Let's be honest, as far as sentient lifeforms go, human beings are the worst of the lot. And I don't mean this in the strictly moral sense, although, if we were to look into the furthest depths of our souls, we would all find ourselves on the hit list of the US army.
Take our physique for example -- lanky bones, flabby tissues. If we were put in front of animals even half our size, we would be mince-meat before we could say anything.
The only reason humans have ascended to the top of the food-chain -- as per scientific consensus -- is our ability to utilize language. The fat, wrinkled mess buried deep within our cranium definitely helps, but without language, we would have never gotten to where we are today.
Language provides us with the necessary tools to observe and attempt to understand the natural universe through giving it an observable, tangible form -- a written record we can keep revisiting. Even when we can't understand something, we can at least make a recording for future generations -- maybe they can excel where we have failed, or at least can know what the hell they are dealing with instead of starting from scratch.
This is where art comes in.
While popular consensus suggests that art is simply entertainment and science is by nature serious, the distinction between the two isn't always so apparent. In actuality, art is just another method through which humans express themselves -- a record of the natural world as much as science is. This is a form of expression that can very much operate within the bleeding edge of the unknown, just as science can deal with fun and vice versa.
Furthermore, an argument can be made that art deals with subjects far more important than science -- as science generally deals with how things operate in a vacuum, whereas art deals with why things are to begin with.
Similarly, sometimes the end result of art is far more important than the byproduct of science. A good example of this would be the effects of The Magic Mountain pitted against the radioactive afterimage left behind by the Manhattan project.
As such, art has and always will be an integral aspect of the human condition. In keeping with this hypothesis, art has been ubiquitous throughout human history, and throughout the ages, it has taken on different shapes and forms.
Art has been popular in the forms of books, music, paintings, etc -- containing vastly different styles and extremely divergent content according to the temperament and social conditions of the epoch in which it operated. Taking this argument at face value, what styles might be dominant given the prevalent conditions of the 21st century, one might ask? To answer that, we first need to quantify the prevalent conditions of the 21st century, and what makes it tick.
Let me illustrate.
It's 12:36 AM on a weeknight. You need to prepare this report by sunrise. You also have to get enough sleep to appear fresh and presentable for a meeting the next day, also by sunrise. You can barely afford rent; your personal life is non-existent. As for that shiny gaming console that you are saving up to buy, well, the last time you bought something, you sold it within six months due to a lack of usage.
What do you do in a situation like this? Simple. You light up a cigarette, put on some show, and masturbate to some deranged videos you found on the internet. By the time you are done with work and decompressed, it's four in the morning. You dread the coming sunlight as you go to sleep, and you end up staying awake, glancing at your phone every 10 minutes.
As dawn cracks, you get up, brush your teeth, splash some water in your face. You put on a tie resembling the collar they put on slaves, down a couple of red bulls, and get on the bus.
You think about quitting then and there but decide against it, as the alternative would be much worse. You power through the day, trying to be thankful that you at least have a roof over your head. After that you go home, try to get some rest, get a call from work that there is some last-minute work, and laugh as you do it all over again.
It's the Superunknown, alright: Driving down a dark, endless highway -- with blood, tears, and cocaine streaming down your face.
You have no idea where you are going. You have no idea who put you behind the wheels in the first place. All you know is that you need to keep on moving, because deep down, the alternative is still worse.
Or is it?
This is life in the 21st century -- a forced journey to the end of the night. And if the art that springs out of such inadequacy doesn't properly reflect the drudgery of the gutter, well, that art can go off itself.
Enter: Modern music, more specifically -- Sex, Drugs, and Rock n Roll.
To be clear, Rock n Roll wasn't always at the center of the gutter. Founded in the 50s with a foundation formed on the backs of blues, R&B, jazz, and soul -- Rock n Roll started out relatively tame. Beginning with almost the childish love songs of Elvis to the more juvenile hard rock of Zeppelin, it wasn't until formation of masters such as Joy Division that rock mustered up the courage to take it to the trenches.
