In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

GRAMOPHONES 113
Lessing, who is committed to the most progressive political agendas and
to the most conservative cultural values, nothing is worse than the noise
of modern life. "I've decided to steal a pocketwatch at some point-with
the hope of being arrested. In prison I will at least have peace from the
rug beating, the piano playing, the car horns, the gramophones, and the
telephones" (Lessing, 401). [see Automobiles, Telephones, Silence vs.
Noise] Those who share Lessing's disgust at the cacophony of modern
life are even more repelled at the way in which "electrically" reproduced
music and mass-produced lyrics are superseding what they consider to
be authentic forms of literature and culture.
Every couple of weeks, someone takes a poll: "Who is the most popular
poet of the year?" The answer to this question is always inadequate.
The poets who are familiar to us shouldn't even be taken into consideration.
Not Rilke or Cisar Flaischlen, not Goethe or Gottfried Benn,
but Fritz Griinbaum ("If You Can't Do It, Let Me Try!"), Schanzer and
Welisch ("If You See My Aunt"), Beda ("Bananas, of All Things!"), Dr.
Robert Katscher ("Madonna, You're Prettier Than the Sunshine")and
who else? Still quite a few, even before Flaischlen, Rilke, and Benn
get on the list. The 222 Latest Hits-that's the most widely read lyric
anthology. Every two months the contents are revised and updated. The
whole thing costs just ten pfennigs. (Siemsen, 256; Kittler, 127)
Why doesn't anybody ever object to classical orchestras or folksongs?
Why is it only the gramophone that provokes such strong emotions and
such endless controversy? The enthusiasm and the irritation which it
generates stem from one and the same cause. Producing human sounds
in the absence of human bodies, the gramophone inspires both the fear
of ghosts and the hope for eternal life.
Related Entries
Automobiles, Bullfighting, Dancing, Gomina, Jazz, Mountaineering,
Murder, Reporters, Telephones, Authenticity vs. Artificiality, Present vs.
Past, Silence vs. Noise, Male = Female (Gender Trouble), Immanence =
Transcendence (Death)