tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82683645773394533622024-03-12T22:31:59.333-04:00Voice of Broken NeckSeth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268364577339453362.post-22084985905034053802024-02-10T22:56:00.006-05:002024-02-10T23:10:26.729-05:00Damo Suzuki (1950 - 2024)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZKuvPIlwEXuvEkgHL_N9ASa-tZ0RGphCLToEPs1qtjKKHrNFL0ZzutHgQUUjUgq_oNYyUg0AE7jeOkIug6Wqv2ZieZk9EPshqjRX5xGk2B5xtDAK0y5aZMyLGi1ZkT9o2dSMaC9L1DqlSUlT8xxteY0SxDXOGe_HNiQB8ONZwH9PV_7dpgXXTZCFcJ8BT/s3270/RREULOGIES.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1714" data-original-width="3270" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZKuvPIlwEXuvEkgHL_N9ASa-tZ0RGphCLToEPs1qtjKKHrNFL0ZzutHgQUUjUgq_oNYyUg0AE7jeOkIug6Wqv2ZieZk9EPshqjRX5xGk2B5xtDAK0y5aZMyLGi1ZkT9o2dSMaC9L1DqlSUlT8xxteY0SxDXOGe_HNiQB8ONZwH9PV_7dpgXXTZCFcJ8BT/w640-h336/RREULOGIES.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span>What will the revolution be made of? What will it look like? How
will it sound? In the wake of two significant deaths inside a week, I’m left to
wonder. First, Wayne Kramer, guitar player with the MC5, house band of Detroit’s
White Panther Party. And today, Damo Suzuki, singer for </span><span lang="DE">Köln’s </span><span>CAN from 1970 to 1973. The MC5 played standard chord-progression
rock and roll, albeit loudly and with a will to ferocity that was not the
standard at the time. Their most lasting claims to fame are uttering the word “motherfuckers”
in their ambiguous “kick out the jams” (just<span style="letter-spacing: 0.6pt;"> </span>as<span style="letter-spacing: 0.6pt;"> </span>applicable<span style="letter-spacing: 0.6pt;"> </span>to<span style="letter-spacing: 0.6pt;"> </span>a<span style="letter-spacing: 0.6pt;"> </span>football<span style="letter-spacing: 0.6pt;"> </span>game<span style="letter-spacing: 0.6pt;"> </span>as a revolution), and being the
other band signed to Elektra the same weekend that Danny Fields (nee Feinberg) also
signed The Stooges. The MC5 were managed by Detroit’s resident rabble rouser,
pot-promoter, and poet, John Sinclair. He’d founded the White Panther Party as
a complement to the Black Panthers – a collective of White kids prepared to
support the Black revolution. Sinclair imagined rock and roll as the perfect
vehicle to inject radical politics into the veins of White hippie culture and
he tapped The MC5 as his Detroit-assembly-line-coupe replete with American
flags and rifles slung alongside guitars across the paisleypunk hoods of his shiny
new roadsters. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD9J29-dYcDmaPqyXrHF11_Py-zUtSSjYP0c5xPtKOfQDbt5bBDicnfKqXyr6sXGYOAVFjN7DU5M3YPeYLAPKY0p-Je0uXRIkCY7MWIpCFf_i4d0N4rwdFwKgKMEmK0YMTlAAIKr1Mc0TSb-8JTAYZDZj5J8P1IKwug4gvetvIEklKg3ZwBM3wONJ4R4RY/s3540/Wayne%20Kramer%20w%20flag.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2454" data-original-width="3540" height="445" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD9J29-dYcDmaPqyXrHF11_Py-zUtSSjYP0c5xPtKOfQDbt5bBDicnfKqXyr6sXGYOAVFjN7DU5M3YPeYLAPKY0p-Je0uXRIkCY7MWIpCFf_i4d0N4rwdFwKgKMEmK0YMTlAAIKr1Mc0TSb-8JTAYZDZj5J8P1IKwug4gvetvIEklKg3ZwBM3wONJ4R4RY/w640-h445/Wayne%20Kramer%20w%20flag.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><span> </span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><span><br />Wayne Kramer (photo: Leni Sinclair)</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></p>
<p align="left" class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 48.85pt; margin-top: 5.8pt; margin: 5.8pt 48.85pt 0in 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">The MC5 provided the perfect image<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>of<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>rock<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>and<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>roll<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>revolution.<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>But<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>the image was as
far as it went. Lester<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span>Bangs<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span>reviewed<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">
their debut, </span><i>Kick<span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;"> </span>Out<span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;"> </span>The<span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;"> </span>Jams,<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span></i>for
<i>Rolling<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">
</span>Stone<span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"> </span></i>in<span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"> </span>April,<span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"> </span>1969,<span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"> </span>two<span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"> </span>months<span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"> </span>after<span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"> </span>its<span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"> </span>release. He could hear little difference between
the MC5 and bands like the<span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"> </span>Seeds,<span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;"> </span>Blue <span>Cheer,<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>the<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>Kingsmen,<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>and<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>Question<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>Mark<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>and<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>the<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>Mysterians.
What difference he could discern was in the style, not the substance: “The <span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">difference</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">
</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">here,</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">the</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">difference</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">which</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">will</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">sell</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">several</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">hundred</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">thousand</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">copies
</span>of<span style="letter-spacing: -0.5pt;"> </span>this<span style="letter-spacing: -0.5pt;"> </span>album,<span style="letter-spacing: -0.5pt;"> </span>is<span style="letter-spacing: -0.5pt;"> </span>in<span style="letter-spacing: -0.5pt;"> </span>the<span style="letter-spacing: -0.5pt;"> </span>hype,<span style="letter-spacing: -0.5pt;"> </span>the<span style="letter-spacing: -0.5pt;"> </span>thick<span style="letter-spacing: -0.5pt;"> </span>overlay<span style="letter-spacing: -0.5pt;"> </span>of<span style="letter-spacing: -0.5pt;"> </span>teenage-revolution<span style="letter-spacing: -0.5pt;"> </span>and<span style="letter-spacing: -0.5pt;"> </span>total-energy-thing.”
</span>Despite Sinclair’s best intentions and efforts, Bangs could see through
the scrim. <span>The<span style="letter-spacing: -0.3pt;"> </span>guns<span style="letter-spacing: -0.3pt;"> </span>and<span style="letter-spacing: -0.3pt;"> </span>bandoliers<span style="letter-spacing: -0.3pt;"> </span>are<span style="letter-spacing: -0.3pt;"> </span>costumes,<span style="letter-spacing: -0.3pt;"> </span>like<span style="letter-spacing: -0.3pt;"> </span>Alice
Cooper’s<span style="letter-spacing: -0.7pt;"> </span>b-stock<span style="letter-spacing: -0.65pt;"> </span>Dracula<span style="letter-spacing: -0.65pt;">
</span>or<span style="letter-spacing: -0.65pt;"> </span>Kiss’s<span style="letter-spacing: -0.65pt;"> </span>greasepaint<span style="letter-spacing: -0.65pt;"> </span>and<span style="letter-spacing: -0.65pt;"> </span>platform<span style="letter-spacing: -0.65pt;"> </span>heels.</span></span></p>
<p align="left" class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 48.85pt; margin-top: 5.8pt; margin: 5.8pt 48.85pt 0in 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">When Holger Czukay, Irmin
Schmidt, Michael Karoli, and Jaki Liebezeit formed CAN, the revolution they had
in mind was the product of a cultural destabilization shuddering through
Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. It was felt on university campuses, at
lunch counters, in the streets, in the halls of government, and in skepticism
towards the accepted values of Enlightenment modernism. Suddenly the pictorial
sensibilities of art history were undermined by conceptual concerns. Hans
Haacke held a referendum on Nelson Rockefeller in the foyer of MoMA. The inviolable
moral obligations of democracy and capitalism now appeared to be little more
than ring-fenced fields of wealth and power. And Germany’s history faced not just
criticism, but outright repudiation, announced by the mores and values of the
postwar generation. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">African American sculptor, Malcolm
Mooney, joined CAN for their first proper release, <i>Monster Movie</i>, in
1968. Mooney’s vocal approach is more rhythmic than melodic. His lyrics and
delivery are repetitive and he seems to have nudged the band away from traditional
song structures and toward slowly mutating repetitions gathered around an
insistent cyclicality provided by Liebezeit’s (“monotonous” – his word) drumming
and Czukay’s lock-groove bass lines. When Mooney was forced to leave the band for
health reasons in 1969, Damo took over vocal duties. Legend has it that the
rhythm section discovered Suzuki busking on the streets of Munich while they
killed time at a café prior to an evening performance. Apparently, they invited
Suzuki to join them on stage that same night. <br /><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ0ySa7XZQbVHOGGBZsn1d1LENmadA-rnGFT2tXDrWZOrwJyaMb00Dq5C-FyD1Y6bYrz0AKYx8h09XSuOz3ZHDHa0_sdBD26l7Rtj8XSzQLAPIfw2lxmlkA_SgY9UV3IR8sU_T0W0vTUPWVD5pIwqtrquDR2nwwi7r9fk3AQEPdh0hlV53w3L8ylarBECw/s640/can.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="434" data-original-width="640" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ0ySa7XZQbVHOGGBZsn1d1LENmadA-rnGFT2tXDrWZOrwJyaMb00Dq5C-FyD1Y6bYrz0AKYx8h09XSuOz3ZHDHa0_sdBD26l7Rtj8XSzQLAPIfw2lxmlkA_SgY9UV3IR8sU_T0W0vTUPWVD5pIwqtrquDR2nwwi7r9fk3AQEPdh0hlV53w3L8ylarBECw/w640-h434/can.JPG" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">There is no evidence of a
learning curve. Damo somehow embodied CAN from the first documents of his
tenure. He adopts Mooney’s rhythmic, repetitive approach and the band becomes a
kind of Rube Goldberg machine that produces the beginnings of its own processes.
Woven between the slanting shunts of Schmidt’s keyboards and the Epicurean
clinamen of Liebezeit and Czukay as they swerve to create the universe, Damo
creeps like a vine. In the folds of the rotting undersides of fallen trees, mushroom
heads, camphor fumes misting the surfaces of stones. On “Abra Cada Braxas” from
<i>The Lost Tapes</i>, Damo’s voice is a kind of gelatin, forming itself around
the contours of the pulses of the band. I cannot tell if what he is singing is
English, Japanese, German, or no language at all. In its responsiveness, its
plaintiveness, its pleading, it suggests something every bit as human as whichever
bare lightbulb folksinger seems to sing your life to you. But then, around the
eight minute mark – abracadabra! – he is Hugo Ball at the Cabaret Voltaire, Jarry’s
Pere Ubu, the circus barker in that dream in which the clown, the strong man, and
the bearded lady suffocate you in the cotton candy machine. Don’t tell me you
haven’t had that dream. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Damo appears on the consensus
three best CAN albums: <i>Tago Mago</i> (1971), <i>Ege Bamyasi</i> (1972), and <i>Future
Days</i> (1973). And then he disappears. Only to reappear about ten years later,
emerging first in one city and then another, playing with local bands organized
for the occasion in a flickering constellation he called the “Damo Suzuki Network.”
If Can evinced an Epicurean world view, post-CAN, Damo lived a Heraclitian
existence: never the same river twice. Never the same song twice. Never the
same words twice. Never the same day twice. For some forty years, he bounced
around the globe like a spring loaded jester, subverting whatever we thought a
band was supposed to be, or a song. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">I love the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWZpiL-uNm8" target="_blank">1972 footage of CANfrom the German tv program, “Spotlight Music Show.”</a> I love that Damo sits cross-legged
at the side of the stage, eschewing the literal and the figurative spotlight.
One member of the band, contributing one element among five. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">And that allows us to return, after
some delay, to the revolution. CAN, during the Damo Suzuki years, enacted
something that strikes me as truly revolutionary. They dispensed with notions
of progress, with part-by-part development over the course of a piece of music,
a song. This pretense of progress is both (and uncoincidentally) a
manifestation of Enlightenment thought, pushing through levels of understanding
in an effort to arrive at a final, teleological answer, and it is the internal
logic of capital: growth, expansion, maximization of profits, hyper-accumulation.
CAN, emerging from the calamity of these logics, its German members born during
or immediately after the War, denied the ideology and allure of these Western, modernist pretensions and chose, instead, to hang tight; to remain in place, cycling
and cycling through the present moment. They went neither forward nor backward,
neither up nor down. They stayed put with “all gates open,” as one of their
songs would have it, absorbing the nuances and details that music misses when
it feels compelled to progress. Listen to the three records with Damo, or maybe
better, live recordings from those years. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zhdNviS0Vs" target="_blank">This performance from R<span>ockpalast, 1970</span></a><span class="yt-core-attributed-string--link-inherit-color"> is superb. The band really hit their stride about
halfway through, near the 45 minute mark! </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">There’s an argument to be made
that, in a proposition like CAN, the most difficult role is that of the
vocalist. The instruments can find phrases, riffs, rhythms and grind on them.
Granted, the 4 instrumentalists of Can did this with unique sensitivity and conviction.
But <span> </span>Damo Suzuki faced restraints that
the others didn’t. He couldn’t tell tales, what with their beginnings, middles,
and ends. He had to steer clear of declamatory language. There could be no
recourse to conflict and resolution. So Damo flowed between a choppy English and
Japanese with long stretches of makeshift consonants and vowels such as what goes
down in “Abra Cada Braxas.” Both Mooney and Suzuki displayed deep understanding
for what CAN meant as a musical idea and as a kind of political theory in practice.
The revolution can’t tell you what to think or do. Not even the revolutionary
knows what the <span> </span>revolution looks like or how
it sounds. You’ve got to keep your gates open and trust you’ll know it when it
happens. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">The MC5 were on the stage at the Festival of Life when
the shit hit the fan in Chicago in 1968. What followed was described by the
official Walker Report as “a police riot.” The <span> </span>truth was that the MC5 were not interested in
manning the barricades. As Kramer himself testified, “the<span style="letter-spacing: -0.65pt;">
</span>minute<span style="letter-spacing: -0.7pt;"> </span>we<span style="letter-spacing: -0.65pt;"> </span>stopped<span style="letter-spacing: -0.65pt;">
</span>playing, we<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span>just<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span>threw<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">
</span>our<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span>shit<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span>in<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span>the<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span>van<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span>and<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span>we<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span>drove<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span>right<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">
</span>across<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span>the<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span>grass<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">
</span>and<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span>over the<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>median<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>to<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>get<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>on<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>the<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>freeway<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>to<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>get<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>our<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>asses<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>back<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>to<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>Detroit.<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;">
</span>That’s<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;"> </span>when the<span style="letter-spacing: -0.65pt;"> </span>tear<span style="letter-spacing: -0.65pt;"> </span>gas<span style="letter-spacing: -0.65pt;"> </span>started<span style="letter-spacing: -0.65pt;">
</span>flying.”<span style="letter-spacing: -0.65pt;"> All this not to suggest
that the artist has to be the first one out of the trench. But there’s gotta be
some revolution in the way the work is made, in how it’s constructed; not just
in what<span> </span>it means, but in <i>how</i> it
means. I’m flying under the banner here of Godard’s edict not to make political
art, but to make art politically. </span>Trotsky, in 1938, wrote the
following to the editors of the <i>Partisan Review:</i> “Truly intellectual
creation is incompatible with lies, hypocrisy and the spirit of conformity. Art
can become a strong ally of revolution only in so far as it remains faithful to
itself. Poets, painters, sculptors and musicians will themselves find their own
approach and methods, if the struggle for freedom of oppressed classes and
peoples scatters the clouds of skepticism and of pessimism which cover the
horizon of mankind.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Clearly, we haven’t scattered those clouds yet. The
horizon is shrouded in a thick pall of skepticism and pessimism. The
revolutionary groundhog – let’s call him Petersburg Pete – is looking his long,
dark shadow squarely in the eye. The forecast, I’m afraid, is for six more weeks,
or years, or eons, of winter. But, in
Damo’s voice, I can hear the faint echo of the revolution to come. It sounds
like CAN. <span style="color: #231f20; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-font-width: 105%;"></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #231f20; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-font-width: 105%;"> </span></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #231f20; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-font-width: 105%;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #231f20; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-font-width: 105%;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #231f20; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-font-width: 105%;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #231f20; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-font-width: 105%;"> </span></p>
<h2 align="center" style="text-align: center;"> </h2>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p><style>@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-font-kerning:1.0pt;
mso-ligatures:standardcontextual;}h2
{mso-style-priority:9;
mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-link:"Heading 2 Char";
mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
mso-outline-level:2;
font-size:18.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";}p.MsoBodyText, li.MsoBodyText, div.MsoBodyText
{mso-style-priority:1;
mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-link:"Body Text Char";
margin:0in;
text-align:justify;
mso-pagination:none;
text-autospace:none;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";}a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:#0563C1;
mso-themecolor:hyperlink;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
color:#954F72;
mso-themecolor:followedhyperlink;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}span.Heading2Char
{mso-style-name:"Heading 2 Char";
mso-style-priority:9;
mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-locked:yes;
mso-style-link:"Heading 2";
mso-ansi-font-size:18.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:18.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-hansi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-font-kerning:0pt;
mso-ligatures:none;
font-weight:bold;}span.BodyTextChar
{mso-style-name:"Body Text Char";
mso-style-priority:1;
mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-locked:yes;
mso-style-link:"Body Text";
mso-ansi-font-size:10.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-hansi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-font-kerning:0pt;
mso-ligatures:none;}span.yt-core-attributed-string--link-inherit-color
{mso-style-name:yt-core-attributed-string--link-inherit-color;
mso-style-unhide:no;}.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Seth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268364577339453362.post-84052802333710424992024-01-22T09:41:00.002-05:002024-01-22T09:57:47.771-05:00Pitchfork (1996 - 2024)<p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiKA7DBfBr_e9Pq0olSO_HIhUJsy5RWzPLgplwYJG4Foe-2tceXaU5cK01GnAp_9wyIl45ZgxlEaDI_w929_QA8tRMMm7glEuClPhtSBpaVwv-0i9zMVEF-A2TZMZ-KT0ZOj5RVwWgThCude2xRui61tmUBNqkBbiVBIRdn9HKf-LX6Q0R_X-PILt-WpIEg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em;"><img data-original-height="1714" data-original-width="3270" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiKA7DBfBr_e9Pq0olSO_HIhUJsy5RWzPLgplwYJG4Foe-2tceXaU5cK01GnAp_9wyIl45ZgxlEaDI_w929_QA8tRMMm7glEuClPhtSBpaVwv-0i9zMVEF-A2TZMZ-KT0ZOj5RVwWgThCude2xRui61tmUBNqkBbiVBIRdn9HKf-LX6Q0R_X-PILt-WpIEg=w640-h336" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">When it was announced, a few days ago, that Pitchfork would
be “folded into” GQ, I laughed. But what was so funny? For one, parent company,
Conde Nast’s use of the phrase “folded into” as if paper (or anything else foldable)
was involved. Also, for anyone who’s read Pitchfork’s music journalism with any
degree of attentiveness, we have seen the site mature beyond the rockist
paradigm of straightwhitemale to cover (and be covered by) a much more diverse
range of culture and cultural producers. So, to end up “folded into” – sorry I’m
gonna keep using the scare quotes to confirm that I am not and cannot use the
phrase with a straight face – Gentleman’s Quarterly, a veritable mancave of
grooming products, sockless suits, and other rebarbative, reinforcements of male-ennial
egos and entitlements, well, sometimes the farce is just too obvious. If
capitalism has a sense of humor, it’s knuckleheadedly broad.<br /><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I’ve read a number of requiems for the site over the past
few days – none of them, by the way, on Pitchfork, which has not covered its
own demise as music industry news (which it assuredly is). Some have discussed –
and blamed – the changing business models of the music industry. Others have
lamented the lack of interest in and attention span for thoughtful and longer-than-a-Ritalin-label
writing on popular music and its effects in contemporary culture. Still others
have pointed the finger at algorithmic recommendation engines, arguing that as
machines and (let’s face it) pretty rudimentary statistical models [X-is-like-Y]
or [subscribers-who-streamed-X-also-streamed-Y] supplant the model of the
expert/connoisseur/obsessive, we surrender our individual and collective
tastes to a system engineered for expediency and profit. <br /><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">All the above are surely true and surely symptoms of what Shoshana
Zuboff has called “the age of surveillance capitalism” in which our greatest
value to society is our data as perceived from the single-point perspective of
clicks and likes. The algorithm is watching. But it doesn’t care if we’re
dancing naked or practicing cannibalism, so long as it can convert our online
actions into sellable data packets. <br /><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">After my laughter subsided, my first thoughts were a little
different (although certainly related to all the above). I found myself wondering
when, as a society, as a culture, we stopped valuing the position that Pitchfork
occupied? Once upon a time, a writer or an editor, maybe even a publisher, would
dedicate time and energy to an endeavor meant to contribute to a debate of the
essential values of a particular field of human endeavor. Whether it be the <i>Journal
of Applied Microbiology</i>, <i>Cat Fancy,</i> <i>Needlepoint Now</i>, or <i>Baseball
Digest</i>, the founding and presiding concern of the publication would be to
engage with a readership who cared deeply, sometimes too deeply, about microbiology,
cats, needlepoint, or baseball. In the case of Pitchfork, the web site covered
the world of popular music, initially focusing on its somewhat less popular
strata. Since it began in 1996, Pitchfork rose in prominence and increased its
influence. To receive a high numerical rating from the site was a boon to an artist’s
profile and sales. (I can personally attest to this. My band, The Fire Show, benefitted
from ratings of 7.9, 8.1, and 8.7 for our three albums. Thanks Joe Tangari!) But
Pitchfork sold to Conde Nast in 2015 and started to shift its priorities, even
outsourcing its recommendations [if-you-like-X-you-might-like-Y] to Spotify. <br /><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">When did we stop valuing the privilege of making contributions
to the discourse of a field? When did we decide that being the most respected
source of information for a given branch of the cultural tree was not good
enough to merit survival? When did we stop caring about the importance,
privilege, and even the prestige, of having opinions that other people
trusted? And last, but definitely not least, when did we decide that helping listeners,
readers, and viewers, make sense of the cultural productions with which they
engage, and in turn, to make sense of the world and their own place in it, was
not a worthy-enough mission? Note that I’m not asking <i>why</i> we turned our backs
on all these valuable roles. I know the reason, as do you, Conde Nast made it
plain. It’s about money. The bottom line is the final arbiter of value. Every
other form of value, be it protection, guidance, ministration, provision,
commiseration, compassion, generosity, can’t compete with the balance books of
the CFO. <br /><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I mourn the death of Pitchfork not so much for the
particular type of music journalism they offered. I read it every day in order
to understand and stay in touch with generalized currents, but I valued other,
nichier music sites more. I mourn the death of Pitchfork as a highly visible symptom
of this moment in technocapitalism. Conde Nast’s profit-driven decision is a
goiter on the gasping neck of a culture that once tried to tell us something
about who we are. The goiter will soon envelop the whole body and eventually
the head. We will all succumb to the accountants’ evaluations of what we do, why
(if) we matter, who we are. Music cannot escape being consigned to this list once
compiled by Karl Marx, <br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">“Since money is the transformed
form of the commodity, one cannot see what it was that was transformed into it –
conscience, virginity, or potato.” </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p>
<p><style><font size="4"><span style="font-family: verdana;">@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-469750017 -1040178053 9 0 511 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-font-kerning:1.0pt;
mso-ligatures:standardcontextual;}.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</span></font></style></p>Seth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268364577339453362.post-25044954006343305002023-11-30T15:34:00.001-05:002023-11-30T17:08:25.542-05:00<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjOlmhq1vUsKfUOqfyl0beUW1Xyxca3jxA8tMsnObnkCMoRgkBx9DTX4dFrTK9WeKLWmSPppQBO3Ohi_auvyZvgGBzUFcIg2t6KFWgdY3S8YRbg6o6t131GgDchZBolYGVL0JmGMu1yH_1qbZuO6Vu9hH905hOchBwkicHVlXC4NX3Ug9z2X_DAupTqLsf3" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1714" data-original-width="3270" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjOlmhq1vUsKfUOqfyl0beUW1Xyxca3jxA8tMsnObnkCMoRgkBx9DTX4dFrTK9WeKLWmSPppQBO3Ohi_auvyZvgGBzUFcIg2t6KFWgdY3S8YRbg6o6t131GgDchZBolYGVL0JmGMu1yH_1qbZuO6Vu9hH905hOchBwkicHVlXC4NX3Ug9z2X_DAupTqLsf3=w640-h336" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /> </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #ffa400;"><br />Shane MacGowan (1957 - 2023)</span><br /></b><br />All in one night I witnessed it. It was probably 1985 but I
could be off by a year or two. The Pogues were in Boston, playing a club called
Spit on Landsdowne Street, right behind the famed “green monster” of Fenway
Park. Only a few songs into their set things started to get scary. A dozen or
so Boston Irish had claimed the pit as their own and were using the Pogues
trad-punk as an excuse to act out the stereotype of Irish song and sensibility:
drink and fight and drink and fight. I’d been to quite a few rowdy punk shows by
then, but I was not expecting the Pogues with their fiddles and pennywhistles
to devolve into a veritable riot. In no time, however, the scene was so violent
that panic set in. The crowd was too thick to allow for an easy escape. But the
ceiling was low and traversed by exposed pipes. So I hoisted myself up and
installed myself in the maybe twenty-four inch gap between the pipes and the ceiling.
I lay on my belly looking forward and down upon the band, Shane MacGowan, drink and
cigarette ever in hand, bellowing sad, romantic ballads alternating with
shit-kicking, two-steps in which the word “whiskey” just barely edged out the
word “love.” I also had a birdseye view of the mayhem. Boston kids in the 1980s
with little love but lots of whiskey, beating the living shit out of each
other. This was not moshing, but brawling, the Pogues providing an excuse to
release the burdens of animosity and anonymity collected over brief lives and
understood as the prevailing condition of their lot. Sure, there were college
kids too who wanted just to feel something. But this was not a casual violence.
It was urgent and desperate and understood itself as a kind of communication
that would find expression only in the rarest moments. This was now-or-never violence.
My refuge in the pipes lasted the entire show, half of it taking in the plain
pub spectacle of the Pogues, the other half witnessing something I wasn’t ready
for and instantly understood. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">When the show ended and the crowd let out into that canyon
behind the baseball park’s intimidating back, I walked shell-shocked into the
night. I looked down at my shirt front to find it covered in blood. Thankfully none
of it was my own. But that only made it more unsettling. To be covered in strangers’
blood, wending the streets of new Boston. My friends and I turned the corner
onto Boylston and headed downstairs to our favorite local dive. A place so off
the beaten path that the rest of the Pogues crowd were sure to miss it; a place
so anonymous that I can’t now remember its name.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">We’d been there a while when I noticed, sitting alone at the
bar, Shane MacGowan. I don’t know how long he’d been there. Maybe before we
arrived or maybe he slipped in sometime after. In front of him in a neat row,
four drinks: a double whiskey, a glass of water, a beer, and a cup of coffee.