Furthermore, this isn't a fight exclusive to Rock n Roll. Continental literature -- which had at a point pioneered the very essence of humanistic idiocy -- had already purged itself of such sentiments, following which it was trying to rebuild in a post-apocalyptic world in the 40s. That one line by Celine in which he compares men to chicken innards alone slaps harder than most of what one hears on contemporary radio.
Still, Rock N Roll started maturing into adulthood in the 60s and 70s, and considering, currently, it's the month of April, let's narrow our focus on one of the more bountiful epochs in the history of Rock N Roll. Let's hear from our dear, departed friends from Seattle.
With foundations traced back to the abrasive, socially-conscious composition of punk rock, alongside an appropriation of its DIY aesthetics, grunge was initially deployed as a marketing tactic for the grinding, groaning, and sludgy music coming out of Seattle. Like all great inventions, the sound itself was an accident, a byproduct of the circumstances surrounding the bands that pioneered this genre.
It was, and still is, extremely difficult, time consuming, and costly to get a record to sound as clean and polished as it can be, which meant bands with hunger in their stomachs and holes in their underwear had to make do with just putting stuff out, while discarding some of the more traditional production practices that makes a record sound polished.
In doing so, however, they had stumbled upon their own version of the holy grail.
In a way, grunge exemplified the primordial scream of life, resembling the sound of an infant's cry reverberating through the steel corridors of a nameless, faceless factory-- the end goal being growth for the sake of growth.
In sonic terms, it is what Artcell wishes they could sound like. However, aside from trading on its constructed image of being underdogs who are taking on the world, saying that Artcell has achieved anything even close to the supersonic genius of releases such as In Utero or Superunknown is as blasphemous as claims that Tahsan has talent.
Don't get me wrong, being juvenile has its place. It is an important rite of passage for any freshman to lose themselves to the decadence of sex and partying upon figuring out that they have been the victim of the biggest con in the world. I myself have some fond -- alongside the unlikable and the vicious -- memories of those early years where I did everything in my power to disregard the passage of time.
Unfortunately, only the dead stay 17 forever. The burden of consciousness dictates that living is a process of accumulation, where the bad outweighs the good in most cases. To get back to the intro of this long-winded ordeal, there is a direct correlation between art and the unique ability of language to record what it doesn't understand. And now that we are examining the dirt of life, it is only natural that our heightened sense of awareness would make at least an attempt to record it, since it can't do anything about it that will make a difference.
This is clearly prevalent in the sonic and lyrical composition of grunge anthems. For example, you have Polly by Nirvana -- on the surface, an innocent song describing the antiques of a pet bird named Polly -- which actually describes the abduction and subsequent rape of a 14-year-old in Tacoma, Washington, circa 87, sung using a nonchalant, clinical, disturbingly deadpan melody.
Then you have Man in the Box by Alice in Chains, a poster child of the primordial, guttural scream all of us harbour inside the darkest depths of our hearts. Then, you have Fell on Black Days by Soundgarden, and frankly, if you have never had days when the bile in your mouth keeps you from seeing, when each step feels like losing yourself to quicksand, and the blinding of the sun feels like the visual confirmation of nuclear holocaust, then frankly, this article is not for you.
However, this style, like all styles, came with its limitations. As the grammar of grunge was pretty much set in stone since the early 90s, there wasn't a lot of maneuverability besides screaming your god is dead and no one cares. Furthermore, given that human awareness doesn't have an infinite subject matter to work with, you can only talk about the same thing in so many different ways.
Going back to continental literature, this is an issue that greats like Celine and Camus have struggled with. Indeed, aside from making continuous progress, the totality of human knowledge has definitely been operating according to the principles of diminishing returns. So, what could have been done? For that, let us turn to another good friend of ours, Mr Ryunosuke Akutagawa.
Active in the Taisho period as one of the frontrunners of modernism, Akutagawa has left behind a body of work -- primarily consisting of short stories -- that writers living even now would be extremely fortunate to match. From the frontal assault on the very concept of truth within In The Grove to the exposure of decay inherent in the human condition in Roshomon, Akutagawa is a living embodiment of the ubermensch, the foolish explorer that stares into the deepest abyss.
