you saying you disbelieve John & Julian's story, or that you think the song is about an acid trip despite the origin of its name? Because I think I can get behind the second.

[Two Many Cats]

Was it in So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish that Douglas Adams had Arthur Dent tell Fenny a story about some stranger eating cookies out of Arthur's cookie package at some train station or something, and Arthur defiantly eating his own cookies out of the package to show the guy up? And then, it turns out that it wasn't Arthur's cookie package at all, but it belonged to the stranger who didn't say a word about Arthur eating his cookies?

Douglas Adams claimed that it was a story that really happened to him.

Actually, the story is an urban legend descended from the similar story of the jogger's stolen wallet.

I had respect for Douglas Adams before I heard about him claiming that.

[etv78]

Are you saying you disbelieve John & Julian's story, or that you think the song is about an acid trip despite the origin of its name? Because I think I can get behind the second.

I rather doubt the picture would be based on Julian's acid trip.

[Sam A. Robrin]

Are you saying you disbelieve John & Julian's story, or that you think the song is about an acid trip despite the origin of its name? Because I think I can get behind the second.

I also came in to cite this one, and I've always believed Lennon was waiting for his old age to finally say "Of course it was about LSD, who could possibly believe that bullshit I've been saying for all these years?"

[Miller]

I always kind of figured that Julian did have a drawing he called "Lucy in the sky with diamonds," and Lennon took the title, and wrote a song about LSD using that phrase as a title.

[etv78]

I always kind of figured that Julian did have a drawing he called "Lucy in the sky with diamonds," and Lennon took the title, and wrote a song about LSD using that phrase as a title.

That's sound plausible.

[Miller]

Tolkien's claim that his works have “no allegorical intentions …, moral, religious, or political..." Riiiiiiiight. And I've got a shiny new ring to sell you.

This one I believe. Tolkien was using a much more rigid definition for "allegory" then is common today. Nowadays, people use the term to mean, "kind of metaphorical." In Tolkien's day, an allegory was as story in which every element had a one-to-one correspondence with some facet of a moral lesson the artist was attempting to communicate, and putting across that lesson was the primary purpose of the work. I don't think Tolkien ever denied that aspects of his story were inspired or influenced by his own experiences in WWI, or the events of WWII as he was writing it, but that's not the same thing as a proper allegory.

Now, when he said Leaf by Niggle wasn't an allegory, that was a load of crap.

[Promethea]

I listened to a documentary on Radio 1 in the '90s in which Paul McCartney explained to the interviewer that nope, when Wings released Mary Had A Little Lamb as a follow up to Give Ireland Back to the Irish (which had been banned by the BBC) that it had been NO WAY a commentary on the banning. Paul went on about how it was just a cute tune that happened to be in the form of a nursery rhyme. Suuuure. Own it, Paul - it was one of pop music's cleverer responses to a radio banning.

[Reno Nevada]

This one I believe. Tolkien was using a much more rigid definition for "allegory" then is common today. Nowadays, people use the term to mean, "kind of metaphorical." In Tolkien's day, an allegory was as story in which every element had a one-to-one correspondence with some facet of a moral lesson the artist was attempting to communicate, and putting across that lesson was the primary purpose of the work. I don't think Tolkien ever denied that aspects of his story were inspired or influenced by his own experiences in WWI, or the events of WWII as he was writing it, but that's not the same thing as a proper allegory.

Now, when he said Leaf by Niggle wasn't an allegory, that was a load of crap.

In Tolkien's day, and still today if you happen to be talking to a professor of Middle English at Oxford, an allegory is a story where the characters are direct representations of abstract concepts. By saying that Lord of the Rings "is not an allegory", Tolkien meant that Frodo did not represent Perseverance, Merry did not represent Adolescence, and Saruman did not represent Fear of Cheese--they were characters reacting to events in a reasonably realistic fashion.

I have not read Leaf by Niggle recently enough to know if there was actually an allegory there, or simply a metaphorical representation of life in a totalitarian state.

[Chronos]

I have not read Leaf by Niggle recently enough to know if there was actually an allegory there, or simply a metaphorical representation of life in a totalitarian state. There was no state presence at all in "Niggle". You must be getting it mixed up with some other story. And even by Tolkien's strict definition of "allegory", it's still clearly allegorical (certainly more so than Lewis's works, which Tolkien complained about as too allegorical).

Me, I'm going to nominate Heinlein's Starship Troopers. Heinlein claimed in letters written years later that the military was not the only path to citizenship in the book; that any sort of civic service (delivering mail, say) would also qualify. But that's flatly contradicted by the book: If you couldn't cut it in the infantry, then there was nothing left but testing experimental spacesuits on Titan, or other creative ways of committing suicide.

[Sitnam]

I serious doubt Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol's emotional sincerity.

[Eonwe]

I so don't think that song is about me.

[Thudlow Boink]

Was it in So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish that Douglas Adams had Arthur Dent tell Fenny a story about some stranger eating cookies out of Arthur's cookie package at some train station or something, and Arthur defiantly eating his own cookies out of the package to show the guy up? And then, it turns out that it wasn't Arthur's cookie package at all, but it belonged to the stranger who didn't say a word about Arthur eating his cookies?

Douglas Adams claimed that it was a story that really happened to him.

Actually, the story is an urban legend descended from the similar story of the jogger's stolen wallet.

I had respect for Douglas Adams before I heard about him claiming that.I remember seeing Adams tell this story, I think on Late Night with David Letterman, as something that happened to him. Snopes has a page (http://www.snopes.com/crime/safety/cookies.asp) on this sort of incident, which notes that "His claim is doubted by many who point out the self-same tale was around years prior to that, but it is not impossible for events in real life to mimic those of lore. (Indeed, the actual folkloric term for such an event is ostension.) In any case, whether the incident happened to him or not, it is clear the legend did not begin with him."

[panamajack]

I always kind of figured that Julian did have a drawing he called "Lucy in the sky with diamonds," and Lennon took the title, and wrote a song about LSD using that phrase as a title.

I thought etv78 didn't want links because he was aware of it, but yes, the picture in question and Lucy were real (http://www.sheknows.com/entertainment/articles/811261/beatles-muse-lucy-vodden-dies). If you look at it, it hardly explains the whole song, and I think it likely it was about a drug trip. But I happen to think the "L-S-D" was coincidental.

