Greg Sandow muses on the simultaneous obituaries for poet Jackson Mac Low and ex-Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell. After playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon for a few paragraphs he describes his admiration for Mac Low’s (and John Cage’s) work in a way I can agree with but have never explained so well:
One feeling I’ve long gotten from work like Cage’s or Mac Low’s is peace. But not just any kind of peace — not, for instance, a warm and fuzzy peace, full of love, hope, and goodwill. It’s more profound than that; the peace that comes from lack of need or striving.
And from there he looks for, and finds, the common thread which made him react to both deaths.
Both, in fact, oppose the mainstream, metal noisily, Mac Low’s more quietly. Metal rages angrily at normal life; the relationship of Mac Low’s kind of art to normal life is less direct. And yet it’s strong…. After World War II… meaning in normal life was hard to find. Hence rebellion, and also modernist art, which didn’t look for normal meaning.
More about Jackson Mac Low, including some of his poems, interviews and sound recordings.