But what happens when you have retrieved such information? What happens after the abyss has inevitably stared back? Well, the answer can be found in a little-known short story of his called Hell Screen.
Hell Screen follows the life and death of the artist known as Yoshihide. Displaying an abnormal dedication to his craft, there is no length that Yoshihide wouldn't traverse, no sin he wouldn't commit if it meant the authentic portrayal of reality through his art.
This is exemplified by an incident in the short story when Yoshihide is tasked with creating a folding screen depicting the Buddhist hell, and binds one of his apprentices in chains to capture an accurate portrayal of human ffering. One thing leads to another, and when the apprentice is screaming for his life as a carnivorous bird attempts to gouge his eyes out, Yoshihide simply stares with a sinister glare in his eyes.
Now, while it seemed like Yoshihide had everything he needed for the construction of his magnum opus, there was one thing he was missing. You see, he needed to see a young, beautiful maiden be burnt alive in order to depict the horrors that can be found in the depths of darkness. Coincidentally, the fact that he went to his benefactor, the emperor, worked out in favour of the ruling tyrant.
You see, Yoshihide's daughter -- the only person Yoshihide ever cared about -- had been employed by the emperor as a lady in waiting, and due to the lustful tendencies ubiquitous with emperors, one night, the lord and saviour of the land attempts to rape her. Through a twist of fate, the attempt fails, and rumours soon begin to spread. With Yoshihide's request, however, the emperor is handed an ace by the heavens themselves to tie up such a scandalous loose end.
The burning is held in an abandoned mansion away from the capital. There is a formidable military attachment with the emperor's entourage, and unfortunately, Yoshihide has no idea what is about to hit him. At first, everything seems to be going well, until, of course, the carriage containing Yoshihide's daughter is set ablaze and her screams reverberate throughout the night.
Yoshihide, responding to her cries, attempts to make a beeline straight towards her. Unfortunately, he is stopped by the emperor's soldiers, a scene marked with the blood curling laugh of the lord and saviour in the background.
In the end, Yoshihide stares at the burning carriage with an intense, focused, almost inhumane look on his face. Afterwards, he locks himself up to finish his magnum opus, and takes his life soon after. The folding screen itself however, was claimed as the crowning achievement of the emperor. To this day, artifacts like this are considered as one of the most enduring legacies of human endeavour.
Now, I know what you are thinking. Surely, that can't be it, right? The whole business reeks of such anti-climax. Surely there is an answer beyond this black sludge of fossilized cruelty. Surely, there is more to life, a way to go back to the innocence of Eden.
Maybe, maybe not.
One can certainly hope for there to be something else, as the human condition comes with the condemnation of being left to our own devices. One thing for sure though, is that if there is light at the end of the tunnel, that if there is a god -- for instance, we can never find out until we're already at the pearly gates.
So yes, that is the final solution of all art, the dilapidated lighthouse at the end of the forest. This is all there is, and this is all there ever will be. It's up to you to deal with it.
Coming back to the butchers of grunge, unfortunately eal with it they did. On April 5, 1994, Kurt Cobain died in the garage of his home, after he had escaped from an institution specializing in detox programs and had been declared missing. With veins full of heroin and a gaping hole in his cranium, he left the world with his final, poetic appropriation: “It's better to burn out than to fade away.”
Then, on April 5, 2002, history repeated itself. Layne Staley's decaying, decomposed body was found two weeks later, following the discovery that he'd been MIA. Autopsy revealed that he had died due to an overdose of Speedball, a natural conclusion -- sadly -- to the hermetic life Layne had been leading ever since 98. His final words were to friend, fellow band member, and brother in arm Mike Starr in which he cried: “Not like this, don't leave like this.”
Never the one to leave a man behind, Mike Starr responded in 2011 -- using the lethal crutch of prescription drugs.