[Irishman]

I was listening to Jethro Tull's "Thick As A Brick" album today and was reminded that frontman and lyricist Ian Anderson has long denied that it's a concept album.

What's a "concept album", and why would that be required for his song to be as described?

Douglas Adams claimed that it was a story that really happened to him.

Actually, the story is an urban legend descended from the similar story of the jogger's stolen wallet.

I had respect for Douglas Adams before I heard about him claiming that.

It is possible, and even mildly plausible, and an incident like this did happen to Douglas Adams. It's not a particularly strange tale, and it is entirely conceivable you can see someone with something you just had in your possession and think they got it from you. Hell, I've had situations like that occur. For it to be a package of cookies and he ate some thinking the other person was the rude one, well, plausible.

Me, I'm going to nominate Heinlein's Starship Troopers. Heinlein claimed in letters written years later that the military was not the only path to citizenship in the book; that any sort of civic service (delivering mail, say) would also qualify. But that's flatly contradicted by the book: If you couldn't cut it in the infantry, then there was nothing left but testing experimental spacesuits on Titan, or other creative ways of committing suicide.

Seconded. He wouldn't even count some of the activities performed for the military - positions like clerical jobs weren't held by soldiers, but by civilian auxiliaries. Those jobs didn't count for citizenship. It was clearly more than service that was required, it was service that put your life at risk for the greater good. Postman just doesn't fit that description.

[HeyHomie]

The Vapors insist that Turning Japanese is not about masturbation. Riiigggghhhht.

Similarly, The Violent Femmes insist that Blister in the Sun is not about masturbation. Riigggghhhht.

At least Cindi Lauper admist freely that She Bop is, actually, for realz, about masturbation.

And then there's Dizzy Gillespie's claim that "I believe be-bop will help bring about world peace." OK Dizzy, thanks for that. Dizzy's been dead for almost 20 years, and world peace still hasn't happened yet, but I'm sure that someday the sound of someone torturing a saxophone will actually get people to stop going to war.

[LateComer]

I was listening to Jethro Tull's "Thick As A Brick" album today and was reminded that frontman and lyricist Ian Anderson has long denied that it's a concept album. The odd thing is that when I read the lyrics (http://remus.rutgers.edu/JethroTull/Albums/ThickAsABrick-lyrics.html) I swear it's a relatively straightforward song about how society and its wars harms a sensitive man, much in the vein of Pink Floyd's "The Wall". What things has an artist said about one of their works that make you say "I don't believe that for a second"?I think you're mixing up 2 albums: Thick as a Brick was concieved as a send up of a progrock concept album in response to critics calling Aqualung a "concept" album. Relevent quote (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thick_as_a_Brick):
Band leader Ian Anderson was surprised by the critical reaction to Aqualung as a "concept album", a label he's firmly rejected to this day. In an interview on In the Studio with Redbeard (which spotlighted Thick as a Brick), Ian Anderson's response to the critics was: "If the critics want a concept album we'll give the mother of all concept albums and we'll make it so bombastic and so over the top."

Also, I don't believe that Richard Thompson's Here Comes Geordie (http://www.richardthompson-music.com/song_o_matic.asp?id=622) is not about Sting despite the denials.

[MPB in Salt Lake]

Also, I don't believe that Richard Thompson's Here Comes Geordie (http://www.richardthompson-music.com/song_o_matic.asp?id=622) is not about Sting despite the denials.

Though I am not much of a fan of Richard Thompson's music, and while I am a huge fan of the Police's stuff (I am lukewarm on most of Sting's solo efforts, some is quite good, some is dreadful) I think that these lyrics characterize Sting and his oversize ego to a T.

It is clearly, obviously, unmistakably about Sting.

[Sampiro]

Speaking of LSD, Tina Turner claims she had no idea what "acid" was when she sang Acid Queen in the movie version of The Who's Tommy. I find this hard to believe as she's not a stupid woman, she had been in the rock scene for well over a decade, and she'd even opened and toured with The Rolling Stones. She may never have taken acid but no possible way she didn't know what it was.

[Lemur866]

It is clearly, obviously, unmistakably about Sting.

You Know, I Used To Be Kind Of Cool Once (http://www.theonion.com/articles/you-know-i-used-to-be-kind-of-cool-once,10932/)

[Superdude]

What's a "concept album", and why would that be required for his song to be as described?

Concept album (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_album). Famous examples include Queensryche's Operation:Mindcrime (parts 1 and 2), and Styx's Kilroy Was Here and Paradise Theater.

[Derleth]

Fahrenheit 451 damned well ought to be about censorship, regardless of what Bradbury says. It's interesting and relevant when it's about the cultural self-censorship that comes of not being willing to offend anyone in the pursuit of artistic value. It makes sense when it's interpreted that way.

But Bradbury says it's about the evils of technology. It's a damned Luddite polemic and, even though it still makes sense in that light, it shouldn't be viewed like that. That interpretation guts the story and leaves it as pointless as any other idiot maundering about how things were better in some fictional Arcadia that can only just barely exist when an intelligent person is no older than twelve.

All authors are dead. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_the_Author) Bradbury had the damnfool notion to commit suicide.

[Chronos]

That's funny, Derleth, the copy of the book I read had a preface by Bradbury saying the same thing: That there was nothing inherent about the medium of TV that prevented it from having works as artistically great as those of literature, and that the problem was the fear of giving offense and blandifying everything as a result.

[The_Peyote_Coyote]

HeyHomie: Diz played the trumpet, not the saxaphone.

[Anamorphic]

Similarly, The Violent Femmes insist that Blister in the Sun is not about masturbation. Riigggghhhht.What do they claim it's about? I admit I've never really studied the lyrics closely, but I've always kind of assumed it was about heroin.

[bump]

Me, I'm going to nominate Heinlein's Starship Troopers. Heinlein claimed in letters written years later that the military was not the only path to citizenship in the book; that any sort of civic service (delivering mail, say) would also qualify. But that's flatly contradicted by the book: If you couldn't cut it in the infantry, then there was nothing left but testing experimental spacesuits on Titan, or other creative ways of committing suicide.

