Friday, November 04, 2005
Mostly grouchy misc.:
1) I'll be on a panel called "What Is Pop?" which has something to do with a critical writing class, but is open to the public, at Columbia College, on Nov. 9 at 4 p.m.. Their site is hard to navigate, so, here's a bit more detail: Room 421 of the 30 E. Congress Building (located @ the intersection of Congress & Wabash). Take the elevator to the 4th floor, turn right upon exiting and make your way to #421. (Actually, I think this might have been the same room as the Wheeler reading -- did I mention that I was completely surprised when the host/introducer turned out to be David Trinidad?) Other panelists include my man J., Mike Flaherty of U. of Chicago radio, a writer that I don't know named Emerson Dameron, and Jack Hoyle, an actual musician. Difficult not to remark on whiteness, maleness (though this was only the confirmed participation as of a few days ago). I'm certainly going to talk about this, especially if it doesn't look like it's going to come up otherwise -- but, man, things have really devolved if this task falls to supposed arch-formalist me.
2) Even though I realize it's only shorthand, every time Jordan makes with the baseball stats, I am made aware that what I have been seeking for my entire life so far, is some endeavor in which the point was not to score. Outside of some personal relationships, I have not found one. Hence my air of disappointment. (But, then, one also sees that Jordan has related issues.)
3) To paraphrase Jim: "There's as much poetry if not more in [popular cultural reference author in the author's purview] than in [popular culture references not in the author's purview, esp. for generational reasons]. Pull up a library chair if you want. That'll never be my thing." First: Sure, "as much," but not "more." More why? Because now? And anyway, second, if two of your examples of now are Calvin and Hobbes and Public Enemy, I think that boat has sailed and can I borrow my Tama Janowitz books back? Third, and maybe I can put this in terms members of our generation (I think Jim and I are about the same age) can grasp: "The library is cool....Ayyyy!."
4) Sometimes Sasha is so terse that I honestly can't tell if he's linking to something because he thinks it's good, or lame. I was going to use this remark as an excuse to go on to complain about Eric Matthews, but now I can't find the press release for the upcoming Elliot Smith tribute on which his contribution is a mix of a song (I think it was "Big Nothing") to which Matthews has added instrumentation that Smith explicitly rejected for the album version. This just in: That's not a tribute.
5) Just while I'm knee deep in fixing up the 12" mix of my Peggy Lee piece for publication,here comes the call for papers/final exam prompt for EMP 2006, which Matos has posted for our convenience. We are warned that "Proposals are judged by liveliness of prose as much as pertinence of topic." Whaddya think, gang, will we be able to come up with 250 words as lively as "To what extent do these issues reveal hierarchies of taste, transformed subjectivities, the effect of politics on culture, or other lines of contestation permeating popular music?" by January?
6) I sort of thought a sonneteer was a crypto-Oulipian. (Someone went completely pseudo-analytic nutters in your comments cabinet, btw.)
7) props to Hops; does this mean that there will now be less snuff-radio about the Cash family?
8) I only said "mostly grouchy": I've been meaning to say something about Monie Love's Down To Earth. If you knew more than one of the following facts, you knew more than me: (a) She's English -- from Battersea (but wasn't the video NYC double-dutch?); 1990 is fairly early for UK hip-hop of any import, or am I wrong? (b) "Monie in the Middle," the chorus of which I've carried around for, what, 15 years now, was produced by Andy Cox and David Steele of E. Beat/F.Y. Cannibals (which also explains her presence on a remix of "She Drives Me Crazy"); (c) The rest of the album is tuffer than you'd think, w/ production by Bambatta and cohort; (d) it doesn't have a hell of a lot to do with the Daisy Underground-manque suggested by the cover art and big-floppy-hat-and-shorts look; (e) there may be a Muslim thing going on; though no explicit reference is made, I don't know how else one explains the anti-pork screed "Swiney Swiney." I have not yet found the time to track down her 1993 follow-up In a Word or 2, or to figure out what she's been up to since (though I gather she's been a New York radio personality at some time).
9) I also commend to you Triptych Myth's The Beautiful, esp. if you like unusually-stuctured but not totally out piano trios (see Shipp, Mengelberg) as much as I do: Cooper-Moore is a monster.
10) I screwed up the link last time for Make Now Press. Thanks, Bill. And Joseph.
