delays

Not much time to post, but I'd like to get back to the Babbit article soon. Thomas and Edison both left some thoughtful comments that I'd like to take a closer look at.

In the works - a facelift for this blog. I'm finally starting to get a handle on using CCS ("Cascading Style Sheets"), which are more than a pain than they should be because Internet Explorer doesn't always interpret them correctly.

Tommorrow I'm taking the first of an informal conversation Spanish class, something I've been meaning to do for years. I took several years of Spanish in high school and in college, I live in a predominantly Spanish-speaking part of the city, and the closest to a Spanish conversation I ever get is ordering food a Tacqueria or panaderia. Pathetic! Time for a change . . .

For anyone living in the bay area, some acquaintances of mine are putting on what should be an incredible Oakland warehouse party -- with multiple DJ's, fire artists, fire dancers, "interactive smut", and other oddities. It's a fundraiser for one of the Burning Man camps Gerardo and I might stay with this year, called Dustfish (i.e., a fish that breathes dust instead of water). It will take place April 2, at an industrial arts warehouse called NIMBY. I'm generally not the partying type, but the people who are putting this one on have a talent for attracting crowds that are both friendly and freaky-in-a-good-way in equal measure, and I've had a great time at everything they've had anything to do with (despite whatever intentions I've had to the contrary). And my partner Gerardo will be performing flamenco in drag.

Here's the official flyer:

wrek

For sheer eclecticism, WREK leaves WFMU in the dust. Though it lacks WFMU's snappy personality and chrome-like sheen, and though its webpage was clearly designed by future engineers who see nothing wrong with orange text on a black background, WREK also boasts a streaming archive for everything played over the past week, as well as an almost infallable playlist.

not quite on topic, but who cares if you . . .

Quick post, because I should be working on work-related work right now.

The questions of audience and market raised recently Gary, Ron, Jake, the Foetry wars, etc., all make me think of an almost universally-loathed article, titled Who Cares If You Listen?, by the almost universally loathed composer Milton Babbitt. In one of my past lives as an undergrad music major pursuing a degree in theory & composition, I read contemporary articles and participated in contemporary conversations that took passionate issue what Babbitt asserted in this article. Anyone eavesdropping would have thought it had been published in the last 5 or so years -- when, actually, it had first been published nearly forty years prior, in 1958. (Follow the link at the bottom of the article for an example of such a contemporary response).

In the article, Babbitt -- who composed (in my opinion, beautiful, lively, and compelling) music in which every controllable detail was determined by strict mathematical relationships -- made the following assertion:

. . . the composer would do himself and his music an immediate and eventual service by total, resolute, and voluntary withdrawal from this public world to one of private performance and electronic media, with its very real possibility of complete elimination of the public and social aspects of musical composition. By so doing, the separation between the domains would be defined beyond any possibility of confusion of categories, and the composer would be free to pursue a private life of professional achievement, as opposed to a public life of unprofessional compromise and exhibitionism.

There came a point, Babbitt claimed, when science became too complex to be understood by non-scientists. Similarly, musical composition could no longer be understood by anyone but highly-trained and specialized composers and musicians. And this was, for Babbit, no problem whatsoever.

I bring this up because I wonder what effect it would have, if any, on the "poetry world" if someone of Babbit's stature made a similar claim about poetry. What I find interesting is that I really can't imagine it happening. And what this unimaginability says, if anything, about the state of poetry in 2005 relative to the state of music in 1958, I don't know.

Certainly the reactionaries who wish to subject academia to market forces would cite a Babbitt-like figure as an example of degenerate excess: why, after all, should public dollars support the career of someone like Babbitt, who doesn't even care to communicate with that public? Such controversies existed in Babbitt's age as well as ours -- indeed, he apparently wrote the article in response to a trend of universities deciding to shift their musical funding toward more popular ends. Here's Babbitt's answer, which I think is at least worth considering, even if one vehemently disagrees with him:

Granting to music the position accorded other arts and sciences promises the sole substantial means of survival for the music I have been describing. Admittedly, if this music is not supported, the whistling repertory of the man in the street will be little affected, the concert-going activity of the conspicuous consumer of musical culture will be little disturbed. But music will cease to evolve, and, in that important sense, will cease to live.

edison on hst

Thank you, Edison of Merely Popular, for offering words where I had none.