Sure, but the book itself contradicts that interpretation. Johnny's friend Carl was doing some kind of electronics research on Pluto when the Bugs hit it. Nowhere in there was there any indication that Carl's research was inherently dangerous.

Also, the bit about counting the caterpillar fuzz if you're blind and deaf doesn't imply risk, just the willingness to serve.

I got the exact opposite impression from you guys; I had the impression that the MI was a VERY small part of the Federal service hierarchy, but the most classically military of them all.

[Derleth]

That's funny, Derleth, the copy of the book I read had a preface by Bradbury saying the same thing: That there was nothing inherent about the medium of TV that prevented it from having works as artistically great as those of literature, and that the problem was the fear of giving offense and blandifying everything as a result.This is what he said in 2007, anyway (http://www.laweekly.com/2007-05-31/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451-misinterpreted/):Fahrenheit 451 is not, he says firmly, a story about government censorship. Nor was it a response to Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose investigations had already instilled fear and stifled the creativity of thousands.

[snip]

Bradbury, a man living in the creative and industrial center of reality TV and one-hour dramas, says it is, in fact, a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature.

“Television gives you the dates of Napoleon, but not who he was,” Bradbury says, summarizing TV’s content with a single word that he spits out as an epithet: “factoids.” He says this while sitting in a room dominated by a gigantic flat-panel television broadcasting the Fox News Channel, muted, factoids crawling across the bottom of the screen.(I state without further commentary that TVs can receive channels other than Fox News.)

HeyHomie: Please state why you think Blister in the Sun is about masturbation. Personally, after listening to the song and reading the lyrics, I agree with Anamorphic that it's a drug song.

[BrotherCadfael]

I By saying that Lord of the Rings "is not an allegory", Tolkien meant that Frodo did not represent Perseverance, Merry did not represent Adolescence, and Saruman did not represent Fear of Cheese--they were characters reacting to events in a reasonably realistic fashion.Sarumen represented Fear of Cutting the Cheese...

[Mahaloth]

Fahrenheit 451 damned well ought to be about censorship, regardless of what Bradbury says. It's interesting and relevant when it's about the cultural self-censorship that comes of not being willing to offend anyone in the pursuit of artistic value. It makes sense when it's interpreted that way.

But Bradbury says it's about the evils of technology. It's a damned Luddite polemic and, even though it still makes sense in that light, it shouldn't be viewed like that. That interpretation guts the story and leaves it as pointless as any other idiot maundering about how things were better in some fictional Arcadia that can only just barely exist when an intelligent person is no older than twelve.

All authors are dead. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_the_Author) Bradbury had the damnfool notion to commit suicide.

This is what I came in to say. Clearly, he has no idea what his book was about anymore. Young Bradbury would have mocked this interpretation.

[buddha_david]

Speaking of LSD, Tina Turner claims she had no idea what "acid" was when she sang Acid Queen in the movie version of The Who's Tommy. I find this hard to believe as she's not a stupid woman, she had been in the rock scene for well over a decade, and she'd even opened and toured with The Rolling Stones. She may never have taken acid but no possible way she didn't know what it was.
Similarly, Ted Nugent swears up and down that he didn't know the Amboy Dukes' "Journey to the Center of the Mind" was about psychedelic drugs. Despite Nugent's famous teetotaler reputation, I still find this difficult to believe.

[WhyNot]

I agree with you guys on the Bradbury issue, but I wonder if the "problem" is that Fahrenheit 541 is a "classic" in the very real sense that it's very best theme changes to suit the message of the culture who reads it. That, like the best of Shakespeare, it's so great that it will always have an important and profound theme for the reader, though that theme may change as the reader's needs change.

That kinda makes me want to read it again, although I didn't like it much the first time.

[K364]

I serious doubt Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol's emotional sincerity.You think they are putting us on? I used to think so about JP... dripping paint from a catwalk onto a tarp on the floor was a big joke. Until I saw "Autumn Rhythm" at the Met Museum. It's the real deal, quite impressive.

[Chronos]

There's definitely something to what Pollack was doing, given the mathematical patterns in it so easy (with the help of a computer) to distinctively recognize but so hard to recreate. Now, whether that something is art is up for debate, but it's certainly there.

[Nobody]

I won't say I out and out disbelieve Bryan Adams when he says "Summer of 69" is about the sex act. But I have my doubts.

[panamajack]

I won't say I out and out disbelieve Bryan Adams when he says "Summer of 69" is about the sex act. But I have my doubts.

He wasn't the only one who worked on the song, so he doesn't have the last word on it. For Adams, 1975 or so would have been the right year if it was by years. For co-writer Jim Vallance, 1969 would have made more sense, and it's his claim (http://www.jimvallance.com/01-music-folder/songs-folder-may-27/pg-song-adams-summer-of-69.html) that it's the year. There's an (apparently apocryphal which I once thought to be true) story that Adams had originally wanted it to be set in '75, and the "Baby Boomer record company" forced him to change it. I'd be interested if there's any truth in that - it may be why Adams made up the 69 story.

[Nobody]

Yeah, I didn't hear about the name change, but watching Pop up Vido (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop-Up_Video) a long time ago it mentioned that Adams would have been too young, but Vallance would have been the right age.

[Little Nemo]

Another vote for not believing Bradbury. Fahrenheit 451 was written in 1950. We're supposed to believe that Bradbury's main point was that television was taking over the media?

What is a lot more believable is that decades later, when Ray Bradbury and everyone else in the world saw how dominant television had become, Bradbury convinced himself that he had predicted all of this back in 1950.

[Justin_Bailey]

I won't say I out and out disbelieve Bryan Adams when he says "Summer of 69" is about the sex act. But I have my doubts.

He wasn't the only one who worked on the song, so he doesn't have the last word on it. For Adams, 1975 or so would have been the right year if it was by years. For co-writer Jim Vallance, 1969 would have made more sense, and it's his claim (http://www.jimvallance.com/01-music-folder/songs-folder-may-27/pg-song-adams-summer-of-69.html) that it's the year. There's an (apparently apocryphal which I once thought to be true) story that Adams had originally wanted it to be set in '75, and the "Baby Boomer record company" forced him to change it. I'd be interested if there's any truth in that - it may be why Adams made up the 69 story.

