Warren Zevon and Philosophy: Beyond Reptile Wisdom by John E. MacKinnon (English

Description: FREE SHIPPING UK WIDE Warren Zevon and Philosophy by John E. MacKinnon Warren Zevon and Philosophy is a collection of chapters on Zevons life and music, authored by philosophers who are also Zevon fans, providing new and exciting insights into Zevons thinking, his cynical lyrics, and the cruel ironies of his roller-coaster life and career.Since his death in 2003 at the age of fifty-six, Warren Zevons following has grown, and seven books on Zevon have appeared in the last few years, with more in the works. The Zevon legend continues to attract attention both because of the outstanding quality of his best songs and because of the poignant trajectory of his life. According to the novelist Carl Hiaasen, Zevon "left behind a wildly intelligent and captivating body of music." Warren Zevon was an American rocknroll singer-songwriter, born in Chicago, though associated with the music scene in Los Angeles. His early albums, Warren Zevon (1976) and Excitable Boy (1978) attracted a loyal fan following and ecstatic praise from critics. As a special talent to watch, the teenage Zevon was introduced to several notable people, including even Igor Stravinsky.Zevons descent into alcoholism and other addictions, along with his debauchery and erratic behavior, took its toll and his performances suffered, an aspect disturbingly captured in the memoir by his ex-wife Crystal Zevon, Ill Sleep When Im Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon (2008).In the last few years of his life, Zevon rehabilitated somewhat, and his work returned to an impressive level of quality. His remarkable final albums, Lifell Kill Ya (2000), My Rides Here (2002), and The Wind (2003) have made a lasting impact. The last of these was given the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album, while the song "Disorder in the House," performed by Zevon with Bruce Springsteen, won Best Rock Vocal Performance. John MacKinnon teaches philosophy at Saint Marys University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. He has published scholarly articles on aesthetics and philosophy of literature. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Review Warren Zevon and Philosophy: Beyond Reptile Wisdom blends philosophy with pop culture music in an inviting manner that considers Warren Zevons lasting impact, songs, and career. Underlying his music are the philosophical and social references and links essential to understanding his life perspective. These provide thought-provoking food for thought for modern young philosophers, who will find debatable material on everything from "sentimental hygiene" to sonic tonality and beyond. The intersection of music and the mind never sounded so good.-James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief of The Bookwatch"Dasein" is the German word for "existence," but philosopher Martin Heidegger made it a term of art. For Heidegger, Dasein (capitalized to distinguish it from the ordinary German word) is essentially the experience of being human, which means living with the knowledge of ones own mortality. To be fully human, we must necessarily confront the temporary nature of our time on Earth and embrace the dilemma of sharing a universe with similarly afflicted beings while being ultimately alone. A lot of art has been generated by human beings considering Dasein. A long time ago Shakespeare imagined a suicidal Danish prince asking what might be the most important question any human ever asked or answered: To be or not to be? Poet Dylan Thomas refused to mourn the death of a girl murdered in a World War II air raid ("A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London") because he believed more in the possibilities of living humans than the muttering of trite certainties. To him, an innocents death as an opportunity to pronounce "a grave truth" — to signal the profundity of the moral lesson the eulogist delivers — would be blasphemy, a trivialization of the loss of Londons daughter. Death gives lives their outlines; its the knowing well be going that gives our lives meaning. Its the knowing that well be forgotten that makes it all absurd. Along with the human need to court affection, Dasein is our big subject. Warren Zevon was a pop poet of Dasein, and its hardly a surprise that his work should appeal to academics, philosophers and critics, that class of listeners who attend to lyrics and credit the creative intelligence that authors them. While Im not sure we ought to pay the words of rock songs too much mind — Paul Simon has warned against regarding lyrics as English lit — writers are by definition people who are interested in words, and who are we to read if not them? And so I was delighted to receive the fairly compact (about 250-page) book "Warren Zevon and Philosophy: Beyond Reptile Wisdom," the other day. It