[jahsonic.com] - [Next >>]

[<<] September 2005 Jahsonic (05) [>>]

blog archives

about - art - culture - dance - erotica - fiction - film - gallery - genre - history - human - home - index - lifestyle - links - music - list of qualities - search - list of sensibilities - theory - underground - world


WWW jahsonic.com

"Method of this work:
literary montage.
I have nothing to say only to show." (Passagenwerk (1927 - 1940) - Walter Benjamin)

2005, Sep 15; 23:10 ::: Soul Jazz presents: Universal Sounds of America (1995) - Various artists

Soul Jazz presents: Universal Sounds of America (1995) - Various artists [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Track listings
1. Space 2 - Durrah, David
2. Theme de yoyo - Art Ensemble Of Chicago
3. Lions of judah - Reid, Steve
4. Astral travelling - Sanders, Pharoah
5. Space odyssey - Belgrave, Marcus
6. Empty street - Reid, Steve
7. Kitty bey - Morris, Byron
8. Space 1 - Durrah, David
9. Space is the place - Sun Ra

Universal Sounds of America features music from radical Afro-American Jazz musicians in the USA in the 1970's.

At a time when commercial jazz music was revolving around whether it would sound good in an Elevator at low volume, a number of Jazz musicians were seeking different musical paths. Self Determination, Creative Development, Community and Education were more important to these musicians than economic wealth, fame and stardom. Artists such as The Art Ensemble of Chicago and Sun Ra developed around communal groups. The Art Ensemble, for instance , came out of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) founded in 1965 by Muhal Richard Abrams in Chicago.

Many musicians followed the lead of Sun Ra in starting their own labels to release their own material. Artists such as Byron Morris in Washington and Steve Reid in New York The Tribe label in Detroit formed around a group of musicians (Wendell Harrison, Phil Ranelin, Marcus Belgrave, Harold McKinney and others) also produced a regular magazine focussed on the Detroit community. The Strata- East label in New York independantly released many self-financed records by the cream of creative Jazz musicians in the 70's.

Many of these musicians were the spiritual descendants of John Coltrane. None more so than Pharoah Sanders , who had been a member of John Coltrane's group in the sixties. Sun Ra whose 20 minute "Space is the Place" is featured on this CD is also a major influence on many of these artists and indeed many of them at one time or another were involved with the Sun Ra group.

Universal Sounds of America describes this period in time and features all the artists mentioned. --http://www.souljazzrecords.co.uk/release.php?ReleaseId=196&NavId=1_2&Section=2 [Sept 2005]

Highly recommended.

See also: Soul Jazz Records - 1995 - jazz - free jazz - space jazz - Sun Ra

2005, Sep 15; 22:38 ::: New sets at Mixoftheweek

"A mix recorded in the middle of the warmest Finnish summer by the hosts of the Gods of Eden club night." - Pirkka

  • Cesaria Evora: Sangue De Beirona [Acroostical Ambient Space Mix] (Wave Music 2x12") 1998
  • Chris Rea: Road To Hell Pt.1 (Magnet 12") 1989
  • Giorgio Moroder: To The Bridge (MCA LP) 1982
  • Raw Silk: Just In Time [Edit] (Moxie 12") 2002
  • Brandi Ifgray: Bones [Vocal Mix] (PUU 12") 1998
  • Blaze: The Garden (Slip'n'Slide) 1997
  • Kinkina: Jungle Fever [Malaria mix] (Dum Dum 12")
  • Jean Michel Jarre: Diva (Disques Dreyfus LP) 1984
  • Hot R.S.: Slow Blow (Vogue 12")
  • Marc Reed: One Body [Remix] (ZYX 12") 1986
  • Art Of Noise: Moments In Love [Ben Liebrand Remix] (DMC 12") 1987
  • Level 42: Dune Tune (Polydor LP) 1981
  • Afrobutt: Farewell (Noid 12") 2001
  • Björn Torske: Aerosoles [Remix] (Svek 12") 2000
  • The Baltic Sea slashing waves on the sands of Hietaranta (summer 1988)
  • Barclay James Harvest: Rock'n Roll Lady (Polydor LP) 1979
  • Samuli Edelmann: In un altro mondo [Versione breve] (BMG 12") 1994

