In search of smartdumb: a working understanding of the concept; the supposed decline of culture; art vs. entertainment; getting one's freak on; rolling oranges down the slide
I love this, though I worry about the possibility that smartdumb, in its high-minded flirtation with dumbness, is received without distinction and refracted back into the culture as pure dumbdumb. A lot of this feels like an extension of Kenneth Goldsmith’s 2013 essay for The Awl: https://www.theawl.com/2013/07/being-dumb/
great essay! thanks for linking — i remember the awl. nice to see gertrude stein mentioned, fluxus is also a helpful example. perhaps we’re both remiss not to have included plato, whose socrates was smartdumb incarnate, and hegel.
for me, part of the smartdumb practice is giving up control of how the work is received, which is also to say giving up on controlling what people think of you. if anything, the work first being received as squarely dumb (and not smartdumb, at least on first blush) is an essential component to the experience. candidly it also might be the only way forward for an artist who wants to make art for a living.
ha! i think it helps to think in terms of individual songs than an artist's entire ouevre, especially for true paradigm breakers like the dan. i'd say on the whole though their sense of harmony is very smartdumb
in a way it seems like "smartdumb" works are those made by people with good taste for their own entertainment and enjoyment.. but what is good taste? smartdumb all the way down!
anyway your concept inspired me to be less of a wannabe intellectual in songwriting and accept that a couplet like
"did he get one yesterday?
i know you're not from LA"
can work with the right melody even tho it is totally silly
I love this, though I worry about the possibility that smartdumb, in its high-minded flirtation with dumbness, is received without distinction and refracted back into the culture as pure dumbdumb. A lot of this feels like an extension of Kenneth Goldsmith’s 2013 essay for The Awl: https://www.theawl.com/2013/07/being-dumb/
great essay! thanks for linking — i remember the awl. nice to see gertrude stein mentioned, fluxus is also a helpful example. perhaps we’re both remiss not to have included plato, whose socrates was smartdumb incarnate, and hegel.
for me, part of the smartdumb practice is giving up control of how the work is received, which is also to say giving up on controlling what people think of you. if anything, the work first being received as squarely dumb (and not smartdumb, at least on first blush) is an essential component to the experience. candidly it also might be the only way forward for an artist who wants to make art for a living.
Late to this party but I had to ask: which quadrant does Get Up I Feel Like Being A Sex Machine fit in?
count it off
[7:00] "Can I go to the bridge one more time?"
[9:40] *Bridge*
textbook smartdumb
now my vocation is to identify Steely Dan's place in this framework
ha! i think it helps to think in terms of individual songs than an artist's entire ouevre, especially for true paradigm breakers like the dan. i'd say on the whole though their sense of harmony is very smartdumb
in a way it seems like "smartdumb" works are those made by people with good taste for their own entertainment and enjoyment.. but what is good taste? smartdumb all the way down!
anyway your concept inspired me to be less of a wannabe intellectual in songwriting and accept that a couplet like
"did he get one yesterday?
i know you're not from LA"
can work with the right melody even tho it is totally silly