I’m in between errands as usual but I wanted to quickly post (or re-post) this entry which originally appeared on my Facebook wall a few hours ago, because I don’t want to forget.

In any case, it has to do with how on late night tv last night, I saw the new Levis commercial appropriating two Walt Whitman poems (“America” and “O Pioneers”).

Though the cinematography might be engaging, I wonder what those images really have to do with the sentiments and ideas in the poem; I thought that here was, once again, a fine example of poetry (or the arts) valued only if it can be manipulated in service of the capitalist machine.

While some argue that I should be cheering that poetry is getting popularized in this manner, and while I agree that it would be wonderful to see more poetry in all aspects of our daily lives– Whitman on the bus, Emerson tweeting at me from my cellphone, Emma Lazarus in my dim sum fortune cookie– I’m still bothered by this commercial. Especially since it is sponsored by such an “industry giant” aka an entity that has the big bucks to make a dent– and yet in the end it’s gone with images which at best glibly communicate/translate those ringing idea(l)s in the poem.

Sure, the images of young firebrands jumping and running through green forests and fields, kissing passionately as they seize the moment, streaking down an unidentified riverfront bearing a flaming branch, are rousing and pulse-quickening. But, I don’t know– having so much collective suffering in the news lately (floods, tsunamis, earthquakes, not to mention those good old standbys, poverty, racism, unemployment, war) makes me catch my breath at the… how shall I put it? … impertinence of the ad as in the final shot our young and brave and daring youth dash off into the horizon, bearing that “Go Forth” banner which barely covers their naked bums.

It's hard to be sure if Whitman actually wrote his poetry as a means to sell jeans.

I’ve been reading so many stories over the last two weeks, of young people doing good and even heroic things from the ground up, in the face of and despite the apparent obstacles presented by that lethal combination of natural calamities and disasters coupled with bureaucratic roadblocks.

A 21-year-old girl sourced 45,000 toothbrushes to donate to flood victims, unpacked and reloaded a bus full of clothing for redistribution, started a soup kitchen, and got other volunteers together, all in one day. We hear of similar feats taken up by the young in the midst of the horrors of our own hurricane Katrina stories, in the midst of distant wars, even in our own neighborhoods. That Levis commercial also does these young people an injustice.

Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see more take up the challenge of a radical progression that is truly forward looking in that it does not think it unfashionable to take and learn from the past. I too love it when new media makes it possible for us to become excited all over again about the classics, about things we thought we’d already read before.

But there has got to be a relevant connection, or they’re merely blanks (let’s hope they don’t actually *hurt* anyone) fired into empty space.

Brother Will, what was that you said about the sound and the fury?