I believe Adams made the same claim in a Behind the Music episode. And really, it makes total sense that the year was originally something other than 69, he would have been ten years old in 1969.

[pulykamell]

You think they are putting us on? I used to think so about JP... dripping paint from a catwalk onto a tarp on the floor was a big joke. Until I saw "Autumn Rhythm" at the Met Museum. It's the real deal, quite impressive.

I can't really defend Warhol--he's not really my cup of tea--but if Pollack is not "emotionally sincere," fine. All I know is, his work hits me right in the gut. It's sublime in every sense of the word.

[HeyHomie]

HeyHomie: Please state why you think Blister in the Sun is about masturbation.

Body and beats I stain my sheets is, for me, the giveaway. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this brings to mind masturbating under the covers and ejaculating onto the sheet. Of course, I freely admit that I may be wrong.

And The_Peyote_Coyote: point taken. I mentioned the saxophone only because the instrument turns up pretty frequently in be-bop.

[Crafter_Man]

John Rutsey played drums on Rush's first album, and then was replaced by Neil Peart. According to Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, Rutsey was replaced because he had medical/physical problems brought about due to diabetes, and couldn't withstand the rigors of touring as a result. I say bullshit. Yea, Rutsey may not have been in the best of shape, but I believe he was simply fired by his bandmates. Lee and Lifeson knew Rutsey was only a so-so drummer, and they wanted someone who was more in their "league". Not that I blame them; Peart was clearly a better drummer. But why lie about the real reason?

[Sarahfeena]

John Rutsey played drums on Rush's first album, and then was replaced by Neil Peart. According to Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, Rutsey was replaced because he had medical/physical problems brought about due to diabetes, and couldn't withstand the rigors of touring as a result. I say bullshit. Yea, Rutsey may not have been in the best of shape, but I believe he was simply fired by his bandmates. Lee and Lifeson knew Rutsey was only a so-so drummer, and they wanted someone who was more in their "league". Not that I blame them; Peart was clearly a better drummer. But why lie about the real reason?

Maybe so as not to hurt his career? To spare his feelings? To not look like giant assholes? People BS about this stuff all the time when people get fired, it's not a big deal.

[Derleth]

Body and beats I stain my sheets is, for me, the giveaway. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this brings to mind masturbating under the covers and ejaculating onto the sheet. Of course, I freely admit that I may be wrong.Except you're ignoring most of the lyrics of the song to come to that interpretation. I think my interpretation works better when you take the majority of the lyrics into consideration.

[Chronos]

Body and beats I stain my sheets is, for me, the giveaway. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this brings to mind masturbating under the covers and ejaculating onto the sheet. Of course, I freely admit that I may be wrong.There's also "Big hand, I know you're the one".

[Sitnam]

There's definitely something to what Pollack was doing, given the mathematical patterns in it so easy (with the help of a computer) to distinctively recognize but so hard to recreate. Now, whether that something is art is up for debate, but it's certainly there.
Arm length and personal idiosyncrasy of movement. Yes, it's difficult for someone else to throw paint on a canvas just like him.

But so what.

Can someone else pee in the snow just like me?

[Diceman]

Elton John claims that "Tiny Dancer" is about the small women he found in California, or something like that. Sorry, Elton, I think it's about masturbation.

[pulykamell]

Arm length and personal idiosyncrasy of movement. Yes, it's difficult for someone else to throw paint on a canvas just like him.

But so what.


*shrug* Different strokes and all. (Pun somewhat intended.) As a visual artist who deals in realism mostly (photographer), I would love to be able to do what Pollack does. I've tried it. None of it looks good. Pollack's work, to me, looks thought out and the man has an impeccable sense of composition. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the man is and will continue to be regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, and deservedly so.

[brujaja]

Paul McCartney says that "C Moon" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_Moon) is about being the opposite of L7; i.e., not square; i.e., cool.

I don't think so. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x--x_5hu7Q)

So, what is it about? I have a theory, butt I'm not saying. ;)

[Mr. Excellent]

Tolkien's claim that his works have “no allegorical intentions …, moral, religious, or political..." Riiiiiiiight. And I've got a shiny new ring to sell you.

That ring is shiny! I ... wantssss it. My preciousssss...

[JohnT]

Margaret Atwood repeatedly claims that The Handmaid's Tale is not science fiction.

Perhaps she didn't write it as such, but the book doesn't support her contention.

[Nzinga, Seated]

Margaret Atwood repeatedly claims that The Handmaid's Tale is not science fiction.

Perhaps she didn't write it as such, but the book doesn't support her contention.

I would have catagorized it as dystopian, which is my favorite genre. I guess one could make a case that it's both dystopian and sci fi, though.

[Miller]

I serious doubt Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol's emotional sincerity.

I stand with pulykamell on Jackson Pollock, but for Andy Warhol, I always thought emotional insincerity was the entire point of what he was doing.

[JohnT]

I would have catagorized it as dystopian, which is my favorite genre. I guess one could make a case that it's both dystopian and sci fi, though.

The one thing that supports her argument is that the society of Gilead is so idiotic, it is obvious that she didn't even think about any potential long-term implications of what she was writing (which is part and parcel in re: to science fiction writers). To quote an earlier post (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=609536) I made:

So, you're going to round up all your fertile women, give them to 60 year-old guys so they can shag them three times, and if she doesn't get pregnant, you're going to kill her? In a world where 25% of pregnancies carried to term are either a mutant or a dead child? That's your plan to boost birthrates? Really?

[Lamia]

Elton John claims that "Tiny Dancer" is about the small women he found in California, or something like that. Sorry, Elton, I think it's about masturbation.Elton John didn't write the lyrics to "Tiny Dancer". It's Bernie Taupin, Elton John's frequent lyrical collaborator, who says the song is about freespirited women he met in California in the 1970s.

I can't cite this, but I once read an interview where someone specifically asked Taupin if the song was about masturbation. He didn't get why anyone would even think that since it's quite clearly about a woman. The interviewer referred to the "tiny dancer in my hand" line, and Taupin pointed out that no man would write a song in which he described his own penis as being tiny.

[pulykamell]

Elton John didn't write the lyrics to "Tiny Dancer". It's Bernie Taupin, Elton John's frequent lyrical collaborator, who says the song is about freespirited women he met in California in the 1970s.