Dutifully, he sipped from each one in turn. He had a method. Inebriation.
Hydration. Caffeination. Repeat. Or, if you like: Medication. Maintenance. Forward
motion. I imagined then, or maybe only now in hindsight, that this was Shane
MacGowan’s existence. Providing an outlet for the pent-up frustrations and
torment of rooms full of young men and then heading to a slow, quiet corner to
rejoin his demons. Those demons never let go of him. Or him of them. It’s
always a dance, ain’t it? He and his songs danced to the demons. They sang of
love and whiskey, but also of the patina of romance in the reflection of
sunrise in a curbside puddle walking home from the pub where the whole night
was spent drinking away the certainty of perpetual defeat. Things would never get
better except fleetingly; never longer than the length of a song. But singing
along to the chorus – about a girl, about the old days, about a movie that hadn’t
been made yet – could numb the pain of knowing that the song would end and that
it was only ever a song anyway, not your real life or your mother’s or your dad’s
or your kids' or theirs. The rain will always fall. The puddles will form. The
sun will rise. And the pub and the songs wait at the end of the day to put you
back to bed. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span class="x193iq5w">In 1989 the Pogues were touring
America. By then, they were playing big venues: arenas, stadiums. They opened a
tour for U2. 1989 was the summer of Tim Burton's <i>Batman</i>, the movie that launched
a thousand marketing campaigns (just as it was designed to do). But Shane
MacGowan’s had no truck with Hollywood superheroes or their product placement in
whatever it is that took the place of hearts in the hyperconsumerist America of
Ronald Reagan. MacGowan’s aspirational cultural consciousness fixed – even as a
young boy - on the likes of James Joyce and Dostoevsky. Struggling with an
unappreciative crowd at the University of Michigan, MacGowan exited the stage in
a huff (as he often did in that drug-poisoned period of his life), only to
return a moment later to deliver a bullseye critique of shallow American
hubris: <a href="https://whydontyoulikeme.com/2016/01/21/fuck-you-you-and-your-fucking-batman/" target="_blank">"Fuck you and your fucking batman!" </a>Hardly a week goes by
when that line doesn’t play across the bottom third of my mind’s eye’s mind as
I look and listen to the world. <br /><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjQ2Ijn0P1sIvWDLRjtlm1DBtoFSia-rEpYbHpZQKwxQcIHJCopXLKVPqFBguu4AmtcfvW7ApScTBDgE16-HMLU3pHYyRMr7QGNIQZrrrWHYr5HryFTXQIzdCJsncZCr1EPUrTqnA_dTbYFxAcul6Q-kE39jKsrdITaXqpNCfpAyGukxCKk_vjhavrlKa2t" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjQ2Ijn0P1sIvWDLRjtlm1DBtoFSia-rEpYbHpZQKwxQcIHJCopXLKVPqFBguu4AmtcfvW7ApScTBDgE16-HMLU3pHYyRMr7QGNIQZrrrWHYr5HryFTXQIzdCJsncZCr1EPUrTqnA_dTbYFxAcul6Q-kE39jKsrdITaXqpNCfpAyGukxCKk_vjhavrlKa2t=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /> </span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Shane MacGowan’s songs were full of blarney. They might have
had the secondary effect of charming us while we sang along. But it seems pretty
clear that they were first and foremost written as songs that Shane MacGowan
could sing along to. They were the songs of his Irish immigrant parents. But
they were his parents' songs made a little harder and more truthful, a little
more foul-mouthed and a little more desperately romantic. The songs were
excuses to get out of bed. But they were also acknowledgments of going back to
sleep with nothing having changed. As Michael Lenzi said to me about MacGowan, “he
always seemed to be saying goodbye.” That strikes me as true a thing as one can
think or feel or say about Shane MacGowan. He was never sure he’d see you in the
morning, or you him, or the sun in the sky kissing that same damned puddle once
more before a new rain started and another glass of whiskey got poured. </span></p>
<p><style><font size="4" style="font-family: verdana;">@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-469750017 -1040178053 9 0 511 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-font-kerning:1.0pt;
mso-ligatures:standardcontextual;}span.x193iq5w
{mso-style-name:x193iq5w;
mso-style-unhide:no;}.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</font></style></p>Seth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268364577339453362.post-13973188797052575452023-08-10T10:18:00.016-04:002023-08-10T12:50:41.752-04:00<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjofAL5FbaoIn9Db94iBk5O9v-ec7yxnp_TiRcwtpTu3cTlFuAGt1fZd1yAFXO2dBViYMcHt9Sy0HxF1SoHiZ7DG_WzhZbQRkxfUBUNrLZsOp2NDX6yOxcYA54Jri6IdNEXMcYz8SpCKuJ2ivfXdG-jlUis9mWp54xrOS5FkQoi6MYAje1qpbNTWap-JgMx/s3270/RREULOGIES.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: verdana; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1714" data-original-width="3270" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjofAL5FbaoIn9Db94iBk5O9v-ec7yxnp_TiRcwtpTu3cTlFuAGt1fZd1yAFXO2dBViYMcHt9Sy0HxF1SoHiZ7DG_WzhZbQRkxfUBUNrLZsOp2NDX6yOxcYA54Jri6IdNEXMcYz8SpCKuJ2ivfXdG-jlUis9mWp54xrOS5FkQoi6MYAje1qpbNTWap-JgMx/w640-h336/RREULOGIES.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /> </span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400; font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="color: #ffa400; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /> </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b> </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b> </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br />Robbie Robertson (1943 - 2023) <br /><br /></b></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ffa400; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2hLb5O0sBkfSa98VVq_TzdlgWqnlFzytA8tK7dA6FaxJlmJl9eWSND3OYF1Pbj5_GRkgReQ0CjwvtxrCjAA4qbno3aTqmgcMgLxb8gsar7IyuLKZK6kGWQyOew-w-_7cCP9QVr3fTFGfEoi9roqwe3iAiRj1GzmmDGneDlMOuEVOCYqvW2KfxUesWFfut/s1000/The-Band-self-titled-album-photo-02-1000.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="1000" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2hLb5O0sBkfSa98VVq_TzdlgWqnlFzytA8tK7dA6FaxJlmJl9eWSND3OYF1Pbj5_GRkgReQ0CjwvtxrCjAA4qbno3aTqmgcMgLxb8gsar7IyuLKZK6kGWQyOew-w-_7cCP9QVr3fTFGfEoi9roqwe3iAiRj1GzmmDGneDlMOuEVOCYqvW2KfxUesWFfut/w640-h384/The-Band-self-titled-album-photo-02-1000.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></span></div><span style="color: #ffa400; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /> </b></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I’m pretty sure a full-skeleton x-ray would reveal traces of
the Band in my bones. <span> </span>Their music and something
of each member’s musical personality is braided into my ribs and spine. If
Aristotle hadn’t said of tragedy that it <br /><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">is an imitation [<i>mimēsis</i>] of an action that is
serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude…through pity and fear effecting
the proper purgation [catharsis] of these emotions, <br /><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I would’ve said it about the Band. The trajectory of their
individual and collective lives arced from Olympian heights to the grey liquid
layer at the bottom of the dumpster. A loneliness haunts their music and their
biographies, pulsing with the indolence of an out-of-breath EKG. Richard Manuel
hanged himself in a Florida motel room after a downer gig. He was 42. Rick
Danko spent time in a Japanese prison for possession and died of a heart
attack at 55. Levon Helm died after a long struggle with throat cancer. Now
Robbie Robertson is gone, leaving only Garth Hudson. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />Where to start? I guess with that faux-alligator cassette
case that my dad kept in the cabinet in the den. It held ten or twelve
cassettes. A few of them never caught my eye. But a few of them did. I remember
finding an incongruous Black Sabbath tape in there. I know for a fact that my
dad was not into Sabbath or anything like it. Maybe he thought it was a Friday
night jam for the lost tribe of Jews in Ethiopia? More likely it was given to
him by one of his younger drug buddies. There was Neil Young’s <i>Harvest </i>which
got play in the car with some frequency and which I promptly made my own. I bought
the vinyl shortly thereafter. I treat my vinyl with kid gloves. But <i>Harvest</i>
I wore out. At some point in the 90s, I bought another copy and inserted it
into the original gatefold sleeve. That’s the one I still listen to. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />And there was <i>The Best of the Band</i>. This too got play
in the car. And this, too, I ran off with. But I never bought it on vinyl. I
needed to go back to the sources. First, <i>The Band</i>, which I learned only
later – I was thirteen, there was no internet – was their second album. Then their
first, the epochal, majestic, otherworldly, and wholly-of-this-world, <i>Music
From Big Pink. </i>It is one of the three or four greatest rock albums ever
made. I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise. Before college I had the Band’s complete
catalogue on vinyl and I’d seen <i>The Last Waltz </i>at least five times. Our Aunt
Pamela painted the cover on the back of a denim jacket for my brother Matt and
I’m jealous to this day. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />The tragedy that is the Band casts Robbie in the role of
villain. But real life doesn’t have roles. Time and circumstance change people.
They make people weak. They make people do things they wouldn’t have/couldn’t
have done at other times, in other circumstances. Time and circumstance can force
an ordinary person to do and make extraordinary things. But they can also wring
the talent from a person like blood from a workshop rag. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />This can’t simply be a eulogy for Robbie. It must also be a requiem
for the Band. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />At the beginning, the Band was a collective. Look at the
photograph in the gatefold of <i>Music From Big Pink. </i>Really look at it. Totally
confounding. A group of thirty-three people – six of them children – gathered
for a portrait in front of a barn. In the foreground, planted at the children’s
feet, two oversized plastic mushrooms, red with white polka dots. The adults
range in age from their twenties to their seventies. The men wear mostly plaid
shirts and dungarees. A few wear suits. The women are in their rural Sunday-best.
Printed on the photo, to the left of the group, in black, all-caps, serif font,
are the words, “NEXT OF KIN.” They’re hard to make out because they’re printed atop
a picnic bench and partially on top of the trunk of a tree. At the upper left
corner of the photo is a smaller – roughly one inch by one inch – inset photo
of a middle-aged couple. One must assume they couldn’t make the group shoot,
but that someone deemed it important to include them. It’s like the missing
members of the Latin Club cropped into the high school yearbook page. Amongst
the large group of thirty-three, the five members of the Band. They are not out
front like the Beatles on Sergeant Peppers’. They don’t stand out from this
crowd. They’re mixed in, dressed like the rest of the gathering in farm hats
and work shirts. The image tells us something. As an ardent fan at Bob Dylan’s
1965 press conference said, “that’s an equivalent photograph it means something
it’s got a philosophy in it.” </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />The philosophy of the photo is “we.” The band, the family,
the families. Not the hedonistic selfishness of hippie sex, hippie drugs, hippie
music. The Band put their backs into it. They pull as a group, ten hands on the
frayed rope, hauling the past up out of the well. In the history of rock and
roll, few bands – very few bands – have worked as cooperatively as the Band. Each
member is more interested in making nooks and crannies than in filling them
with jam. It is the irregular contours of each player’s part that fit together
with the others’ like the grooves of a key in a lock, like the unexpected
joinings of jigsaw puzzle pieces. Here is one of Robbie Robertson’s great
gifts: chipping away at the surface of the song – his guitar quite recognizably
the sound of stone directed at flint – leaving excavations, indentations, evacuations,
and abdications; small, rhythmically sporadic gaps and crevices where Manuel,
Danko, Helm, and Hudson can gain purchase, place flourishes, or further abrade
the smooth swellings of the odd constructions they called songs. Together, the
five of them each scatter fragments that somehow coalesce as music. This little
miracle is why so many of their contemporaries took a big step back when first
they heard the Band. So many who thought they knew what a song was, how its
little machinery worked. So many who retreated and doubted what they thought
they knew.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />J. Royal “Robbie” Robertson (the J is for Jaime) was plucked
from relative obscurity by Ronnie Hawkins, the Arkansas rockabilly howler who
made his living performing north of the border. Hawkins’ music demanded that
the singer regularly hand off to the hotshot guitarist who would fan the song’s
flames with a solo. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYPVyJwzerM" target="_blank">(Witness
Hawkins return the favor as he opens the proceedings of The Last Waltz, the
Band’s farewell concert filmed my Martin Scorcese.)</a> Yet, despite his
hotshot bona fides, Robertson rarely took a proper solo in the Band’s songs. He
preferred to make those little jigsaw shapes than to slash through the song with
samurai flash. When he does take a solo they tend to be brief. And rather than
grabbing the song by the throat, they prick its belly, they force it to
convulse ever so slightly, to change shape ever so briefly. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0Wc08wLBQ8" target="_blank">Listen, for example, to the solo in “King Harvest (Has Surely Come).”</a> Robertson enters at 2:52. His
guitar is miniscule, a gnat buzzing in the ear of the field ox. He chokes the
neck of the guitar, forcing it to fight its way out of his grip. Harmonic shards squeeze
out of the song like little metallic bubbles. The solo almost recedes back into
the song. It trips itself like a Catskills comedian. Resting a moment to allow
the audience to fill the gap where a “real” solo would have made hay, it then
starts to tighten the line, tauter and tauter, while the Band catches its
balance and slithers across the canyon on the solo’s tense vibrations. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />On <i>Music From Big Pink</i>, Robertson wrote only four of eleven
songs. Most people, even fans of the Band, miss that. Richard Manuel wrote three
and co-wrote one with Bob Dylan. Rick Danko and Dylan collaborated on another. They
also include a cover of Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released” and the 1959 country
ballad “Long Black Veil.” The following year, for their self-titled second
album, Robertson wrote or co-wrote all twelve songs. There’s a very reasonable
argument to be made that Robertson became the leader of the Band because he had
to; because the Band could no longer function as a cooperative. It’s the same
old rock and roll story: the drugs, the alcohol, the sex. The trappings of fame
interfering with the reasons that fame arrived in the first place. Robbie was
ambitious. Robbie wanted more. He learned the nuts and bolts of recording
during the second album so that he wouldn’t have to trust others with those
crucial tasks. Robbie is cast as the villain in the Band’s bio. But without
Robbie it’s likely there wouldn’t have been a Band bio to speak of. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />I do think, however, that it is fair to say that Robbie wasn’t,
at heart, a songwriter.<span> </span>He was a great
guitarist, an inventive arranger, an accomplished bandleader. But he lacked
anything like the lyrical gifts of Dylan, under whom the Band apprenticed, and
many of his songs are weighed down by rigid perspective-taking: “Stagefright”
written in the voice of an anxious performer, and (ugh) “The Night They Drove Old
Dixie Down,” the first-person account of a bereaved Confederate soldier. Other
songs – think for instance of “Life is a Carnival” – are hogtied by barbed-wire
conceits that trap the song in the constraints of all-encompassing metaphors. For
a while, though, he had enough musical tricks up his sleeve to keep the songs
lively, often surprising. “Jawbone,” from the second album, is a musical
obstacle course, careening from syncopated waltz time to drunken-sailor shanty,
to a thorny, hiccupping chorus riff as off-kilter as King Crimson at their
proggiest. But the Band was nimble enough to navigate the song gingerly, making
it feel casual. The five of them had the kind of instrumental and vocal charisma
that could start a fire even with waterlogged kindling. In the Band’s early days,
the weary, yet ethereal voice of Richard Manuel could break your heart singing
the contents of a soup can. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />I saw the band only once. I was a little too young, born too late. It was
after the Last Waltz breakup and the subsequent reunion, without Robbie. I’ve
seen other bands past their prime, sometimes missing key members. But without
Robbie, the Band was merely a cover band of themselves. The Band was precisely
the sum of their parts. More than any other band, subtracting even one member reduced
it to a one-wheeled Schwinn. It might still go, but you couldn’t call it a
bicycle anymore. Still, the evening ended in glorious Dylanesque fashion when,
peaking on mushrooms, I spilled from the theater with the crowd onto the
still-light summer evening streets of Boston, directly into the midst of a Shriner’s
parade, dodging fez-topped men in miniature cars weaving synchronized patterns
down Tremont Street. Maybe life is a carnival after all. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />It's hard to know what other people hear when they listen to
music. But reading tributes and reviews of the Band, one comes continually
across descriptions which emphasize their “homespun” sound, their rejection of
the acid-inflected electric music of the late-60s, their attachment to a
relaxed, back porch American musical mood. Rarely does anyone mention how physical
this band was. There is so much feel, so much body in their music. Consider
their radical reworking of Marvin Gaye’s “Don’t Do It,” a staple of their live
sets. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feEBEpDLTKI" target="_blank">Watch their bodies
in the encore version performed in <i>The Last Waltz</i>.</a> Try to sit still
through the 3:05 mark of this 1971 version at New York’s Academy of Music. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjbAppJtx7E" target="_blank">Robbie’s fiery guitar solo drains into a mournful horn figure and it sounds as if the song has run out of gas,</a>
as if it’s gonna have to pull over to the shoulder. Levon confesses “my biggest
mistake was loving you too much” while stumbling down his drumset stairs in his
clumsily tied emotional bathrobe and the Band kicks back in with the renewed vigor
of desperate bodily love. The Band extracts the funky unconscious of Gaye’s
version, nudging the horn section punctuations into rhythmically vicious
positions. The Band’s version is testament to their skill as listeners, as
bodily feelers of a song. It’s as if they’ve dug down deep into Gaye’s version
and excavated the devastating funk buried deep within. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />I think that way back when, watching the Band on the big
screen in Scorcese’s film, I was subliminally hooked by their bodies. Rick
Danko’s bass playing is not about the notes, it’s all about how they fall in
time. He drops brackets, allowing the phrases and riffs of the song to make
sense as units of thought, units of feeling. When you watch Danko play, his body
is a conduit. The song pulses through him, distending, extending. He lopes like
he’s riding a horse, easing out of the saddle and back down again. You could
turn off the sound and just watch Danko and you’d still be able to feel the
song. Levon Helm is spindly and sly, like a back-alley assassin who rejects the
revolver as too ostentatious, opting instead for a short blade that can get the
job done with minimal exertion or attention. He’s in and out before anyone
knows they’ve been done. Watch his hands in “Up On Cripple Creek.” His grip is lethal,
halfway up his drumsticks. He’s stabbing more than stroking the drums. Watching
his shoulders, you might conclude that this is where the song really resides.
In his shoulders the rhythm of his drumming meets the phrasing of his singing,
sometimes at odds. But they both live there, in some kind of harmony. And,
returning to Robbie, in the darkness of whatever theaters I sat in back then as
a thirteen or fourteen year old – you couldn’t rent <i>The Last Waltz </i>yet,
the technology hadn’t arrived – I watched Robbie’s body infected by the songs, dancing
along to Saint Vitus’ palpitations. His right arm flying up as if he’s just
touched a live wire, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe7y7ByOrwQ" target="_blank">as it does here at 1:34 of “Ophelia.”</a> With his hand he stirs the air, vibrating
the already-vibrating molecules, insuring that they continue shivering until
every last oscillation is exhausted. This is what it means to inhabit and be
inhabited by a song. In Robbie’s body, in the collective body that was the
Band, the songs quiver like the hum of cosmic background radiation, the energy
that surrounds all matter, of which we are a part. This energy, this vibration,
coursed through the Band. Its intensity has reduced by increments. Now, Robbie’s
gone and the light is almost out...but for those songs. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />I’m putting on “Tears of
Rage” right now. </span></span></p>
<p><style><font size="3"><span style="font-family: verdana;">@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-font-kerning:1.0pt;
mso-ligatures:standardcontextual;}a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
color:#954F72;
mso-themecolor:followedhyperlink;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</span></font></style></p>Seth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268364577339453362.post-57797479980005188612023-01-28T19:11:00.003-05:002023-01-28T19:11:27.442-05:00<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV6A1ARmv9Q0kKTMemSRQ4XuUghjUxZHC1apYYB0ecTE9ldBTtDJXFXSpgzJqRPGzrGah1Vc5IfNlH4WTlUONoKKSFai_TCDzoQu97qHQ98dQkvoua5X_6JZEkGPoCk8_FSYxJT020fpotl_xjYivlCyIaKjgqiyMGyrstC_K_sM2nv56ReUJHO-jYfw/s3270/RREULOGIES.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1714" data-original-width="3270" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV6A1ARmv9Q0kKTMemSRQ4XuUghjUxZHC1apYYB0ecTE9ldBTtDJXFXSpgzJqRPGzrGah1Vc5IfNlH4WTlUONoKKSFai_TCDzoQu97qHQ98dQkvoua5X_6JZEkGPoCk8_FSYxJT020fpotl_xjYivlCyIaKjgqiyMGyrstC_K_sM2nv56ReUJHO-jYfw/w640-h336/RREULOGIES.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Tom Verlaine (1949 - 2023)</span></span></span></p><p>
</p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I could hear a picture of how it feels to be alive. It was
thin and brittle. Nothing plush about it, nothing rich, luxe, warm, or consoling.
It tore across the air like a rusty can opener against a rusty can. Not fast
enough to draw sparks. Flinty and cantankerous, Tom Verlaine’s guitar ripped like
a fang or a fishhook. He rejected the equation of tone and reassurance. No
archtop, tweed, or 6L6s to soften the inevitable blows of landing hardscrabble
on the smashed bottles, the discarded syringes, the broken bodies already fallen
beneath the fire escape. If you’re going to jump, you’re going to fall. And no
amount of reverb can soften what it feels like to really fall, fail, falter,
flounder, flame-out, or fizzle: in other words to be alive. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwcABok-e2KaAEPLY2c5TOcY4CuB78vgVTexVIGTricGvcOhRzKrVrqIDNtuBiA0A_K9Tma_zPtCuG8rqbjR4XHAx_eJ4VdtUnO52d08xugIo-aB4Msxnif_E2lvR3y9c6eHBDVPoNLhB26cUeKlCsAfYLsoWTJVgEef0EhW06OTDBPtE722yXUYuvSA/s834/Television,_US_rock_band_(1977_Elektra_publicity_photo).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="602" data-original-width="834" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwcABok-e2KaAEPLY2c5TOcY4CuB78vgVTexVIGTricGvcOhRzKrVrqIDNtuBiA0A_K9Tma_zPtCuG8rqbjR4XHAx_eJ4VdtUnO52d08xugIo-aB4Msxnif_E2lvR3y9c6eHBDVPoNLhB26cUeKlCsAfYLsoWTJVgEef0EhW06OTDBPtE722yXUYuvSA/w400-h289/Television,_US_rock_band_(1977_Elektra_publicity_photo).jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /> </span><p></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">When I first heard Television’s impeccable <i>Marquee Moon</i>
it already felt like it had happened aeons ago. The time of the pyramids. In
truth, it had been less than a decade. But the days that had spawned it and the
New York City which had necessitated it were gone by then. I’d gotten a
glimpse. My father worked in the South Bronx. On Willis Avenue. I’d worked
there one summer in high school, ’78 or ’79. The prevailing sense was
desperation. Clawing for a breath of fresh air or at least an hour in the
oxygen tent. The oil painting of the world was threadbare and marked down.
Everything had to go. Verlaine’s guitar could make these sounds: the bottles,
the rust, the can, the syringe, the vein. The shrill vibrations he yanked from
the strings divined the fact that there was an inside and an outside, an above and
a below; they pierced the membrane that separated one from the other. One could
pass through. But it was gonna hurt. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">A little later, maybe ’83 or ’84, I spied Television’s “Little
Johnny Jewel” single on Ork Records on the wall at Vinyl Solution in Port
Chester, New York. They wanted $35. I paced and mentally prevaricated. $35 for
one song seemed an impossible indulgence, well beyond my means. But something
told me that this was a make or break moment. In fact, it was make <i>and</i>
break. As I’ve said elsewhere: making = breaking. I think I learned that from
Tom Verlaine partly. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">In 1998, when my band, Number One Cup, decided to record
four cover songs, each chosen and sung by one member of the band, I chose “Little
Johnny Jewel.” I knew I was tipping my hand. But credit where credit’s due. I’d
wrung so much out of Tom Verlaine’s songs, his singing, but most of all out of his
guitar playing. Throttling the neck, forcing it’s shallowest breaths, the ones
that stood as the last line between being alive and being inert, dormant, torpid
like so much music that passed without friction into the collective
consciousness. Like so much that passed for being alive. Tom Verlaine’s guitar,
especially, demanded friction. As one of his songs would have it, “Too much
friction / But I dig friction.” Take a moment and listen to the guitar after Verlaine
sings “My eyes are like telescopes.” Yeah, they are. And like microscopes and
periscopes and oscilloscopes. They see infections, enemies, electricity. That
guitar knows that there’s more to it all than that which meets the eye. Beneath
the glossy veneer: a tangle of wires, a cluster of solder, a routed-out cavity:
guarded secrets of the tremulous fallacy. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">It would be stupid, self-serving, and false to say I feel
like I’ve lost a limb. But a little less of each to say that, for some forty
years, Tom Verlaine has inhabited my limbs. Every time I put my fingers to the
frets, there’s more than a little of him animating the motion that ensues. If
it doesn’t come as a surprise, if it doesn’t make your hair stand up, if it
sounds like it could have been somebody else (even Richard Lloyd) then it’s a
waste of time and sound. Every note has to be a struggle. If not it’s a dirty,
deceptive platitude. I know I learned that from Tom Verlaine. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I’ll go back to <i>Adventure </i>tonight. And I’ll spin
Verlaine’s solo records: The first one, just called <i>Tom Verlaine</i> is
really good, like a lost Television album. The songs “Yonki Time” and “Breakin’
In My Heart” measure up. “Mr. Blur” on <i>Dreamtime</i> is amazing too. <i>Flash
Light</i> is overproduced with tellingly 80s drums, but beneath that there’s
some pretty compelling literary songcraft and, as always, that guitar. <i>Warm
and Cool</i>, from 1992 is lovely. It aerates Verlaine’s sound, putting it in conversation
with previous wonders like Chet Atkins, Les Paul, and Santo & Johnny. But
most of all and many times more, I’ll go back to <i>Marquee Moon</i>, although
every note and every rest, every bass line, every Billy Ficca hi-hat flourish,
every syllable is forever entwined with my synapses. That album bristles with a
pent-up energy demanding release while also denying any permission granted to escape.