See also: http://www.mixoftheweek.com/mixes/motw255.html [Sept 2005]

2005, Sep 15; 22:38 ::: The Outsider (1956) - Colin Wilson

The Outsider (1956) - Colin Wilson [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

First Sentence:
AT FIRST SIGHT, the Outsider is a social problem. Read the first page

Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs):
thought riddled nature, ridden chaos, visionary faculty, bourgeois compromise, mind suicide, definitive act

Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Van Gogh, Evan Strowde, The Brothers Karamazov, George Fox, William James, End of Its Tether, The Seven Pillars, Henry James, Thomas Mann, Emil Sinclair, Grand Inquisitor, Oliver Gauntlett, Barbusse Outsider, The Idiot, Eternal Recurrence, Vaslav Nijinsky, Joan Westbury, Also Sprach Zarathustra, Existentialist Outsider, Old Testament, Ivan Karamazov, Chuang Tzu, The Birth of Tragedy, Frederick Nietzsche, British Museum

See also: 1956 - outsider - Colin Wilson

2005, Sep 15; 07:27 ::: The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance & the Habits of Nature - Rupert Sheldrake

The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance & the Habits of Nature - Rupert Sheldrake [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Biochemist Sheldrake maintains that if a pigeon in London learns a new habit, then pigeons everywhere else will automatically show an increasing tendency to learn the same habit. He holds that invisible energy patterns or "morphogenetic fields" surround and shape all atoms, all crystals, all pigeons and all humans. In his astonishing theory, any natural system whether insulin molecules, dandelions or societies inherits a collective memory from all previous members of that group. Experimental evidence for Sheldrake's hypothesis is inconclusive but tantalizing. If true, it would force a radical revision of our understanding of genetics, evolution, memory, learning. Many books on the "new physics" and the paranormal have discussed Sheldrake's ideas, but his own explanation of morphic resonance is the most lucid and exciting account to date. He uses the theory here to suggest how creation myths and rituals connect past and present. --Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc, via amazon.com

Dr Rupert Sheldrake
Dr Rupert Sheldrake (born 1942) is a controversial British biologist and author. He invented the hypothesis of morphogenetic fields, and has produced related research and publications, on topics such as animal and plant development and behaviour, telepathy, perception and metaphysics. He has a popular public following, particularly because of his books aimed at the general reader, but he is shunned by conventional science. Taking science "as a set of methods for finding out about anything at all that admits of systematic investigation" (John Searle), he is trying to extend science into realms it has neglected so far. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Sheldrake [Sept 2005]

Morphogenetic field
A morphogenetic field (or morphic field), according to biologist Rupert Sheldrake, is a hypothetical biological (and potentially social) equivalent to an electromagnetic field that operates to shape the exact form of a living thing, as part of its epigenetics, and may also shape its behaviour and coordination with other beings. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphogenetic_field [Sept 2005]

See also: biology - sociology

2005, Sep 14; 22:04 ::: Wyndham Lewis and the Art of Modern War (1998) - David Peters Corbett

Wyndham Lewis and the Art of Modern War (1998) - David Peters Corbett [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

This collection is the first specialised study since Frederic Jameson's influential 1979 book Fables of Aggression: Wyndham Lewis, the Modernist as Fascist to deal with the important question of Lewis as a mass of 'unbound impulses released from the rationalising censorship of a respectable consciousness', and arguing for a more nuanced and historically aware view of Lewis and his work. The eight contributors consider Lewis's career from its inception to his final novels within a major focus on the First World War and the inter-war period. Their essays examine Lewis's First World War art, his post-war politics and aesthetics, the new turn his painting and thought took in the 1930s, and the connections between modernism, war, and aggression. Overall, the collection offers a reassessment of the conventional view of Lewis as the uncontrolled aggressor of British modernism. --via Amazon.uk