consists of 17 essays by academic Zevon fans from all over the world, and is edited by John MacKinnon, who teaches philosophy at St. Marys University in Nova Scotia. MacKinnon also contributes a useful introductory essay, "Talkin about the Man," that recounts his history with Zevon as it limns the artists career (both MacKinnon and I came to Zevon pre-"Werewolves of London" via our fandom of Jackson Browne — I see you, brother!) and the wonderful essay "Zevon and the Prigs," in which he dives deep into Zevons concept of "Sentimental Hygiene," which served as title for both his sixth album (first "sober "album) and the lead-off track on that album. SENTIMENTAL HYGIENE "Sentimental Hygiene" is not a song Ive given a whole lot of thought to over the years; the lyrics are not among Zevons best and the title phrase, while evocative, veers terribly close to Bernie Taupin territory in that while the words sound grand and evocative, it is difficult to describe precisely what they mean. (In the context of the song, "sentimental hygiene" seems to mean moments of peace and quiet, or as the country standard would have it, "A Satisfied Mind.") MacKinnon acknowledges this, noting Zevons dismissal of the term as an "interesting phrase" likely to "make a lot of interpretations possible." But artists are not always conscious of the meanings of their work, and Zevon was not especially forthcoming with his take on what his songs might mean. (This is understandable; any artist who prescribes a particular meaning to their work takes the risk of foreclosing other, potentially richer conclusions their audience might draw. Being literal and specific is kind of a dumb move unless its done in such a way that the audience automatically rejects the artists explanation as a red herring or sick joke. Bob Dylan and the Beatles may have started the tradition of artists laughing off "serious" interpretation of their work in the 60s, but Zevon certainly followed their example.) None of this deters MacKinnon. TRUE INSPIRATION "I hope to clarify the true inspiration behind Zevons concept of sentimental hygiene," he writes. "Much of what I want to argue is that its not just a title, nor an appealing or evocative combination of words, but a concept of potential significance." What follows is a genuinely thrilling (to a certain kind of receptive reader) tour of Zevons politics (he only pretended to be right of Attila the Hun but embraced certain conservative positions; MacKinnon marks him as an à la carte centrist, or what Zevons friend Billy Bob Thornton describes as a "moderate radical") and philosophy, drawing from Aeschylus — "whom Zevon described as his favorite author." Aeschylus, MacKinnon points out, "describes human beings as new gods, whose privileges of honor were assigned in full complement by Prometheus gift of fire." Before they were given that gift, human being was "mindless creatures, acting without intelligence, incapable of mastering their wits." They had yet to acquire the concept of Dasein. MacKinnon goes on (so could I), but the upshot is that he commits a fascinating bit of rock criticism in that he says insightful things about the work under consideration that could be true. Several of the other essays here hold similar interest; in "A Hard Rocking Aphorist," Finnish philosopher Jarkko S. Tuusvuori (correctly and perceptively) locates Zevons songs as taxonomically different from those of his admirer Bob Dylan, or those of more "convincingly" poetic writers like Patti Smith and Joni Mitchell, or storytellers like Tom Waits and Bruce Springsteen. The title gives away the game, but the discussion is erudite and fascinating. And James Cartlidge, described in the book as "a post-doctoral researcher in philosophy with a Ph.D. from the Central European University, Vienna" delves deeper into the explicit influence Heidegger may have had on Zevon, noting that the singer- songwriter was familiar with Heideggers "Being and Time," and had given a copy of that book to J.D. Souther as a birthday present. Ones engagement with — and enjoyment of — this book is correlated to ones familiarity with and appreciation of Zevons music. While in recent years hes been a perennial candidate for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, his cause taken up by Facebook groups and social media swashbucklers, in truth were it not for the trio of albums — 2000s "Lifell Kill Ya," 2002s "My Rides Here" and 2003s "The Wind" — he released in the three years before his death at the age of 56, Zevons place in the culture might be settled. He might be widely considered a journeyman who made a flash in the 70s, a onehit wonder, who, if you dig into his catalog, wrote some crafty, hard-boiled songs in the spirit of L.A. noir. He would have been a cult figure. But nobody argues for Michael Franks or Van Dyke Parks or Tonio K. to be in any Hall of Fame. DIED OUT LOUD But that late-career