Game: Ask the Person Below You

[North Star]

I certainly think of past and history often. 'Vanished past' is such a nice phrase. What exactly do you, Lykren, mean by it? Past that nobody remembers anymore? Past that isn't recorded? Just past in general?

Modern ruins tend to be very unappealing, and that says a bit about modern architecture in general, and the shift in building materials. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruin_value
Some modern architecture is really nice, of course. But it rarely makes for good ruins, and the buildings that have ended up as ruins so far certainly aren't among the finer examples of modern architecture.

What do you think of Sally Mann's photographs of her children?

[Lykren]

I love her book Immediate Family, one of my favorite photographs is The Perfect Tomato.

Do arts such as literature, music, and painting differ meaningfully from so-called 'decorative arts?'

EDIT: By 'vanished past' I mean a past that happened to you, but that seems to have happened to someone else, as you were so different then.

[North Star]

I love her book Immediate Family, one of my favorite photographs is The Perfect Tomato.

Splendid!

Do arts such as literature, music, and painting differ meaningfully from so-called 'decorative arts?'

Ah, now we're entering the tangled web of art for arts sake and arts & crafts the movement. Painting can be decorative obviously, and I'd count the music composed for courts to play in background, too (and contemporary examples like muzak and perhaps even e.g. Rothko Chapel). I notice you didn't include sculpture, architecture or ceramics. They aren't necessarily 'just' decorative, you know. Decorative differs in the way it was made, and for what function it was made, but that doesn't make it inferior, the opposite might be true in some cases. The Hudson River artists painted on kitchen cabinet doors. There are meaningful differences, but no clear-cut ones.

Same question.

EDIT: By 'vanished past' I mean a past that happened to you, but that seems to have happened to someone else, as you were so different then.

I don't really feel like that even of my most distant childhood memories. I don't think I have really changed that much, just grown and developed.

[Pompey Bum]

Modern ruins tend to be very unappealing, and that says a bit about modern architecture in general, and the shift in building materials. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruin_value
Some modern architecture is really nice, of course. But it rarely makes for good ruins, and the buildings that have ended up as ruins so far certainly aren't among the finer examples of modern architecture

There are interesting ruins in the American Southwest from the 19th century (old forts and "ghost towns," etc.), but also ruined structures from the 20th century (an abandoned gas station from the 30s, a gutted stone house where the desert has reclaimed everything else). For me, those are the real ghosts. I think it would be an interesting project to photograph them. There are plenty in Texas, New Mexico, Nevada; all the places that are dying from the drought right now. I got interested in the obscure quasi-avant garde Georgias horse when I heard the songwriter say that their weird sound had been inspired by those places (although I think that band may be a ghost town at this point). For me, there is a "living dead" quality to modern ruins--a kind of cultural still life--that is more or less reduced to a corpse on a slab when and if the archaeologists ever get there.

Sally Mann was sort of asking for trouble.

Should an indigenous tribal population have more claim to prehistoric remains (including human remains) than a more recently arrived group, when the tribal people (despite their beliefs) are demonstrably a different group than that represented by the remains?

[Clopin]

Urban exploration is sort of a hobby involving ruins and bunkers, etc, though I think it's more popular in Eastern Europe.

http://www.google.ca/search?q=urban+...iw=768&bih=878

Quite cool honestly.

And probably not. I dislike the special privileges given to the indigenous populations of North America and "being there first" doesn't tend to constitute ownership of territory if you lose it during a war, so I don't see why Mayans should have more claim to something than modern Mexicans really.

Would you think differently about me if I said I think every Neutral Milk Hotel release is a perfect ten and modern classic?

[Pompey Bum]

No. Even if I had a different opinion about that, it wouldn't effect my overall assessment of you.

Do you think taking a trip to Antarctica to stand briefly on the shore (just to say you've done it) would be worthwhile?

[Clopin]

Not for that reason, no, though I think a boat trip to Antarctica could be interesting and worthwhile.

I saw an exhibit on old maps made from the middle ages and on and they were pretty freakin accurate, at least considering Europe... How the Hell do you make a relatively accurate map of entire continents with nothing but ships?

[Pompey Bum]

Early on, navigators would just make "charts" of bits of shoreline. The older ships had to hug coasts in any case, so they tended to think in terms of where they were in the specific and less so about where the coast actually was located in relation to the whole. The technique could be extended as far as ships explored along a coastline. Detailed charts of the coast of West Africa existed, for example, when Europeans still thought that Africa and Antarctica were connected in the south. In time, once improved sails and other technological advances opened whole oceans, detailed world maps appeared with accurate-looking continents, but huge blank areas in the interior. It gave the appearance that people knew more about the world than they really did.

Should the concept of "genocide" be abandoned; if so, what should replace it?

[Ecurb]

Concepts need not be abandoned. However, they can be more aptly applied. Also, I've always wanted to go to the arctic or antarctic (I was in Narvik once, which is north of the arctic circle), but not just to say I've done it.

Would you go on a guided climb of Mt. Everest, or would you prefer to bag a lower, less famous, but less crowded Himalayan peak?

[Pompey Bum]

The only part of an Everest climb that appeals to me is seeing the wind mummies of climbers who cashed it in near the summit. I guess it's part of the "modern ruin" mystique we were talking about before. But the danger/challenge of any given Himalayan climb (even if I could plausibly attempt one at my age) doesn't interest me when there is just so much natural beauty to see in North America.

Will the protests/riots in Ferguson and Baltimore contribute to a major conservative backlash in the coming presidential elections (as, it has been suggested, race riots and other street violence seeded the "Silent Majority" victory of Richard Nixon in 1968)?

[Clopin]

Hopefully it will. The decision not to indict Wilson was totally valid and I am sick to death of this "kkk, neo nazi police officer guns down innocent African cherub, on his way to college with honours who was kneeling in the street and praying like the good boy that he is" narrative, and they should arrest all of the witnesses who lied about the circumstances surrounding Brown's death (he was kneeling down saying "don't shoot me" when he was shot). Even if this was a police murder destroying your own community is a real smart idea right?

If you were reasonably sure you had cancer and then found out that you didn't what would you do to celebrate?

[Lykren]

I would use the organ I had thought was cancerous

What is the appeal of death metal, etc.?

[Clopin]

I'm not a death metal fan but I do like drone metal, doom metal along with (some, very select) black metal groups and (even fewer) crust punk bands. I just really like the aesthetic behind the two black metal bands I listen to which are Burzum and Peste Noire and I like the sound of the music, not much more to it than that. Crust punk in Japan and G.I.S.M in particular had quite an influence on some current Japanese menswear designers as well, which is something I'm interested in.

Do the politics of a band turn you off the music (e.g The Knife are super liberal social justice warriors and Burzum is incredibly right wing with even a possible neo nazi connection).

[Pompey Bum]

BOOM BOOM BOOM TIMMY!

What's not to like?

I don't follow a bands closely enough to know their politics. I generally hate them for other reasons.

Has fake dog sh*t actually ever fooled anyone?

[Lykren]

If a band has political beliefs at all I don't listen to them, haha. No, actually, the only band I listen to whose politics I am aware of is Radiohead, and their politics are something I don't have a problem with, though I don't understand Yorke's concern about the world's impending demise due to global warming -- should I be bothered about that?

EDIT: I bet it has.

Do a politician's tastes in music affect your opinion of him or her?