1) I'll be on a panel called "What Is Pop?" which has something to do with a critical writing class, but is open to the public, at Columbia College, on Nov. 9 at 4 p.m.. Their site is hard to navigate, so, here's a bit more detail: Room 421 of the 30 E. Congress Building (located @ the intersection of Congress & Wabash). Take the elevator to the 4th floor, turn right upon exiting and make your way to #421. (Actually, I think this might have been the same room as the Wheeler reading -- did I mention that I was completely surprised when the host/introducer turned out to be David Trinidad?) Other panelists include my man J., Mike Flaherty of U. of Chicago radio, a writer that I don't know named Emerson Dameron, and Jack Hoyle, an actual musician. Difficult not to remark on whiteness, maleness (though this was only the confirmed participation as of a few days ago). I'm certainly going to talk about this, especially if it doesn't look like it's going to come up otherwise -- but, man, things have really devolved if this task falls to supposed arch-formalist me.
2) Even though I realize it's only shorthand, every time Jordan makes with the baseball stats, I am made aware that what I have been seeking for my entire life so far, is some endeavor in which the point was not to score. Outside of some personal relationships, I have not found one. Hence my air of disappointment. (But, then, one also sees that Jordan has related issues.)
3) To paraphrase Jim: "There's as much poetry if not more in [popular cultural reference author in the author's purview] than in [popular culture references not in the author's purview, esp. for generational reasons]. Pull up a library chair if you want. That'll never be my thing." First: Sure, "as much," but not "more." More why? Because now? And anyway, second, if two of your examples of now are Calvin and Hobbes and Public Enemy, I think that boat has sailed and can I borrow my Tama Janowitz books back? Third, and maybe I can put this in terms members of our generation (I think Jim and I are about the same age) can grasp: "The library is cool....Ayyyy!."
4) Sometimes Sasha is so terse that I honestly can't tell if he's linking to something because he thinks it's good, or lame. I was going to use this remark as an excuse to go on to complain about Eric Matthews, but now I can't find the press release for the upcoming Elliot Smith tribute on which his contribution is a mix of a song (I think it was "Big Nothing") to which Matthews has added instrumentation that Smith explicitly rejected for the album version. This just in: That's not a tribute.
5) Just while I'm knee deep in fixing up the 12" mix of my Peggy Lee piece for publication,here comes the call for papers/final exam prompt for EMP 2006, which Matos has posted for our convenience. We are warned that "Proposals are judged by liveliness of prose as much as pertinence of topic." Whaddya think, gang, will we be able to come up with 250 words as lively as "To what extent do these issues reveal hierarchies of taste, transformed subjectivities, the effect of politics on culture, or other lines of contestation permeating popular music?" by January?
6) I sort of thought a sonneteer was a crypto-Oulipian. (Someone went completely pseudo-analytic nutters in your comments cabinet, btw.)
7) props to Hops; does this mean that there will now be less snuff-radio about the Cash family?
8) I only said "mostly grouchy": I've been meaning to say something about Monie Love's Down To Earth. If you knew more than one of the following facts, you knew more than me: (a) She's English -- from Battersea (but wasn't the video NYC double-dutch?); 1990 is fairly early for UK hip-hop of any import, or am I wrong? (b) "Monie in the Middle," the chorus of which I've carried around for, what, 15 years now, was produced by Andy Cox and David Steele of E. Beat/F.Y. Cannibals (which also explains her presence on a remix of "She Drives Me Crazy"); (c) The rest of the album is tuffer than you'd think, w/ production by Bambatta and cohort; (d) it doesn't have a hell of a lot to do with the Daisy Underground-manque suggested by the cover art and big-floppy-hat-and-shorts look; (e) there may be a Muslim thing going on; though no explicit reference is made, I don't know how else one explains the anti-pork screed "Swiney Swiney." I have not yet found the time to track down her 1993 follow-up In a Word or 2, or to figure out what she's been up to since (though I gather she's been a New York radio personality at some time).
9) I also commend to you Triptych Myth's The Beautiful, esp. if you like unusually-stuctured but not totally out piano trios (see Shipp, Mengelberg) as much as I do: Cooper-Moore is a monster.
10) I screwed up the link last time for Make Now Press. Thanks, Bill. And Joseph.