sprint, those albums he made while confronting death, are on par with his best work. Remarkably, the first two, despite their preoccupation with mortality, were made before Zevon received his fatal diagnosis. Work on the third, "The Wind," began weeks after Zevon had been diagnosed with the mesothelioma that killed him. Zevon occupies a peculiar place in our culture because of the extent to which he died out loud, in public, with grim, bittersweet and beautiful humor. You could imagine it a good death. You can call that a brave gesture, and it was — Zevon turned his time of dying into a farewell tour, bearing up with grace and dignity and owning all the pain hed ever caused. But it was also good business, and he enjoyed being a star. That last album got a big budget and famous guest stars. I cant be cynical about it, even though I bet Zevon could. He recorded Bob Dylans "Knockin on Heavens Door" on a whim because hed been to a Dylan show and Dylan had covered a couple of his songs. He told friends he knew the end was near. NOT A DEFINITIVE WORK Its not the definitive book about his work; theres very little in it about the mans musicality, the way he expressed complex and intricate musical ideas in songs that (usually) employed simple chord structures. A classically trained piano prodigy, Zevon brought the hammering authority of a bona fide virtuoso to his three- and four-minute morality plays. Theres not much about what a showman he could be. If you want to know how he lived his life, read the oral history recounted in his ex-wife Crystal Zevons 2007 book "Ill Sleep When Im Dead." If you want a sense of what it was like to hang around him, see George Gruels "Lawyers, Guns & Photos," re-issued as an e-book in 2020. MacKinnon might agree with me that Zevon, with the possible exception of Randy Newman, is the most important singer-songwriter to emerge from Southern California, as important a describer and definer of the Los Angeles ethos as painter Ed Rushca, Charles Bukowski or Raymond Chandler. This is a welcome addition to the conversation about him and his place in our culture.Philip Martin, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Long Description Warren Zevon and Philosophy is a collection of chapters on Zevons life and music, authored by philosophers who are also Zevon fans, providing new and exciting insights into Zevons thinking, his cynical lyrics, and the cruel ironies of his roller-coaster life and career. Since his death in 2003 at the age of fifty-six, Warren Zevons following has grown, and seven books on Zevon have appeared in the last few years, with more in the works. The Zevon legend continues to attract attention both because of the outstanding quality of his best songs and because of the poignant trajectory of his life. According to the novelist Carl Hiaasen, Zevon "left behind a wildly intelligent and captivating body of music." Warren Zevon was an American rocknroll singer-songwriter, born in Chicago, though associated with the music scene in Los Angeles. His early albums, Warren Zevon (1976) and Excitable Boy (1978) attracted a loyal fan following and ecstatic praise from critics. As a special talent to watch, the teenage Zevon was introduced to several notable people, including even Igor Stravinsky. Zevons descent into alcoholism and other addictions, along with his debauchery and erratic behavior, took its toll and his performances suffered, an aspect disturbingly captured in the memoir by his ex-wife Crystal Zevon, Ill Sleep When Im Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon (2008). In the last few years of his life, Zevon rehabilitated somewhat, and his work returned to an impressive level of quality. His remarkable final albums, Lifell Kill Ya (2000), My Rides Here (2002), and The Wind (2003) have made a lasting impact. The last of these was given the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album, while the song "Disorder in the House," performed by Zevon with Bruce Springsteen, won Best Rock Vocal Performance. John MacKinnon teaches philosophy at Saint Marys University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. He has published scholarly articles on aesthetics and philosophy of literature. Details ISBN1637700288 Language English ISBN-10 1637700288 ISBN-13 9781637700280 Format Paperback Pages 280 Year 2023 Imprint Open Universe Publisher Carus Books Country of Publication United States NZ Release Date 2023-08-31 UK Release Date 2023-08-31 Author John E. MacKinnon Edited by John E. MacKinnon Audience General Publication Date 2023-12-21 US Release Date 2023-12-21 Subtitle Beyond Reptile Wisdom AU Release Date 2024-02-13 Illustrations Illustrations We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! 30 DAY RETURN POLICY No questions asked, 30 day returns! FREE DELIVERY No matter where you are in the UK, delivery is free. 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