I just finished reading the Millennium Trilogy.<\/p>\n
It wasn’t easy.\u00c2\u00a0 Richard Griffiths had to send me the "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest"<\/a> from the U.K.\u00c2\u00a0 It was six hundred pages long.\u00c2\u00a0 But I savored every line.\u00c2\u00a0 As I was introduced to a new world that was eerily similar to my own.\u00c2\u00a0 Because, as Depeche Mode once sang, people are people.<\/p>\n Mikael Blomkvist is all about the work.\u00c2\u00a0 He may get laid in the midst of his passion, but romance will not get in the way of his pursuit.\u00c2\u00a0 For truth, justice and what we used to call the "American Way".\u00c2\u00a0 Something Tea Partiers have bastardized to the point where socialistic Sweden is closer to what we used to be than their vision for the future.\u00c2\u00a0 One in which we live in a society where everyone is included and the government makes sure no individual gets an unfair advantage.<\/p>\n Lisbeth Salander is an outcast, an outsider.\u00c2\u00a0 No different from the pierced, tattooed denizens making up the audience at a punk show.\u00c2\u00a0 Desirous of playing it their way, skeptical of anyone who wants them to conform, who wants them to play by their rules.<\/p>\n Well, this was before today’s punks went home after the show and wrote software to become rich and famous on their laptops.\u00c2\u00a0 Actually, Salander does become rich utilizing her computer skills. But fame?\u00c2\u00a0 No, she’s lurking behind the scenes, like a real artist.<\/p>\n A real artist doesn’t do it for public adulation.\u00c2\u00a0 If the unwashed masses love you, then what you’re doing can’t be too good, can’t be very edgy, can’t be testing too many limits.\u00c2\u00a0 Great art makes people uncomfortable, yet ultimately draws them in.\u00c2\u00a0 The Beatles were laughed at in America, they sounded nothing like Elvis or the Four Seasons.\u00c2\u00a0 Then, suddenly, seemingly overnight, people threw off their mental constructs and embraced the four lads from Liverpool.\u00c2\u00a0 They were born to follow…young men who were not restricted by convention.\u00c2\u00a0 John Lennon was chastised by oldsters for stating the obvious, that the band was bigger than Jesus.\u00c2\u00a0 Isn’t it interesting that we remember him and his work yet not his detractors…<\/p>\n Stieg Larsson, author of the Millennium Trilogy, died before its publication.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you get that?\u00c2\u00a0 He wrote three books alone at night, not wondering all the while why he didn’t have more Facebook friends or Twitter followers.\u00c2\u00a0 He wasn’t checking his bank account, he was following his passion. The passion of people who call themselves artists today is too often for riches and fame, not utmost personal expression.\u00c2\u00a0 An artist does it for the work, too many of today’s "stars" do it for the aftereffects of the work.<\/p>\n In today’s L.A. "Times" there’s a story about the infiltration of corporations in music.\u00c2\u00a0 If you think this is the future, you’re probably sucking at the tit.\u00c2\u00a0 You too, want to get paid.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what’s wrong with too many agents, too many middlemen brokering corporate deals, they say they’re about the music, but really, they’re about the money.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you really want to trust these people?<\/p>\n Who do you want to trust?<\/p>\n Lennon said he could only believe in Yoko and himself.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the essence of an artist.\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t believe in the label or the promoter.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re necessary evils.\u00c2\u00a0 But their interests are not aligned.\u00c2\u00a0 You are the creator, they are the exploiter.\u00c2\u00a0 So you end up with Clive Davis telling you how you should make your music to please him.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s like having Mickey Rourke over your shoulder telling you how to screw.<\/p>\n Maybe you don’t get that reference.\u00c2\u00a0 How Mr. Rourke supposedly had fourteen women in one night.\u00c2\u00a0 It was all over the Web last week.\u00c2\u00a0 Just like GaGa shopping in that ridiculous outfit.\u00c2\u00a0 And the exploits and meanderings of too many little-talented but ultra-famous.<\/p>\n And then we’ve got the OK Go Rube Goldberg video.\u00c2\u00a0 An incredible achievement sponsored by State Farm Insurance.\u00c2\u00a0 Is this a victory or a loss?<\/p>\n In the world of music, it’s a loss.\u00c2\u00a0 Because if the underlying song, whose name escapes me, was that good, we’d already know it, and certainly remember it after seeing the clip.\u00c2\u00a0 Unfortunately, the clip was more creative than the music.\u00c2\u00a0 Damian Kulash’s expertise seems to be as a performance artist more than a musician.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s fine, but what about the music?<\/p>\n And there was some more hype about Phoenix in today’s "New York Times".\u00c2\u00a0 But at least the music led the way there.\u00c2\u00a0 SNL wanted the band because it heard the new record, not because Procter & Gamble threw its weight behind the foursome.<\/p>\n It’s hard to put an ad in a book.<\/p>\n No, let’s restate that.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn’t work too well.\u00c2\u00a0 Or, most companies won’t pony up, unless the author is already ubiquitous, and then the company’s money isn’t needed.\u00c2\u00a0 The book stands alone.\u00c2\u00a0 What makes the Millennium Trilogy work is the work itself.\u00c2\u00a0 The writing.<\/p>\n Stieg Larsson sketched out a landscape of events, with assorted characters and motivations. Unlike "Avatar", the key wasn’t the surface, but what was underneath.\u00c2\u00a0 Today mainstream art is about the sheen.\u00c2\u00a0 But it used to be different.\u00c2\u00a0 Used to be art was edgy and oftentimes ugly.\u00c2\u00a0 And the conflagration surrounding it brought the mainstream to it.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s quite a difference.\u00c2\u00a0 One is made for a market, the other creates a market.<\/p>\n Used to be it was almost impossible to get attention.\u00c2\u00a0 When Andy Warhol uttered the famous aphorism, the average punter could not get on TV, not even in the newspaper.\u00c2\u00a0 But now people put themselves and their wares up on MySpace and YouTube and expect endless attention and adulation.\u00c2\u00a0 When most of us shrug.\u00c2\u00a0 Because there’s no reason to pay attention.\u00c2\u00a0 Unless you’re Tila Tequila showing us your boobs and alternately claiming pregnancy and miscarriage<\/p>\n