Instead, especially on the album’s wondrous side one, the sound elaborates and
extenuates to the very boundaries of its enclosure. It threatens to explode the
world that contains it. Somehow, in that tension, that friction, a new world
is, if not invented, at least suggested. We can see a different light, callow
and threadbare, but not burdened with the same old stories, the same old songs
and dances, the same old surrenders. </span></span></p>
<p><style>@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</style></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Seth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268364577339453362.post-81468695932361625352022-12-10T14:06:00.004-05:002022-12-10T14:10:48.746-05:00<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrn3wrJXUc87Z52LjCd8iwin4_NSbrjSDYvq4d05hLCjF0LyDlWDCpNQp0JlUZHHDeriC7suYQot4S_G7WBmR9qmpubqhSlR6PvpkWpL_BGXn2KWUCFSLYrMDk6A4fUzv6bdGPp_7fIHtVnFmGpST0jOSRdQLQsKcHWGgzgXHGXSyvuTORmbiwVvVNSA/s3270/RREULOGIES.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1714" data-original-width="3270" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrn3wrJXUc87Z52LjCd8iwin4_NSbrjSDYvq4d05hLCjF0LyDlWDCpNQp0JlUZHHDeriC7suYQot4S_G7WBmR9qmpubqhSlR6PvpkWpL_BGXn2KWUCFSLYrMDk6A4fUzv6bdGPp_7fIHtVnFmGpST0jOSRdQLQsKcHWGgzgXHGXSyvuTORmbiwVvVNSA/w640-h336/RREULOGIES.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Hamish Kilgour (1957 - 2022)<br /></span></span></span></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Clean were my Ramones. Their album <i>Vehicle</i>, my <i>Rocket
to Russia</i>. 13 tracks, only two of which exceed three minutes. The Ramones
were from Queens and so was my mom which meant they could never be <i>that </i>cool.
I was politically, intellectually, and affectationally internationalist. The
Clean were not just from New Zealand, but from the South Island. I didn’t know
what that meant, but it sure sounded more alluring than Forest Hills. Sometimes engaging the unfamiliar is the only way to determine what you're about. <br /></span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Vehicle</i> was released in 1990, just as I was settling
in to my first real band, playing shows in Chicago and writing, writing,
writing songs. I tried to make them sound like Mission of Burma, Alex Chilton,
Elvis Costello, Eleventh Dream Day, Lou Reed. And I tried to make them sound
like the Clean. The Clean’s were open-hooded affairs. When their motor hummed,
you could see the pistons pump and the belts turn. There’s no subterfuge in
those songs. They tell you how they work while they work. And work they do. Their
strumminess shouldn’t be confused for jangliness. If jangle originates with the
Byrds, the kind of strum employed by the Clean started with the Velvets. Pumping
downward through layers of silt with purpose: cleansing purpose, constructive
purpose. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The downward stroke, of course, was provided by Hamish on
the snare. He played unconventionally without crossing his hands, left on the
hi-hat, right on the snare. He was, in that sense, more open to his audience;
open and available. All the obits for Hamish talk about the America bands influenced
by the Clean. My band was one of those. We studied those songs. We covered
them. They were deceptively simple. But their straight-aheadness wasn’t so
straight: a little skip in the rhythm, a crucial creak in the voice, a plaited
seventh dropped into an otherwise unperturbed chord. From the Clean we learned
how to make the simple not so simple. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">While Hamish’s brother, David, was a kind of suburban-basement
Ray Davies, keening and careening through single-bore melodies, Hamish, as a
singer, offered a counterpoint: breezy and vulnerable, sometimes barely there.
On the driving “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAbPX7xXPHY" target="_blank">Diamond Shine</a>,” his vocals sound like the echo of someone else’s
vocals for some other song. Hamish was handsome, but he still gave off the
feeling of someone who’d rather you didn’t notice him. He just wanted to make
songs, clean songs; Clean songs. He played in other bands too: most notably the
Great Unwashed (get it?) and The Mad Scene. But he’ll forever be remembered for
the Clean and what they did for New Zealand music, for American music, for indie
music, for kids who just wanted to make songs. </span></span></p>
<p><style>@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-520082689 -1073697537 9 0 511 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</style><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></p>Seth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268364577339453362.post-44865834201554503552022-11-13T10:34:00.006-05:002022-11-13T11:31:51.965-05:00<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKGFIZY6fRdaFJIQzKuCrY0F369AhN-0DiYVTDECdtBL3ub-8ZXVHIFkKpLwXxupQXL7fUbEsCV7ofFstyHlSkN-tAy9awbdG59dcwzIa7qLkOs8m91jGywUkBUKTFqHBL47C4dyklPqSBDfds0RjVBNlh-JTZzUbUr5D1UoyuLpNevnCcwiusCUY9Tg/s3270/RREULOGIES.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1714" data-original-width="3270" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKGFIZY6fRdaFJIQzKuCrY0F369AhN-0DiYVTDECdtBL3ub-8ZXVHIFkKpLwXxupQXL7fUbEsCV7ofFstyHlSkN-tAy9awbdG59dcwzIa7qLkOs8m91jGywUkBUKTFqHBL47C4dyklPqSBDfds0RjVBNlh-JTZzUbUr5D1UoyuLpNevnCcwiusCUY9Tg/w640-h336/RREULOGIES.jpg" width="640" /> </a><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />Keith Levene (1957 - 2022) </span></span></b></span><br /><p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Some people have a hard time squaring Keith Levene’s time in
Public Image Ltd. with his declaration that Yes was his “absolute godhead
band.” Not me. I hear in Levene’s playing a number of lessons learned from
Steve Howe, Yes’s guitarist. It’s possible that I hear these things because,
like Levene, I was an enormous Yes fan and an ardent student of what Howe did
on and with the guitar. And like Levene, I lacked the skill to do ninety-nine
percent of what Howe could do. So I did what Levene did, pursuing not Howe’s
technical virtuosity, but his approach to the instrument within the context of
a band. Levene listened to what Howe did when the music’s emphasis was
elsewhere. He listened to how the guitar enters and exits, how dynamics and
attack – rather than notes – can determine whether a part adds or subtracts
from the whole. Levene took these lessons and applied them to a band which, on
the surface, was completely different from Yes. One might go so far as to say
that PiL was meant as the antidote to the bloat of Yes and of prog rock more
generally. But PiL was prog in their own way. And, despite common (mostly
accurate) perceptions, Yes was capable of some pretty punky noise. (The album <i>Relayer
</i>offers a number of bracing moments that sound less like Emerson, Lake, and
Palmer than they do [if you set aside the singing] like the Monorchid, the
Jesus Lizard, or indeed like Levene’s PiL.) </span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoWhGF2BeSTWOj5JHF3yZDCnLcvdMhu-P_9df3R4mQMtkYZdSCw0byEhdD5cBvb6_dBtoT6KvFu2tjaoXK9gyFA06fahkZfb-2G6D8ckAArtTGO05SaO_SQw4wiNqPFf_cmnVdR-SgW3tGYkFgIG610nnQrdj8RVFLFN-tTvTRKu8dHpRH8yBqB1uYlg/s1488/Screen%20Shot%202022-11-12%20at%208.49.29%20PM.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1488" data-original-width="998" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoWhGF2BeSTWOj5JHF3yZDCnLcvdMhu-P_9df3R4mQMtkYZdSCw0byEhdD5cBvb6_dBtoT6KvFu2tjaoXK9gyFA06fahkZfb-2G6D8ckAArtTGO05SaO_SQw4wiNqPFf_cmnVdR-SgW3tGYkFgIG610nnQrdj8RVFLFN-tTvTRKu8dHpRH8yBqB1uYlg/w269-h400/Screen%20Shot%202022-11-12%20at%208.49.29%20PM.png" width="269" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;">On their two great albums (<i>Metal Box/Second Edition</i>
and <i>Flowers of </i>Romance), Public Image were an unprecedented proposition.
Built on awkward, subterranean rhythms anchored by Jah Wobble’s bass, Levene
and his mate, John Lydon, could screed and scream and scrape their way across
songs. In this regard, PiL was the antithesis of Yes. Structurally, where Yes
were constantly moving forward to new themes, creating an illusion of movement
from Point A to Point B (and often Points C, D, and E; occasionally to the far
reaches of other real and imagined alphabets), PiL modelled themselves on the
skipping record, constantly shunting back to Point A. The tacit claim of their
music is that the progress of both progressive rock and of Western culture’s
mad dash toward the future – toward bigger, faster, and more sophisticated – is
a fool’s errand. Just hold tight. Here is no worse (no better either) than
being somewhere else. And if we hang here long enough – even though the world
may remain the same – our perceptions of it will shift. A secondary claim then
arises: since we are largely a construct of our perceptions of the world, when
our perceptions change, we change. Fundamentally. I hear no such claims in
Uriah Heep, Greenslade, Focus, or Gentle Giant. (Look into the eyes of the
dragon and despair!) </span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Levene’s great innovations in the context of PiL had nothing
to do with melody or harmony. His guitar was a great gash; a sandblast abrading
and upbraiding the surface of this thing that one might be tempted to call a
song. Levene’s guitar was a prybar jammed between the lid and the can, the door
and the frame, the present and the future, the right and the wrong. Levene
found ways to wrench PiL’s songs into unexpected shapes so that they might
careen along trajectories not accounted for by their design. Like Yes, but also
like CAN and Lee “Scratch” Perry (the latter two among Lydon’s faves), PiL aspired
to the cosmic. Maybe not as overtly. Maybe they wouldn’t cop to it. But their
music surely tests the bounds of what earthly music might sound like. </span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I have a very distinct memory of dropping my young child off
at daycare in those early, bleary days of new parenthood. Across the street
from the daycare center was a field and forest cut through by power lines
suspended from a series of monumental steel towers. It was autumn in New
England, a sharp crack of chill in the air. Needing a little head clearing, a
little respite from the incessance of a two year old, I walked the path of the
towers. I put on my headphones and <i>Metal Box</i> / <i>Second Edition.</i>(I’ve
always preferred to think of it as <i>Metal Box, </i>honoring the band’s
original intentions when they packed three LPs into a metal film canister so
tightly that to extract them for consumption meant risking their destruction.)<i>
</i>This album offers sounds as un-pastoral as any I know. It is the embodiment
of the towers and the power lines with the adjoining grass and trees
photoshopped out. Indeed, in headphones, this album photoshops out the entire
world. What’s left are the pixelated ghosts of guitar-bass-drums; the
excoriated echo of a desperate howl emanating from a hole in the canvas. </span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Critics and guitar players of a certain bent sometimes claim
that Levene invented what we recognize as postpunk guitar playing. In a song
like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mrbem0F9GxM" target="_blank">“Chant”</a> you can hear what they mean. Those wild, dissonant, emaciated
streaks refusing to provide a roadmap for the listener’s expectations. Listen
in particular to the final thirty-five seconds, when Lydon exits and Levene’s
guitar rises to the fore and then melds with surprising seemlessness into a
keyboard producing the same incoherence. But there was a lot more buried in Levene’s
satchel. On <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5VtuJROYc8" target="_blank">“Memories”</a> (we’re still listening to <i>Metal Box</i>) he offers
vaguely middle-eastern figures, passing them through a tightly wound chorus
effect that suggests that they are played under water. On <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GwrRGxYmY8" target="_blank">“Swan Lake” </a>(known in
an alternate incarnation by the more on-the-nose title, “Death Disco”) Levene slathers
the song in multiple guitars: one peppers the proceedings with flangey harmonics
(a mainstay of Howe’s technique), another introduces a distant melody discharged
from the bowels of an enormous metallic tank, a third scrapes gallopingly
underneath the erected surfaces, and still another drops low Morricone-twanged punctuations
that fall like Google map pins into the rapid and rabid expansions as they taunt
disintegration. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQtO6R4qkg0" target="_blank">“Poptones”</a> is in many ways the band’s mission statement. In
addition to the guitar, Levene provides the spasmodic drums, overtaken by constant
cymbal sibilance, grinding against Wobble’s architectonic bass line which
thrusts insistently, even rudely, forward with little regard for anything else
in its vicinity. Lydon’s vocals slide across registers: reticent, accusatory,
resigned. Meanwhile, Levene’s guitar does something unaccounted for in celebrations
of its postpunkiness. He plays a repetitive arpeggio which, if you listen to it
in isolation, could be a Steve Howe contribution to one of the codas that Yes
often used to close out – and settle down – one of their album-side-length,
meandering epics. </span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;">For keen listeners, Levene provided just as much to chew on
as Howe had provided for him. But in Levene’s hands there was no distracting virtuosity
to lure unsuspecting, adenoidal guitarists down the garden path of
MUSICIANSHIP. Levene recovered the lost, relegated, ignored, aspects of the
music he loved and built a genuinely new music of these discarded parts. That’s
one of the reasons that PiL at their best sounded like a teapot repaired by the
same bull who’d just rampaged through the china shop. No attempt is made at
disguising the sharp edges and protruding seams. These are the marks of
actuality inflicted on the surface of the music and its creators. They remain,
not as badges of honor – there is no honor in suffering the persecutions of
reality – rather, they are left visible as evidence of having simply been part
of this sometimes harsh and often pitiless world. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<style>@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</style><span style="color: #ffa400;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> <br /></span></span></b></span></div><br /> <p></p>Seth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268364577339453362.post-50586180110273504802022-09-14T19:37:00.001-04:002022-09-14T19:43:57.726-04:00<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgfzPrsL9ZBfjCYFSfqJuOucbe6RftjBIudSUlem8P0dpGVn5UfQLUR55Zfqb3luKTEeTVbjtpAhyfy1uC7hOvIWqsde3dEhceYFN_yMCqyoslfSuncOuZ0rqoAIGkDwbUgCaep8dzsOgn8-zlf9iBlnE6HQ1E3ZAKQYlXLsMvSwSqBj-CkXsjcZ8pQQ/s3270/RREULOGIES.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1714" data-original-width="3270" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgfzPrsL9ZBfjCYFSfqJuOucbe6RftjBIudSUlem8P0dpGVn5UfQLUR55Zfqb3luKTEeTVbjtpAhyfy1uC7hOvIWqsde3dEhceYFN_yMCqyoslfSuncOuZ0rqoAIGkDwbUgCaep8dzsOgn8-zlf9iBlnE6HQ1E3ZAKQYlXLsMvSwSqBj-CkXsjcZ8pQQ/w640-h336/RREULOGIES.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><b> Jean-Luc Godard (1930 - 2022)</b></span></span></span></span><p></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span> </span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span>“I
start to spin the tale / You complain of my diction”: as sung by Tom Verlaine. </span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span> </span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span>But
it could’ve been Godard. Lord knows his diction was always out of whack. But
just as the key word of Verlaine’s plaint is not “tale,” nor even “diction,” but
“spin,” the key word here is “whack.” In Godard’s oeuvre the overriding message
is that the tale is there for the spinning. Not “spin” in the 24-hour-news-cycle
sense of our constantly refreshed revisionist present. Spin as constant motion.
Not spun like a carnival wheel to land on some implausible conclusion, but spun
to keep on spinning. Like the plates in a different section of the carnival. Such
spinning provides a whack: to the side of the head, to the medium, to time itself.
Sure, Godard knew all about Brechtian estrangement, whacking the audience out
of their complacent passivity, their acceptance of what they are
seeing/reading/hearing. It seems to me that disbelief is humanity’s greatest
accomplishment. Why the fuck would anyone ever want to suspend it? Godard
taught me that. <span> </span><span> </span></span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span> </span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span>Godard
came of age in tandem with rock and roll. But rock and roll was never his jam. When
his films included music, he preferred classical scores. He made a film called </span>"Faut
rêver Mozart." But when Godard dubbed the youth of the sixties the “children
of Marx and Coca-Cola,” he was also, maybe inadvertently, describing the particular
predicament of rock and roll, of the counterculture, of America. Mayo Thompson,
of the Red Krayola once declared – guitar in hand – that “you cannot be a
communist and a philosopher at the same time.” (He attributes the thought to Wittgenstein.) What about an adman? A Costco
shopper? A guitar hero or a filmmaker? Can you square the circle by dropping
your name from the credits and deferring to the collectivity of the Dziga
Vertov (or the Spencer Davis) Group? </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Godard did once turn his attention
(and his camera) to rock and roll. 1968’s <i>One Plus One </i>is a confounding
film for anyone who comes for the Rolling Stones. Footage
of the Stones working on preliminary arrangements of the song, “Sympathy for
the Devil,” alternates with staged <i>tableaux vivants</i> related to the
socio-political events of the late-60s. A group of Black men loiter in an
automobile junkyard in London’s Battersea neighborhood, reciting revolutionary
texts by African American activists including LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) and
Eldridge Cleaver, distributing rifles, assaulting and murdering a trio of White
flower-child women dressed in flowing white gowns. In a paperback bookstore,
the proprietor reads aloud from <i>Mein Kampf</i>, while patrons pay for their
purchases with Nazi salutes and by slapping the faces of two teenage hippie-boy
hostages who spout Maoist and Marxist slogans. A three man film crew – with
camera and microphone – traipse through the forest at the heels of an
interviewer lobbing political and philosophical questions at a young woman
named Eve Democracy (played by Godard’s then-wife Anne Wiazemsky).</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">When
the film premiered at the 1968 London Film Festival, the producers had retitled
it “Sympathy for the Devil,” to match the title of the Stones’ song and the
film had been re-edited – against Godard’s wishes – to include a finished
version of the song. Godard responded by joining producer Iain Quarrier on
stage as he introduced the film, only to punch Quarrier out and invite the audience
to join him outside for a screening of his own cut under a bridge on the banks
of the Thames. (This was nine years before the Sex Pistols rented a boat to sail
the same river playing “God Save The Queen” during Elizabeth’s silver jubilee.)
</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Godard
engaged rock and roll, through the personages and prism of the Rolling Stones,
in order to do to it what he did to everything. He tore the wires from the
circuit boards, held the mechanism to the bright light of skepticism, and spit
into its bowels. When <i>One Plus One </i>cuts from the Stones in a state-of-the-art London studio, to the Black radicals reading Baraka and Cleaver, he is
holding the one to the other in order to melt them down. In the glare of Baraka
who wrote of “Myddle class white boys” stealing Black culture and black life, the
Stones go blind. Or truer yet, we go blind watching the Stones. They can no
longer make the image that they always are. They dissolve into pastiche
imposters at scant remove from their minstrel forebears. But the genius of
Godard – really the complication of Godard (and of Marx and Coca Cola) – is the
fact that the Stones throw light and heat back at Baraka and Cleaver. The
casting and the scripting that are also ideology, politics, identity, emerge as
inescapable conditions of both movies and life. That is why Godard was fond of
saying that life is a subset of cinema and not the other way around. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Other
filmmakers have turned their cameras to rock and roll – Scorcese, Jarmusch,
Todd Haynes – but almost inevitably they do so as an act of veneration. (I
would point to Penelope Spheeris as a director who allowed contradiction and
ambiguity into her rock and roll documentaries.) Godard’s <i>One Plus One</i>
is of a piece not with these other rockumentaries, but with his own body of
work, his own critical sensibility. Just as he’ll suddenly drop the diegetic
sound from a scene to reveal the constructed nature of the mise en scene, introduce
a section as “slow motion” to draw our attention to the stilted use of that
effect, or splatter cinematically miscolored blood across the hoods of cars and
the actors’ shirtfronts for no specifically narrative reason, he’ll push
against the Stones, against Black nationalism, against his own Maoism, in order
to force us to see it more clearly, to feel it, to discern its shape and
meaning. In this context, the Stones are hardly rock gods. (The only god in
Godard’s work is the one in his name, and maybe cinema itself.) Instead, the
Stones are products of their time, of the burgeoning rock and roll industry, of
fashion and technologies, of capitalism itself. As such, they must be pushed against.
They must be torn apart. And, if you watch <i>One Plus One </i>a certain way
(not necessarily the “right” way), they are indeed torn limb from flouncy-blouse-sleeved
limb. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Jean-Luc
Godard was of his time too. And this tearing of limbs from limbs was the modus
operandi of the times. In France, where rock and roll didn’t take root as it
did in the U.S. and the U.K., Godard and his Nouvelle Vague comrades used
cinema as their chainsaw. <span> </span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Godard’s
diction was out of whack because the times were out of whack. So he spun his
tales without regard for complaints. The diction had to be reinvented. Not just
so new tales could be told. That is what many of the other Nouvelle Vaguers
were after. It had to be reinvented in Godard’s films so that tales could
recede into the work as one element among others – images, sound, and the diction,
grammar, and syntax of cinema and of life. Tom Verlaine sings it, <span>“I start to spin the tale / You complain of my
diction,” followed by, <span> </span>“You give me
friction / But I dig friction.” Godard dug friction too. </span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span> </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span> </span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
</span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span> </span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><style>@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</style> <br /></span></span></p>Seth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268364577339453362.post-17245503895808407432022-06-05T13:07:00.008-04:002022-06-05T14:48:16.181-04:00<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhKd6kbBlbFzP6Oj4c1DhfP_rLBodtlGyKdVXm40RSruahUbzYOAwIAQn7zBdjmywDn-G5IgSZsNoQmfSTBaOjn69lRudQADjxkE178H54ZvN-uKj47TMYzMI9xye26t7iIsNWy5laAZ-sFrMhI2auSChYEb8V-YX4QLoFfXN_TaWRAIKPDMK0wpZLHA/s947/Chin%20Music.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="947" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhKd6kbBlbFzP6Oj4c1DhfP_rLBodtlGyKdVXm40RSruahUbzYOAwIAQn7zBdjmywDn-G5IgSZsNoQmfSTBaOjn69lRudQADjxkE178H54ZvN-uKj47TMYzMI9xye26t7iIsNWy5laAZ-sFrMhI2auSChYEb8V-YX4QLoFfXN_TaWRAIKPDMK0wpZLHA/w640-h310/Chin%20Music.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /> </span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>Never Mind The Sex Pistols, Here’s The Bollocks<br /></b><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">There’s more than one way to skin a
cat. How one goes about it, though, can change the meaning of the cat: who it
was, how it arrived at the moment of its skinning, even whether or not it was,
in fact, a cat that got skinned. Here, kitty, kitty.<br /><br /> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">In critical parlance, we don’t call
it “skinning,” but “interpretation.” Interpretation happens, just like shit. It
happens, of course, in the hands of critics. But it also happens in the hands
of biographers, journalists, filmmakers, and the cats themselves. Sometimes interpretation
buries the truth, just like shit, conceals its odor beneath a layer of
store-bought schist, packaged and sold as a chaperone for the shit on its way
to the dustbin. Which brings me to Danny Boyle’s <i>Pistol, </i>the six-part
series on FX. <br /><br /></span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">If you’ve been watching <i>Pistol, </i>you’d
be forgiven for mistaking the skinned cat for a possum with rickets or a discarded
mophead. Boyle and creator/writer Craig Pearce dissect the Sex Pistols with all
the precision of rusty hedge trimmers. Their model for the series – and it
seems for their understanding of the Pistols – is the music biopic schematic in
which the childhood-trauma-bone is connected to the ambition-bone is connected
to the won’t-take-no-for-an-answer-bone is connected to the fame-bone is
connected to the drugs-bone and the sex-bone. In fact, <i>Pistol</i> devotes so
much attention to boning that you’d think that sex was the Pistols claim to
fame. I suppose some of this can be chalked up to Pearce’s curriculum vitae
which traces a shallow line from Australian soap operas to work with Baz
Luhrmann on boilerplate that-kid’s-got-moxie! schtick like <i>Strictly Ballroom
</i>and <i>Elvis.</i> (O the ignominy of being fêted by hacks!) <br /><br /></span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">At first, I took <i>Pistol</i> as
something like <i>Punk for Dummies</i>. But by episode two I realized it was
closer to <i>Punk by Dummies</i>. The interpretation on display – the skinning –
is based on a near-total misapprehension of why such a series ought to be made
in the first place (assuming that it ought). <i>Pistol</i> is based on
guitarist Steve Jones’ memoir, <i>Lonely Boy</i>, and revolves largely around
Jones’ wayward ramble from deprived child to depraved manchild. Perhaps this is
the root cause of the waywardness of the series’ interpretation. <i>Pistol</i>
is a hamfisted bildungsroman, balanced on the hackneyed fictional devices of
armchair developmental psychology and White-male-individualist-heroism. The
show makes the unconscionable interpretive mistake of understanding the Sex
Pistols’ trajectory – and more specifically, Jones’ – as a rags to riches story.
The problem with this is three-fold. First, and most obviously, there are no
riches at the end of this story. Ikea furniture with the last piece missing; a tabl.
Second, the model for this kind of story necessarily places personal ambition,
talent, and success at its center. Stories like this end with self-realization –
in both senses: the main figure comes to realize things about himself while
also realizing his inner (often god-given) potential. But for those acquainted
with the Pistols’ legend and with Steve Jones’ part in the drama, it is clear
that his memoir could have just as easily (and perhaps more appropriately) been
called <i>Lucky Boy</i> because he fell into the Sex Pistols and was just
barely capable enough to hang on to the tailpipe of the careening vehicle as it
fishtailed through the narrow streets of 70s British culture. Jones’ post-Pistols
career has been inflated and kept (just barely) aloft by the exhaust from that
tailpipe emitted over a twenty-six month period some forty-five years ago. Thirdly,
and most importantly, the kind of story that Boyle and Pearce try to tell –
focused on the qualities of an individual as he overcomes social and societal
challenges to achieve his dream – must, by design, ignore the historical and
material conditions that allow, or even necessitate, the confrontations and
transformations that are central to the Sex Pistols’ importance.<br /><br /> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Hear me, o idolaters,
individualists, bootstrappers, entrepreneurs: The story of the Sex Pistols is
not a story of individual accomplishment. Let us not wallow in the “genius” of
Jones or Lydon or McLaren. Theirs is a story of their place and time. Theirs is
a story of how various lines of history, politics, class, generations, and sensibility
converged in a particular place and time; how a particular phenomenon emerged
from this convergence and offered a glimpse of the alternative that according
to Maggie Thatcher did not exist. What makes <i>Pistol’s </i>interpretation<i> </i>all
the more bewildering is that the truer telling of the Sex Pistols’ story already
exists in the form of Julien Temple’s 2000 documentary, <i>The Filth and the
Fury, </i>which is to<i> Pistol </i>as cliff diving in Acapulco is to stepping
off the Oxford Street pavement into a puddle of day-old dog piss. (Gee, I’m
really winning here. I’m really winning. I hope I don’t get overcome with
power.) Boyle is clearly familiar with Temple’s film. He pilfers clips that appear
in <i>The Filth and the Fury</i>, implicitly acknowledging that Temple’s film is part of
the historical record, part of the story. He uses these filched clips to tap
into what can now be taken for reality, for truth. And he uses these clips as a
way of delegating responsibility for the historical, the political, the
economic, the societal, to Temple’s documentary. It’s as if the entirety of <i>Pistol</i>
is followed by a footnote:<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span>
</p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">* cf. Temple,
Julien. <i>The Filth and the Fury</i> (2000), <i>passim</i>.<br /><br /></span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">As told – as interpreted, as
skinned – by Temple’s documentary, the Sex Pistols’ story is one of worlds (old
and new) colliding. The film juxtaposes footage of the aristocracy imbibing
cocktails, privilege, and ideology, with piles of garbage in London’s streets, of
kids trapped in council estates (public housing) as if in prison. Scenes of a young White man rushing an older White man (the racial identifications
are crucial to the scenes), ripping a Union Jack from his hands and proceeding
to beat him with the flag pole; of a Black woman, her face torqued with anger,
delivering a looping right hand to the left ear of a White, helmeted English
policeman, sending him reeling; of a bearded White man in glasses brandishing a
piece of lumber as photographers document the arc of his terrified swings: the
so-called “Battle of Lewisham,” a conflict <span> </span>instigated by the racist National Front
marching in a majority-Black, south London neighborhood on August 13, 1977.<br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Elsewhere in the film, John Lydon
recounts the construction of his Johnny Rotten persona and performance style. Among
others, he cites Olivier’s Richard III alongside comedian Ken Dodd. The tragic,
the grotesque, the comic. From a constellation of British stars, Lydon cobbles
a single burning sun, not of York, but of the English unconscious; a figure
designed to peel away the floral wallpaper concealing the rot and mildew – the “damp”
as the British call it – eating away at everything: from the walls of their
terraced flats, to time-honored traditions, to the Empire’s august institutions,
to the very entitlements of the Empire itself.<br /><br /> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i>Pistol</i> is an inadvertent tragedy.