In the comments section of the previous post, Edison had this to say about Hunter S. Thompson:

I still vividly recall reading HST in Rolling Stone; before it got slick, before Wenner had doubts, and before most people began to (finally) question the mainstream media. Thompson showed how a journalist could tell me a story and retain personal integrity and at the same time, make me smile. So many owe him a debt of gratitude, not only for rescuing their souls, but also, I believe, for planting the seed that grew into what we read now in the best blogs. I'm sad he's gone, but oh so glad he lived.

hunter s thompson

Fuck.

I don't have any other words for it right now.

That makes two of my heroes who've killed themselves, the first being Deleuze.

Hunter S. Thompson, 67, dead in suicide.

competition and government

I've been thinking about the following lately:

For large corporations, buying off lawmakers to change the rules engagement in your favor has become just another form of capitalistic competition. It's analogous to a game in which an essential part of the game is influencing the rule-maker to change the rules so that you benefit from that change. It therefore becomes almost suicidal for a large corporation to NOT attempt to buy the favor of whoever's in power. If you don't buy their favor, your competition will.

for what it's worth

the more money
you have the more
the market gives you
what you want

so when you call
for a subjection
of anything to market forces

you’re really saying let me -- or if not me
then that guy with all the money

who looks more like me
than how i’d imagine the average
of everyone else on the planet looks --
let me or us let us

discipline the crowd
to behave according
to our values

so that when we look out across that crowd
we’ll see nothing but our own faces

not as we know them
but as they’d look
to someone who adores us

r. robot's blog

This is pretty impressive. A self-writing blog that proceeds via a rhetoric-shuffling PERL algorithm. You can type in a name and it will work it in the text. Not suprisingly, I typed in my own. This is what it came up with:

Jay Thomas and irrelevance

At Georgetown University, Jay Thomas engaged in cunningly Chomsky-like mendacity that most Americans found shocking. "What kind of a skeeza is Condoleeza?" were the words. If these people hate America so much, maybe they should move to Basra.

One of the malignant leftoids, Jay Thomas criticizes Vice-President Cheney. "I will not condone a course of action that will lead us to war," he said. If so, then why has Joe Lieberman's call for truth been so successful? There you have it: the spiteful demagogy, the wretched treason of the ultra-crepidarian elite. By far the most unique, reasoned, and confident article about the war debate, on either side of the issue, has been "Why the Saddamphiles who oppose invasion are contemptibly duplicitous and wretched", my piece last Sunday.

Abominably, to be one of the permissive cultural elite is to disgrace and excuse. "I have a few questions I'd like to ask about this," says Jay Thomas. If so, then why has Tom DeLay's call for truth been so successful? Jay Thomas has changed his tune again. "So how's that economy doing, anyway?" he says. If so, then why has President Bush's call for war been so successful?

Why won't liberals condemn the ultra-crepidarian baying of Jay Thomas?

When Paul Wolfowitz tries to protect us from hysterical brown men, partisan Jay Thomas and his fellow liberals cry out, "racial profiling!" Are there limits to this baying?

What George Tenet did to devour reform is the act of a malignant, naked opportunist, and insouciance that will not soon be forgotten by the American people.

it's a queer world after all

One of my closest friends just started a blog for short stories "full o' dykes, fags and trannies", queertales.

And another of my closest friends (the same guy who drew the fairy-picture of me) has been keeping a blog, Dream, for quite awhile, which I've neglected to mention until now.

surveillance in vancouver

What I'm watching via the Eyes of Laura website:



This image is from pretty far away - the detail is amazing. It's some street corner near the museum, at the entrance of a small shopping mall. The more one thinks about this, the more disconcerting it becomes.