I can't cite this, but I once read an interview where someone specifically asked Taupin if the song was about masturbation. He didn't get why anyone would even think that since it's quite clearly about a woman. The interviewer referred to the "tiny dancer in my hand" line, and Taupin pointed out that no man would write a song in which he described his own penis as being tiny.

It never occurred to me to take the masturbation angle on that song. I'm giggling over that particular interpretation, sure puts the song in a different context, but I have to side with Bernie on that one. There's just no way that song is actually supposed to be about masturbation. It's just sounds like one of those silly post facto interpretations hammered onto a song.

[Grumman]

Me, I'm going to nominate Heinlein's Starship Troopers. Heinlein claimed in letters written years later that the military was not the only path to citizenship in the book; that any sort of civic service (delivering mail, say) would also qualify. But that's flatly contradicted by the book: If you couldn't cut it in the infantry, then there was nothing left but testing experimental spacesuits on Titan, or other creative ways of committing suicide.
It's been a while since I read the book, but weren't the people in charge of recruitment deliberately making the path to citizenship sound worse than it really was? The wounded recruitment officer who only wore his prosthetic leg off-duty wasn't one of Verhoeven's additions, was he?

[Kolga]

I would have catagorized it as dystopian, which is my favorite genre. I guess one could make a case that it's both dystopian and sci fi, though.

I would go with the genre of social dystopia, as well, and don't see sci fi in it at all. There are hints of a nuclear war which may have triggered the Republic, but I don't identify any sci fi aspects in that, or in any of the technology used or discussion of the society itself.

[Sampiro]

Haven't Eminem and some other rappers claimed that "faggot" wasn't meant as an anti-gay slur in their lyrics? In fact IIRC one seemed to claim he didn't know it was an anti gay slur.

[Miller]

I would go with the genre of social dystopia, as well, and don't see sci fi in it at all. There are hints of a nuclear war which may have triggered the Republic, but I don't identify any sci fi aspects in that, or in any of the technology used or discussion of the society itself.

Sociology is also a science.

[Derleth]

I would go with the genre of social dystopia, as well, and don't see sci fi in it at all. There are hints of a nuclear war which may have triggered the Republic, but I don't identify any sci fi aspects in that, or in any of the technology used or discussion of the society itself.Dystopic fiction is science fiction. It's a subgenre, like space opera and cyberpunk.

[Apollyon]

Margaret Atwood repeatedly claims that The Handmaid's Tale is not science fiction.Anne McCaffrey claims that Dragonriders of Pern is science fiction. ;)

[what do I type here]

I'd respect George Lucas more if he admited that the Kessel Run parsec thing was a mistake.

[EinsteinsHund]

Bob Dylan has always denied that the bulk of "Blood on the Tracks" was about his crumbling marriage with Sara, but I think no one ever bought that.

[Irishman]

Sure, but the book [Starship Troopers] itself contradicts that interpretation. Johnny's friend Carl was doing some kind of electronics research on Pluto when the Bugs hit it. Nowhere in there was there any indication that Carl's research was inherently dangerous.

He was explicitly doing research for the military, sort of weapons development and the like.

Also, the bit about counting the caterpillar fuzz if you're blind and deaf doesn't imply risk, just the willingness to serve.

Well, here's the thing... Heinlein had his characters say several things about "military service" in the books that are somewhat contradictory. I think it comes from having this idea that he wanted citizenship based upon a particular notion of service, but also wanted the ability to earn it open to everyone, not limited in who could apply. If you don't get the option of military service because of some physical condition (say, flat feet), then you are incapable of earning citizenship. That is counter to his desire for equality of opportunity. He wanted citizenship to be earned, but not prevent anyone who desired it the opportunity.

So he has to have a character (a doctor doing the screening, who himself is not a citizen or a "veteran" or performing service that qualifies for future citizenship) describe how everyone gets an opportunity, so he rattles off some bullshit about how a guy who is blind and crippled could get some sort of make work job that would allow him to qualify.

But that's contradicted by other descriptions given about service. Note that the history of their government derives from after a global disaster (IIRC war) and the fracturing of society and governments, and the birth of their government came from groups of people who banded together to form pockets of organization that spread to form the new world government. Those people were veterans - ex-soldiers (presumably nobody was a current soldier because the existing governments had fractured by then or were effectively moot) - or primarily so. And the reason why is described in detail in his Political History sections of the book, where Johnny and his class get educated on their government, history, their society, and why their form of government is so much better than any other. That's where the notion of "service" and "only veterans can be citizens" comes from. It's that the veterans are the ones who earned it by putting their health and welfare on the line for the greater good. Not just they did a job, but they risked sacrifice.

Note that Heinlein explicitly states that many government jobs (like the aforementioned doctors screening potential enlistees, clerical workers at the Army base, etc) are filled by contract civilians and do not qualify as "service". All the explicitly stated jobs that qualify as service are military positions.

Now some people have skills and abilities that put them much more useful for the good of society in better places than the battlefield front lines. That's Rico's buddy who gets to do electronics research off Pluto -
who gets fragged by the Bugs.

But delivering mail to your doorstep does not sound to me like the kind of service that qualifies. It isn't improving society any more than a doctor who screens recruits to determine what their abilities are and therefore what branches/jobs they are capable of doing to earn their citizenship. I mean, maybe in the ghetto, with drive-by gang turf wars, and paramedics getting shot for trying to help, etc. But Rico's world is supposed to be better than that. It just doesn't fit.

And I'm sure Rico would have felt perfectly happy signing up for postal carrier rather than testing space suits on Titan or whatever.

So the real root of the problem is that Heinlein himself didn't really think through the conflicting desires of his proposed system, or else he did a poor job of explaining what he meant. Which seems unlikely, given how didactic and extensive the section on political history is and how much of the book it dominates over the action parts.

I should also probably point out the line about counting fuzzy caterpillers was stated by the doctor, who really doesn't know what constitutes service because it's not his job. His job is to categorize in extensive detail the capabilities, limitations, and mental function of the recruits so that someone higher up in the food chain can evaluate the recruits for jobs that they can actually do. So counting fuzzy caterpillers is likely reserved for blind, deaf, parapalegics with no arms, who have to use their nose to do the counting, or something. For them, just rolling a caterpillar from one pile to another without losing it or letting it get away is a tiresome and physically challenging task.

