Taken from a press release:

>Elvis Costello Meets Anne Sofie von Otter on the Remarkable New
>Collaborative Album For The Stars

The irony of the language of press releases, is that they are so overblown,
uninformitive, padded, and loud mouthed in their diction, that they can
make even the appealing idea of a very fine song writer, teaming up with
a very fine soprano - unappealing.  Studios, unlike concert halls, don't
have a voice, one can record in one's basement these days and get top notch
results.  What this press release does not tell us is the only thing of any
interest, artistically - namely why they decided to work together, and what
they intend to do.

Now this is from someone who owns more than a few CDs of both artists,
and will probably buy the final result.  And yet this press release is
not isolated as an example, it is the norm.

At the end of the 19th century the many writers - Nietzsche in German,
Strunk in English - criticised the overblown nature of prose, they argued
that it was derived from a sick romantic sensibility.  In fact the reverse
is true.  Language conveys at least two layers.  One layer is the
information itself, the other is the social position of the speaker.
Since, in most cases, people make their decision based on whether they
feel the speaker is in the correct social position - is he a member of the
right class, does he have enough supporters, etc - the emphasis in writing
increasingly falls on loading all statements with more and more words which
establish social position.  In the case of press releases, that everybody
whose anybody is just *so thrilled* about the idea.

As a result - writing bloats.  Not because of any particular sickness,
but because of the natural tension in language.  Part of language is
communicative, part is cognitive.  Part of language is informative, part is
normative.  When one of these functions overwhelms the others, the value of
the writing becomes zero.  It is only so long as they are in tension that
they can function.

Press releases are one example.  Consider that the informational part of
the above press release could be stated.

    (New York, NY, April 2, 2001) - Elvis Costello, has joined forces
    with the singer Anne Sofie von Otter for a collaborative album
    entitled "For The Stars".  It will be a crossover collection collection
    of contemporay pop arranged and produced by Costello, It is scheduled
    to be released on April 10, 2001 on the Deutsche Grammophon label.

- The album title should be in quotes, since it follows the verb
"entitled".  The construction "contemporary songs" is confusing in the
classical context.  I don't think we are to expect a recording of Carter,
Wourinen, Danielpour and McGreedy.  The correct formulation is that this
is a cross over album.  Crossover albums are not daring departures, for the
pop person, they get more royalties if they can convince ASCAP to classify
it as concert music, and for the classical person, well let's just say that
generally the Billboard classical list generally is composed of film scores
and cross over albums, with the occasional nubile young violinist.

    The pairing evolved over a series of events that started when Costello
    attended, with his wife, several of von Otter's concerts.  Spellbound
    by Otter's singing, he began sending flowers backstage anonymously
    after each performance.  von Otter finally asked her manager to
    locate who was sending the bouquets, and was surprised to discover
    it was none other than Costello himself.  Despite their different
    backgrounds, they soon decided to work together.

    Costello wrote a collection of songs for von Otter and The Brodsky
    Quartet, for whom Costello had earlier composed The Juliet Letters,
    in 1996 entitled "Three Distracted Women".  This project later
    culminated in a concert tour.  Costello has since called von Otter
    one of his favorite singers, and included her 1996 album Wings in
    the Night in his list of 500 favorite albums published in Vanity
    Fair's Music Issue in November 2000.

Dangling modifiers in the first sentence, because English, unlike Latin
is an analytical language, and that means we cannot shove clauses anywhere
we would like based on their social performance.  Yes, the wife has to be
there, but she is also there only as a prop. Unfortunately, English wants
her to be near her husband, which is not what the writer wants.

Their backgrounds are not "viscerally" different.  One did not grow up
as a street urchin in Bangkok or as a child soldier for Sierra Leone
rebels.  They are both from urbanised middle class cultures.  People from
"viscerally" different backgrounds do not attend each others concerts.

There amount of cross over between the worlds of pop and classical is
sufficent to say that classical training does not seem to have been a bar
to Freddy Mercury or Eddie van Halen.  Similarly many musicians go over
to classical music after having played in rock bands or sung in broadway
musical productions in high school.

Use commas not parentheses.  Entitled still wants quotes.  Don't write run
on sentences.

Dangling modifiers, the list, not the album, was published in Vanity Fair's
Music Issue.  The material starting with what happened after they met is a
different paragraph, since the topic of the first paragraph is "how people
people from such different backgrounds began to work together"

    "For The Stars" was recorded in Stockholm at the Atlantis Studio.
    They recorded 27 songs in two weeks.  von Otter has recorded songs
    by, among others, The Beach Boys, ABBA, Tom Waits and Elvis Costello
    of course.  In addition to arranging and producing For the Stars,
    Costello can also be heard singing and playing various instruments
    on several tracks.  The recording sessions were filmed to produce
    a documentary also entitled "For The Stars", which includes interviews
    with both perofrmers.

Nice to see that she remembered the quotation marks this time, because the
original press release has them.  But the sentence is awkward.  One doesn't
capture "magical moments", because magical moments just happen.  That is,
I am assuming that they didn't sacrifice a small fuzzy animal in the center
of a pentagram each morning, and that therefore the writer was talking
about those occasions where there is a spontaneous "coming together" of the
music.  The sentence is awkward, of course, because the author wants to
tell us about the interviews, but that truth gets in the way of the
impression of a fuzzy magical warm hearted girl and her pony image of the
documentary.  An impression the writer wishes desperately to convey.  So
again, as if she her native language were Latin, she relegates the clause
to the distant reaches of the sentence.  Latin has its own cure for
irrelevant details, it's called the Ablative case, and when one surveys a
sentence, one can generally skip over the sea of lesser inflections in the
middle.