These people, I presume, have no idea they're being watched -- and by someone in another city, no less. And I may as well be in Australia -- there's virtually no delay. You tell the camera to move, and it moves.

I suppose I tend to think of surveillance as generally taking place locally. For example, if I see a camera near a building I'm passing by, I assume that it's either recording video on site or that someone within is watching the camera's view via a monitor. But I realize now that effective live surveillance could -- and undoubtedly does -- take place remotely.

follow-up on bethel boys academy

Someone anonymously posted an article in the comments section of an entry I wrote awhile back on the evil (literally) Bethel Boys Academy. (Follow the link for a detailed account of abuses that include severe beatings, broken bones, razor slashes, strangulation, injured eyes, torture with an electric fence, solitary confinement in foot lockers, and on and on . . .)

Apparently the "academy" has decided to change its name to "Eagle Point Christian Academy". The article states that this is the 2nd time it's changed its name, the first name change occuring after the state raided it in 1988 to remove 72 abused and neglected children.

Charmingly, the director calls the abuse allegations "almost funny." Jesus fucking christ.

This story touches quite a nerve in me. I guess I wonder how many wingnuts send their kids to places like this because they suspect those kids of being gay . . .

And while we're on this incredibly unpleasant subject, check out this site on the wildly unethical Standford Prison Experiment. To be honest, something about the site itself makes me uneasy, but reading through some of Dr. Zimbardo's papers it certainly appears not only that his heart is in the right place but that his research has made some important discoveries that we continue to ignore.

refreshingly honest misanthropy

At least as far as iconoclasts and poets are concerned.

Alexander Cumberbatch latest two entries have somehow felt incredibly refreshing, just the opposite of the sort of bitterness encountered on Foetry. It's strange how invigorating (indeed, uplifting) a mature, not adolescent, ill-will - one that's perfectly aware of and at ease with itself - can be.

aha! (eyes of laura, pt 3)

Thanks to this post, the Eyes of Laura site turns out to be a project from artist Janet Cardiff. I have to admit, I'm oddly disappointed . . . and I feel I kinda dumb for having taken it at face value upon first glance. I mean, what are the chances that something like this could be set up without involvement from the museum? But, wow, this thing is well-done and I'm looking forward to watching it unfold.

Ok, now it's laundry time for real.

more on eyes of laura

Thinking a little more about it, I'd be suprised if the Eyes of Laura project isn't wholly or mostly fabricated. Some of the coincidences tip a little too far toward the implausible. For example, on January 7, 2005, Laura writes that she woke up to discover that five of her fish had mysteriously leapt from the aquarium during the night. That same day, her camera records a chalk drawing of a fish with the message "are you watching?".

Still, I'm finding this a subtly powerful and absorbing online experience. Just took a walk to Walgreens to pick up some essentials and I felt quite dissociated. Every moment took on an aura of being part of a larger narrative in which I was playing only a supporting role. Weird. Time for a break.

Today is apartment-cleaning day anyway. Washing a load of laundry and doing the dishes should quickly do away with that aura of extra-ordinary significance.

eyes of laura

Thanks to Robin, of the exceptionally well-designed and creativity-sparking blog Big Window, for pointing out the Eyes of Laura, an interactive web installation in which you control an art museum's security camera. It seems to be for real - the camera moves wherever you tell it to go, and the level of detail on the zoom-ins is extremely clear. I watched a thirtyish guy with red hair and a goatee eat his lunch while reading a newspaper until the experience started to feel a little too voyeuristic to be comfortable.