Book Description
This volume considers the place of aggression and warfare in Lewis' art and literature within a closely defined historical context. Focusing on the effect of the First World War on Lewis' thought and his practice as artist and writer, it examines his war art, and the postwar politics and aesthetics in detail, and reassesses the justice of the view of Lewis as the uncontrolled aggressor of British modernism. --via Amazon.com

See also: art - aestheticization - modernism - war

2005, Sep 14; 21:38 ::: Fables of Aggression: Wyndham Lewis, the Modernist As Fascist (1979) - Fredric Jameson

Fables of Aggression: Wyndham Lewis, the Modernist As Fascist (1979) - Fredric Jameson [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

See also: Frederic Jameson - aggression - fascism - modernism

2005, Sep 14; 19:38 ::: What Are Masterpieces and Why Are There So Few of Them (1936) - Gertrude Stein

See also: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gertrude_Stein#What_Are_Masterpieces_and_Why_Are_There_So_Few_of_Them_.281936.29

See also: master - Gertrude Stein

2005, Sep 14; 16:07 ::: A Dictionary of Modern Critical Terms (1973) - Roger Fowler

A Dictionary of Modern Critical Terms (1973) - Roger Fowler [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Book Description
Around 300 essay-style entries introduce the reader to the traditional terms of literary criticism and the central preoccupations of contemporary critical thinking.

In What is a classic? (1944) T.S. Eliot asserts that classic status can be known 'only by hindsight and in historical perspective.'

Modernism

Though [modernism is] sometimes loosely used as a label for the dominant tendency of the twentieth-century arts, as ‘neo-classicism’ is for eighteenth- and ‘romanticism’ for nineteenth-century arts, ‘modernism’ raises problems crucial to the character and destiny of those arts. Not only is much modern writing not modernist – so Stephen Spender distinguishes between 'modern' and 'contemporary' writers (The Struggle of the Modern, 1963) – but it resists the thesis that modernist style and sensibility are inevitable in our age.

For modernism tends to propose special opportunities and difficulties for the arts. Modernist art is, in most critical usage, reckoned to be the art of what Harold Rosenburg calls 'the tradition of the new'. It is experimental, formally complex, elliptical, contains elements of decreation as well as creation, and tends to associate notions of the artist's freedom from realism, materialism, traditional genre and form, with notions of cultural apocalypse and disaster.

Its social content is characteristically avant-garde or bohemian; hence specialized. Its notion of the artist is of a futurist, not the conserver of culture but its onward creator; its notion of the audience is that it is foolish if potentially redeemable: 'Artists are the antennae of the race, but the bullet-headed many will never learn to trust their great artists' is Ezra Pound's definition. Beyond art's specialized enclave, conditions of crisis are evident: language awry, cultural cohesion lost, perception pluralized.

Further than this, there are several modernisms: an intensifying sequence of movements from Symbolism on (Post-impressionism, Expressionism, Futurism, Imagism, Vorticism, Dadaism, Surrealism) often radically at odds, and sharp differences of cultural interpretation coming from writers apparently stylistically analogous (e.g. T. S. Eliot and William Carlos Williams).

A like technique can be very differently used (e.g. the use Of STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS in Virginia Woolf, James Joyce and William Faulkner) according to different notions of underlying order in life or art. The post-symbolist stress on the 'hard' or impersonal image (see IMAGISM) can dissolve into the fluidity of Dada or Surrealism or into romantic personalization: while the famous 'classical' element in modernism, emanating particularly from Eliot, its stress on the luminous symbol outside time, can be qualified by a wide variety of political attitudes and forms of historicism.

Note from the editor: paragraphs were added to this excerpt.

See also: classic - modern - critical - critical theory - literary criticism - literary theory - term

2005, Sep 14; 09:54 ::: Index Librorum Prohibitorum (1877) - Henry Spencer Ashbee

Index Librorum Prohibitorum (1877) - Henry Spencer Ashbee
Image sourced here.

Index librorum prohibitorum : being notes bio- biblio- icono-graphical and critical, on curious and uncommon books.