It’s there in the title: <i>Pistol</i>, singular, despite the story being truly
collective, truly historical, truly social. <span> </span>It transforms a story about collective
energies into one about individual aspiration. It ignores the relation of
cultural production – as both output and input – to unfolding historical pressures.
The story that <i>Pistol </i>tells is false. It is false because it places
Steve Jones at its center. In truth this is a centerless story. But even so,
the main bodies in orbit around the vacuum do not include Jones. It is false
because it emphasizes the inconsequential, and treats the actually
consequential as a mere backdrop for the heroics of its doughty, lonely boy. It
is false because, at its core – in all its true significance – the Pistols’
story is an historical story; a story of how energy wells up in culture like
water behind a dam. It is a story of how the dam, seemingly eternal, will someday
crack and buckle, revealing the contingency of its power and its purpose. It’s
also a story of how the dam gets rebuilt, the energy returned to harness; how convention
is a recalcitrant bastard and most of the time gets its way. That’s a story worth
telling. Thankfully, we’ve still got Temple’s <i>The Filth and the Fury. </i></span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p><style><font size="4"><span style="font-family: verdana;">@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}@font-face
{font-family:"ヒラギノ角ゴ Pro W3";
panose-1:2 11 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 2059927551 18 0 131085 0;}@font-face
{font-family:"\@ヒラギノ角ゴ Pro W3";
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 2059927551 18 0 131085 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</span></font></style><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> <br /></span></span></p>Seth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268364577339453362.post-61184429080302127572022-03-03T11:16:00.005-05:002022-03-03T11:34:31.496-05:00<p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjzQHF47XuODS2h9tvhgYjXIBic1Ofh2LJLO_YAE4m9DpfuhtPh5S7uo5yQT6wywW5HJC8_UFwbyXtLjEnh3FyBIQ_pgvr-Z9rVI8ql5l2zU5diS56LI6AlqQk3w4tnjISg3KDKNTYFzEd4V-L9DiDsivT8IFdAwprb8b5XdN2Zv51v7KoVYQnfqFTJ1A=s3270" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1714" data-original-width="3270" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjzQHF47XuODS2h9tvhgYjXIBic1Ofh2LJLO_YAE4m9DpfuhtPh5S7uo5yQT6wywW5HJC8_UFwbyXtLjEnh3FyBIQ_pgvr-Z9rVI8ql5l2zU5diS56LI6AlqQk3w4tnjISg3KDKNTYFzEd4V-L9DiDsivT8IFdAwprb8b5XdN2Zv51v7KoVYQnfqFTJ1A=w640-h336" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span>
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />Dan Graham<br /><br /></span></span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Like water in a pot on the stovetop below deck on a trawler buffeted
by a roiling storm, Dan Graham sloshed and sluiced. He wouldn’t (or couldn’t)
obey the edicts of the pot’s boundaries. He answered instead to the forces of
nature. To wind and gravity and barometric pressure. It’s for this reason that
those mirrored pavilions never seemed to me the real Dan Graham. Sure there’s
all the tricks and trippiness that implore us to pair mirrors with smoke. But
the sturdy permanence of those pavilions are nearly the antithesis of my image
of Graham. <br /><br /></span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I prefer to think of his slinking, sly self in his writings
on rock music or postwar domestic architecture. I prefer to think of his
now-you-see-me/now-you-see-yourself coquettishness in performance. I prefer to
think of the inconstance of his astute rationality offset by his insistence on
astrology. <br /><br /></span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This unbalancing act of his is on stark display in one of
his masterworks, the early-80s video <i><a href="https://vimeo.com/140869040">Rock
My Religion</a>.</i> As soon as you start to describe it, you come up against its
constitutive contradictions. It’s a documentary. And it’s not. It’s a thesis on
rock and roll in American culture. But not really. It’s a portrait of Patti
Smith. Except it’s not. It’s a montage of rock and roll in the wake of punk
that reconnects the form’s originary impulses to its current manifestation. That
seems pretty close, but it still badly misrepresents the logic and
phenomenology of the video.<br /><br /> </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Rock My Religion</i> presents – again, maybe the wrong
word, it <i>performs </i>– the fractious ennui of middle-American, middle-class
stultification. It’s as if the houses in Graham’s mid-60s <i><a href="https://www.moma.org/collection/works/105513">Homes for America</a></i> came
to life as angsty, antsy teenagers, flinging themselves about revival tents, into
rock clubs, off causeless rebel cliffs. Graham portrays a developmental view of
American agitation. Chafing against religious disenfranchisement, the Puritans and
the Shakers willed themselves into ecstasy. They tipped and turvied, like
exotic dervishes, like listing schooners. Their tongues turned somersaults,
transforming the rational dictates of spoken English into feral caterwauls of
yaw and yearning. Graham connects this, on the one hand, to the ghost dance of the
Paiute and the Lakota, and, on the other, to James Dean’s embodiment of generational
abhorrence. Out of this primordial fret emerges rock and roll: spurn as style,
dissidence as commodity. <br /><br /></span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Rock My Religion </i>followed on from Graham’s early work
as a rock critic. He wrote with knowledge and giddy devotion about the British
invasion, reserving special affection for the Kinks. <span>Graham’s treatise careens from Buddy
Holly to Sonic Youth alighting here on Henry Rollins, there on Mark E. Smith. Graham
would also make a straighter concert film of D.C.’s straightedge lords, Minor
Threat. Inexplicably, there is practically no acknowledgment of the fundamental
African and African American contributions to rock and roll. Granted this is
not a scholarly work, but the art leaks out of its articulateness through this breach.
The video eventually sets down on the figure of Patti Smith, rock and roll’s
Ann Lee (</span><span>the founding
leader of the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, or the Shakers). The Shakers had a severe
exit strategy: procreation was forbidden. La-la-la live for today! Patti Smith
is in it for what can’t be gotten blithely. One must grit one’s teeth and plunge
headlong into the corroded depths of the psycho-commodified banality of <span> </span>cultural consensus. Battered by indifference
the pilgrim, the seeker, suffers slings, arrows, and gobs of spit to touch down
revivified on the earth: mother, brother, other. <br /><br /></span></span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Graham talked the walk. Witness <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PqNAG9Q33o">Performer/Audience/Mirror</a></i>.
He’s being us, asks us to be him. I is another. <span>I
am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. Mother, brother, other. Goo goo g’joob.<br /><br />
</span></span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Dan Graham has been called a conceptual artist.
Conceptual art has been called cool, heady, unemotional, bathetic, calculated.
It’s tough to square this circle because Graham was capricious, wayward,
inconstant, flighty, whimsical, wooly in more ways than one. Lester Bangs once wrote
of the Stooges that they work with ideas that “may not be highly sophisticated
(God forbid) but are certainly advanced.” Like the Stooges, Dan Graham wallowed
in the folly of bothering to do something, to make something, knowing that time
will swallow the lot. Can’t go on, must… etc. The ornate is a liar; the tidy a
false god. The seamless is unseemly. Graham preferred laughter and flailing and
pogoing into the abyss. That’s why – all other gods impervious and those pavilions notwithstanding – rock was his
religion. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span></span><p><style><span style="font-family: verdana;"><font size="4">@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
color:#954F72;
mso-themecolor:followedhyperlink;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</font></span></style></p>Seth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268364577339453362.post-56268149570217159042022-01-21T13:37:00.007-05:002022-01-21T17:26:47.242-05:00<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgWKENUhRZXZp6c1d6KZJVQTFRmVr6hz7RNIQS5lWMyx9ocCJrcHoHQlQRsnvipZr_BAq-zcInPBqLE1t-kSV7DXApXa37NS75xuK-KSgNphmc_mtlanDdIYYt9j7JUVHgMbXpmpb8FD_BX28Cinh1O8AbvvbRTPppFY9BhTVzzZP6DawBdGNp-WsCTXQ=s947" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="947" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgWKENUhRZXZp6c1d6KZJVQTFRmVr6hz7RNIQS5lWMyx9ocCJrcHoHQlQRsnvipZr_BAq-zcInPBqLE1t-kSV7DXApXa37NS75xuK-KSgNphmc_mtlanDdIYYt9j7JUVHgMbXpmpb8FD_BX28Cinh1O8AbvvbRTPppFY9BhTVzzZP6DawBdGNp-WsCTXQ=w640-h310" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Terrible
Abundance</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">We
live in an age of terrible abundance. In the course of just a couple of months,
we’ve been able to lower our temporal periscopes into the depths, to peer into
rooms now fifty years gone; at people now either fifty years older or, unable
to traverse time to join us here, dead. Our ears prick at distant signals
beaming back in like heterohemispheric transmissions from some vaguely imagined
East or South. Nothing is as simultaneously exotic and reassuring as the past.
We know it like the backs of our hands. It lives on in who we are and how we
live, what we understand and why we value what we value. Re-engaging the past
in the form of remixes, mashups, reissues, crate-dug minerals recovered and set
beneath the microscope for reinvigorated appreciation, is the safest and most immediately
rewarding form of exploration. Rediscovering the already-discovered. The new
world in the old world, or the old in the new. Such discoveries are always
bubble-wrapped, their sharp edges and pointy corners dulled or safely blanketed
like the furniture in the baby’s room. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">In
March of last year, the Beatles documentary, <i>Get Back, </i>was released to
great global fanfare. The film <span> </span>depicts
the Beatles over a three-week period in 1969. And three days ago (as of this
writing) on January 17, 2022,<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLlhYiN4gmU&t=1s"> a video surfaced on YouTube of the band, Television,</a> performing at NYC’s legendary Café Wha? in 1974. The differences between
these two releases go way beyond the scale of their reception (to date, the Television
clip has been viewed 2,922 times). The Beatles doc weighs in at nearly eight
hours, while the featherweight Television clip is a mere three minutes and
forty one seconds. Yet both exist and operate in the space of nostalgic yearning.
To click “play” is to force the tip of the pry bar between the lid and the fuselage
of Tut’s sarcophagus. The YouTube description accompanying the Television clip
refers to it as “recently unearthed footage.” It is purportedly the only
existing video of the band’s original lineup with Richard Hell on bass performing live before an audience in a club. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I’m
a rock and roll dissident in that I understand the Beatles as a counterrevolutionary
force who blunted the most radical aspects of rock and roll. The “Fab Four” –
branded from the get-go – almost single-handedly invented all the benign and
boring forms of rock that ascended to prominence in the 1970s. At the same time,
they willingly accepted the trappings of commodity, moving through a series of
product re-inventions which presage the planned obsolescence of operating
systems and the techno-style upgrade logic of the iPhone. Yet, I’m always
inclined to think that our reception – both individual and collective – of the
materials of culture say at least as much about us as they do about the materials
themselves. Apparently we wanted a safe vehicle to ride from besuited and
bleached mid-60s rock and roll to anodyne late-60s psychedelia, holding both
hallucinogenic drugs and non-Western musical elements at arm’s length from suburban
infiltration or parental prohibition. Everybody I know is surprised to learn
that I watched <i>Get Back </i>in its entirety. Some take this to mean that I’ve
secretly liked the Beatles all along. Others assume that I am experiencing a
rather inevitable mid-life conversion, finally seeing the light. I can assure
you that neither of these things is true. Watching the film only confirmed my
sincere, gut-level distaste for much of the Beatles’ music. But I write and
teach about sound, music, and rock and roll. So I have some professional responsibility
to keep up with these fields. And there is no doubt that the release of <i>Get
Back </i>is understood to be a significant cultural event. I learned a lot
about John, Paul, George, and Ringo in their final stages as a band. And – in keeping
with my understanding about the dynamics of reception – I learned a lot about my
own disdain for the Beatles. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Two
things drew me to the commitment of watching the whole documentary. In previews
I was taken with the quality of the footage. It reminded me of <i>One Plus One,
</i>Jean-Luc Godard’s beautiful, perverse, confounding film about the Rolling Stones,
shot just a year earlier, also in London. My own susceptibility to nostalgic
indulgence knows no temptation so strong as 35 millimeter film of musicians in ochre-
and chartreuse-paneled studios festooned with suspended Neumann microphones, sound-separating
baffles, valve amplifiers, and champagne sparkle 3- or 4-piece drumkits. I
wanted to feast on these images of process in the form’s (and the industry’s) adolescence.
Secondly, I’d spotted, in those same previews, footage of Yoko Ono and Linda
McCartney that suggested that maybe they played sizable roles in the film and in
the goings-on depicted by it. I’ve always chafed against the misogynism of the “Yoko
broke up the Beatles” bullshit. My take – as a non-believer – has always been
that the true casualty of John and Yoko’s conjoining was Yoko’s artistic
practice. Prior to meeting Lennon, Yoko had been a daring experimental artist
whose work tested some of the most untested presumptions about ourselves and
our cultural values. For one bracing example <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-P-x97bwrI&t=1s">see her <i>Cut
Piece</i></a><i> </i>from the same year that the Beatles played New York’s Shea
Stadium (1964). I ask my students to consider what it would mean to assert that
the Beatles broke up Yoko. So I wanted to see for myself the dynamics of Yoko
and Linda in the studio with the band. I wanted to learn more about these two
accomplished women as they integrated themselves into the world of the planet’s
most popular band. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">What
you go in for is seldom what you come out with. After subjecting/indulging for
the nearly eight hours of Peter Jackson’s reassemblage, I came away with a few
fairly minor realizations. The songs, by and large (exceptions admitted), fall
into two categories. Scattered throughout the film, there are covers of old
rock and roll songs, the stuff upon which the early Liverpool/ Hamburg outfit cut
their teeth. The influence of these songs by Ray Charles, Little Richard, Chuck
Berry, Carl Perkins, et al., carries over into one of the two categories: rock
and roll for rock and roll’s sake. We can find examples of these songs
throughout the Beatles’ catalogue, but, here, at the end, they seem to want to
go back to that safe, innocent space. So, as we witness the band working on the
titular “Get Back,” the song’s rock and roll roots are more clearly exposed,
the opening riff being a kind of distilled and then watered-down version of
Chuck Berry’s signature innovations. We also get a glimpse of what “Get Back”
might have been when the band briefly works on a set of lyrics that didn’t make
the final cut. This version, known in Beatles lore as “No Pakistanis,” is a
satire of the anti-immigrant sentiments in late-60s Britain. Apparently fearing
that the satire could be taken literally (always a risk for satire – just ask
Jonathan Swift or Sacha Baron Cohen) the Beatles replaced “Don’t dig no
Pakistanis taking all the people’s jobs” with “Jojo left his home in Tucson,
Arizona for some California grass.” This lyrical road not taken is telling. There
were forms and contents which the Beatles could not abide, that didn’t suit
their sensibilities or their image. The second category under which their songs
comfortably reside is the semi-narrative, British music hall tradition; a kind
of one-act musical in which characters are brought to life, conflicts are faced,
and resolutions (of one sort or another) are achieved. These songs allow the band
to indulge the composerly predilections of (usually) McCartney and the
baroqueisms of George Martin. Such songs sound like outtakes from Broadway
productions, decidedly more tin pan alley than the mythical crossroads of the Delta
blues. By 1969 when – for better and for worse – bands in the UK, America, and
elsewhere, were forging ahead, inventing new forms, demanding that rock and
roll mutate, evolve, expand, the Beatles were still leaning back into the past,
into familiar modes. One is hard pressed to square the music of <i>Get Back</i>
with what bands such as the Velvet Underground or Can were doing at the same
time. The Beatles sound similarly out of step with what Dylan, Hendrix, or the
Jefferson Airplane were doing some three or four years earlier. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Here’s a little game. Match the director with the band about whom
they made a film:</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Todd Haynes<span> </span>The
Stooges</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Jim Jarmusch<span> </span>The
Velvet Underground</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Peter Jackson<span> </span>Bob
Dylan</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Martin Scorcese<span> </span>The
Beatles</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Now, play the same game with the directors’ non-rock movies:</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Todd Haynes<span> </span>Taxi
Driver</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Jim Jarmusch<span> </span>Stranger
Than Paradise</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Peter Jackson<span> </span>Safe</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Martin Scorcese<span> </span>The
Hobbit</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span> </span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Now tally the points by matching the directors’ rock and non-rock
movies. The correct answers are:</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Taxi Driver – Dylan</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Stranger Than Paradise – The Stooges</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Safe – Dylan and The Velvets</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The Hobbit – The Beatles</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Admittedly,
this is a kind of shitty, unfair game. But not entirely so. Reception as a
product of receivers. Meaning as a product of association. Get back, Bilbo! </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Still,
it is fascinating to watch a band at the height of their commercial (if not,
arguably, their artistic) power working together. Throughout the film, the band
entertain a series of ideas for an event: either a tv broadcast, a live concert
(their first in years), or some combination of the two. They seriously consider
performing in the ruins of Sabratha, an ancient Roman city in Libya. Wanting to
perform their new songs live, but imagining multiple guitar parts and a piano,
they toy with the idea of adding a fifth member. They discuss getting Eric
Clapton to join. Never mind that while the Beatles are mocking the views of
rightwing shithead MP, Enoch Powell for his anti-immigration racism, Clapton
would go on to publicly support Powell. Get back, Aeneas! But also, imagine the
not-entirely-misplaced hubris of a band so powerful that they could decide on a
new member the way that teenagers compile fantasy bands on the inside covers of
their school notebooks: “I’ll have Eric Clapton on guitar, John Bonham on
drums, John Entwhistle on bass, Elton John on piano…” </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">It’s
about this time that Billy Preston arrives. And of everything one might glean
about the Beatles of 1969 and their world<i>,</i> Preston’s arrival most
transparently gives away the game. At the age of twelve, Preston, a Black
American pianist and organist, had portrayed the great Memphis (by way of Alabama)
composer and bandleader W.C. Handy, as a young man in a 1958 biopic. (Nat King
Cole played the part of the adult Handy.) Preston later joined Little Richard’s
band, then Sam Cooke’s, and Ray Charles’. He was a living bridge to the Beatles’
forebears. Preston drops in on the Beatles’ session and they ask him to sit in
on some of the recordings. Before long, Preston has transformed the songs,
lending them the boogie, funk, and grease they had lacked (as evidenced <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3Ta3dNdVS8">here</a>). And while a lot
of what I’ve read about Preston’s presence on the sessions and in the film dwells
on his transformative musical contributions, I haven’t seen much attention paid
to the social contributions he appears to make. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Throughout
the film, the Beatles as a four-person collaborative, are hanging by tenuous
threads. Of course, we all now know that we are spying on their denouement. But
the film allows us to see the tensions swirling up like dust from beneath the baseboards.
At one point, Harrison quits. Ono’s presence in the studio, often within
sniffing distance of Lennon – even as they record tracks – is unsettling. Does
she have to be <i>that </i>close?! But one gets the sense that Lennon and Ono
are in the midst of inventing a new kind of love, a symbiosis that drives down
into genetics, desire, and soul. She’s <i>that</i> close almost precisely because
she’s not supposed to be. In this moment they’re saying “fuck off” to all the
supposed-to-bes. I’ve seen fewer mentions of all of George’s hare Krishna friends
who are sitting on the floor at the outskirts of the studio, in their turmeric
robes, fondling prayer beads. If we feel entitled to ask what Yoko’s doing
there, we ought to feel equally entitled to question the presense of the krishnas.
(Just another “fuck off”?) Nevertheless, despite all this interloping, the four
Beatles are losing track of their bonds, their affinities. They each have external
ambitions – films, other recording projects, politics, lives with their
families. You can smell their suspicion of each other. It may not be personal –
each of them has felt the pull of other interests – commercial, aesthetic,
spiritual, familial – they know that the others are equally in the thrall of
these forces. They're being pulled apart by the success they built together. You
get the sense that they get it, but are still powerless to slow it. Billy Preston
provides a crucial element that allows them to divert, if only temporarily, their
suspicions and ambitions. Preston reinvigorates the band musically, but just as
importantly, as a working member of the musical collaboration, he performs the
role of the analyst. In the therapist’s office, the family can’t get away with
their usual shit. Even as dad begins to blame the kids, he hears himself
through the ears of the analyst and is instantly, freshly aware of the defenses
and aggressions, all the crap he’s been getting away with in his family’s
experience and in his own. Under certain circumstances, we become receivers of
our own transmissions. The routinized bad behavior, the constructed justifications,
collapse when triangulated through the ear of the other. Willfully or not,
Preston’s ear is this other. That it is also an ear that has engaged in call
and response with Little Richard and Ray Charles only makes its excavatory power
that much stronger. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">When
the Television clip emerged on YouTube a few days ago, I clicked with
excitement. Clearly, I wasn’t expecting the kinds of revelation promised by <i>Get
Back</i>, but firm in the knowledge that no eight hour Televisionist exegesis
is forthcoming, I take what I can get. What I wanted to see, to lay upon with
mine own eyes, was the sight of Richard Hell playing bass in the four piece
before his departure to form the Voidoids. The clip dates from 1974. It may
seem like a genre’s lifetime away from the <i>Get </i>Back sessions. But it’s
just a half-decade later. The legend of Television is just as romantic as that
of the Beatles – if far less well-known. Richard Hell (née Meyers) and his pal,
Tom Verlaine (née Miller) escaped their Delaware boarding school to move to New
York City and pursue their bohemian passion of poetry and rock and roll (thus
their Rimbaud-adjacent noms-de-guerre). They formed, first, The Neon Boys, then
Television with Richard Lloyd on guitar and Billy Ficca on drums. But both Hell
and Verlaine imagined themselves auteurs and frontmen and, unlike, say, Lennon
and McCartney, were unwilling to stand even temporarily in each other’s shadow.
So the Hell-era Television was a short-lived proposition and Hell was soon replaced
by Fred Smith (not to be confused with the MC5’s Fred “Sonic” Smith, aka Mr.
Patti Smith). </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The
Television clip originally aired on a New York public access tv show called <i>The
Underground Tonight Show</i>. The band is introduced, ”we could think of no
better group to be picked to be on this show” because “this is a television show.”
Such was the self-evident logic of the times. Verlaine announces, “We’re gonna
do a little political number now. Some 70s politics. Something called ‘Hard On
Love.’” The double-entendre is clumsy and over-obvious. It predicts Hell and
the Voidoids’ “Love Comes in Spurts” from their debut three years later. The song
starts with Hell’s crummy-sounding bass, like rubber bands wrapped around a
Kleenex box. One wonders if the crumminess is intentional or not. Just another “fuck
off” to all the supposed-to-bes? Or is this an indication of the band’s
greenness, the rarified pretention of not giving a shit <span> </span>about not knowing what the fuck you’re doing
or how to do it. As it happens, one John Lennon, having relocated to New York
by 1974, was watching that night. And our peeping across years, miles, mentalities
even delivers his thoughts on what he’d seen and heard as reported in the pages
of the <i>Melody Maker</i>):</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">On TV next came a group called TELEVISION, and Lennon sat fairly
transfixed. Television are so bad they're good. They can barely play their
instruments and they are very short of money; they're young and dressed in
rags. But they have a spirit that's irresistible, and John immediately
identified them as a parallel with The Beatles in their Hamburg days.