Navigate back through the days and you'll see references to some recurring characters, namely the Inspector, a creepy undercover detective-like guy, and Rabbit, a klepto kid who may or may not have connections to the Inspector. It's easy to imagine that these tidbits are real - but it's also just as easy to imagine that they've been staged, either by the artist herself or by someone aware of the project. Indeed, perhaps Laura herself isn't even real. This project brilliantly demonstrates -- intentionally or unintentionally -- the piecing-together of both narrative and identity from what Kant might call a "manifold of presentations".

reminder to self

Go see David Byrne's Powerpoint presentation/lecture "I [heart] PowerPoint" on March 7.

7:30-9:00pm
155 Dwinelle Hall
UC Berkeley

Here is a link to the lecture series calendar in which the listing appears.

Many thanks to Jean of OKIR for the reminder.

the market

Great discussion over on Thicket about academia and the market. And no, I'm not an academic, so don't accuse me of liking his position because it directly benefits me. It doesn't.

For what it's worth, I posted the following shortly after launching this blog. It's a bit heavy-handed, but I still subscribe to basic position I tried to articulate. The idea is that some things should be protected, at least to some degree, from market forces, because the market -- as far as "cultural" commodities are concerned -- is basically just a cultural feedback loop and cannot, therefore, raise the level of cultural discourse.

free market feedback loop

Any instutition which serves to increase the level of education or cultural literacy of (i.e., "enlighten" for lack of a better word) a society should never be exposed to market forces. Implicit in the nature of enlightenment is that only those who are already at least a little bit enlightened will seek to further their own enlightment. And even the already-enlightened must sometimes be poked, prodded, provoked further down the path.

Consumerist market forces respond primarily to base needs, desires and drives. While niche markets for those seeking cultural enlightenment may emerge, the market as a whole will never secure enlightenment for society as a whole because society does not realize that it needs enlightenment.

happy

2nd birthday to fait accompli! I was surprised to learn that Nick's blog has only been around for two years . . .

foetry flames

God, the flame wars over at Foetry are depressing. Maybe my reaction means I have no sense of humor (it wouldn't be the first I've been accused of this, and my accusers have often been correct). The discussion between Gary Norris and Jake Adam York seems quite interesting, though, and I'm looking forward to future installments.

Regarding the flame wars, I have a very difficult time seeing Gary Norris, Larua Carter, and Jim Berhle as perpetrators of the kind of corruption Foetry hopes to expose. I keep thinking of that scene in Monty Python's the Life of Brian in which the four members of the Judean People's Front run down the list of all the revolutionary groups they hate more than the Romans.

As for the Romans (i.e., corruption in the poetry publishing world), I've never directly witnessed it myself, but I would be quite suprised if it didn't exist. Sorry to be cynical, but if cliquishness can serve as an indicator of a social environment ripe for corruption and abuse of power, then my admittedly limited experience of the poetry world suggests that the kind of corruption Foetry allegedly aims to uncover is probably in full bloom. Given this, I think that anonymity does makes some sense.

However -- and this is a big, big however -- it seems to me that some of the more vocal members use their anonymity to bully and intimidate others who could have been effective allies. Which, to me, constitutes not just a self-defeating move but an abuse of power, i.e., a form of corruption. I hope those who are an integral part of the Foetry project find a way to build a real community that can take an effective stand against real corruption; right now, based on what I've seen over the past couple of days, Foetry comes across more like some neighborhood gang shaking down local businesses and residents. Wrong targets, guys, to say the least.

this time tommorrow

I'll be sleepling (hopefully) in a hotel in Reston, VA. Thank God I'll be back in SF after two days. Reston one of the most horrible places I've ever been spent time in. Nothing but corporate HQ's, hotels, and chain restaurants like Chile, Chipotle, etc. For miles and miles. There's literally nothing else. The whole thing feels like an gargantuan Tativille that thinks it's a real city.

portrait

My dear friend Steven, who is currently currently trapped by superhuman powers in the red state stronghold of Utah, painted a portrait of me as a fairy. Not the kind I actually am, but the kind with wings and the ability to fly. Oh, never mind.

Thank you, Steven!