See also: Victoriana - bibliography - 1877 - Henry Spencer Ashbee - curious - curiosa - uncommon - erotic fiction

2005, Sep 14; 09:16 ::: Richard Francis Burton

Unidentified edition of Thousand Nights and a Night
Image sourced here.

Thousand Nights and a Night
Perhaps the best-known translation to English speakers is that by Sir Richard Francis Burton, published as The Arabian Nights. Unlike previous editions, his 16-volume translation was not bowdlerized. Though published in the Victorian era, it contained all the erotic nuances of the source material. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Arabian_Nights#Editions [Sept 2005]

Sir Richard Francis Burton (March 19, 1821 – October 19, 1890), British consul, explorer, translator, writer and Orientalist known for his often-unprecedented exploits of travel and exploration as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures.

Burton's best-known achievements include travelling alone and in disguise to Mecca, translating The Arabian Nights and the Kama Sutra, journeying with John Hanning Speke to discover the Great Lakes of Africa and the sources of the Nile and visiting Brigham Young in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was probably the third best European swordsman of the period.

In 1863 Burton co-founded the Anthropological Society of London with Dr. James Hunt. In Burton's own words, the main aim of the society (through the publication of the periodical Anthropologia) was "to supply travellers with an organ that would rescue their observations from the outer darkness of manuscript and print their curious information on social and sexual matters". On February 5, 1886 he was knighted a KCMG by Queen Victoria.

By far the most celebrated of all his books is his translation of the Arabian Nights, published under his title of The Thousand Nights and a Night in 16 volumes, (1885-1888). As a monument to his Arabic learning and his encyclopaedic knowledge of Eastern life this translation was his greatest achievement. His scholarship and translation have been criticized, but the work reveals a profound acquaintance with the vocabulary and customs of the Muslims, not only the classical idiom but the vulgar slang, not only their philosophy, but their secret sexual lives as well. Burton's "anthropological notes", both earlier in India, and in the Arabian Nights, were considered pornography at the time they were published. His translation of The Perfumed Garden was burned by his widow, Isabel Arundel Gordon, because she believed it would be harmful to his reputation.

Other works of note included the first lengthy English-language discourse on Sotadic zone and homosexuality; a collection of Hindu tales, Vikram and the Vampire (1870); and his uncompleted history of swordsmanship, The Book of the Sword (1884). He also translated The Lusiads, the Portuguese national epic by Luis de Camoens, in 1880 and wrote a sympathetic biography of the poet and adventurer the next year. The book The Jew, the Gipsy and el Islam, published in 1898, contains a compendium of anti-Semitic myths.

His widow wrote a biography of her husband which is the record of a lifetime of devotion. Another monument is the grandiose Arab tent of stone and marble which she built for his tomb at Mortlake in southwest London. On the other hand, she burnt his 40-year collection of diaries and journals, fearful that public revelation of Burton's lifelong interest in bizarre sexual practices would lead to vicious rumours about his personal inclinations. In the words of the 1997 Britannca, "the loss to history and anthropology was monumental; the loss to Burton's biographers, irreparable". --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Francis_Burton [Sept 2005]

2005, Sep 13; 16:12 ::: Plato vs Aristotle, Idealism vs Realism

Plato held that there are two realities--a higher realm of perfect, timeless abstractions and the degraded, illusory world we think we perceive by our senses. For Platonists, "higher truths" are revealed to the intellectual elite and cannot be communicated or explained to the masses, who stubbornly cling to "common sense"--i.e., reason and logic.

Aristotle, the father of logic, held that there is only one reality, the world we perceive by our senses. For Aristotelians, all knowledge is derived from sensory observation by a process of abstraction and conceptualization. Aristotle rejected Plato's mystical, elitist tendencies and held that by adherence to logic we can and must make rational sense of everything. --text sourced here.

Admitting that this quote comes from a questionable corner of the web (I have thus far tried to stay clear of Ayn Rand, because I like to see myself as leaning to the left, rather than to the right), this quote was the best I could find to explain the differences in the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle regarding realism and idealism.