"Yeah, I can relate to them, they're exactly as we were. Skint and loving
every minute. They sound terrible but they're OK!' He liked their name too.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">But
they’re not exactly as they were. The times had changed and the ambitions of ex-pat
Liverpudlians in Hamburg could not rightly be compared to those of displaced
Delawareans in Manhattan. In the decade since the Beatles had become THE
BEATLES rock and roll had transmogrified. Riding its incipient wave to a fame
that was also the music’s fame was no longer a glinting possibility glancing
off the blade of the Arthurian weapons of rockgodliness to spark the eye of
Knights errand with dreams beyond their humble station. No. Television knew
that they were destined for the underground. Another reason that there was no
better group to be picked to be on <i>The Underground Tonight Show.</i> Such
was the logic of the times, perhaps not so self-evident.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Are
we blessed with this terrible abundance? Who knows? On the one hand, I’ve
internalized (and now externalized) over 3000 words-worth of thoughts and
questions thanks to these two archival exposures. For me, no mystique has
peeled off the veneer of the Beatles because, for me, there was none. But I
imagine others have had different experiences. Perhaps they were better off not
knowing that Paul wasn’t just “the cute one,” but was also a bit of a
workaholic, haranguing chief operating officer. Perhaps, they didn’t want to
see John checked out and crawling, serpent-like up the passages of his own self-lubricated
kundalini. And maybe George’s reputation as the irreproachable seeker takes a
hit when we witness him hissy-fitting his way out of the band (and right back
in) for not being allowed to do <i>his</i> thing. Ringo, as ever, is Ringo. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">For
me, no mystique has peeled off the veneer of Television either, because – not
just for me – there was none. Ok, maybe a little. But the 1974 footage only
confirms the anti-myth myth of Verlaine and Hell, two skint punks inventing punk
in the post-Beatles wasteland (sorry, wrong poet) of Western culture. Shitty
sounding bass. Puerile innuendos. Crowding each other on the stage as surely
they crowded each other in real life, as surely as their consciousnesses were
crowded in the squalid, claustrophobic underground of New York in the 70s. I’m
pretty sure I didn’t need to see this three minutes and twenty one
seconds-worth of Hell-era Television. I already knew. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span> </span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p><style><font size="4"><span style="font-family: verdana;">@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";}a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:#0563C1;
mso-themecolor:hyperlink;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
color:#954F72;
mso-themecolor:followedhyperlink;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</span></font></style><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p>Seth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268364577339453362.post-86965360538903609662021-12-27T18:09:00.008-05:002021-12-27T22:57:52.618-05:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgDYS5qh07L0QSN3WYwIQBL9nii0pTZb-EFKVW9M6rC8zFZf_y4kFbr0uIWZPL6BHK0kLKbsVuh4C0Ue3brBmt6l6m5GQPFZO_lXs_hdi_nNnDQ5-2Rh2vINX1x8471W0sB9_yDb9qv8Zn3cujurh7foG_YhM786vTqmw59mpxeiEg5mQpu9ArveMYAEg=s3270" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1714" data-original-width="3270" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgDYS5qh07L0QSN3WYwIQBL9nii0pTZb-EFKVW9M6rC8zFZf_y4kFbr0uIWZPL6BHK0kLKbsVuh4C0Ue3brBmt6l6m5GQPFZO_lXs_hdi_nNnDQ5-2Rh2vINX1x8471W0sB9_yDb9qv8Zn3cujurh7foG_YhM786vTqmw59mpxeiEg5mQpu9ArveMYAEg=w640-h336" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />Billy Conway</span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The feeling that death is everywhere around. Yes, it always
has been and always will. But never more than now with record global population
and a pandemic closing on a two year run. Eliot once wrote “I had not thought death
had undone so many.” A line which comes to me often. But never more than now.
So much human life run its course. So many bereaved. Death undoing so many right
before our eyes, like flipping light switches in long, long rows. Flicker.
Gone. Flicker. Gone. <br /><br /></span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The hot breath of the
inevitable fogs our mirrors, announcing its loom; the closing – ever so slowly –
of its inescapable knot. This week and even more piercingly today. It lands
with the force of the ocean on how everything feels today, here at the bottom,
fathomed and fathom-laden. <br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">When I began to write these rock and roll eulogies, it had not
occurred to me that someday the loss would not be distant and wholly abstract.
The knot would inevitably tighten, closing in, breathing hotter. I learned
today that Billy Conway passed. Maybe the name doesn’t ring a bell. But maybe
you remember the band, Morphine. They suffered the constriction of inevitability
themselves when frontman, Mark Sandman died on stage in Italy in 1999. A
sudden, unexpected heart attack took him instantly before the audience even
knew what was happening. Billy Conway struck, abandoned, beneath the
spotlights. <br /><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhJaZGriav9fj6bcunG9r6F7i7k4l7Z8TcXyQT1PEIMiQj6UNmpmjF0j5EqfqHSYC4S8BxIR_ARuiZZLxDRhK--IAsaem3Qo35tc6lxTWyI9vKzIu3r9lJIfasRSg_7Y_wbschMFnlCvR5IH_v1AibTpEeTkRWq7ma4V3YV836LIbhfdzb8zonEyOibdg=s220" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="220" data-original-width="203" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhJaZGriav9fj6bcunG9r6F7i7k4l7Z8TcXyQT1PEIMiQj6UNmpmjF0j5EqfqHSYC4S8BxIR_ARuiZZLxDRhK--IAsaem3Qo35tc6lxTWyI9vKzIu3r9lJIfasRSg_7Y_wbschMFnlCvR5IH_v1AibTpEeTkRWq7ma4V3YV836LIbhfdzb8zonEyOibdg=w295-h320" width="295" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span><p></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I’d known them faintly in my teens. I learned how to attend
a rock show while a college student in Boston where Sandman and Conway’s
previous band, Treat Her Right, played. I saw them at the Rat, and at TT the
Bear’s, maybe at the Plough and Stars. Who can remember? One night, I stood right
against the stage. A case of beer at my feet. When no one had come for the box –
not a bartender or a waitress – I assumed it had been placed there and
forgotten; fallen off the back of a truck, so to speak. There for the taking. Surreptitiously,
I snuck one bottle. Then another. By the end of the band’s set, I’d drunk four
or five. Maybe six. Who can remember? </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />Sweaty and satisfied with a set fully realized, the four members
of Treat Her Right, Conway and Sandman among them, stepped toward me and bent
down to retrieve their stash. I didn’t know. I didn’t know that bands got free
beer. Prior to that, my concert going experience was limited to posh British
super groups at Madison Square Garden where, from the second to last row, one
would have no godly idea about the mechanisms of libation and compensation. Treat Her Right
readily surmised that roughly 20% of their reserve had been pilfered. Just as
quickly, they figured me as the culprit, what with my legs straddling the
carton. But there was no showdown, no pretense of intimidation. They sized the
situation up for what it was: a penny-poor college kid carping the diem of an
untouched case of beer left stranded at his feet. They would have done the
same. </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />I saw Treat Her Right a number of times. Once I saw Billy Conway
in the club’s bathroom before or after a show – who can remember? I told him
how much I liked his band and I think he recognized me from the case of beer
incident. He asked me if I played. I did what an aspirant would do and made it
sound like I was well on my way, with a sheaf of songs ready to be recorded and
road tested. I just needed a good drummer, I told him. He offered to sit in.
Right there in the bathroom – at TT’s or the Rat or that other club in Brighton
whose name I can’t recall (who can remember?) – he offered to help me out, to
play some drums on my songs in order to set them in motion, to see if they had any
life in them. We exchanged phone numbers and I called him. We set a date and he
showed up at my apartment with his cocktail drum. Needless to say, between the
phone call and the knock on my door, I’d written furiously – six, eight, maybe
a dozen songs – who can remember? – desperate to seem like I was a talent-in-waiting,
a ship worth jumping to. I might have even thought I could tempt Billy Conway
from Mark Sandman and Treat Her Right. <span> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />I don’t remember, but I’m sure the songs were shit. But
Billy Conway never said so. I know that I was a shit guitar player and an even
worse singer. But Billy Conway never said so. He played along like these were
good songs and like I was his equal as a musician. I knew I’d been lucky. And I
didn’t have any inclination to test that luck. I never called him again. I kept
going to Treat Her Right shows. And Billy always said hi, chatted for a few
minutes, asked me if I had my band together yet. </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />I learned today that Billy Conway passed. He’d struggled
with liver cancer and it took him last week at age sixty five. Unlike previous
entries, this eulogy is for the man, more than his music. I liked Treat Her
Right at a time when I didn’t have my bearings yet. They are not a band I’ve
listened to a lot in the years since college. But for some reason today I
pulled their first, self-titled LP from its sleeve and laid it flat upon the
platter of my turntable. I set the needle adrift upon its grooves. I remembered
how kind Billy Conway had been, how generous with his time and encouragement. I
didn’t yet know that Billy Conway had passed. I looked him up after the record
was finished and learned that just a few days ago he died. </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />Death is everywhere around. A few days ago Joan Didion died.
She was a writer who could slip a blade between your ribs and make you wince yourself
alive again. A few days before that Alvin Lucier died. It will take the rest of
us another fifty years to catch up with his work of the 1970s and 1980s. Piece
after piece after piece reinvented what could qualify as art or music or art-music;
redefined what counted as good and great. I knew Alvin too and was changed by
knowing him. But that encounter came later, after I had my bearings. Billy
Conway pushed me before I had my sails up. </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">In May, I lost my mom. Hers is the Queen of all deaths. As
2021 grinds into the loam of yesterday, loss piles up like numbers in an
actuarial table come to life, each number a glance, a soft-spoken word, a
memory sparking in the heart of a son or a daughter, a friend or a fan. Death
is everywhere around. Too many to count, even if the newspapers undertake the
job. The counting can never be equal to the task. Ostensibly, this is a eulogy
for Billy Conway. But it is also a eulogy for 2021, or more precisely for what
2021 has taken from us. So many lost. Who can remember? </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />We. That’s who. </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p><style><font size="4"><span style="font-family: verdana;">@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</span></font></style></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p>Seth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268364577339453362.post-54634024233276585182021-11-27T14:04:00.016-05:002021-11-27T15:24:17.960-05:00<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xD6TvgbGLAA/YaKAmbLdw7I/AAAAAAAAASk/xYOfk37RhpMncf8tN5IxaiOuJC715tsTQCLcBGAsYHQ/s947/Chin%2BMusic.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="947" height="310" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xD6TvgbGLAA/YaKAmbLdw7I/AAAAAAAAASk/xYOfk37RhpMncf8tN5IxaiOuJC715tsTQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h310/Chin%2BMusic.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">"When I Unplugged, I Connected to the Truth," by Tom Morello<br />The New York Times, November 17, 2021</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #ffa400;">
</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">If
there is anything that one learns from the day-after-day experience of being
alive (and I’m not sure there is anything truly to be learned, but if…) it is
that everything is in relation to everything else. Duh-dum! That doesn’t mean that
these relations are easily discerned. It doesn’t mean that X relates to Y in a
simple, straightforward, 1:1 way. Hardly. Sometimes the nature of the relation
does not emerge for weeks or years or even centuries. Sometimes it does not
emerge at all. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not there. It’s there, friends
and comrades, as sure as the nose on Tom Morello’s face. We should not expect
to find cause equated with effect in the manner of a Hollywood production. I do
not believe in god. But I do believe that shit moves in mysterious ways. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">For
instance, Tom Morello now writes a regular column for the New York Times. Okay.
Whatever. But hold on, this anointment is a relation too. It confers upon Mr.
Morello (as the Times themselves would refer to him) an authority. Thus far, he
has chosen to apply this authority to his experience as an arena rocker and his
convictions as a political activist. I don’t see any reason why any of us
should expect this to change. Both the Times (they are a-changing) and Morello
seem content to justify their relation along these lines of intersection: music
and politics. Of course, neither the Times nor Morello invented this relation.
It is old, old, old. But it owes its present day currency to the legacy of the
1960s: to Bob Dylan and Woodstock and the mindset that we now derisively refer
to as “Boomer.” When we picture the March on Washington, or the Vietnam War, the
killings at Kent State, or even the election of Richard Nixon (even he has soul),
we hear the tunes: the opening harmonic pizzicatos of Stephen Stills’ “For What
It’s Worth,” the swirly, modal exotica of the Doors’ “The End,” any of Dylan’s zeitgeist
anthems. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Enter
Morello, who wears his punk rock, power chord bonafides on his tattoo sleeves. He
comes on like the new man, post-Boomer, enlightened in a particular way that we
will soon stop calling “woke.” His band, Rage Against the Machine, was hardly
flower power and something happening here that ain’t exactly clear. Morello’s
music – from his band’s name on down – has always pointed its finger at the
clarity of the something happening. Rage Against the Machine believed that they
were engineering a relationship that was, against all odds, simple,
straightforward, 1:1. But the universe doesn’t play like that. Rage Against the
Machine were always exactly as straightforward as the machine itself. Point at
the thing and call it “the thing”: product, slave, White, capital, nation,
Christ, freedom, hot dog. But, again – it bears repeating – the universe doesn’t
play like that.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Remember
back in 2012, when then-Vice Presidential candidate, Paul Ryan, claimed
(confessed?) to listen to Rage Against the Machine while pumping iron at the Congressional
gym? Ryan was the Speaker of the House, and the up-and-coming hope of the
neo-con branch of the Republican Party family tree. The very same New York
Times called him “perhaps the most influential policy maker in the Republican
Party, its de facto head of economic policy.” He no longer holds public office.
In 2019, he joined the Board of Directors of Fox Corporation and started the
American Ideas Foundation. (A Wikipedia search yields the following message: “Wikipedia
does not have an article with this exact name. Please <span class="plainlinks">search
for <i>American Idea Foundation</i> in Wikipedia</span> to check for
alternative titles or spellings.”) </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">At
the time (2012), Morello responded to Ryan’s professed affection for his band in
the pages of Rolling Stone. “Rage’s music affects people in different ways,”
Morello wrote, “Some tune out what the band stands for and concentrate on the
moshing and throwing elbows in the pit.” Morello suggests that “what the band
stands for” is a simple matter, straightforward, 1:1. But his nearly
simultaneous acknowledgment of differing affect pre-empts the simplicity of what
(or how) anything stands for anything else. Not to mention Paul Ryan. Morello’s
columns for the New York Times evince his ongoing belief in this simplicity of
relations. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">At
this point – although I feel that it ought to be taken as given – I should
stress that any criticism herein is directed not at Tom Morello, the human
being. I have never met Mr. Morello and have no reason to doubt his sincerity
or the goodness of his heart. He appears, from what I can tell, to be
continually on the right side of both issues and history. All indications are
that he fights the good fight. Criticism, as it arises here, is directed
instead at a set of presumptions – aesthetic and ideological – that despite
Morello’s apparent decency, infect his positions and opinions as expressed in
the “paper of record.” Whether such criticism is merely nit-picking or of some
degree of greater importance will, of course, be for you, the reader, to
decide. This too is a matter of relation, of differing affect, and is far from
simple.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Hand
in hand, then, we cross intrepidly into the breach. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Morello’s
piece, dated November 17, is titled “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/11/17/opinion/tom-morello-acoustic-social-justice.html?searchResultPosition=3">When
I Unplugged, I Connected to the Truth</a>.” Already, in the conversational title,
we’re up against it. Immediately, we recognize the big claim lurking, impossible
to solve in a newspaper column. What truth? Whose truth? Is there, in fact, a
truth; a truth we can reliably call “the truth,” Mr. Morello? The problem that
seems to rise above the level of nit-picking is that, whether we’re talking
about politics or music, we have some obligation to start from the
understanding that there is no universal telos. All roads do not lead to Rome,
nor Ryan, Republicanism, or Rage. There are lots of roads. They lead to lots of
different places. And while all places may not be equal, none of them is “the place.” Morello’s essay hangs on a distinction between what he calls “roof-rattling,
gut-trembling rock ‘n’ roll” – meaning electric guitar music – and acoustic
folk music that Morello releases under the name The Nightwatchman. Morello’s
assertion is that as the Nightwatchman, he began “to unearth who I really was
as an artist. […] The four Nightwatchman records were an unveiling, and
probably the truest expression of self in my catalog.” </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The
acoustic music is the truth to which he connected. The nature of this truth is
that it lies buried in “dark existential ruminations, a purging of, or at least
a wrangling with, demons I had not been conscious of.” Morello narrates his
transition from “affable, reliable, cheery rocker,” to someone newly able “to
peek into my own soul.” Carefully pursuing Morello’s claims, we can reasonably
conclude that, for Morello, "the truth" apparently resides in the individual
soul. Yet, wouldn’t we be justified in anticipating that Paul Ryan would also
claim the existence of something called “the truth”? That he would locate it in
the individual, and more precisely in that individual’s soul? Does not the conservative
wing of the Republican party stake its strategy and its ideology (another
relation) on just such an individual truth of the soul? Let’s zoom out – the big
tent to which political parties love to allude: Does not America itself stake
its identity on this individual truth of the soul? </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Wouldn’t
the political program conjured by Morello – a politics of workers and
prisoners, of women and BIPOC communities, of migrants and Group of 8
protestors – wouldn’t such a politics live not in the individual soul, but in
the collective will? Wouldn’t such a politics reject any notion of a definite
article-“truth” in favor of a dozen or a hundred indefinite article-needs, -wants,
and -helping hands? After the brief, energetic blossoming of flower power, so many
of the movements' leaders – from Jerry Rubin to Eldridge Cleaver – embraced a
philosophy of self, abandoning the collective struggle to which they had
dedicated their youth, in favor of answering the individual mandates of
capitalist self-realization. We’ve played this game before. It hasn’t gone well
for us. Remember Ronald Reagan? It ain’t just nit-picking. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The
narrative of Morello’s essay starts from the heights. Morello is already and
unquestionably a rock-god, firmly entrenched in some <i>Z101-all-the-hits-from-yesterday-and-today</i>-Olympus.
Upon stumbling on an unnamed (why unnamed?!) kid playing his acoustic guitar at
a teen shelter open mic, Morello experiences his road-to-Damascus epiphany.
This kid’s out of tune guitar and shaky voice is more real than the
amplified, inflated arena rock that Morello and his bandmates are touring. Somehow, Morello fails to
realize that the exaggeration of his electric music is a product of its, and
his, relation to capital. He writes that he took up acoustic music “in defiance
of good sense and commerce.” The market demands the bluster of Rage Against the
Machine. Only such bluster can fill the arenas. Only such bluster can accompany
the workout regimen of the United States Speaker of the House. (Pelosi’s probably
rocking Slipknot as we speak.) Morello is deaf to this truth: thousands of
rockers less fortunate than he, sing their truthful souls, their soulful
truths, every night in basements and garages and seventy-five person capacity
venues from San Diego to Halifax and beyond. Some are desperate to answer
capitalism’s call and to land where Morello has landed. Others, however, play
for wholly different reasons – reasons they probably can’t put a finger on; reasons
that have nothing to do with truth or even with reason. They get together with
others, unsure of what they want or how they’ll get it. They flail and flounder
until something emerges from their erratic efforts. To their wonder, even if to
no one else’s, this something takes on form and verve and occasionally meaning.
It is not “the” or even “a” truth, but it is something, taking place where
nothing had previously taken place. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Tom
Morello, is this not your political vision? Is this not
how we build movements and deconstruct the enmity and malice of the way things
are? Is this not how we rage against the machine? The amplified song that is
just now – this instant – bubbling to the surface in the collective awareness
and abilities of four kids in Fargo or Talahassee or Searchlight, Nevada. This
is a new node in a network of relations. Maybe they were inspired by the Sex
Pistols or, like you were, the Clash. Maybe it was Creedence or Patti Smith or
Bikini Kill or Billy Eilish. Maybe one of them is reading the Autobiography of
Malcom X or Rimbaud or Angela Davis. Maybe one of them will see The Battle of
Algiers at a friend’s house next week. Who knows?! Maybe one of them will read your
column in the New York Times and tell her bandmates about what you said. Maybe
they’ll get what you meant. Maybe they’ll get it all wrong and make something
better than you or the Clash or even god ever could. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><style>@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";}a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
color:#954F72;
mso-themecolor:followedhyperlink;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}span.plainlinks
{mso-style-name:plainlinks;
mso-style-unhide:no;}.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</style> <br /></span></span></span></p><p><br /></p>Seth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268364577339453362.post-34365439111679617282021-10-15T23:59:00.019-04:002021-11-14T13:49:37.290-05:00<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P-imfRJpahQ/YZFZyTxl8pI/AAAAAAAAASE/ire47292xP8FZliyZ0U6TVr9Bq_O9TlUQCLcBGAsYHQ/s947/Chin%2BMusic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="947" height="310" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P-imfRJpahQ/YZFZyTxl8pI/AAAAAAAAASE/ire47292xP8FZliyZ0U6TVr9Bq_O9TlUQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h310/Chin%2BMusic.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><br /></span></span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><br /><br /> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><br /></span><br /><br /> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #ffa400;">The Velvet Underground, Todd Haynes, dir. (2021)<br /></span></span></span>Well, there are now two entries in Todd Haynes’
filmography that begin with “Velvet.” As it’s been 23 years between 1998’s <i>Velvet
Goldmine </i>and the just-released documentary, <i>The Velvet Underground,</i>
I look forward to 2044 and the third entry in the Velvet Trilogy: an
interactive, VHR (Virtual Hyperreality) bio-genetic-fan-fiction in which the viewer can
become a member of 1980s post-psychedelic trio, Velvet Monkey, alongside indie
stalwart Don Fleming, or – if they advance to the second level – of 1990s power
pop duo, Velvet Crush, joining Ric Menck and Paul Chastain. <br /><br /></span></span></p><p></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-DWO-u2MwZLk/YWpNQZiK3BI/AAAAAAAAARg/6PcsG93kvekQxpAb0P0SJwqPFq9lo5A5gCLcBGAsYHQ/7GOYJHPGCJCIFHSNV7DFPLW4SY.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="721" data-original-width="1280" height="308" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-DWO-u2MwZLk/YWpNQZiK3BI/AAAAAAAAARg/6PcsG93kvekQxpAb0P0SJwqPFq9lo5A5gCLcBGAsYHQ/w548-h308/7GOYJHPGCJCIFHSNV7DFPLW4SY.jpg" width="548" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />Haynes‘ new film rushes in where angels fear to tread. If
Brian Eno’s apocryphal saw about only a hundred people buying the first Velvets
album but all of them starting a band is correct, then surely it’s even truer
that while only one director made a feature length documentary about them,
every person who saw it became a critic. Like any good art, the Velvet
Underground is a different thing to anyone who hears them. Each of us feels
that they were a band made specifically for us. So how can one film speak to
every viewer, every listener? <br /><br /></span></span><p></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">To his credit, Haynes ignores this problem. He’s made the
film that he wants to see, the one about <i>his</i> Velvet Underground. Also to
his credit, he devotes more than half the film’s running time to the scene out
of which the Velvets emerged. We get a lot of our information directly from the
mouths of people like Tony Conrad, La Monte Young, Amy Taubin, Danny Fields, Mary
Woronov, and Jonas Mekas, to whom the film is dedicated. There is also a lot to
look at. Haynes raided previously unraided archives to kaleidoscopically cobble
an image of images: not today’s “picture-in-picture,” but experimental cinema’s
“picture-on-picture.” Perhaps the most effective technique in the film is Haynes’
use of Warhol’s screen tests of the members of the band. As Lou Reed, John
Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Mo Tucker are introduced into the narrative, the
screen splits, with the new figure’s screen test occupying half the picture, while
the other shuffles through home movies, experimental b-roll, and archival footage
of New York in the sixties. At one point, Reed’s face lingers (or looms) as Cale
is introduced. Reed’s impetuous mug hangs around until the reel runs out,
overtaken by film leader. Haynes’ doc pays homage to Mekas and other downtown
NYC artists by making a kind of pastiche tribute of and to their innovations. Superimposition,
split screen, quick cutting, and fast motion are used to disorienting effect, mimicking
the experience of 60s happenings and Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable. <br /><br /></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-yMTGzJc83is/YWpNaX15EaI/AAAAAAAAARk/a6Crfp6RUx0dbFRDaK30UT7XUhJObDyYQCLcBGAsYHQ/MER59b5b5fc4437f8735a9bb7b8e99dc_velvet1015.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="311" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-yMTGzJc83is/YWpNaX15EaI/AAAAAAAAARk/a6Crfp6RUx0dbFRDaK30UT7XUhJObDyYQCLcBGAsYHQ/w553-h311/MER59b5b5fc4437f8735a9bb7b8e99dc_velvet1015.jpg" width="553" /></a></div><p></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The Velvets, of course, were part of the EPI, its
soundtrack and, to some extent, the eye of its storm. But only to some extent. With
the EPI, Warhol created an experience without a center and therefore without
edges, borders, or ends. The Velvet Underground were a disquieting element,
immersing the entire space in the sound of one thing chafing against another,
generating a friction that threatens (and perhaps <i>only</i> threatens) to
ignite. When Warhol witnessed the Velvet Underground at Café Bizarre grinding
their way through “The Black Angel’s Death Song” (despite being warned by the manager
not to play it) and then starting it over again, he heard this friction.
Language against noise. Order against chaos. Stasis against progress. The clock
against eternity. The Velvet Underground were capable of conjuring a kind of
anti-teleological magic. Their miracles had no source, no master plan or master
planner. They delivered no tidy moral-of-the-story. In place of the modernist
compulsion to shed light on a subject (or an object) and thereby to understand - to define -
what it is, the Velvet Underground flooded the visual field with white light,
casting everything in equally blinding relief. This is not merely an inversion
of the worldview that modernism inherited from Judeo-Christianity, in which
every effect has a cause and every cause is a lesson and every lesson is god.
This is not democracy’s teleological recourse to freedom. It is not the law’s
recourse to justice. It is not capitalism’s recourse to profit. The Velvet
Underground abandons the miracle. They pursue, instead, the epiphany of the
epiphenomenon. “Some people work very hard,” Lou Reed sings, “but still they
never get it right.” You can’t plan to have your mind blown. <br /><br /></span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The first half of Haynes’ documentary situates the
Velvets in a time and place in which their sound was sound and their sense made
sense. With John Cale emerging from daily ninety minute drones with Conrad and Young,
“Black Angel’s’ Death Song” is so commonplace as to merit no particular
attention. Lou Reed, frack to Cale’s frick, is portrayed as the contradictory
character he was. But the film does pull a few of its punches. Reed comes off
as driven but not quite the egomaniac that he often was. He is clearly
difficult, but the film stops short of showing us what a schmuck he could be. Every
biography has to selectively edit, deciding which, of the many stories that
constitute a life, to tell. Haynes’ film does not mention Lester Bangs and his
decades-long running antagonism with Reed. There are a few stories there worth telling. The film is long on declarations of
innovation, but short on explanations as to how this innovation was achieved. Jonathan
Richman is the closest thing we get to a decoder of the band’s methods and
madness. It would have been nice to hear from a few others who could speak to Reed
as a singer or a songwriter, to Morrison as a guitar player, to Tucker as a
drummer. The remarkable fact that Tucker played without foot pedals, with her bass
drum turned horizontal, goes unremarked. Most unfortunately, we aren’t treated
to significant insight into how the band worked musically with and against each
other to produce their unprecedented sturm und drang. <span><br /><br /></span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The film would have benefited from a section dedicated
to “Sister Ray,” from <i>White Light/White Heat</i>, the second Velvet
Underground album. No song better exemplifies what the band was capable of. For
seventeen and a half minutes, the band is locked in mortal combat – with each
other, yes – but more crucially and more vigorously, with the moment. They know
that this is it: the one chance they’ll get to commit this song, this <i>thing,
</i>this something-happening, to tape; to lock it down for the eternity of a
vinyl groove and to do right by it. We can also hear each of them wanting to do
right by themselves. There is Cale’s organ climbing up on its shipmate's shoulders to get its own gasping head above water. But there
is also Mo Tucker, ratcheting the tempo, like the captain/the engineer/the
pilot/the driver in the climactic scene, pushing the boat/the train/the
plane/the car to the brink in order to escape or save the day or both or
something else. The laws of narrative demand that the machinery fails. The
engine blows in a billowy flash and the gears claw each others’ insides and the
whole careening carcass comes to rest in a heap of failed intentions. Yet, as
every script confirms, all is not lost. The denouement must still arrive, if by
other means. Somehow, the effort continues by alternate energies, by
reinvigorated will. <br /><br /></span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">“Sister Ray” follows the script. But what’s truly
revelatory about the song as it appears on <i>White Light/White Heat</i> is
that, despite ourselves – enlightened modern listeners though surely we are –
we don’t realize that we are watching <i>that</i> script. We don’t know, or
else we’ve forgotten, that the laws of narrative apply to this particular
experience. The Velvet Underground disabuse us of our expectations. They
suspend the suspension of our disbelief. Here, in this specific universe – the
one in which the Velvet Underground are building their ship inside the bottle
inside the crate inside the hold of the ship submerged in the ocean in a
diorama built inside a bottle in the hold of the ship – here in this specific
universe that is “Sister Ray,” we have no right to expect release, but only
tension and tension and tension in this ever expanding universe without end. <br /><br /></span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">So, when, at three or four different moments, the band
sounds as if that’s it, that’s all they’ve got, only to churn back up, to rise
like a fallen monster/boxer/drunkard back to their feet, we are truly
surprised. Surprised that there is more noise, more friction, to be extracted
from the information as it scrapes against the boundaries of the apparatus.