Of course obligatory useless puff adjectives were cut from the early part
of the paragraph.

    Anne Sofie von Otter was born in Stockholm and studied at the
    Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.  Since the mid-1980's
    she has performed at many of the world's greatest opera houses
    including the Metropolitan Opera In New York, the Royal Opera House
    (Covent Garden), La Scala Milan and the Deutsche Opera Berlin.
    Having toured the world over, she has made a name for herself singing
    a broad range of repertoire encompassing works from the Baroque
    period to 20th century music.  She began recording for Deutsche
    Grammophon in 1985 - her most recent recordings include the stunning
    holiday album, Home For Christmas, and the critically acclaimed
    disc, Folksongs.

I will leave aside picking apart the cut and paste biography.  Except
to note that the original press release called this a daring departure,
and here we are told that an alubm of folk songs is critically acclaimed.
Which is it? Is it daring to risk being labelled an unserious artist or
not?

- - -

Now why, exactly, have I gone through the process of proof reading what
is supposed to be finished work.  First to note that there were numerous
gramatical errors, but also to ask a simple question.  Which would more
likely endear me to the press writer, and presumably the connections which
she could offer.  Telling the truth? That this is a puffy, poorly written,
sack of words whose grammar would get B- in a freshman comp class.  A
tawdry parade of sentences which capture absolutely nothing of the artists
involved.  After all.  One could replace Otter with just about any female
classical star, and Costello with any pop songwriter/producer.  This could
have been about Elizabeth Schwartzkopf and Frank Zappa or Ceclia Bartoli
and Prince.  There is no individuality expressed at all, for all that the
author wants to tell us how unique they are, there is not one word, any
place, which decribes either artist uniquely.  All of the adjectives are
fluff - they are famous, important, well known and sell lots of records.
Just like lots of other people.

Or would I have been better off fawning over this steaming pile of
verbiage, chorousing in how much, I too, just *loved* this project and that
I am *so thrilled* that two such *legendary* artists are engaging in such
a *daring and magical* a project.

People write and think badly, because we punish, rather harshly those who
think well.  Anyone thinking well is instantaneously at a disadvantage,
because they will alienate the people who actually have some pull in this
world.  This is because those people are the ones purveying unintellectual
trash and propoganda as a way of building up a bandwagon.  Naturally one
must have what can be called the "Lacoon" effect.

In Greek mythology, the defining event which marks the end of the heroic
age is the Trojan War.  The war, it was told, had raged for 10 years, with
nothing more than a few raids and attrition to show for it, the Acheans,
the Greeks, were desperate.  A plan was hit upon, the Acheans would break
camp, and leave behind a giant horse.  The horse would seem to be an
offering, and the Trojans would take it into the city.  The horse actually
contained a corps of Achean heroes, who would then leave the horse by
night, open the gates and allow the rest of the army to enter.

When the horse was discovered by day, one prophetess stated that it
foretold doom, but no one listened to here.  But then Lakoon stepped
forward to state that they should burn it down.  Suddenly huge serpents,
sent by the gods, rose up out of the sea, and carried off Lakoon, and
Lakoon's two sons.  End of the idea of resisting.  The "Lakoon effect" is
to publically make an example of the first person who shows some organized
resistance to a band wagon.  In a way it is the first test of a bandwagon
- if there are a few low grade vicous followers willing to do the job.

- - -

It isn't that what is good and bad art is all that hard to discern, it is
that as long as their are people with a personal stake in what is judged to
be good or bad, we will have writing like this.  As long as the majority of
people who are engaged in a dialog are doing so to gain a sense of self
elevation, there will be strong selective pressure for everyone to go
along, or be silent.

So why does this matter? I does because reality catches up with everything.
A year ago financial houses were touting stocks that sold at $333 which now
sell at $4.  It does because democracy itself depends on analysis separate
from interest.  In a society where art cannot keep the faith, and it is
difficult to hold to what is so, even though the stampede is against it,
then there is rational expecation for any other sector of the society to do
so either.

The post-moderns have repeatedly declared that language is only about
power.  If it were possible for people to delude themselves indefinitely,
then they might be correct.  But the universe is not governed by language,
and eventually its patterns impose themselves.  Those with power talked
stocks up and up and up.  But there was a limit to the amount of money that
could pour in, and a limit to the length of time that the stocks would be
scarce.  Hence, it did not matter what they said once the Ohmstead break
had occured.  People can talk up the idea how "Al Gore tried to steal the
election" and make it a truism accepted by most of the most vicious people
in America, but the silent evidence of the ballots tells otherwise.

Art, as opposed to entertainment, is not about what we like or don't like.
It is about form and structure.  Participating in it structures us, and
structures our way of thinking.  It is, in words written long ago, and much
derided at the time and since: "about what sort of people we are, and what
sort of people we wish to become."

It seems the society wishes to become a clatching of lying, dissembling,
puffy, vengeful, dishonest and stupid fishmongers.  And this is how we
behave with respect to art.  Small wonder that it is down hill from there.

In Snoothood (1)

(1)Thankyou DFW

Stirling Newberry
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http://www.mp3.com/ssn