I got the exact opposite impression from you guys; I had the impression that the MI was a VERY small part of the Federal service hierarchy, but the most classically military of them all.

I agree that Mobile Infantry (MI) was a small part of the service, but I think that all qualifying jobs were military. I don't think my current job as a contractor to NASA building space equipment would qualify. If working for NASA doesn't qualify, then carrying letters door-to-door certainly doesn't.

Paul McCartney says that "C Moon" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_Moon)is about being the opposite of L7; i.e., not square; i.e., cool.

Never even heard of it before. Looked at lyrics. WTF?

It does sound a bit like he is saying "semen" with an odd inflection. But how do you know that it's an either/or?

[Lemur866]

It's been a while since I read the book, but weren't the people in charge of recruitment deliberately making the path to citizenship sound worse than it really was? The wounded recruitment officer who only wore his prosthetic leg off-duty wasn't one of Verhoeven's additions, was he?

No, that's in the book. The recruiting officer sits there with one arm and one leg to scare off the Momma's boys. Later, after Johnny signs up he happens to run into the recruiting officer again and doesn't recognize him at first because he's using his prosthetic leg and arm. A minute later Johnny realizes he shook the officer's prosthetic hand and didn't know it at the time.

[Lemur866]

I agree that Mobile Infantry (MI) was a small part of the service, but I think that all qualifying jobs were military. I don't think my current job as a contractor to NASA building space equipment would qualify. If working for NASA doesn't qualify, then carrying letters door-to-door certainly doesn't.


The point is that the recruit doesn't get a choice. Oh, he can state a preference, but that's just a way for the recruiting office to try to sort people into the right jobs. You join, and you do the job they give you. That's not going to be delivering the mail, unless there's for some reason a critical shortage of mail carriers.

The recruiting officer who was so pleased to see Carmen sign up to be a pilot said that if she flunked out of pilot school she could end up scrubbing toilets on Titan, so some such. And it's clear that the MI, the branch that's most military, is only a small fraction of the service, over half the kids in Johnny's training camp wash out. Some of those are like the kid who punches Zim and gets court martialed and kicked out. But while they can kick you out of the MI for medical reasons, they can't kick you out of the service. Johnny mentions an older classmate who can't keep up physically and is carried off in a stretcher, he later meets the guy who is now a cook in the navy or some such.

[astorian]

Bob Dylan has always denied that the bulk of "Blood on the Tracks" was about his crumbling marriage with Sara, but I think no one ever bought that.

I’m not saying you have to believe him, but Bob was quite capable of writing straightforward songs about his divorce. “Sarah” on the Desire album clearly WAS about his divorce. There was nothing abstract or symbolic to the song at all, just an unadorned statement of his heartbreak and his memories of good times his family had shared.

So, if Dylan claims that an abstract song ISN’T about Sarah, he may be lying. But he might just tell you, “Hey man, when I want to write songs about Sarah, I write songs about Sarah!”

[CalMeacham]

It's been a while since I read the book, but weren't the people in charge of recruitment deliberately making the path to citizenship sound worse than it really was? The wounded recruitment officer who only wore his prosthetic leg off-duty wasn't one of Verhoeven's additions, was he?

That's true, but in the book all the paths to citizenship that are described -- even hypothetical ones -- all seem to be military. If it's not a combat role, it's support or testing or something, but he never describes it as a non-military civil service job. nobody seems to get their obligation out of the way by delivering mail, or manning the DMV desk, or being a county clerk, or whatever. Even after the initial "horrorshow", all the talk is about doing things for the military, even if it's "counting fuzz on a caterpillar by touch", of testing environment suits on Pluto.


Heinlein himself later maintained that non-military civil service was a route to citizenship (he claims this at some length in Extended Universe), but he inevitably talks about "veterans" having the franchise, and always seems to describe them as ex-military. You can vote when you've been discharged, which is a weird way to describe leaving a Federal Bureaucracy.


Some folks have written passionately about this on the internet. I strongly suspect Heinlein pretty much had military service in mind, and his backpedalling to "civil service" was a later rationalization that he never really embraced or thought through. Heck, even if you were in his military you'd probably have a combat post -- his idealized military organization is famously short of "idlers" -- even the cook and the padre make combat drops. As Rico learns in OCS, any non-military tasks that can be done by non-combat individuals get farmed out to "civilians" -- and he makes it clear that their efforts are not a road to citizenship.

[silenus]

At least he admits that the opener is about the divorce:

"[This song] took me 10 years to live, and two years to write," Dylan often said before playing "Tangled Up in Blue" in concert. His marriage was crumbling in 1974 as he wrote what would become the opener on Blood on the Tracks and his most personal examination of hurt and nostalgia.

From CNN (5/25/11)

[Kolga]

Sociology is also a science.

Using that definition, every novel is science fiction because they're all written in the context of a society.

Dystopic fiction is science fiction. It's a subgenre, like space opera and cyberpunk.

I'm not sure I agree, since not all dystopian fiction is about dystopias that occur due to zombies, nuclear armageddon, or space wars. I don't know that I'd think a book about the decline of civilization due to people just being normal rat-bastards is science fiction.

[Lemur866]

Heinlein himself later maintained that non-military civil service was a route to citizenship (he claims this at some length in Extended Universe), but he inevitably talks about "veterans" having the franchise, and always seems to describe them as ex-military. You can vote when you've been discharged, which is a weird way to describe leaving a Federal Bureaucracy.

I agree that "civil service" jobs are not what Heinlein was thinking about in the book. Civil service jobs are staffed by civilians. Other jobs are reserved for veterans, like cop and History and Moral Philosophy teacher.

But the reason there aren't any cooks or doctors in the MI is that those support functions are filled by navy personnel. Everyone drops in the MI, but the MI is only a small fraction of the service. You can have civilian cooks and doctors and file clerks back on Earth, but you don't have them on navy ships.

So you're not going to go into the service and end up an elementary school teacher, or even a firefighter. But you could end up teaching, the teachers at Johnny's Officer Candidate School were all active duty MI, or you could end up a firefighter on a Navy ship or government outpost.