“All the needles are on red.” It’s the opposite of “We’re trying to get a light
on him.” There’s no “him.” There’s only “it,” that which is happening. And the
light is not external to it, but activated by it. Likewise, there’s no “we.”
There’s only “it,” that which is happening and of which we are a part. And “it”
is never complete, never finished. As information and apparatus merge, as content
and form conflate, subject and object fold together into an indiscernible
entity, less spatial than temporal; an <i>it-that-is-happening</i>. <br /><br /></span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Like I said at the start, everyone who
watches Haynes’ film will have their own critiques. No Bob Quine?! No Patti Smith?!
No Laurie Anderson?! Some may even argue that, despite the film's conclusions, <i>Loaded</i> is<span> a </span>good album. The point is not to quibble
but to keep the conversation going, allowing the film to be a catalyst for thoughts
and figures it doesn’t include. With that in mind, we should thank Todd Haynes
for not totally screwing this up (the way Jim Jarmusch did with the Stooges
film, <i>Gimme Danger</i>). In the end he paints a pretty invigorated, nervy,
indignant picture of a pretty invigorated, nervy, indignant group at a pretty invigorated, nervy, indignant time. His skittery forms
follow his skittery figures and in the process a film emerges which is about
its subject while also being a kind of echo of its subject; an inheritor, a
descendant. <span><br /><br /><br /></span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">There is an amazing bootleg of
the Velvets known as “The Legendary Guitar Amp Tape.” At a show in Boston,
somebody apparently shoved a portable tape recorder into the enclosure of Lou Reed’s
amplifier cabinet. From that vantage, subsumed by the maelstrom of feedback and
fret noise, we hear things that are always there in the Velvets, if never quite
so apparent. To borrow an observation that Lester Bangs made of the
Stooges, the Velvet Underground “work deftly
with musical ideas that may not be highly sophisticated (God forbid) but are certainly
advanced.” Approximately twelve minutes into “Sister Ray,” Reed’s amplifier
assumes the identity of a natural disaster. An erupting volcano, a mudslide, a
tsunami – something going where it isn’t supposed to go. It is hot and heavy
and hungry. Things in its path are devoured. Thingness itself is swallowed
whole by what is happening. What is happening? “The question can be modulated
in any tone” (Jean- François Lyotard). Whatever it is, it cannot be represented
by a dot on or between one of five lines. Rather, it quivers in the
oscillations of the hand, the string, the current, the speaker, the room, the
bodies, the land, the minutes, the edges of each frame that might be used to
quantify what it is that is happening. Haynes film quivers sympathetically with
this energy. It, too, happens. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p><style><font size="4"><span style="font-family: verdana;">@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</span></font></style><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></p>Seth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268364577339453362.post-60363063163248174702021-08-30T00:06:00.027-04:002021-11-28T13:14:16.174-05:00<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jw4vXlliv6Q/YaPGv_IJYsI/AAAAAAAAATE/vOyfai4_Ld0zs5wLds9E1lhWQZZ81eZ2gCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/RREULOGIES.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1073" data-original-width="2048" height="336" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jw4vXlliv6Q/YaPGv_IJYsI/AAAAAAAAATE/vOyfai4_Ld0zs5wLds9E1lhWQZZ81eZ2gCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h336/RREULOGIES.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><br /> </span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ffa400;">Lee "Scratch" Perry<br /></span><br />Where to begin? Where to end? Not necessarily in that order.
Empire is all about knowing where you begin and end. Euro-Christian notions of
progress, of historical development: Alpha to Omega. Yet so few of us live this
way. We stumble from pillar to post, from post- to pre- without plan or
premonition. Sometimes the means justifies the means. So Lee “Scratch” Perry –
the Upsetter – brings the horns back again. He sets the hum that wasn’t
supposed to be there against the skanking upbeat that was, justifying nothing
but having done it. Mean means. Means mean. </span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">
</span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Every form is a philosophy. European music insists on rational
permutations of an initial theme; on compositional complexity and resolution.
Such music lords over its listeners and its musical others, driven by its need
to express superiority. It recognizes that superiority is a fiction like any
other and exerts it in form: political form, cultural form, legal form,
economic form. <br /><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-k4tTM2zy6Es/YSzE4FzsgtI/AAAAAAAAARI/cnGJxj48J3YB5St6lCDQ5_cG_Xcl4KWvQCLcBGAsYHQ/Lee-Perry.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="285" data-original-width="361" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-k4tTM2zy6Es/YSzE4FzsgtI/AAAAAAAAARI/cnGJxj48J3YB5St6lCDQ5_cG_Xcl4KWvQCLcBGAsYHQ/Lee-Perry.jpg" width="304" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">In Kingston, in the late-1960s, Lee Perry and King Tubby and
a handful of others began to strip the vocal tracks from popular reggae records,
pumping up the rhythms and taking liberties with delay effects. They called
these new mixes “versions.” The style that emerged – treating the fundaments of
a song as a tabula rasa – became known as “dub.” (For a definitive account, see
Michael Veal’s <i><a href="https://www.bookforum.com/print/1403/michael-e-veal-s-dub-soundscapes-and-shattered-songs-in-jamaican-reggae-871">Dub:
Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae</a>.</i>) The blank canvas
became, not a space for adding new materials, but a space of subtraction. What
is already there is the material and carving it away reveals eddies and ripples
hidden beneath the vocal melodies or the organ chords. Something altogether new
is discovered in the tangles of the strands of canvas, in the muck of the gesso.
Such music has no need for any notion of superiority. It is but a version, a
derivative of another thing, equally strong, equally meaningful, equal. </span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">
</span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">
</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">In the ruptures and corruptions of the smooth surface of the
steady rhythm new things grow and glow like lichens in a sun-deprived crevasse.
One accepts as rule of law that nothing rises to perfection, but that flaws are
points of departure, new possibilities hiding in the folds of the canvas. As
one pearl of Kingston wisdom puts it: “Every spoil a style.” </span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">
</span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">No one understood this better than Lee Perry. In his hands,
a bad electrical line buzz could become the basis of a new song. When he felt burnt
out, he burned his studio – the Black Ark – to the ground – presumably to find
something new in the absence he was creating. He produced many of Jamaican
music’s most important sessions, including early recordings of Bob Marley and
the Wailers and sent those recordings – without the band’s knowledge or consent
to Chris Blackwell at Island Records in London, thereby launching Reggae’s
biggest star. He also produced the Congos’ great <i>Heart of the Congos</i>, possibly
the highpoint of Rastafarian-influenced vocal group reggae – a record of
recurrent epiphanies and lasting effects. Perry’s music launched a thousand ships.
His use of the studio as a musical instrument in its own right, not merely a
capturer, but a creator of sounds, is now taken for granted. But it wasn’t when
he started fucking around and fucking shit up. </span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">
</span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">One of my favorite Lee “Scratch” Perry tracks is “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S-AyfQgf0Y">Corn Fish Dub</a>,” as it
appears on the album <i>Super Ape.</i> The song seems to emerge out of a fog
that is half-physical, half-mental. A distant guitar echoes into itself like a
dream that can’t decide to get started. Against that, vocals drift in absentmindedly.
Then a muted bell is struck, its attack truncated. Sometimes, it rings out on
the one, resonating and echoing: raindrops on the trembling surface of a pond.
Other times, the bell swallows itself at its inception and disappears into the
space it has engineered for its own pulse. A recurring descending chromatic guitar
line gives the song the faintest of shapes. But mostly it is an atmosphere, the
bell a firing-synapse across the expanse of mental space and time. Into that flexing
envelope everything is swallowed and from it everything is regurgitated, both beginning
and end. All revealed as equally origin, equally destination, equally contingent, equal. </span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">
</span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Perry’s brand of magic realism was heavy on the magic and light
on the realism. His own music lives on a surreal plane with spaghetti westerns
and Japanese b-monster flicks: worlds in which the mundane bends around
Morricone twang and warbling theremins. These worlds are <i>unheimlich</i> –
unhomely, uncanny – doubles of our world with a few of the screws removed, ropeless
pulleys, unkiltered pistons chafing against time, yardarms fallen to the dust amid
sheltering puffs. Everything could be true. But no more true than what we – on a
daily basis – take to be true. The rules of music and manners are not much use
here. And Scratch ignored them both with equal insouciance. He was a mischief-maker
extraordinaire; a true trickster. The kind who realizes that only the trick is
true. We rarely honor our debt to the trickster, the holy fool. He’s
dismissable. We can take what we need from him, but leave him safely behind,
obscured by madness, smoke, magic. Scratch won’t go away that easily. His music
is his remains and in it multitudes. </span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">
</span><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><style><span style="font-family: verdana;">@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:#0563C1;
mso-themecolor:hyperlink;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
color:#954F72;
mso-themecolor:followedhyperlink;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</span></style></span></p>Seth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268364577339453362.post-56723909609142690482021-08-25T14:57:00.012-04:002021-11-28T15:03:39.115-05:00<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qhJNYINSjHI/YaPHJ4Wl-8I/AAAAAAAAATM/ebT9RJeXkiUPTmCooqlDMOADNah1L0v6QCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/RREULOGIES.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1073" data-original-width="2048" height="336" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qhJNYINSjHI/YaPHJ4Wl-8I/AAAAAAAAATM/ebT9RJeXkiUPTmCooqlDMOADNah1L0v6QCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h336/RREULOGIES.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Charlie Watts</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Conflicted is the only way to feel
about the Rolling Stones. They’ve now spent forty years as a satire of their
first fifteen. It would be easy to write them off. But those first fifteen
years produced so many moments in which their workaday methods produced little fission
miracles. It’s no more and no less than honest to scratch one’s head and ask “why?”
about everything from <i>Tattoo You</i> onwards. The tours especially are exercises
in embarrassment. Not just Mick’s tights or Keef’s pirate cosplay, but the
spectacle, the rehashing, the nostalgia trip(-up). The real crime is that all
they had to produce was fumes and that they obliged. They became a
multi-national corporation whose product was a knock-off of the product they
used to make. They plagiarized themselves on a conveyor belt of plug n’ play records
and misdirection theatrics. <br /><br /></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Charlie Watts sat behind it all,
gazing down like the chief executive whose fashion he adopted. He avoided the
rough and tumble of the factory floor, choosing to frame the fray within the
boundaries of his modest kit. On some level, Charlie was the only thing that allowed
the Stones to retain some small room legitimacy. You could still imagine him on
the bandstand at the Checkerboard Lounge or even perched on a corner stool at
the bar. The same imagining could never apply to Keith or Mick. <br /><br /></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">But, truth is, Charlie was a jobber.
He just wanted to play. When he joined the Stones he was also a member of
numerous other bands. As Ben Sisario reported yesterday in the New York Times, </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
“I used to play with loads of bands, and the Stones were just another one,” he
told <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2000/jul/09/features.magazine27" target="_blank">The Observer</a>, a British newspaper, in 2000. “I thought
they’d last three months, then a year, then three years, then I stopped
counting.”<br /><br /></span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Charlie
could have been just as happy (but a lot less wealthy) playing in a jazz trio at
Ronnie Scott’s. He bred prizewinning Arabian horses. This fact says a lot about
who Charlie was: He collected vintage cars even though he never learned to
drive. Even though Mick and Keith courted him like starstruck suitors, he was lucky
to catch on with two such manic, motivated drivers. He wasn’t so much their
motor as their mechanic, keeping the machine musically and emotionally humming.
</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />So
I feel honest acknowledging that I’m conflicted too about Charlie. I admire the
commitment to the cause, even if his commitment always seemed easier than Mick’s
or Keith’s who each could have managed without the others. I appreciate the
simple core that Charlie insisted on maintaining at the eye of the musical and
theatrical storm, while also feeling that he was rather dull as a drummer.
Sure, there’s that slightly behind the beat thing that everybody mentions. But
he certainly didn’t invent that and one feels that a whole bunch of other
drummers could have done what he did and most of us would never have noticed. He
has, in fact, missed out on a healthy handful of sessions over the years and
most are unaware or unsure if what they’re hearing is Charlie. (E.g. <a href="https://iorr.org/talk/read.php?1,1376282,1376282" target="_blank">Is it
Charlie on “Gimme Shelter?”</a></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">)</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />Still,
he rolled with the Stones and that is no small feat. Putting up not only with two
boundless egos, but also shifting with his bandmates’ whims from blues to riffs
to psychedelia and eventually a stilted, percolating disco. My favorite Stones’
stuff is the bootleg compilation known as <i>Sympathy for the Disco, </i>outtakes
from the late-70s. Only one track is harvested from the 80s, 1981s “Come On
Sugar.” It’s the last thing the Stones did that still suggests searching and
yearning for something new – or more precisely, some new configuration of the
parts they pilfered from Black music. What makes <i>Sympathy for the Disco </i>so
good is how wrong they get it. If it’s the disco they’re aiming at, they land
curled up in a shopping cart outside in the parking lot, having been thrown out
by the bouncer after six too many Wild Rose shots. These tracks are
disco-adjacent and skewed by the Stones’ obscenely rich, British, princes-of-perversity
sensibilities. The misfire makes this music utterly unique, unlike any funky
White weirdness being produced by post punk kids in New York’s No Wave at the
same time. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />Charlie’s
playing is great throughout but never more so then on “Come On Sugar” where his
contribution is primarily a heavy kick drum shadowed ever-so-slightly-later by
an enveloping hi-hat closing around the beat like an oyster shell around a pearl.
The snare drum intervenes like a curse, damning the unreachable trapped within.
It’s inspired even if it’s just the work of a guy who’d play whatever you put
in front of him. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />In
the 1989 film <i>25x5</i>, Charlie is asked about the previous 25 years touring
with the Rolling Stones. “Work five years, and twenty years hanging around.” It
was the work that mattered to him. But he was willing to hang around waiting
for someone else to count off. It’s telling that the Stones will now tour
without him. They’re still counting off, even if Charlie’s done working. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p><style><span style="font-family: verdana;">@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
color:#954F72;
mso-themecolor:followedhyperlink;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</span></style></p>Seth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268364577339453362.post-11988679610946915832020-01-11T11:21:00.005-05:002021-11-28T13:18:57.047-05:00<p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4shdO7K_CDg/YaPH6n0PfgI/AAAAAAAAATU/exqx6moG6z0pc3aLqyK6s5ggucq2lFmPQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/RREULOGIES.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1073" data-original-width="2048" height="336" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4shdO7K_CDg/YaPH6n0PfgI/AAAAAAAAATU/exqx6moG6z0pc3aLqyK6s5ggucq2lFmPQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h336/RREULOGIES.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"><br />Neil Peart </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">I know this
will come off as indiscreet. Speak well of the dead, goes the admonishment. Yet,
as the tributes pour in for Neil Peart, dead yesterday of brain cancer, I find
myself surprised by the widespread willingness to sing the praises of this particular
drummer and lyricist. Alan Greenspan, notwithstanding, no one has better
promoted the wicked worldview of Ayn Rand than did Peart. Via the lyrics he
plugged into Geddy Lee’s Muppetian falsetto, Peart regurgitated the vile vomit
of Rand’s so-called “Objectivism,” draped in the shimmery adornment of
dystopian futurism. Randian me-firstist discourse is, of course, the
cornerstone of the neoliberal revolution that took hold under Reagan and
Thatcher but which now infects nearly every aspect of our media, our values, our
law, legislation, and “reason.” <br /><br />Rand’s philosophy make sense as fodder for a
music aimed at teenage boys, answering to the narcissistic mandates of
pubescence and the demands of Western, waged “manhood.” All selfishness and
bootstrapping, Peart’s lyrics paint a picture of a world dependent on the freedom
inherent in individual choice-making. (Exhibit A: “If you choose not to decide,
you still have made a choice,” from the song “Freewill” on the 1980 album <i>Permanent
Waves.</i>) Conveniently, it ignores all the implicit and explicit limitations
imposed on individual’s choices due to gender, race, and class. In this
respect, Rush’s lyrical worldview bears a decided resemblance to the
legislative worldview of conservative lawmakers and to the economic worldview
of free marketeers. This is no coincidence. Peart’s thinking shares a bloodline
with those whose faces would adorn the Mount Rushmore of the not-so
hypothetical hyper-patriarchal United States of AynRandica: Milton Friedman,
Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Ryan, Clarence Thomas. (Bless their stars that the Randians
can plausibly nominate a Black man to provide convenient cover for objectivism’s
endemic White supremacism.)<br /><br />Some point out
that Peart later dismissed his infatuation with Rand, telling <i>Rolling Stone</i>,
“That was forty years ago. But it was important to me at the
time in a transition of finding myself and having faith that what I believed
was worthwhile." Unfortunately, the damage was done. Literally millions of
teenage boys – turned on by Rush’s mixture of power balladry and proggy
semi-sophistication, and by Peart’s machine-tooled percussive excess, perfectly
composed to be mimed on the dashboards of anything from a tricked-out Trans Am
to your mom’s Malibu Station wagon – were introduced to objectivism by Peart (notably
via his liner notes to Rush’s 1976 album, <i>2112, </i>which cite “the genius
of Ayn Rand”).<br /><br />And, still, there are those of us who cling to the fusty
belief that, quite apart from the drummer’s intentions, art actually *means*
something. We maintain that in the workings of the work, the comings-together
of means and method, the collisions of reference and rationale, something
emerges that says something, does something, feels like something. Art must
take responsibility for this something. And, while one might be tempted to say
that the artist, in turn, must take responsibility for the art, I don’t think
that’s quite right. Because, as Barthes informed us fifty years ago (plus two),
the artist is wholly a product of the art. Not the other way around. Whatever
Neil Peart is to us, he is an effect of Rush’s music. Despite all disavowals,
Rush’s music always hewed to a particular conception of mastery, expertise, and
sophistication (but not too much sophistication – for god’s sake, it’s not King
Crimson). </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
<span><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">
</span></span><br />
</span></span></p><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">Remember back in 2012, when Mitt Romney, the Republican
nominee for President, tapped Paul Ryan, throwback-conservative congressman
from Wisconsin, as his Vice Presidential running mate? Remember when Ryan
confessed to cranking Rage Against The Machine while pumping iron? Remember
when Rage’s guitarist, Tom Morello, wrote a piece for <i>Rolling Stone</i>,
condemning Ryan and asserting that Ryan was, in essence, a bad listener for misapprehending
the meaning of Rage’s music? What’s at issue in this musicological debate is
the question of how music makes its meaning. Morello says, listen to the
lyrics, dude. He wonders which songs are Ryan’s favorites, “Is it the one where
we condemn the genocide of Native Americans? The one lambasting American
imperialism? Our cover of ‘Fuck the Police’? Or is it the one where we call on
the people to seize the means of production? So many excellent choices to jam
out to at Young Republican meetings!” For his part, Ryan says he likes the
music, but not the lyrics. The thing about Rush is that, regardless of whether
you’re a Morellist or a Ryanian, you’re in a pickle. If you attempt to move
past Peart’s Fascile (facile-Fascist) wordsmithing, you’re confronted,
unfortunately, with the problem that is Rush’s music.<br /><br />And here we are forced to realize that, even if forty years
ago, Rand was left in Peart’s motorcycle’s rearview mirror, Rush as a musical
entity has never separated itself from the core principles of an objectivist
worldview. Rush’s music represents a valorizing of technique, as
embodied in technical apparatus and virtuosity upon such apparatus. Exhibit B:
Neil Peart’s drum kit:<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-38L0p3aTKig/Xhn3lNVbuzI/AAAAAAAAAMs/w8fkgcYgQVQ1ovVxzvd7Kf8p71PscOHLQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/cc6cfcd6d3ae2f3892da06efd40f8bc6.jpg"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-38L0p3aTKig/Xhn3lNVbuzI/AAAAAAAAAMs/w8fkgcYgQVQ1ovVxzvd7Kf8p71PscOHLQCK4BGAYYCw/s320/cc6cfcd6d3ae2f3892da06efd40f8bc6.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">
</span></span><br />
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"><br />Some drummers play with their bodies. Some play with their
brains. (The best combine the two. See the<a href="http://voiceofbrokenneck.blogspot.com/2017/02/"> Rock and Roll Eulogy for ClydeStubblefield and Jaki Liebezeit, February, 2017</a>.) Neil Peart plays with his
arms. As my friend, Seth Brodsky, quipped, this is “biceptual music,” music of
and for the biceps. Like Rage Against The Machine, it’s music for dumbbells.
What we marvel at when we marvel at Peart’s playing, is what he can do with his
limbs. His drum kit tells us this before he even sits down. Peart’s kit is a
text. It reads: “So many things to strike! Imagine this man’s limbs engaging
all these objects!” One wonders how he decides that he needs one more piece?
