Friday, June 27, 2008

Shut up, Beavis

I realize I still haven't written my Panda Bear Manifesto, but the following clip is an excellent starting point for this blog, as it disrupts expectation through absurdist practice.

Because that's what it's all about: disruption of expectation. Without it, the Panda Bear Poet is a Black Bear Poet at best, and a Sleepy Kitten Poet at worst. You can set up a serious expectation, like a black bear being dangerous, or like Bruce Andrews and his L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E poetry. Likewise, you can set up the expectation of silliness, like a cute sleepy kitten being harmless, or like a bathroom limerick. This is the heart of the Panda Bear Manifesto, which continues the tradition of the pun, of the double-speak, of the Shakespearean fool. More will be said of this eventually, nuncle.

Watch the video below for a Panda Bear-esque response to the L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E poets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viO4VecyJAE

Beavis is an idiot jazzed on caffeine, but all the audience can see is a poet experimenting with sound in a very performative way. For all they know, he could be Bruce Andrews' bastard son. That serious expectation is set, unfortunately, due to the poetry reading atmosphere, and so all of a sudden Beavis becomes an avante-garde poet.

This is not pure Panda Bear, but it is Panda Bear-esque. The difference is that Beavis is not trying to disrupt any expectation--if anything, he is trying to meet it. You can see this especially when he his coffee buzz wears off and he consciously tries to create poetry. He has submitted to the expectation.

While there is no Panda Bear intention on Beavis's part, his avante-garde moments are quite successful in disrupting expectation through humor. This is the most obvious thing that could be said about the clip, so I won't linger on it, but his reading is funny. We know it's terrible, but these guys in the audience, blinded by expectation, assume the performance must be some work of genius. So while Beavis has unintentionally disrupted expectations of poetry for the VIEWER, these two guys are stuck in poetic expectation and are unable to recognize the idiocy at play. They are King Lear and Beavis is the Fool, though lacking the essential self-awareness and intention of the Panda Bear.

I want to close by saying that this is the greatest fictionalized portrayal of a poetry reading I have ever seen. Bravo, Mike Judge.

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