[Chronos]

I'm not sure I agree, since not all dystopian fiction is about dystopias that occur due to zombies, nuclear armageddon, or space wars. I don't know that I'd think a book about the decline of civilization due to people just being normal rat-bastards is science fiction. If it's about a decline of civilization that's already happened, that's a history book. If it's about one that hasn't (yet) happened, that's science fiction. No zombies or nukes required.

[filling_pages]

I'm not sure I agree, since not all dystopian fiction is about dystopias that occur due to zombies, nuclear armageddon, or space wars. I don't know that I'd think a book about the decline of civilization due to people just being normal rat-bastards is science fiction.

You seem to be talking more about apocalyptic fiction rather than dystopian fiction. A dystopia is not necessarily a declining or ending civilization. Look at 1984 - at the end of the book, the civilization is still going strong, in its way.

[Kolga]

If it's about a decline of civilization that's already happened, that's a history book. If it's about one that hasn't (yet) happened, that's science fiction. No zombies or nukes required.

I disagree, but I don't really care enough to argue about it.

You seem to be talking more about apocalyptic fiction rather than dystopian fiction. A dystopia is not necessarily a declining or ending civilization. Look at 1984 - at the end of the book, the civilization is still going strong, in its way.

Good point.

[salinqmind]

very basic: Every actor or director flogging a movie, when asked what it was like to work with so-and-so, inevitably insists everyone was just fabulous, totally professional, a joy to work with, and never was such fun had on a movie/TV set. You have to wait until they're 80 and write a scandalous autobiography to get the real story!

[filling_pages]

Good point.

I'm sort of on an ongoing dystopian fiction kick (http://epicdystopia.blogspot.com/), so the dystopia vs. apocalypse issue comes up pretty often.

[EinsteinsHund]

I’m not saying you have to believe him, but Bob was quite capable of writing straightforward songs about his divorce. “Sarah” on the Desire album clearly WAS about his divorce. There was nothing abstract or symbolic to the song at all, just an unadorned statement of his heartbreak and his memories of good times his family had shared.

So, if Dylan claims that an abstract song ISN’T about Sarah, he may be lying. But he might just tell you, “Hey man, when I want to write songs about Sarah, I write songs about Sarah!”

Of course these are abstract songs, but who could deny that the main theme of the album was a crumbling relationship? And who went through a crumbling relationship when "Blood on the Tracks" was recorded?

You must at least grant that the album must have been heavily inspired by Dylan's personal life. Of course, "Desire" picks up some threads from "Blood" (because this was the time when their marriage finally came to an end), but presents them in another fashion. That's Dylan. And he has always been reluctant to explain his songs, so I understand his denial, and I don't chide him for that. An artist isn't obliged to explain his work. But I still don't buy it.

P.S.: I have a vague memory that I even sometimes read that Dylan claimed that "Sara" also wasn't about his wife. I possibly misremember, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was true.

[Irishman]

I'm not sure I agree, since not all dystopian fiction is about dystopias that occur due to zombies, nuclear armageddon, or space wars. I don't know that I'd think a book about the decline of civilization due to people just being normal rat-bastards is science fiction.

I suppose it depends on if you consider Alternate History a genre of Science Fiction. Some people prefer a more generic label of Speculative Fiction to cover ideas like Alternate History, Distopia, etc, that are not premised upon scientific/technology developments but offer alternative versions of the past or projections into the future.

But the reason there aren't any cooks or doctors in the MI is that those support functions are filled by navy personnel. Everyone drops in the MI, but the MI is only a small fraction of the service. You can have civilian cooks and doctors and file clerks back on Earth, but you don't have them on navy ships.

So? They're Navy personnel, subject to potential battle conditions. They're every bit as essential to a Navy as the bosun, the navigator, or the gunnery sargeant (or whatever).

So you're not going to go into the service and end up an elementary school teacher, or even a firefighter. But you could end up teaching, the teachers at Johnny's Officer Candidate School were all active duty MI, or you could end up a firefighter on a Navy ship or government outpost.

Right, but the key thing is that first and foremost these jobs are military jobs held by active military officers. And while it's not explicitly clear for other branches of the military, for the MI it is. The teachers at both Johnny's training schools are not only active officers, but have seen active duty, and are often on rotation as a teacher because they are so good at combat. Plus, at OCS a lot of the trainer positions are filled by injured officers that cannot do active combat and qualify for disability retirement with full benefits, but remain active duty so that they can teach and let more able-bodied soldiers stay in the field.

It's true, being a cook at an Army base on some government outpost might usually be fairly unrisky at a state of peace. The requirement is not that they must put themselves in a 50:50 situation or have some other definite risk of death in order to qualify for citizenship. But they have to join the military, go through military training, and serve time in a position that at least nominally has the risk of combat activities associated with it. Because war could pop up at any time. And if they're not fit for combat, they are given some equally tedious, difficult, and tiring if not dangerous job.

He explains at one point that many of the veterans spent their time in conditions of peace and were not subject to the dangers of war. So the military had to dream up all sorts of creative ways to harry and stress and wear out and otherwise make nearly unbearable their conditions.

Delivering mail in contemporary Iowa (or whereever) wouldn't cut it, whatever Heinlein said at a later date. Hell, the merchant marine didn't qualify (it's mentioned in the book as a sore point).

[JohnT]

Using that definition, every novel is science fiction because they're all written in the context of a society.



I'm not sure I agree, since not all dystopian fiction is about dystopias that occur due to zombies, nuclear armageddon, or space wars. I don't know that I'd think a book about the decline of civilization due to people just being normal rat-bastards is science fiction.

However, according to Offred, Gilead came about as a response to declining birth rates brought on by environmental collapse, with large sections of the N. American continent being referred to as, IIRC, "wastelands". It did not come about merely by people being "rat bastards".

[Miller]

Using that definition, every novel is science fiction because they're all written in the context of a society.

That's like saying every novel is science fiction, because they all have technology in them. Which pretty clearly wasn't my point. Science fiction is when you take a concept or trend in a field of science, and extrapolate it into the future. The field in question could be electronics, or physics. Or it could be sociology. Hell, the science doesn't even necessarily have to advance - a novel about how, in future, we'll be living like cavemen would also be science fiction. A Handmaid's Tale works as science fiction because it's taking several different sociological and environmental trends and extrapolating them forward to an imagined end result, specifically, increasing pollution, the effects of chemical additives on human reproduction, and the rising tide of far-right religiosity.