That small black cymbal over his left shoulder, for instance? Does Peart lie awake
at night, tormented by the fact that his kit presents nothing for him to hit that
will produce a frequency of 2600 Hz, sustaining for 6 to 8 seconds? Yes, he
does! And that is the source of our techno-obsessive wonder.<br /><br />Like his kit, Peart’s playing is everywhere-all-at-once. Nary
a crevice or fissure in the cliff face of Lee’s bass or Alex Lifeson’s guitar is
left unspackled by the daubs and baubles of Peart’s multitudinous double kick
drum, his demisemihemiquavers, his flams and paradiddles. Again, the listener’s
ear is mesmerized by the techne-dextrousness with which Peart’s spatial detection
software tracks down unfilled musical space and pimps it like a Medieval
Catholic architect. The meaning of Rush’s music is distilled most eloquently,
most unadulteratedly in Peart’s playing. His rototom fills and China crash crashes
speak directly to the sinew of the adolescent boy, to the muscle he
is so desperate to acquire. The adolescent boy has been taught that this muscle
is the key to his happiness and, more importantly, to his self-fulfillment:
that is, to the fulfillment of his individuality within the heterogeneous
tangle of society. Peart’s are the biceps that launched a thousand Guitar
Center drum solos. Peart’s playing is all assertion. It asserts its mastery,
its virility, its self-certainty. It is not above stepping clubfootedly on the
toes of Peart’s bandmates, just as Rand’s *playing* was not above stepping on
others’ shoulders – or heads – to get where it was going. </span></span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">
</span></span><br />
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">Again, I realize this will offend some who relish their
developmental memories of pummeling the dashboard to “Tom Sawyer” on the
Motorola radio. I would never dream of denying you those memories. But development
suggests progress, moving beyond the shallow, immediate needs of the moment, to
broader sensitivities. Rush’s music and Peart’s playing did not avail
themselves of stepping back from visceral responses. Like the objectivist
impulses that inform the music, their songs don’t make time or space for
reevaluation and realization. Still in the thrall of Rand, Peart wrote the
lyrics to “Anthem” on 1975’s <i>Fly By Night. </i></span></span>
<span><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"><br /><br />Live for yourself<br />
There's no one else more worth living for<br />
Begging hands and bleeding hearts<br />
Will only cry out for more<br /><br />Morellian or Ryanian, the analyses don’t yield much in the
way of benevolence. With self-serving autocrats occupying presidential palaces from
Brasilia to Washington to Moscow, with an alternative ideology suddenly and realistically
available at the highest levels of U.S. government, mourning the passing of
Peart’s music feels like an indulgence none of us deserve.</span></span><br />
<span><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">
</span></span><br />
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">
</span></span><br />
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">
</span></span><style><font size="3"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</span></font></style></span></span>Seth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268364577339453362.post-56786147904051123912018-08-17T00:29:00.006-04:002021-11-28T13:20:31.981-05:00<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lWBDszt05As/YaPIRaGFrOI/AAAAAAAAATc/NPiC88acENg4Ly2X7tEWXFdCIchsWawyACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/RREULOGIES.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1073" data-original-width="2048" height="336" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lWBDszt05As/YaPIRaGFrOI/AAAAAAAAATc/NPiC88acENg4Ly2X7tEWXFdCIchsWawyACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h336/RREULOGIES.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /> </span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> <br /></span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;">Aretha Franklin </span><br /></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Yes, it's just air - air forced across the fallows and folds of the anatomy. But that simple fact does not diminish the astonishment at Aretha's voice. On the contrary, to think that each of us also forces air from our lungs and forms it into pitched syllables. And yet none of us - no other singer who has ever sidled up to a microphone - could make air do what Aretha made it do. In the depths of her lungs, common air is transformed into a kind of electricity. It is fast. It rises out of nothing. And before you can hear it as a voice or a sound or as music, it is already doing its work. The ear pleads mercy before it drops to the earth in acquiescence and approbation. The ear is not worthy. It can't keep up. It has nothing to offer in return. So it simply submits. <br /><br />Certainly, her voice is the irreducible fact of who Aretha was - or at least, of who she was to we who listened to her, we who listened to her voice. But there's something else that accompanies Aretha's life and her voice as a kind of fact; something else that makes her who she is in the collective imagination of millions. As with everything we're prone to call "genius," the fact of Aretha is a fortunate confluence of time and events and consciousness as they come up against a talent and sensibility appropriate to their import. Aretha's voice was a voice that we needed to hear. The anger and righteousness of Black Americans' demands for justice rose with the force and speed of a flash flood. Of course, such energy is never sudden, but always the result of pent up power deprived an outlet. Aretha's voice is the correlate of this anger and righteousness, this force and speed. Her voice, in the space of a vowel or a soft consonant, could go from lying down to standing up. It could fill the space of its container. Moments later, in mid-verse crescendo, it could devastate that container, like an Ali punch from the inside. <br /><br />Earlier today, a friend posted an article from <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=njcDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA54&lpg=PA54#v=onepage&q&f=false">a 1970 issue of Jet Magazine</a> which reports that Aretha offered to pay the bond of Angela Davis, who was then jailed on a fabricated murder charge. In the article, Aretha says, <br /><br />“Angela Davis must go free. Black people will be free. I’ve been locked up (for disturbing the peace in Detroit) and I know you got to disturb the peace when you can’t get no peace. Jail is hell to be in. I’m going to see her free if there is any justice in our courts, not because I believe in communism, but because she’s a Black woman and she wants freedom for Black people. I have the money; I got it from Black people – they’ve made me financially able to have it – and I want to use it in ways that will help our people.”<br /><br />It's often said that Soul music is secular Gospel; a music which replaces religious faith with romantic love. And much of Aretha's music of the late-60s could be described this way. But reading about Aretha's passionate support of Angela Davis made me think differently about the content of her songs from the late-60s (when Aretha was just in her mid-twenties). Rather than a swapping of romance for faith, Aretha's songs merely depict earthly enactments of the great moral demands of religion. When Otis Redding sang "Respect," it was about a working man coming home at the end of the day and expecting love and dinner and sex and a specifically submissive expression of respect from his woman. When Aretha sang it, it was about something else, something bigger. It was not a plea from the empowered to be recognized <i>as such</i>, but a demand from the disempowered - woman, African-American, colonized, enslaved - to be recognized <i>at all</i>. Aretha's "Respect" is about dignity and justice. <br /><br />This theme recurs again and again in Aretha's late-60s recordings, often in places where we aren't prone to hear it. "Chain of Fools," is a swampy vamp, combining Pops Staples-tremolo with a vicious funk born of a New Orleans second line. Musically, it is plaintive and bitter and just about ready to burst. At first blush, the lyrics might be taken for the doleful admissions of a mistreated lover. But, given the historical context (the song was released in 1967), how can we ignore the fact that the song begins with the word "chain" repeated 19 times? The singer complains <br /><br /><br />You got me where you want me <br />I ain't nothing but your fool <br />You treated me mean <br />Oh, you treated me cruel<br /><br /> <br />Of course, this could be the grievance of an abused lover. But it also reflects contemporaneous race relations in the United States. As the song continues, one begins to hear a description of the structural power dynamics of American racism, Blacks forced into weak positions upon which White strength is established. <br /><br /><br />Every Chain <br />Has got a weak link <br />I might be weak, child <br />But I'll give you strength<br /><br /> <br />The last verse offers a portent. This situation is untenable and "one morning" it will collapse. But, in the meantime, to spite the unconscionable malice of the oppressor, the oppressed will absorb all the punishment, all the degradation. <br /><br /><br />One of these mornings <br />The chain is gonna break<br />But up until then, yeah <br />I'm gonna take all I can take <br /></span></span></span></p><div>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><div>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">The implication, buried not so deeply in the words themselves, is even closer to the surface of the raw wound in Aretha's delivery. She digs in to these lines. In the studio, she has to step back from the microphone in order not to overdrive the helpless diaphragm. As a result, she sounds slightly more distant, yet at the same time, a distortion is introduced - if not of the diaphragm, of the very air itself? <br /><br />Another song, "Think" - one of the very few that Aretha wrote - also lends itself to this double-reading: on the one hand, that of the jilted lover, on the other, of those systematically disenfranchised and degraded. The lyrics echo Du Bois who said that anti-Black racism provided a “public and psychological wage,” for poor Whites who were "compensated" for their own disenfranchisement by being able to think themselves superior to Blacks. Aretha sings, "Let's go back, Let's go back / Let's go way on way back when." So this is a developmental diagnosis. It's been there since the start. And while Aretha confesses, "I ain't no psychiatrist / I ain't no doctor with degrees." She also declares, "But it don't take too much high IQ / To see what you're doing to me."<br /><br />The song then pleads with its listener to reject the restraints of the past, of history, of nation, and race, and privilege:<br /><br /></span></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><div>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">You better think (think)<br />Think about what you're trying to do to me<br />Yeah, think (think, think)<br />Let your mind go, let yourself be free<br /><br /><br />And just as "Chain of Fools" wouldn't allow us to miss the point, repeating "chain" nineteen times consecutively, "Think" hammers home its key idea, repeating the word "freedom" twelve times in a row. <br /><br />The freedom the song demands isn't just her own. She implores the listener to think. Because freedom can't be granted it must be achieved. Blacks' lack of freedom isn't a Black problem. As James Baldwin said,<br /><br />"We have invented the nigger. I didn't invent him. White people invented him. If I am not the nigger, and if it's true that your invention reveals you, then who is the nigger? Well, he's unnecessary to me, so he must be necessary to you. I'm going to give you your problem back: You're the nigger, baby, it isn't me." <br /><br /><br />Trying to make other people lose their minds<br />Well, be careful, you're gonna lose yours<br /><br /><br />Aretha's demands don't rest principally in the words in the way that I can present them here. Again, it's in the way she pours her astonishment and her outrage into the words, into the elasticized contours of the syllables and slurs. How can White America think that this situation could possibly be right? How can they think it's sustainable? How can they not understand that sooner or later the whole fetid excrescence is going to explode in their throats, denying them the air that Aretha takes and gives more powerfully than they could ever dream of?<br /><br />Aretha is the Queen of Soul. She made Soul in her image and in the image of the struggle. She made it about demands for equality. Hers is not faith replaced by fantasies of romantic love, but about sacred justice brought to bear upon the profane exigencies of her time and place, about America in the twentieth century and about overcoming. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span><br /></span></span><div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073786111 1 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Baskerville;
panose-1:2 2 5 2 7 4 1 2 3 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-2147483545 0 0 0 415 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Baskerville;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:Baskerville;
mso-ascii-font-family:Baskerville;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Baskerville;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style></span></span></div>
</div>
</div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span>Seth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268364577339453362.post-75114782185062416652018-01-24T16:43:00.002-05:002021-11-28T13:21:53.058-05:00<p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rHcmjPdoxnk/YaPIsMw5NsI/AAAAAAAAATk/sPM-ag8V2YMSRH8bGb_TvcUYp5abcfFiACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/RREULOGIES.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1073" data-original-width="2048" height="336" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rHcmjPdoxnk/YaPIsMw5NsI/AAAAAAAAATk/sPM-ag8V2YMSRH8bGb_TvcUYp5abcfFiACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h336/RREULOGIES.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">Mark E. Smith</span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">It’s there from the start. From “Repetition” on Early Fall. The Fall is the most complete aesthetic statement in all of rock and roll. Repetition repeats. Wheels within wheels. Waking up, eating, shitting, going to sleep. The patterns repeat: chew, chew, chew, swallow, chew, chew, chew, swallow, ad nauseum. And the nausea too. And history. Bloody history. Nausea. Mark E. Smith never aimed to make music to make us feel better. For forty years of the same and the same and the same, he aimed to make us queasy. Bent over and sipping hungover breaths through gritted teeth. Afraid to open our mouths or eyes too wide, for fear of letting the world seep in. Smith always knew that the most dangerous infection is the most pervasive. Through, I dunno, maybe 60 albums (it depends how you count them), The Fall’s music has desperately repelled the disease of liquidity; of assuming the shape of its container (drivers). Like a gas (man), it escapes. Like a solid it stubbornly stays the same. Errant vowels at the end of words and squeals of malfunction in the midst of boggle-jumble-phrases (“Rowche Rumble,” “Smile” (just “Smile”), “Eat Y’self Fitter”). The anti-matter James Brown. Jesus Christ in reverse. Because art rarely prompts us to ask both the question “how does he do that?” and “<i>why</i> does he do that?” The first question suggests technique-inspired wonder, while the second implies confusion regarding intent. So, if we do ask both questions, it’s about the bad taste of excess (cf. Neil Peart). But with Mark E. (the Marquis) and the rotating cast of Fallers, the questions are begged by the depth of an obviousness we could never have imagined. Like Lester Bangs said about somebody else, The Fall are all about “musical ideas that may not be highly sophisticated (God forbid!) but are certainly advanced.” It’s the nose in front of your face. Out there, in front. But so hard to see, until you smash into the mirror. Sometimes you need to break the thing wot breathes just to remind y’self of how difficult and dangerous it can be to put on airs (or put up with ‘em, or put ‘em in you). Be careful what you wish for, lungs. The first time I saw The Fall I’d taken mushrooms. Rethought the notion of “psychedelic music.” (And “psychedelic.”) (And “music.”) The way he squatted with his back to me the whole time. Another time, the carry bag man lost hold of a shopping bag full of lyrics on the festival stage. Sheets of words deserted him in the wind. He tried in vain to repatriate them to the bag – the odd jobs concatenations that somehow sat upon dumb dogmatic bass lines and befuddling, scudding drumming like a vested monkey riding a rodeo horse. Most of them got away. Like the time he told the recording engineer that the drummer didn’t deserve more microphones than his own single vocalist allotment and made him take the rest away. Or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3gNTOlZ_dI&feature=youtu.be">the time he tells the lighting guy at their hometown Hacienda</a> “Donald, stop those lights flashing or I’ll break your fucking neck”and then recites, simultaneously into the microphone and into a school cassette recorder “he tried to induce epilepsy. I, and my strong personality, was having none of it” like those were just the lyrics of the song which maybe they were because how did he do that? / why did he do that? His tongue was so deep in his cheek it came out the other side, which is either the opposite cheek, the opposite <i>of</i> cheek, or maybe the listener’s cheek, or maybe the very idea of the idea of having one’s tongue in one’s cheek, such that it is swallowed back down the throat which is what can happen during induced epilepsy, the gag reflex, and nausea. Or asphyxiation. Rock and roll must now be officially dead, right? Kidding-not-kidding. Fuck. </span><br />
</span></span></p><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:1;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-format:other;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:0 0 0 0 0 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073786111 1 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Baskerville;
panose-1:2 2 5 2 7 4 1 2 3 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-2147483545 0 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Trebuchet MS";
panose-1:2 11 6 3 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Baskerville;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:#0563C1;
mso-themecolor:hyperlink;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
color:#954F72;
mso-themecolor:followedhyperlink;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:Baskerville;
mso-ascii-font-family:Baskerville;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Baskerville;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style></span></span>Seth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268364577339453362.post-71541128950526686232017-09-05T23:14:00.004-04:002021-11-28T13:23:06.813-05:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uVz00dNmqEg/YaPI-bk2brI/AAAAAAAAATs/i7lKfUNLVRAC2UlDsjNJkMpSPIxv1q1QACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/RREULOGIES.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1073" data-original-width="2048" height="336" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uVz00dNmqEg/YaPI-bk2brI/AAAAAAAAATs/i7lKfUNLVRAC2UlDsjNJkMpSPIxv1q1QACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h336/RREULOGIES.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /> </span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;"> </span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><span style="color: #ffa400;">Holger Czukay </span><br /><br /></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif">It all comes down to the throb. At the heart
of every indispensable experience: that insistence made manifest as
periodicity, as repetition. It keeps coming back. It keeps coming back. It inveigles.
It urges. It persists. Eventually, the distinction between it and whatever had previously
been taken to be “normal,” or “permissible,” or “advisable,” fades away. Its
intrusion becomes, at first, simply tolerable. But soon enough it vanishes, like
the pendulum of the grandfather clock in my childhood home. Friends would say “how
do you live here with that constant ticking?” And I would say, “what ticking?”
completely incapable of hearing it. Finally, it becomes necessary. The throb; </span><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"> </span><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif">the very movement of time, the exchange of
oxygen for carbon dioxide, the interstellar hum.</span></span></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Holger Czukay conjured but one thing from his
bass: that throb., Holger’s playing is the most primordial retort to the seismic
shufflings of Jaki Liebezeit’s drumming. Together, they perform the dialectics
of brass tacks and gilded roses. At one end of the tether, Jaki <a href="http://voiceofbrokenneck.blogspot.com/2017/02/rock-and-roll-eulogies-jaki-liebezeit_58.html">(who died inJanuary)</a> unwinds the coil, spinning Mandelbrot sets of pulses, spaces, and
emphases. At the other end, Holger winds it all back up, tightening the twine
into an impossible concentration of matter and energy. Like no other rhythm section,
the two of them invent the boundaries of a self-sufficient, and practically
endless, musical universe. Anyone who loves Can, whether they know it or not,
loves Holger and Jaki mostly. In their spars and scrimmages, entire languages
emerge, expend their capacities, and die. They construct in time what Borges’
Library of Babel constructs in space. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">What’s more, Can as we know them – and let’s
not beat around the bush: they are without a doubt one of the six or seven most
significant bands to ever make rock and roll – are largely a product of Holger’s
structural vision and ability. He recorded their long sessions, listened to and
indexed the fathoms of tape, and edited (by hand; pre-digital) the sessions
into ur-compositions, throbbing (again) with the inevitability of being born or
dying. He had been a student of Stockhausen and had taken the master’s tools
and employed them as weapons against the dogmatic, hectoring didacticism of “serious”
music. At roughly the same time that Teo Macero was cutting and splicing Miles
Davis sessions in New York to create <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">In A
Silent Way,</i> Czukay was chopping up Can sessions at their Inner Space studio
in Cologne and assembling a new music that was composed <i>after</i> it was performed.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">There is little else in the listenable world
that survives repetition as Can does. Their own deeply hewn repetitiveness
allows successive listens to act more on the music than the music does on the
listening. Jaki and Holger did what rivers do, appearing to follow the
contours of the land, when in fact the land is forever yielding to the river.
Eventually, rivers either head underground or empty into the sea. In the first
case, the river carves ever deeper, hollowing stone, blazing subterranean
trails that only the river itself can follow. In the second case, the river
disappears into something greater than itself; something more powerful, more
extensive. I have no trouble believing that either of these cases (or both)
describes where Jaki and Holger have gone. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
<o:PixelsPerInch>96</o:PixelsPerInch>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]--></span></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/>
<w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/>
<w:OverrideTableStyleHps/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="false"
DefSemiHidden="false" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="382">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footnote text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footer"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="table of figures"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="envelope address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="envelope return"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footnote reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="line number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="page number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="endnote reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="endnote text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="table of authorities"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="macro"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="toa heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Closing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Mention"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Smart Hyperlink"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--></span></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Arial;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073711037 9 0 511 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073786111 1 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Baskerville;
panose-1:2 2 5 2 7 4 1 2 3 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-2147483545 0 0 0 415 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Baskerville;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:Baskerville;
mso-ascii-font-family:Baskerville;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Baskerville;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style></span></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Baskerville;}
</style>
<![endif]--></span></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><!--StartFragment--></span></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><!--EndFragment--></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Arial;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073711037 9 0 511 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073786111 1 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Baskerville;
panose-1:2 2 5 2 7 4 1 2 3 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-2147483545 0 0 0 415 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Baskerville;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:Baskerville;
mso-ascii-font-family:Baskerville;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Baskerville;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style><style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Arial;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073711037 9 0 511 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073786111 1 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Baskerville;
panose-1:2 2 5 2 7 4 1 2 3 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-2147483545 0 0 0 415 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Baskerville;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:Baskerville;
mso-ascii-font-family:Baskerville;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Baskerville;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style></span></span>Seth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268364577339453362.post-22133857662494119962017-02-22T22:40:00.002-05:002021-11-28T13:24:36.440-05:00Rock and Roll Eulogies: <p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"></span></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-veLlXP70hjo/YaPJS6eAnaI/AAAAAAAAAT0/oWhWKABYQNsRdYZM4GqkoQg5Xx4m8fvNQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/RREULOGIES.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1073" data-original-width="2048" height="336" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-veLlXP70hjo/YaPJS6eAnaI/AAAAAAAAAT0/oWhWKABYQNsRdYZM4GqkoQg5Xx4m8fvNQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h336/RREULOGIES.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"><br /> </span></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">Jaki Liebezeit (May 26, 1938 – January 22, 2017) and <br />Clyde Stubblefield (April 18, 1943 – February 18, 2017)</span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">I was young once. And prone, as youth is, to surfaces and misconceptions, I once labored under the erroneous opinion that the drummer doesn't matter much. Imagine! Such insouciance! I took it for granted that a beat – any beat – would suffice, so long as the song was good, the singer was expressive, and the guitars were inventive. <br /><br />Somewhere along the way, I came to my wits. It might have been upon hearing Jaki Liebezeit of Can (probably not the first time I heard Can – I’m not that quick a study – I’m sure it took a number of listens), on Tago Mago, I imagine. “Mushroom” is practically all drums. Just a little repetitive chanting from Damo and the extreme economy of Holger Czukay’s bass. There’s already something going on when the song starts in the middle, unpacking itself like a defiant bloom on a cactus. We hear the sound of the end of something that just happened, something we don't have access to and never will. There’s a little keyboard whine, just a beep, like the tone your microwave makes when your burrito’s done. Then Jaki rolls a slender fill to usher us into the song (or vice versa). It’s all shuffling on top, a cascade of echoes lashing into and out of the caldera. Beneath, way down, the bass drum carves out its own geography. There is nothing to suggest that these two topographies are of the same world. But together they create a world as inevitable as the earth. <br /><br />Jaki’s worlds are all commotion and tectonics: the shambolic intentionality of human activity scuffling assuredly across the heavings of a planet forever belching itself into shape. There is a naturalness to Liebezeit’s layers. Not in the sense of ease or rightness, but in the sense of nature, as imagined by Jaki’s countryman, Werner Herzog: persistent and punitive. Early, Jaki played with Mafred Schoof’s free jazz quintet. Later, he spoke of having an epiphany that directed him to play monotonously, and he joined Can. <br /><br />All great music is monotonous. Even if that is not the music’s primary attribute, not the first adjective the critic would employ in its description, there must be a monotonous component to any music we would call great. Lester Bangs repeatedly (monotonously) intoned the necessity of monotony. It’s there in the Velvets and in the Stooges. But it’s also in Ornette and Ligeti and Dylan. It wouldn’t have been in Can had it not been for Jaki. True to the name he was born with, he forced the band and every one of its listeners to confront the step-by-step construction of time, which is also, of course, its deconstruction. We must embrace this time; reconcile ourselves to it. We must find a way to love (liebe) time (zeit) and be loved by it. <br /><br />From 1965 until 1971, Clyde Stubblefield played drums in James Brown’s band, playing alongside John “Jabo” Starks. The two drummers provided the relentless motor for most of Brown’s best work. Jaki gets credit as a pioneer of the “motorik” rhythms of krautrock. But if you go back to Clyde’s work with James Brown, you will hear the origin and the distillation of the notion. Robert Palmer, to my knowledge, is the first critic to have noted that, starting in 1965 with “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag,” Brown’s bands began to treat every instrument as a drum. The drummers, Clyde and Jabo, are the foundation of this. But in order to function as both architecture and engine, they had to reimagine their role and their playing. <br /><br />If every instrument is a drum, then how much territory and responsibility is left for the actual drums? And what if there are two drum kits? In response, Clyde and Jabo tap into the most fundamental understanding of rhythm – that it is a binary code: ones and zeroes, on and off, snap and silence. As much as they create music, they create space. Wicked absences at the upstroke. Targets for the other instruments to hit. Bait set in the bear trap. The band builds itself in these spaces, its form defined by what Clyde and Jabo allow. What made Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley, JB’s two great band leaders, so intrinsic to James Brown’s sound, was their ability to tap into this particular evolutionary turn in Brown's music - the one that is the spawning of funk. Maceo and Wesley know what Brown means when he says "don't give me no trash, just give me some popcorn." No excess. Just the moment the kernel pops. Just the singularity of mutation: an impenetrable surface releasing and becoming energy. The Collins boys introduced something else to the mix, a little butter, a little salt. Their playing suggests a libidinal freedom that Brown never allows to surface. But at the core of all of James Brown’s best tracks from the late 60s (“Mother Popcorn,” “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud,” and Stubblefield’s signature number, “Funky Drummer”) is Clyde’s stringency. His playing is an exercise in repression; as if something is always being held in reserve. This something never comes truly to fruition because what counts is tension, anticipation; not <i>more</i>, but the <i>possibility of more</i>. The repression is ultimately more powerful than its lifting could ever be. The power of the internal combustion engine is predicated on pressure and intermittent release. While the conditions for a climactic explosion are all present, the engine is designed to repress it. Clyde understood this and made of his drumming a motor. <br /><br />It is cruel (amidst the cascade of current cruelties) that these two great forces should leave us within one month of each other. In the pits of our stomachs, in our asses, in our spatial and temporal imaginations, suddenly there is a lot less possibility of more. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> </span></span></span></p>Seth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268364577339453362.post-63842848535584409242016-10-13T22:50:00.003-04:002017-03-03T10:27:08.512-05:00Dylan's Nobel<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It’s as if I’ve been dreading this moment. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Bob Dylan’s name has come up each fall for the last few
years. Many of the people I love most dearly and admire most deeply have been
rooting for this morning’s Nobel announcement. I haven’t been dwelling on it,
or preparing for it. But I’ve had to reconcile myself to the looming
obligation: should the announcement come, I will need to explain why I’m
against it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ok, dread isn’t exactly the right word, or the right
emotion. In fact, the announcement triggers mixed emotions. To my
sensibilities, hewn in the mill of postwar political and aesthetic Modernism –
buoyed by the expansion of civil rights and the interrogation of
taken-for-granted values, but chastened by window-dressed American imperialism
and the existential pessimism of Watergate – there is no greater art in any
medium than the mid-60s daggers that Dylan steered to their deserving targets.
Nothing else so thoroughly and simultaneously tests the emotions and the
intellect, history and formal invention, the mapping of collective desire to
individual expression.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">My qualms, then, are not about merit. Nor are they about the
specious category error of awards for artistic achievement. They are, in fact,
about a different kind of category error. And what compels me to write about
Dylan’s Nobel is the urge to distinguish the error that bothers me from one
which doesn’t. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It doesn’t bother me that, in naming Dylan the laureate, the
committee has taken an expanded view of the category of “literature.” As it
happens, I am in the midst of writing a book that argues that the expansion of fields in various media that begins in the 60s and continues in strong form
through the 70s (in weaker form to the present day) was initiated in part by
the advent and acceptance of rock and roll as an art form worthy of careful
consideration. No one forced this issue more than Dylan. Cinema expanded to
include blank film and slowly morphing wall-hung emulsions. Sculpture expanded
to include bulldozed earth and roomsfull of light. It makes sense that
literature expanded too. In 1968, Aram Saroyan published an unopened ream of
typing paper as a book. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It’s not that rock and roll constitutes a similar expansion
of literature, taken into the body as a new manifestation of its medial concerns.
Rather, rock and roll in the 60s forced, not just literature, but all traditional
mediums to reconsider their relation to their contemporary cultural conditions.
Sculpture in the 60s had to confront the increasingly sculptural environment of
postwar commodity culture in which technology and the ubiquity of consumer
goods situated the perceiving body in a fortress of three-dimensional objects
designed to promulgate desire. Many of these objects were mobile, either
portable or ambulatory, not sitting still for the contemplation of the
perceiving body, but manically traversing its space and attention. Cars, moving
pictures, conveyor belts, shelves of jars, radios, electric toys, neon signs,
public address systems, elevators, escalators, lights across the night sky.
Dylan assumed the form of this kinetic moment. He was wired and wiry,
constantly moving in space and time, constantly forming/deforming/reforming;
never the same figure twice. Constantly inconstant. Later, it was not his
sound, his syntax, nor his semantics that would influence the trajectory of
rock and roll, but this twitchy unwillingness to settle. They followed his lead:
Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, the Sex Pistols. The sacred, static,
sculptural form was ill-suited to respond to this newly erratic world. But rock
and roll made perfect sense. It was both the reflection of restless
technological commodity culture, and a tool for subduing its most unnerving
features. Minimalism and then Conceptual Art descended from the haute
encampments of culture and academia to respond to the new realities of the
American 60s. Similarly, but coming from a decidedly different direction, the
groundwater of American subculture seeped into the cultural foment of the 60s in
the form of rock and roll. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As different as their motivations and methods were,
Minimalism, Conceptual Art, and rock and roll (along with a host of other new
and intermedial forms), destabilized the traditional moorings of the throne of
aesthetic power. Similarly and simultaneously, social and political movements
threatened (or promised) to deconstruct societal power structures and value
systems. From the American war in Vietnam to <span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the near collapse of France’s Fifth Republic, the
inevitability of democratic capitalism seemed suddenly in doubt. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In objecting to Dylan’s Nobel, I am not trying to protect
literature from infection. On the contrary, I am trying to protect Dylan’s work
from the assumptions and impositions that append themselves once it is deemed
“literature.” (And let’s face it, no such deeming could be more definitive than
this one.) Here’s the rub: to call Dylan a literary artist is to homogenize
him. But rock and roll has always been an intensely heterogeneous form. It is
theatrical in the traditional sense and also in the way that Michael Fried’s
used the term: to disparage Minimalist sculpture for anticipating and being
activated by an audience. Rock and roll is a kind of performance art. It is a
spectacle. It is graphic design: it’s impossible to imagine rock and roll
without concert posters and album covers. It is also industrial design: it’s
equally impossible to imagine rock and roll without Fender and Gibson guitars,
without Marshall amps and Ludwig drums, without PA systems and lighting rigs.
Rock and roll is a technological form, at both the site of production and the
site of reception. Rock and roll was new media <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">avant la lettre</i>. And, yes, rock and roll is also literary, not just
in its lyrics (which is, no doubt, what the Nobel Committee is rewarding here),
but also in the various forms of discourse that rock and roll generates, from
liner notes, to press releases, to interviews, to critical journalism. Shit, if
it were up to me, Lester Bangs would have gotten the Nobel (but for the fact that
his death disqualifies him – maybe Greil Marcus?) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Oh, and wait, rock and roll already functions under the umbrellic
shelter of a long-recognized artistic medium. We call it music. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But I’m equally unperturbed by what will happen to music if
we call Bob Dylan’s music literature. What I care about is what will happen to
Bob Dylan’s music, or his literature, or his… Let’s agree, for the sake of this
argument, to just call it his “work.” His work is what I’m worried about.
