by Ian SPIRIDIGLIOZZI

In lieu of Ash­lee Simp­son’s lip-sync­ing, ob­vi­ous­ly an homage to the late and not so un-great Mil­li Vanil­li, I have be­gun to re­con­sid­er the virtues of air-guitar.

Air-gui­tar is a lost art-form. In some ways, so much more punk rock than the silli­ness we know as the cur­rent punk rock ethos. Not on­ly do they not re­al­ly know how to play in­stru­ments (we sup­pose) but they are al­so crass enough to pre­tend that they are cre­at­ing said mu­sic for an au­di­ence. Air-gui­tar is so strange, in that it is po­ten­tial­ly an in­di­vid­ual act, which would mean that air gui­tarists play the role of the mu­si­cian, but that they can al­so recre­ate the im­age of a rock god for their own au­di­ence. Here the sub­ver­sive pow­ers of air-gui­tar makes it­self known: Air-gui­tar has its roots in magic.

Damn right!

At first, I had my doubts, but I did some re­search and dis­cov­ered a cou­ple of in­ter­est­ing, ir­refutable facts.

Propo­si­tion 1: A world with­out mag­ic would be bor­ing as all hell.

No ‘Mon­key’s Paw’; no witch­es; no war­locks; no Like Wa­ter for Choco­late; Gan­dalf cer­tain­ly would­n’t be yelling “You can­not pass”; and Har­ry Pot­ter would just re­main a hor­ri­bly abused or­phan. With­out mag­ic, you could nev­er tru­ly know the beau­ty of The Princess Bride, most of which is ac­tu­al­ly imag­in­ing Pe­ter Falk as your grandfather.

Propo­si­tion 2: Mon­sters do not nec­es­sar­i­ly en­tail magic.

Fly­ing mon­keys ARE mag­i­cal, yes. Godzil­la, how­ev­er, is a sci­en­tif­ic cat­a­stro­phe. The de­bate here is still open. Al­though if there were a world with­out mag­ic, we would be wag­ing geno­ci­dal war­fare on pix­ies, sprites, and faeries.

Propo­si­tion 3: Fate could not ex­ist in a mag­ic-less world.

This means that a mag­ic-less world is just a bor­ing and frus­trat­ing re­al­i­ty, and mag­ic iden­ti­fies ob­sta­cles, lim­i­ta­tions, and fears. Mag­ic is a tool of cre­ativ­i­ty, tran­scen­dence, and em­pow­er­ment, it ad­di­tion­al­ly lends strength to that crazy idea that we might have mean­ing­ful lives.

There­fore: Air-gui­tar has now re­placed mag­ic’s once cov­et­ed po­si­tion in West­ern culture.

Air-gui­tar makes life less bor­ing. It makes us feel like we’re frickin’ mir­a­cle work­ers, and it’s flashy and as en­ter­tain­ing as all get-out. Air-gui­tar, much like mag­ic, does not make sense! It is all in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to our ex­is­tence, de­mand­ing that the im­pos­si­ble be ac­knowl­edged as pos­si­ble in our re­al­i­ty. It puts its au­di­ence in­to a world of cre­at­ed pur­pose, much like a mag­i­cal realm, where “mon­sters of rock” are cre­at­ed and wor­shiped, where he­roes are en­chant­i­ng and empowered.

Break­out your Ae­oliean Stra­to­cast­ers, Tele­cast­ers, Hon­dos, and go forth to re­claim re­al­i­ty! Life as you know it is mean­ing­less with­out the splen­dors, the whim­sy, and the sheer mag­ni­tude and beau­ty of it! Drop on your backs and kick up your legs,- hold that pick just right! Slam your arm in cir­cles and ges­ture up and down the frets, like an epilep­tic on speed! Get drunk­en pals to head-bang to­geth­er, and ex­change know­ing nods! You ARE Ratatat! You are Dri­ve Like Je­hu, and your broth­ers and sis­ters are Son­ic Youth, Robert Smith, and you march tonight, to­geth­er; BRETHREN, to the streets!

Filed under Commentary on March 17th, 2005

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