Syd Barrett, R.I.P.

One of us should say something about Syd Barrett. Here are two intelligent obits (e by Mike Powell and Jody Beth Rosen, respectively) which avoid the batshit-genius tag that bedeviled the poor sod (the evidence suggests he suffered from a kind of schizophrenia, although all the acid he dropped obviously didn't help).

Since Pink Floyd often elicited little other than benumbed concentration as a lad I'm no position to offer the encomium that Barrett's odd accomplishments deserve; but listening to those early Pink Floyd singles I was struck by their concision and wit. This is where Rosen gets it wrong: Pink Floyd's oddness is at least as memorable as The Who's volatility. You never feel like the sky's going to crack when listening to early Pink Floyd, but the experience is akin to eavesdropping to a guy as he enacts his caprices: you're stimulated by the priviliged view and disgusted by what you see. Imagine being Blue Velvet's Jeffrey Beaumont watching, from your privileged view in the closet, Dorothy Valens coo ridiculous children's songs to her little boy instead of gasping as Frank orders her to perform all kinds of perversities.

Barrett could also, if so moved, write about the quotidian like a young man who'd possessed just enough of his senses to get a taste for it, and love it (the two obits I cite above note how uneventful Barrett's routine had become; he sure deserved it). To praise (or dismiss) Barrett as a penny-ante surrealist overlooks the degree to which great surrealist art depends upon observing the genuine weirdness of our parents, our neighbors, our living rooms, ourselves; tangerine trees and marmalade skies are just stupid.