Calling it literature reduces it. And Dylan’s work deserves to be defended from
this reduction, even if that yoal has already left the quay. In the 60s he was
already “the poet of his generation.” In a 2005 book, conservative literary
theorist and Oxford don, Christopher Ricks, laid literary claim to Dylan’s
words. And now the Nobel. Yes, that filly’s fled the grange. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Dylan’s voice, not the words it sings, is his most powerful
weapon. When others sing his words they almost always lose their charge. The
Byrds. Peter, Paul, and Mary. Sonny and Cher. Joan Baez. The Staple Singers.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artists_who_have_covered_Bob_Dylan_songs">The list goes on. </a></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So many cover versions of Dylan songs stumble awkwardly into
the ravine of righteous intentions. When these versions work, it is almost
always due to something peculiar to the performance, something that sidesteps
the burden of the words and the cultural specificity of Dylan’s original. When
Dylan sings his own songs, he approaches the task with the insouciant disregard
of a pipefitter working in the basement of a man he dislikes. He distorts the structures
of the songs with contortionistic gusto, insuring that the material can indeed
travel from point A to point B, but without instrumental concerns for
efficiency or strain upon the system. His phrasing tortures individual
syllables and sounds. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Tellingly, when his voice is absent, he goes for the
harmonica like a petty thug in an alley brawl retrieving the dagger from his
ankle sheath. Allen Ginsberg (no Nobel) once described Dylan as a “column of
air.” The harmonica is all breath, all air: exhale and inhale. It is the voice
without language. <a href="http://thousandhighways.blogspot.com/2015/04/rites-of-spring-unreleased-live.html">Listen to the live ten minute and forty-four second versionof “Mr. Tambourine Man” on the Rites of Spring bootleg. </a> The harmonica reels out beyond the boundaries of the song, daring something
else to land in the space the song has created, to colonize it, to recast it,
to reengineer its innards such that its heart is routed directly to its
lungs. The song breathes blood. The harmonica begins manically repeating a
simple phrase, falling out of time and phasing against the strumming guitar,
(beating Steve Reich to the punch by a matter of months), then after a long
moaning howl which simultaneously conjures the two great beasts of the Western
desolation of Dylan’s myth: the coyote and the locomotive, the harmonica
escapes the tether of the chords into a territory that Ornette Coleman might have
called harmolodic. At the end of the song, the harmonica and the guitar –
without Dylan’s voice, without his words – tear at and torment the song,
pulling its skin away from its bones. It sounds for all the world like a
one-man-band version of the Velvets’ “Sister Ray.” Music trying to destroy the
need for music. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If you call Bob Dylan’s work “literature” you deny it all
that (and more besides). Not because literature couldn’t expand to include it,
but because, as of the announcement of the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature, it
hasn’t. I doubt that the Nobel Prize committee concerned itself with Dylan’s
decision to “go electric,” with his choice of musicians over the years, with
his harmonica, with his shifting look from vagabond Chaplin to itinerant
farmhand to Carnaby Street dandy to mascara’d outlaw bohemian to mustachioed
snake oil salesman. I doubt they watched <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GOKN268kAk">Eat The Document</a></i>. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We do ourselves and our cultural responses a disservice if we reduce Dylan to literature, just as we would cheat ourselves if we reduced Beckett to a mere comedian. Comedy may be essential to his art, but it's neither the whole nor the heart of it. And, Buster Keaton wasn't just an actor. I listened to a lot of Dylan today, much of the time focused on his rickety, cantilevered voice, much of the time not paying much attention to the words. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>This entry is dedicated to my friend, Steve Jungkeit, and to our time on the bus. </i></span></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">-----------------------------------------</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>I plan to write more on this topic, dealing with the logic of something like a Nobel Prize for Literature and how that logic is at
odds with Dylan’s relation to tradition. I’ll think about the many singers and
songwriters with whom Dylan has collaborated, across time and <span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">the divide of death. A Nobel for Robert
Johnson? For Woody Guthrie? For Bascom Lamar Lunsford? Or Dock Boggs? </span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="background: white; color: #252525;"><br /></span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="background: white; color: #252525;"><br /></span></i></span></div>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>JA</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/>
<w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/>
<w:OverrideTableStyleHps/>
<w:UseFELayout/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="276">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-language:JA;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Seth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268364577339453362.post-65611502136179251012016-07-17T00:07:00.006-04:002021-11-28T13:26:13.423-05:00<p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"></span></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8iz0us8XVPc/YaPJoLF6eyI/AAAAAAAAAT8/XmH77wn74iIlelwRxBWJ7yPsCr1eMKwzgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/RREULOGIES.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1073" data-original-width="2048" height="336" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8iz0us8XVPc/YaPJoLF6eyI/AAAAAAAAAT8/XmH77wn74iIlelwRxBWJ7yPsCr1eMKwzgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h336/RREULOGIES.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"><br /> </span></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"><br />Alan Vega</span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">This morning, while my wife and daughter attended a production of The Velveteen Rabbit in the suburbs, I prepared for a performance I'll present in Australia in August. The work is new and still being formed. It is called "Adorno At Altamont" and deals with rock and roll as a theoretical construct. Which is to say, that in the best rock and roll there is a theory that is both more indemnifying and more excoriating than what we find in its practice. The Velvet Underground for instance - "Sister Ray" - is a boiling kettle applied first to the flesh and then, once the flesh has retreated, to the skull, to the heart. But the theory of "Sister Ray" is altogether more catastrophic. What the Velvet Underground, at their best (i.e., their most theoretical) represent - such a weak word! - what they <i>incise</i>, is deeper than flesh, bone, and organ. It cuts to the quick; the quintessence. Rock and roll can be the art of life and death. Not life followed by death, but each held simultaneously in alternate hands, weighed and wagered, like tossed coins or hand grenades about to go off. <br /><br /> I'm trying to make theoretical rock, as close to a rock before or without practice as I can get. Adorno had to be there. So too Altamont and the Wagnerian symbolism of Meredith Hunter's murder at the hands of the Hell's Angels. The whole fucking mess renders hermeneutics moot. When Ralph Gleason wrote it up for Esquire, he (or some sensei editor) called it <a href="http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a6197/altamont-1969-aquarius-wept-0870/">"Aquarius Wept."</a><br /><br />Taking a break from my work, I put on the Gories' fantastic <i>I Know You Fine, But How You Doin?</i>, pinching inspirations from their paneled-basement-refrigerator-slapback. Then "Ghost Rider" came on. The Gories' cover of the Suicide classic is pure judo. Taking the slapback retro of Suicide's schtick (and make no mistake, it is schtick (of the highest order)) and slapping it back from whence it came, to the garage, to the long hallway that RCA used to emulate Sam Phillips' tape echo. Of course, this too is a slapping back of the slapback, emulating electronic emulations of acoustic phenomena with acoustic phenomena! The Gories take Suicide back to the source, making of "Ghost Rider" what it always pretended to be and not to be.<br /><br />So I decided that "Ghost Rider" too had to be there. I spent the morning - this morning: July 16, 2016 - rehearsing it, focusing obsessively on the line, "America, America is killing its youth." This was rock and roll as theory: A band called Suicide, homeless at times during it's formative years, Martin Rev's cheap keyboard presets, and Alan Vega's voice, more slapback than signal, announcing that America and, by implication, the rock and roll, in which they lived and practiced was systematically eradicating its own audience, killing its youth. But there's the double entendre too, which applies equally again to America and rock and roll. The youth it is killing is its own: its vitality, its foolishness, its certainty, its naiveté. Suicide is the name of the band because, after all, what is being born, but the signing of a suicide pact? Beginning is the promise of ending.<br /><br /> This afternoon, I attended Dusty Groove's 20th anniversary block party. Among other records, I bought the recent reissue of the second Suicide record. I came home, put my daughter to bed and opened my laptop to learn that Alan Vega had died. <br /><br /> This morning - July 16, 2016 - while I engaged his work as a (re)producer and a consumer, Alan Vega ended. He left, not via the door opened by his band's name, but the old fashioned way, "peacefully in his sleep." <br /><br />It's good to be a "recording artist." When you commit your beginnings to vinyl (or film or binary code) they can forever be begun again, not forestalling ending, but reestablishing the brief moments when ending is temporarily and artificially, strategically, denied. The present looks as if at a window and finds a mirror instead: no "out there," no "beyond," no "yet to come." Just <i>THIS</i>, again. In those moments, slapped back, and incessantly slapping back, Alan Vega's voice resounded. "Baby, baby, baby, he's screaming the truth."<br /><br /><br /> </span> </span></span></p>Seth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268364577339453362.post-63865247402143364522016-07-05T20:38:00.004-04:002016-07-05T21:42:28.714-04:00Abbas Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I am thinking of Abbas Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry (1997), a film involving a man, Mr. Badii, who is planning to commit suicide by taking sleeping pills and laying down in a shallow hole he has dug at the base of a small tree in the hills overlooking Tehran. For much of the film, he drives the roads which traverse the hills, looking for someone who is willing, for a fee, to come to the hole in the morning and, if he finds Mr. Badii alive, to extend a hand to help him out of the hole; if not, to cover his body with twenty spades full of dirt.<br /><br />The film is about this search for help. It is about the desire to tie up the details even when the details have extinguished the desire to live. Taste of Cherry is about a journey (life) interrupted by a decision to die or about a journey (to death) interrupted by a decision to live. It is about sharing with strangers these most basic, yet intimate, experiences and decisions, which we, of course, share with strangers by virtue of our shared existence as human beings. Taste of Cherry is also about narrative. It is about how a simple decision and its incumbent details create a narrative direction, a problem to be solved, a situation to be resolved. It is about the existential resolutions, or lack thereof, available to the fictional character, Mr. Badii. It is about the filmic resolutions available, or not, to the director, Abbas Kiarostami. It is about the judgmental resolutions available to us, the audience, because we too are in Mr. Badii’s shoes. We make this decision each moment of our lives: to continue? To be or not to be. I cannot go on, I must go on. And so on. Taste of Cherry is about Abbas Kiarostami’s decisions as a human being, to live or to die, which makes him – the ponderer/auteur of the question of the film – a kind of avatar for our experience. But it also makes us avatars of Mr. Badii, who is the embodiment of our collective dilemma and whose own fictionalized dilemma plays our thoughts, our emotions, our experience, as if with a joystick. Seemingly, if we live, we take Mr. Badii with us. Likewise, should we die. It seems to me that much of the challenge of making a film like Taste of Cherry , and also of watching it and thinking about it, comes down to its ending, its closure. Certainly, this is not unique to Taste of Cherry . The challenge posed by many narratives is to use the ending to imbue what precedes it with value. But Taste of Cherry boils the challenge down to its most fundamental form, while wrestling with the most fundamental of ontological questions. For those reasons, it makes a valuable case study. More importantly, it is the specific solution (if one can call it that) of Taste of Cherry which makes it exemplary.<br /><br />The film is ninety-four minutes long. Ninety-one of these minutes are shot on film. The final three minutes are shot on video. The switch occurs as Mr. Badii lies in the hole he has dug at the base of the tree. Still on film, the camera frames his face. We see only the hint of the dirt walls of the hole in which he lies. A leaf flutters in the wind and lands, momentarily, on his forehead. His face distended and sweaty, grimacing, perhaps in pain or fear, looks up from within the earth, to the sky. The camera shows us his viewpoint, still on film. The moon is full and ducks in and out of clouds. In the distance there is the sound of thunder and the sky occasionally flashes. We see Mr. Badii’s face again, still on film. The moon is disappearing and the night is turning dark. Badii’s eyes are open as the night goes black. A flash of lightning illuminates him temporarily – his eyes still open, still on film. A second flash of lightning shows us his face again. His eyes are still open. The frame goes black again, entirely black. And the next time Badii’s face is illuminated by the nearing lightning, his eyes are closed. The screen goes black a final time, entirely black. We hear more thunder, but no lightning now. And then rain.<br /><br />When the picture returns, when light again fills the screen, it is daylight. Now Taste of Cherry is grainy, low quality video. For the first time in the movie, there is music: Louis Armstrong’s “St. James Infirmary.” The camera is looking down from the same hills upon which most of the film has taken place. We hear the sounds of soldiers jogging in the hills, counting out loudly and in unison. This echoes a scene earlier in the film when Badii speaks to a young soldier about his time in the army and the two compare the way they count during training. Badii, in what plays as a crass attempt to create common cause between himself and the man he is trying to enlist, urges the soldier to count along with him, loudly and in unison. But the soldier, claiming shyness, declines. The next shot in the video section – in the DVD chapter menu, it is called the “Epilogue” – shows two men setting up a film camera and a tripod on one of the dry dirt mounds that striate the hills from top to bottom. The camera pans down to catch Mr. Badii walking uphill, reaching into his shirt pocket for a pack of cigarettes. As he lights the cigarette, he joins a group of three men. The viewer might recognize one of these men. He is in the foreground. He wears a blue baseball cap, a denim shirt, blue jeans and dark glasses. As Badii approaches him, he hands his cigarette to Abbas Kiarostami, the director of Taste of Cherry. Kiarostami takes a drag and the film cuts to a man in long grass with headphones, a large stereomicrophone and a tape recorder.<br /><br />Mr. Badii is not Mr. Badii. It comes as a shock. Suddenly the film is gone and with it the fiction. The video shows us scenes of the shooting of the movie; the behind-the-scenes, the making-of. Once the video begins, we are watching a documentary. But we don’t realize it at first. It takes a minute and ten seconds, roughly – around the time that the sound man appears with his headphones and microphone – for us to realize that the film has changed register, changed medium, changed perspective and changed its relationship with its characters and its story. Mr. Badii is now Homayon Ershadi, the actor who plays Mr. Badii. Mr. Badii is gone. When it changes to video, Taste of Cherry also changes its relationship to us and to itself. In the process – and in a flash, like the lightning which presages it – everything which has come before is reconfigured. Nintey-one minutes of film suddenly recoil in our memory and are erased. In their place, we are left with the shadows of ideas and emotions provoked by what has transpired. These are not so easily erased. But without the comfort and distance of the suddenly exposed fiction, these ideas and emotions must find a new home, a new context.<br /><br />Ideas and emotions must hang on something: a head, a heart. When Mr. Badii disappears, it falls to us, the viewers, to reassign these ideas and emotions. When we see Homayon Ershadi, walking casually up the hill, lighting a cigarette, we realize that he is not the home or source of these ideas and emotions. Kiarostami takes the cigarette, as if to say, “don’t look at me.”<br /><br />Meanwhile, the story is left to hang in another way. The narrative of Mr. Badii and his efforts to find someone to bury him after his suicide is left incomplete. For more than an hour and a half, we have traveled with Mr. Badii in his car, traversing the hills above Tehran. We travel with him emotionally as he tries to persuade someone to help him: a soldier, a security guard, a seminary student, a taxidermist with an ailing child. That story now hangs. After the taxidermist agrees to Badii’s request, Badii leaves him at the Natural History Museum. When Badii stops at the museum’s gates a young woman approaches him, asking if he will take a picture of her and a young man, her boyfriend perhaps. Badii obliges and snaps the photo through the open window of his car. As he hands the camera back to the woman and starts to drive away, he recognizes the man. Badii had come across him at the beginning of the film. The man was speaking to someone on a public phone about financial troubles. Badii sensed an opportunity, but the young man had not allowed Badii to make his pitch, threatening to smash his face in if he didn’t move on. During the course of the young man’s overheard conversation he agrees to meet someone “outside the museum”. It is a seemingly inconsequential snippet of dialogue, unrelated to Badii’s story. But, once Badii has found the taxidermist to help him and has made the arrangements; after the wheels have been set in motion, the story, in all its inconsequence doubles back on itself. Here is the young man again, meeting someone outside the museum. Is the young woman the person whom he planned to meet? Or has she accompanied him to meet a third party? If we suspend our relation to the narrative as representation and accept it as a self-reflexive text, then we might imagine that it is Mr. Badii whom the young man arranges to meet outside the museum. We can never know for certain. And you’ll pardon me if I suggest that this not knowing needn’t bother us.<br /><br />Nevertheless, this chance, repeat encounter spins Badii around. He goes back to the museum and finds the taxidermist. He summons the taxidermist outside and asks, when he visits the grave the following morning, that he throw two small stones into the hole to make sure Badii is really dead and not simply sleeping. The taxidermist, who is reluctant, yet resigned (due to the needs of his ailing child), to carry out his task, replies: “Two stones aren’t enough. I’ll use three.” There is doubt now about whether Badii really intends to go through with it. Somehow the chance, repeat encounter with the young man has given him pause. The mysterious serendipity of the universe may be reason enough to go on.<br /><br />When Mr. Badii lies in his grave, when we see his face, framed tightly, the darkness encroaching, we have arrived at a crucial moment of narrative: this is the crescendo, the climax, the denouement. He has or he has not taken the pills. He is or he is not dead. The entire film has led us to this moment and to the revelation of the outcome, of Mr. Badii’s fate. What we expect is closure. More than expect it, we demand it. The story itself demands it. Yet Taste of Cherry offers no such closure. The final three minutes are the ones shot on video. Mr. Badii is now Homayon Ershadi. And Abbas Kiarostami, who had been directing the story and the film is now inside it. He stands on the same hillside where Badii dug his grave. <br /><br />Taste of Cherry doesn’t simply bifurcate, as a narrative, it positively shatters. It shatters the very pretence of narrative. There is no Mr. Badii. He has no life to end. The story which has been constructed is swiftly and decisively withdrawn and replaced at a meta-level by the final three minutes on video. The entire narrative becomes a device about narrative, a comment on narrative and a transfer of the responsibility of narrative from the story, the film, the director to an elsewhere that may include the spectator, if he or she is willing to accept it. In this manner, the work of art is akin to a collect call. It has always been thus. Kiarostami, brazenly and brilliantly, makes this implicit fact explicit.<br /><br />Throughout his career, Kiarostami has systematically worked to remove himself from the position of responsibility vis-à-vis his films. He told Jean-Luc Nancy that “…a filmmaker’s responsibility is so great that I’d prefer not to make any films.” Kiarostami has reduced his control of nearly every element of filmmaking. He uses amateur actors, he has dispensed with scripts, he has placed cameras in cars and sent the actors off without him to shoot scenes and he has adopted digital video as his preferred medium for its unobtrusiveness, ease of use and low technical demands. Taste of Cherry also abandons narrative control by refusing to provide the one narrative detail upon which the rest of the story depends. This is a great embrace of negative potential within the artwork. The withdrawal of crucial information – whether it be narrative, figurative, formal, or another component of the work – acts to multiply the possible messages and meanings of the work and to devolve power from the central administration of the auteur. This abdication cannot be achieved carelessly or nonchalantly. Nor is it a matter of the technical mastery by the artist or the mechanical competence of the medium. It can be accomplished only when the artist recognizes the inherent incompetence of the available materials and modes of representation. This recognition – a conceptual competence – allows for a turning of the tables, in which the materials and modes invert themselves self-reflexively, exposing their incompetence. With nothing true, everything is permitted. Kiarostami recognizes this less-is-more-ism: "When we tell a story, we tell but one story, and each member of the audience , with a peculiar capacity to imagine things, hears but one story. But when we say nothing, it’s as if we said a great number of things."<br /><br />Narrative, as a mode of representation, finds its singularity challenged. This would seem to be one of the main incompetences under attack in Kiarostami’s oeuvre. By reducing the narrative to a nothing, Kiarostami seeks something along the lines of Barthes’ “writing degree zero”, a writing which completes itself in reading, rather than writing and, as such, opens itself to, or exposes itself as, multiplicity. As a maker of films, Kiarostami must fight his battle on several fronts. Fragmenting narrative, reducing it to a multiplicitous nothing, would not be enough to significantly alter cinema. In addition to its narrative mode, cinema, most notably, consists of a visual mode and a technical mode which are often intertwined. Kiarostami has increasingly positioned his camera inside a car. In so doing, he makes the six possible directions (forward, backward, left, right, up, down) of the camera’s gaze more apparent. With each intra-automobile camera angle, we see a person and a frame (the window: driver’s side, passenger side, front or back windshield). A single intra-auto camera cannot simultaneously capture two people sitting in the front seat of a car. So Kiarostami’s choices, as director, as editor, are reduced to choices of subject: the driver or the passenger. The severity of this reduction makes the viewer so much more aware of what is being left out: the other person, the other side of the car. And this awareness is an awareness of cinema itself. <br /><br />Kiarostami: "Cinema, inasmuch as it shows things off, restricts the gaze. Because selfishly it limits the world to one side of the cube and deprives us of the five other ones. It has nothing to do with the camera’s immobility. There isn’t any more to see when it moves about, since one loses the one side as soon as one has access to another. Films referring to an elsewhere, like that of painting, are more creative or more honest. "<br /><br />Taste of Cherry , by ending the way it does, by withholding closure, creates a structural entity which is open on all sides. The cube created by the artwork itself (as opposed to the cube created by the camera), does not deprive us of its other sides by showing us one. Instead it disassembles the cube and lays it out flat, granting access to all six of its sides at once. The film achieves this by leading us to a fork in the narrative road. The story leads us to a moment of binary decision; to the moment of primal, fundamental, ontological choice: life or death. The first ninety-one minutes work to involve us in the moment, to ensure that the investment made in the black screen between the film and the video is our investment. The amazing turn that takes place in that darkness constitutes the explosion of the binary. The fundamental choice between a and b turns out to be much more various than we might have imagined. More crucially, it turns out to be more various than we regularly imagine. After all, this is our choice too: life or death. It is Kiarostami’s choice. It is Homayon Ershadi’s choice. And it is a choice not made in a vacuum.</span>Seth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268364577339453362.post-43995177736551583262016-01-11T12:13:00.006-05:002022-11-13T22:37:52.752-05:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wGewzYIDM5o/YaPKVCZFopI/AAAAAAAAAUM/dKKmcwv7irYK0q3GdAacSLAZzfiMWcdPwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/RREULOGIES.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1073" data-original-width="2048" height="336" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wGewzYIDM5o/YaPKVCZFopI/AAAAAAAAAUM/dKKmcwv7irYK0q3GdAacSLAZzfiMWcdPwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h336/RREULOGIES.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffa400;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br />David Bowie</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br />David Bowie didn’t mean as much to me as he meant to you. Which is to say that he
didn’t mean as much to you as he did to me. Or, alternatively, that he didn't
mean as much to me as he did to me; you to you. I can make such preposterous
claims on Bowie’s behalf because, like Whitman, he contained multitudes. Or,
unlike Whitman, multitudes contained him, shrinkwrapping his features, his
songs, his ensemble. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">The distinction here is that of interior and exterior. And
the question always hovering around Bowie, like an aura, like a swarm of flies,
is whether the exterior has depth. He is and was the most contemporary
phenomenon: both Modern (Levi-Strauss’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bricoleur</i>)
and Postmodern (Barthes’ tissue of citations). Magpie-Modern Bowie collected
guitar players like shiny baubles: Mick Ronson, Earl Slick, Robert Fripp,
Adrian Belew, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Reeves Gabrels. He assembled bits from other
nests, disparate as Anthony Newley’s and Iggy Pop’s, Bertolt Brecht’s and Neu!’s
His interweavings suggest deeper truths about his sources and about ourselves:
difference ain’t always so different. Whether scrabbled desperately together as
a bulwark against the calamity of being mortal, or prettied and polished to
escalate the eye and ear beyond the infirmities and terrors of terra firma, our
puttings-together and our puttings-out-there all amount to the same thing: talismans,
charms, totems insinuating the elsewhere, the elsewhen.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Referential-Postmodern Bowie tilted into his sources,
allowing them to distort him. He courted disorientation, trusting that true
north would become apparent. Of course, he also knew as well as any of us that,
depending on which way one is facing, true north may be in front, behind, or to
the side. Bowie learned the lessons of collage and montage, both avant-garde
and mass-mediated. He strolled the arcades, bringing back both trinkets and
insights. He prefigured the aesthetics of appropriation: appropriating and
being appropriated in turn; a conduit of the cultural unconscious. He
understood that tipping his hat to his sources was preferable to keeping them
under it. He proved his prescience by stealing from Warhol, Lou, Bolan, and
Iggy, before anyone else knew they had anything worth stealing. But just as
important as the tunes and the poses were the citations. He wanted us to know
his sources. Thus listening forces us to occupy two sites simultaneously. We
listen to Iggy via Bowie or vice versa, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">clairauditeurs</i>.
Of course time is complicated too. Now when we go back and listen to his
sources, they are Bowified. And all the selves of the world are another. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">The creeping sense: <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">When listening to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Low,</i>
that Bowie is not there; <br />
When watching him perform <a href="https://vimeo.com/67640670" target="_blank">Boys Keep Swinging on Saturday Night Live</a>, that the green-screen puppet is no less
(but no more) Bowie than the head that ventriloquizes (or is ventriloquized by)
the words; <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">When dancing to the Thin White Duke, feeling forced to
reconsider what “soul” must mean in this context…<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Once I sang <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZdjkoxW1Ac&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank">a song of his</a>. Engaging with the words, the
phrasing, the melody, the arrangement – in short, with the material and form of
his art – I came to realize that his songs sometimes contain a powerful
undertow. While the song appears to move effortlessly forward toward inevitable
pop denouement, a friction is generated that threatens to grind the song to a
stop. The words do not sit comfortably in the changes, they buckle
architectonically. Disruptions spike from the groundwork. Singing the song, remaking
it, put me in touch with its subversions. The song, “Joe The Lion,” is
reputedly about the artist, Chris Burden, who disrupted with the best of them. When
Bowie sings offhandedly about a secondhand gun, he’s thinking of Burden having
himself shot as a work of art. When Bowie sings “Nail me to my car / And I’ll
tell you who you are,” he’s thinking of Burden’s “Transfixed,” in which he was
affixed to the back of a Volkswagen, nails driven through his palms. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">I don’t know if such an act, much less a pop song, can tell
us who we are. I don’t know if Bowie’s songs can tell us who he is (and now
was). So, I’m left troubled by the contradiction of profundity for sale. Sure
it happens elsewhere: in films and in books and in plenty of music. But Bowie
courted the sales more openly and more successfully than anyone else I listen
to regularly (and anyone else I’ve eulogized here). I can condemn my
aspirations or condone my capitulations. We all have a little Adorno in us. We
want to believe that some things are just plain better than others. We want to
know where the line is drawn between the pleasure of shallow distractions and
the satisfaction of deep engagements. What Bowie offers are contradictions. The
pop and the fashion and the sales figures and the awards and the magazine
profiles and the museum show and, today, the obituaries and tributes. Bowie is
the man who sold the world. But there is a meaning to Bowie that is not simply
this. The dust of our deepest unnervings clings to his threadbare identities,
fashioned from equal parts glitz and chintz. What we sense when we witness
Bowie morph is that what we want most in this life – glory, gold, or goodness –
is just as subject to transformation as the once-upon-a-time David Jones. Our
gilding yields but lilies. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>JA</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/>
<w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/>
<w:OverrideTableStyleHps/>
<w:UseFELayout/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="276">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-language:JA;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
<!--EndFragment--><br />
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span>Seth Kim-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06322366423899418115noreply@blogger.com0