[what do I type here]

I'm sure most of you know this, HAL 9000's initials are "IBM" plus one. Arthur C. Clarke has maintained that this is a cooincidence.



Riiiight

[Lord Mondegreen]

Paul McCartney says that "C Moon" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_Moon) is about being the opposite of L7; i.e., not square; i.e., cool.


Looking through Wikipedia at Sir Paul's songs, this bit I don't believe is that the writing credits are shared by Paul and Linda. Yeah, sure Paul, you and Linda both worked on all those songs together. At least with Lennon/McCartney, even though most of their songs were not collaborations, they both contributed significantly to their collective output. I find it hard to believe that the same can be said for McCartney/McCartney.

[Thudlow Boink]

I'm sure most of you know this, HAL 9000's initials are "IBM" plus one. Arthur C. Clarke has maintained that this is a cooincidence.



RiiiightWhy don't you believe that this is a coincidence?

[Biffy the Elephant Shrew]

Looking through Wikipedia at Sir Paul's songs, this bit I don't believe is that the writing credits are shared by Paul and Linda. Yeah, sure Paul, you and Linda both worked on all those songs together. At least with Lennon/McCartney, even though most of their songs were not collaborations, they both contributed significantly to their collective output. I find it hard to believe that the same can be said for McCartney/McCartney.

This may have been done for very practical reasons. Linda didn't have the contractual entanglements siphoning off her share of the royalties that Paul had. By splitting the credit, they were able to assign Linda's half of the publishing rights to their own MPL Communications publishing company.

[Speak to me Maddie!]

Another vote for not believing Bradbury. Fahrenheit 451 was written in 1950. We're supposed to believe that Bradbury's main point was that television was taking over the media?

What is a lot more believable is that decades later, when Ray Bradbury and everyone else in the world saw how dominant television had become, Bradbury convinced himself that he had predicted all of this back in 1950.
Yeah, as he has aged Bradbury has developed some sort of reaction against TV. In the postscript to the recent edition of Something Wicked This Way Comes he writes about how he developed the mood for the novel when walking around outside one evening for hours without seeing anyone. Everyone was inside wasting their lives watching TV instead of being out living life, he claimed. It is just a really weird comment for a story that has nothing whatsoever to do with TV, coming from an author who himself wrote and hosted a TV show. Earlier this year I also showed a documentary in my class called "Ray Bradbury, an Author and his Life" (or something like that), and he went into an anti-TV rant for bit in that film too. Maybe he's pissed that the old sci-fi serials that were his bread and butter for 20 years have disappeared forever.

(Another weird thing from the documentary that struck me were the Coors Banquet Beer cans, the yellow tall boys, that were all over Bradbury's house. It just seemed funny somehow.)

[Mississippienne]

Malcolm McDowell, for awhile at least, insisted that he thought Caligula was going to be high art until the director and producer mangled it in post-production. Y'all, there is a scene in this movie where McDowell fists another dude. There is no way he didn't know it was porn the moment he showed up on set.

[Chronos]

Y'all, there is a scene in this movie where McDowell fists another dude. There is no way he didn't know it was porn the moment he showed up on set. Wasn't that done via cuts and a "hand double", though? At least, that's what I've heard.

[Little Nemo]

Yeah, as he has aged Bradbury has developed some sort of reaction against TV. In the postscript to the recent edition of Something Wicked This Way Comes he writes about how he developed the mood for the novel when walking around outside one evening for hours without seeing anyone. Everyone was inside wasting their lives watching TV instead of being out living life, he claimed.And that's the kind of claim that makes Bradbury seem unbelievable. There were only eight million televisions in the country in 1950. Television was growing (there had only been one million televisions in 1948) but there were 150,697,361 Americans counted in the 1950 census - television was still a relatively small fad.

[Lord Mondegreen]

This may have been done for very practical reasons. Linda didn't have the contractual entanglements siphoning off her share of the royalties that Paul had. By splitting the credit, they were able to assign Linda's half of the publishing rights to their own MPL Communications publishing company.

Good point. Hadn't thought of that.

[what do I type here]

Why don't you believe that this is a coincidence?

Actually I am just bummed that I didn't figure it out before everyone else. But you're right, it probably is a coincidence.

[HubZilla]

The Cloverfield monster was not a confused baby looking for his mommy.

Nor was he killed by the bombs at the end of the movie.

[etv78]

George Lucas says he had the prequel trilogy planned out from the get-go. Bullshit.

He's NEVER given a consistent answer of # of movies he wanted in the Star Wars saga. As low as 3, as high as 9 have been his answers.

[brujaja]

Never even heard of it before. Looked at lyrics. WTF?

It does sound a bit like he is saying "semen" with an odd inflection. But how do you know that it's an either/or?

Good point. It could be about both being cool and another, errr, fundamental topic. I think it's instructive to check out the back of his T-shirt (which rocks!) in the video. :)

[PlainJain]

I serious doubt Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol's emotional sincerity.
I'm not an expert on Warhol but in every interview with him I've seen, he's denied emotional sincerity.



.

[Smapti]

Neil Peart insists the song The Trees is just a silly little ditty about trees fighting each other, and that it's not a parable for the tyranny of the mediocre that's so feared in Objectivism.

Given that just about every other song he wrote in that period was Ayn Rand fanfic, this comes off as hard to believe.

[Justin_Bailey]

Nor was [the Cloverfield monster] killed by the bombs at the end of the movie.

Of course he wasn't. You can faintly hear a dude say "It's still alive" after the bombing.

[MrDibble]

Body and beats I stain my sheets is, for me, the giveaway. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this brings to mind masturbating under the covers and ejaculating onto the sheet. Of course, I freely admit that I may be wrong.
I thought he was "so strung out" and "high as a kite" that he pissed the bed/crapped himself.

[HubZilla]

Of course he wasn't. You can faintly hear a dude say "It's still alive" after the bombing.

J.J. Abrams to Rolling Stone magazine: Yes, he's dead. Ultimately the bombs kill him (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wvoLtwni0kc/SCJjDM4l0aI/AAAAAAAAQ1k/zyEqSmLrX4Q/s1600-h/rollingstoneJJ.jpg):