Tom Bair

Johann Sebastian DOOM: A Brief Note on Hip Hop

Hip hop can deal with emotions sort of but it’s not a strength. Nas’s song about dancing with his dead mother made me cry but that is neither here nor there. Moms make me cry in general. Whatever. It’s an exception. Hip hop is style and virtuosity. Bach’s counterpoint produces linearity by complicating the relations […]

Poetics Ditty, Quickly: Part 2

If poetry is not defined, if there are no sayable parameters for what poetry is or can be or does, then poetry can appear anywhere.

Poetics Ditty: Part 1

(thanks, Josh Keiter) “Philosophy and the Poetic Imagination” is a good post about the difference between expressive and communicative language. It sums up the day’s dominant theory of the place, not just of poetry, but, one might argue, of human understanding in general: “Poetry evokes a special kind of thinking — where we interpret ordinary […]

Melville the Television

Melville the Television

Lucky for us, popular culture does not need to be affirmed or denied. It’s happening, and you and I, as members of the populace, are in it. This is not to say that there are not all sorts of ways to bargain with our position, en masse or otherwise. But this is to say that […]

I Can’t Find New York

by Tom Bair I can’t find New York. I’ve looked everywhere. It’s okay though. I’m not too worried. I lose things all the time, and so . . . so I’ve picked up many methods of recovery along the way. Retracing my steps, cleaning, doing something else, pacing furiously, crying, etc. Or I’ll check the […]

The American Exodus in Light of Trayvon

by Tom Bair I I’ve decided to read the bible cover to cover, not because I am any more or less a Christian than I was at the start of the year, but because sections of this book have been read and reread for over two thousand years by three world religions, and If I […]

Stopping Suddenly

by Tom Bair So I’m on the train and it’s going along but it keeps starting and stopping, not at designated stops, but, like, in the middle of the tunnel. It’s early enough in the morning for this to be a treat, really. If I’m late to where I’m going I’ll be able to say […]

Notes on Occupy Wall Street 9/29/11

by Tom Bair I’ve been vaguely aware of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement since its first sighting on September 17th. Actually, I’d picked up The Post the day prior to find a little information on the coming weekend of football, and found something more alarming than Eli Manning’s sullen face. In that issue, Mayor Bloomberg […]

Young Cretins

by Tom Bair But youth is also that fragment of existence when one easily imagines oneself to be quite singular, when really what one is thinking or doing is what will later be retained as the typical trait of a generation. Being young is a source of power, a time of decisive encounters, but these […]