The Valve - A Literary Organ | Ladies and gentleman, Elvis has left the Bildung. Thank you, and good night.

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Sunday, November 26, 2006

Ladies and gentleman, Elvis has left the Bildung. Thank you, and good night.

Posted by John Holbo on 11/26/06 at 04:10 AM

My daughter, Zoë, can imitate Elvis (badly). But only because she has learned to imitate me, imiitating Uncle Giz, who is an avuncular Elvis-oid boon companion to the protagonist of Rolie Polie Olie. Today she saw someone in a big foamy star suit, on Barney, singing “Twinkle, twinkle” in an Elvis voice, doing Elvis-style air guitar. She said: he’s imitating Uncle Giz.

It’s an interesting phenomenon. The imitation that has lost its origin in the imagination of the audience, raised on the imitation. Obviously we’ve all gone through this, watching those Looney Tunes cartoons we grew up on, not having any idea who the hell Peter Lorre was, enjoying watching Bugs get the better of him.

But obviously I just wanted to use that title. (Dark horse contender in Adam’s good/bad title contest. Also, I’m still stung from Ben W. coming up with that perfect future/future perfect thing that was staring me in the face.)

Comments

On the specific business of Elvis impersonators, there’s this comment of mine in which I explain how I came to respect that particular craft—search for “mockworthiness.” On your more general point, I’d imagine somewhere around there’s an argument that that’s one of the processes through which legends and culture heros are born.

You might want to take a look at When They Severed Earth From Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth (Princeton 2004), by Elizabeth and Paul Barber. In case after case the Barbers argue that this or that mythic event—epic battles between gods and demons and such are prominent among their examples—encodes natural events and phenomena—e.g. a major earthquake or volcano erruption—is personified story form. In the process the provide a bunch of prinpciples though which, they claim, the human mind works its transformations on natural events. These principles are gathered together into an appendix at the end of the book, which groups them into six major categories. I’m not sure how much of this I believe, but I’m sure I don’t disbelieve all of it. It’s worth thinking about.

By Bill Benzon on 11/27/06 at 05:58 AM | Permanent link to this comment

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Sunday, November 26, 2006

Ladies and gentleman, Elvis has left the Bildung. Thank you, and good night.

Comments

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