Now, if you have made it this far, you might be wondering what the point of all this is? You might be thinking, “What the hell man? We didn't sign up for this. All we want are simple reflections on peace and love, made in a sexy way that ain't bvious”
I would reply, “That is specifically the point, you dimwits!”
That's what life is. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. There is no answer that suddenly makes everything all sunshine and rainbows. There is no fulfilment, nor closure, nor any of that BS that we are drip fed as infants.
To quote the genius that is the character Rustin Cohle: “We all got what I call a life trap, this gene-deep certainty that things will be different, that you'll move to another city and meet the people that'll be the friends for the rest of your life, that you'll fall in love and be fulfilled. F*****g fulfillment and closure, whatever the f*** those two… F*****g empty jars to hold this s***storm, and nothing is ever fulfilled until the very end, and closure… No. No, no. Nothing is ever over.”
I mean, do you have any idea how many people kill themselves annually? Do you know the annual suicide rate in Bangladesh alone? It hasn't even been a week or two since some kid offed himself in JU, and all that remains from that episode are book sellers advertising the text he quoted in his final communique. For all our civility and advancement and God knows what else, as soon as someone dies, all we can do is sell some books. What the f*** is up with that?
Still, in a weird way, it all ties together. In its own messed-up way, life does make sense. I started out by saying that us human beings are the worst of the lot. I mean it man, we really got the short end of the stick, for the very thing that has led to our triumph is reason enough for our demise.
What has awareness done for us anyway? Come morning, we're going to wake up from our individual nights of dread, working to make some jerk rich as he sips away at his pina colada under the Tuscan sun. I have been spending nights trying to spill out what is inside of me in order to make sense of my lot. And while it works for a while, it's just an illusion.
As time passes on, inscribing ink on paper gets all the more difficult. But I know that even as things get worse, to the point where the very existence of the going can be put under suspicion, I'll trudge on. Because that is what I do, and unfortunately, I have nothing better to do. We are all stuck with a hand that will always end in obliteration. Then again, when you are stuck in a casino, what else can you do?
On second thought, maybe I am blowing things out of proportion. I certainly haven't been getting any sleep lately, and juggling a white-collar career by day and moonlighting as a writer by night isn't easy.
Maybe, what I need to do is to give in. Maybe Zeppelin had the right idea when they stuck to love, lust, and partying to the point of brain death. Maybe those yuppies have it right in submerging the better part of their consciousness to run on autopilot, running on coke and LSD. I mean, did you know that the average salaryman has less leisure than medieval peasants, that 80% of our lives will be crushed under this machine, this machine that is bleeding to death?
Yeah, looking at it this way, I've certainly had a long day, a long life even, I think.
So I went to the doctor's, and here's what he's told me to do:
“You light up a cigarette, put on some show, and masturbate to some deranged videos you found on the internet. By the time you are done with work and decompressed, it's 4 in the morning. You dread the coming sunlight as you go to sleep, and you end up staying awake by glancing at your phone every 10 minutes. As dawn cracks, you get up, brush your teeth, splash some water in your face. You put on a tie resembling the collar they used to put on slaves, down a couple of red bulls, and get on the bus. You think about quitting then and there but decide against it, as the alternative would be much worse. You power through the day, trying to be thankful that you at least have a roof over your head. After that you go home, try to get some rest, get a call from work that there is some last-minute work, and sigh as you do it all over again. Do this five times a week for the next 70 years and you'll be better in no time.”
“So you want me to repeat things when they don't make sense? Isn't that the literal definition of insanity? And 70 years? Won't I be dead by then?”
“Nonsense. Kids these days and your imagination. Things were so much better back in our days, I tell you. Now, if you could just give me your credit card information…”
*
Ultimately, it's just life. It doesn't matter what path you take. It doesn't matter how hard you try to solve the undecipherable. So light up a cigarette, and who knows, in 70 years, we might be roommates in a hospital, or if fate would deem it necessary, bunkmates in an asylum.
But I heard DMT is a good cure. No harm in trying, right?
It's just life.
Out of the blue, into the black.
Nafis Shahriar is a member of the Editorial and Op-Ed department at the Dhaka Tribune.
