THE CONDITION
OF MUZAK
W
alter Pater wrote in 1886 that “all
art constantly aspires to the
condition of music”. What if it isn’t just
art, but our lives as well? It’s an
interesting analogy, even if it is nothing
like what Pater meant when he wrote
about Renaissance painting.
Let’s consider our lives as being
determined by three aspects, like a
musical performance: the instrument is
the world you were born into; the
musical notation is your personal talents
and limitations; and the measure of the
music (as in, say, allegro ma non troppo)
is the full set of cultural instructions and
expectations which are meant to control
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happens in your life in these terms. You
(the musician) try to make the most of
the world (your instrument) in which
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notation) while going by the rules (the
measure) that society issues. The trouble
is that if you do that in our time, what
you are more likely to be aspiring to is
the condition of muzak, not music.
Work, consume and die – and
conform while you’re doing so.
Be alert but not alarmed.
Allegro ma non troppo.
But there is a kind of music
that exists without measure.
Unmeasured preludes for
harpsichord started
appearing as long ago as
1650, and Louis
Couperin is usually
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composer to write
them. You still
have an
instrument, of
course, and you still get
the notes, but how you
play them – how long
you hold them, and at
what speed they follow each
other – is up to you.
(THANKS, MICHAEL MOORCOCK)
Let me suggest to you that unmeasured
preludes for our lives are becoming more
and more important in our excessively
conformist and somewhat sad world as it
spirals ever deeper into the beige. And of
course (you knew this was coming, didn’t
you?) motorcycling is an important part
of the unmeasured preludes of our lives.
Some time ago there was a whiny
diatribe about the risks of motorcycling
in the “Heckler” column of the Sydney
Morning Herald. It expressed the
opinions of much of the general public
very well; they don’t like us and are too
intimidated to take chances themselves
and cannot understand those who do.
This is the dominant paradigm; we are
surrounded by lives that are constantly
aspiring to the condition of muzak.
But are we risk-takers dismayed?
Well yes, we are a bit actually.
It wouldn’t matter if the serial cardigans
(thank you for that expression, Brother
Boris) of the bureaucracy would just
stick to worrying about their own lives;
their own calm, sedate and repetitive
tunes. But they won’t. Spurred on by
shrunken souls like the SMH heckler,
they intrude on our wild songs.
Be afraid. The hobbling
bourgeoisie and the bought-off
workers are giving the bureaucrats
more and more power. Power
to run your and my life for
us. Isn’t it odd that this
should be happening in a
country that prides itself
on being free? Free?
Look at the British.
They blow up speed
cameras and get them, or
what’s left of them,
removed. Look at the
Americans. They don’t
even allow speed cameras
to be installed because they
are against their Bill of
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and as a result they are free.We, on the other hand, don’t and
aren’t. We whinge for a while, playing
the role of victim, and then give in.
We don’t even remember how we
have been insulted and enslaved when
it comes to election time, and we put
the same people who have shafted us
back into power.
Resist. Challenge and defeat the
dominant paradigm. Attacks on our
chosen recreation are nothing less
than attacks on freedom itself.
Yes, all right, I know that all sounds
a bit dramatic. But... do you want to
look back at some time in your dotage
at a world so sanitised that it’s barely
worth living in and think, “if only
we’d made a stand then, this would
not have happened”?
The British and the Americans
don’t have to say that, because they
stood up to the overbearing
authorities at the time.
How does that old saw about
resistance go? “They came for the
smokers but I did not stand up for
them because I had been told that
their behaviour was bad for everyone
around. They came for the drinkers
and I did not stand up for them
because I had been convinced that
drink did nothing but create danger
on the roads, and wife beaters.
So when they came for us
motorcyclists, there was no one
left to stand up for us.”
Stand up now. Join an activist
motorcycle club, or even more
importantly write to your State and
Federal MPs and the Senators.
Defend yourselves, or die in the
trenches to the sounds of muzak. Oh,
and you might be interested to know
that even the company that owns the
name “Muzak” has dumped it because
it did not have “the connotation that
suggested that we have come a long
way”. Even Muzak despises muzak.
Peter “The Bear” ThoemingBEARFACED