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Life is a cabaret

14 comments on Life is a cabaret

Life is a cabaret
: Ute Lemper (who’s in my eclectic music collection, next to Outkast) says in her cabaret act in New York, according to the NY Times review:

Early in the show Ms. Lemper recalled that outspoken political satire was a fundamental ingredient of German cabaret during the Weimar era. And throughout the program she compared that period and its “divine decadence” (to quote Sally Bowles) to today, with its discordant mixture of post-9/11 anxieties and brazen greed and titillation.

Do we buy that?

14 responses to “Life is a cabaret”

  1. Dean Avatar
    Dean

    Jeff Jarvis:
    It would appear that the very fact that you would question whether today is similar to Weimar Germany means you’re not a liberal.
    Fie and pshaw!

  2. Royce Avatar
    Royce

    Hey, I thought we were already into the “43rd Reich”. I guess just being compared to the Weimar is good in comparison.
    Come on… this is a facile observation by a lounge singer.
    Ute is decidedly NOT a camera.

  3. Frankenstein Avatar
    Frankenstein

    Well, we’ve got titillation, what with debutants making pornographic videos (and a eager audience for the end product), and we’ve got greed (c.f. Enron, Martha, Parmalat, Tyco, not to mention two giant tax cuts that reduced the tax load of the top 5% of earners by $91 billion).
    I wouldn’t think that we’re as decadent as the Weimar Republic, though I suspect that citizens of the Weimar didn’t think they were that decadent either.

  4. Twn Avatar
    Twn

    If anything, the nation’s more sober-sided. Pre – 9/11, it would still be non-stop “Jacko the Pederast” and “Britney Married”!!
    But I really like the name “Ute”.

  5. Dean Avatar
    Dean

    Uh, Dok-tor Frankensteeen:
    Parmalat is an Italian company.

  6. Lileks Avatar
    Lileks

    We’ve got greed now? When did that start?

  7. Frankenstein Avatar
    Frankenstein

    Uh, Doktor Dean — perhaps I’m suggesting that the culture of greed is not just an American phenomenom?

  8. Vexorg Avatar
    Vexorg

    Well, I’m still stuck at “delusions of grandeur” at this point… I think it’ll be a while before I’ll be able to manage much in the way of greed.

  9. Dean Avatar
    Dean

    Dok-tor Frankensteeen (I assume you get the reference—“Young Frankenstein”),
    Then perhaps your selection of examples could have been a bit more wide-ranging. Inclusion of EU Parliamentarians and commission members guilty of massive embezzlement, frex.
    Also, your use of the term “we” as in “we’re not as decadent” suggested a reference to the US, rather than a larger existential cri de coeur.
    Finally, unless I’m mistaken, Ms. Lemper’s criticism was of the US.

  10. Homer Robinson Avatar
    Homer Robinson

    Before I make a judgement on this matter, I have one(and only one) question.Is she good looking?

  11. Frankenstein Avatar
    Frankenstein

    I’m just pointing out evidence that would support Ute’s theory, and suggesting that perhaps those parallels are there. You would expect footnotes and cites?
    In any event, your assumption that I was speaking of America exclusively perhaps says more about your viewpoint than it does about mine.

  12. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    She’s good looking and talented. But her politics are wonky. She’s a self-hating German (no one say that’s understandable plz) and a real ranter on various subjects but she’s so off the wall it would be hard to typecast her.

  13. Doctor Slack Avatar
    Doctor Slack

    FWIW, Ute is not the first to bring up such a comparison. Marilyn Manson, oddly enough, is in there with The Golden Age of Grotesque, often credited as a tribute to the Berlin cabaret.
    In a general sense, once you get past this-nation-vs-that-nation politics, it’s hard to argue with what there is of the analysis. Contemporary Western pop is as aggressively disconnected from its political context as you can get, and that’s definitely reminiscient of early 20C Berlin cabaret.

  14. Brian D. Johnson Avatar
    Brian D. Johnson

    Yes. Well. Back to the original post then, I do indeed buy it. We’re watching the flotsom of greed and decadence and tittilation swarm around us as if locusts of this post, post modern Third Millennium nadir of despair that turns the crank on the consumption machine one more time with feeling. Today, will Paris Hilton kiss another boy, or a girl, this time, in Arkansas? And, will someone be asked to bend over for Donald Trump on NBC? Or is that cable?
    I can’t keep it all straight, so do be so kind to mix up another absinthe, darling. The song of the Green Fairy beckons and I must escape where all is not well.
    For more, please see:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/11/magazine/11QUESTIONS.html
    and …
    http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F5071EF73B5A0C778CDDA80894DC404482
    Thanks. I’ve got to go.