From Wikipedia:
The fundamental idea of Plato is that knowledge gained through the senses is always confused and impure; true knowledge being acquired by the contemplative soul that turns away from the world. [...] The soul alone can have knowledge of the Forms, the real essences of things, of which the world we see is but an imperfect copy. Such knowledge has ethical as well as scientific importance. Plato can be called, with qualification, an idealist and a rationalist.

Aristotle, by contrast, placed much more value on knowledge gained from the senses and would correspondingly be better classed among modern empiricists (see materialism and empiricism). --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle#Introduction [Sept 2005]

See also: Plato - Aristotle - realism - idealism

2005, Sep 13; 16:12 ::: Make It New: Essays (1935) - Ezra Pound

Make It New: Essays (1935) - Ezra Pound [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Pound [Sept 2005]

See also: new - modernism - 1935 - essay

2005, Sep 13; 15:08 ::: Random House's 1998 list of "best 20th century novels"

  • Ulysses by James Joyce
  • The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
  • Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
  • Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
  • The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
  • Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
  • Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
  • Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
  • The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Library#Best_20th_Century_Novels [Sept 2005]

See also: http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html [Sept 2005]

See also: greatness - list - novel - literature - 1900s - canon

2005, Sep 13; 15:08 ::: Ulysses (1922) - James Joyce

He kissed the plump mellow yellow smellow melons of her rump, on each plump melonous hemisphere, in their mellow yellow furrow, with obscure prolonged provocative melonsmellonous osculation. --sourced here.

Ulysses is a 1922 novel by James Joyce that takes its title from the Latin version of the Greek name 'Odysseus'. It is sometimes cited as the greatest English-language novel of the 20th century and has been the subject of much scrutiny, criticism and controversy.

Ulysses chronicles the passage through Dublin by its main character, Leopold Bloom, during an unremarkable day, June 16, 1904. The title alludes to the hero of Homer's Odyssey, and there are many parallels, both implicit and explicit, between the two works (e.g. the correlations between Leopold Bloom as Odysseus and Stephen Dedalus as Telemachus). June 16 is now celebrated by Joyce's fans worldwide as Bloomsday. Joyce chose that date because he and his eventual wife, Nora Barnacle, shared their first date on that day.

Written over a seven-year period from 1914 to 1921, the novel was serialized in the American journal The Little Review from 1918, until the publication of the Nausicaa episode led to a prosecution for obscenity. The book was first published in its entirety in Paris in 1922, but was banned in both the United States and United Kingdom until the 1930s. The work was blacklisted by Irish customs.

Ulysses is a massive novel: 267,000 words in total from a vocabulary of 30,000 words, with most editions weighing in at between 800 to 1000 pages, and divided into 18 chapters. At first glance the book may appear unstructured and chaotic, but the two schemata which Stuart Gilbert and Herbert Gorman released after publication to defend Joyce from the obscenity accusations make the links to the Odyssey, and much internal structure, explicit.

The legacy and impact of Ulysseson modern literature and literary culture is sizeable; one need only note the proliferation of the celebration of Bloomsday on 16 June all over the world, with a notably large celebration in Dublin, Ireland during 2004 to commemorate the centenary of the book's events.

Joyce is often quoted as saying that one could recreate the city of Dublin, piece by piece, from Ulysses. Many scholars have noted that although this rather bold statement may have been true at or around Joyce's time, so much of the city has changed that this claim is no longer viable. Nevertheless, many of the places and landmarks featured in Ulysses may still be found in Dublin, such as the Martello tower where the novel begins (now a Joyce museum) and Davy Byrne's pub. Indeed, perambulating around the city as Bloom and Dedalus did, one can still get a sense of how the city influenced Joyce's novel. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_%28novel%29 [Sept 2005]

See also: greatness - James Joyce - Ulysses (1922) - modernist literature

2005, Sep 13; 13:39 ::: Great Books (1996) - David Denby

Great Books: My Adventures With Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World (1996) - David Denby [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Amazon.com
David Denby, New York city movie critic and journalist, entered Columbia University in 1991 to take the university's famous course in "Great Books." This is the course that, in preserving the notion of the western canon without apology to multiculturalists and feminists, has been an unlikely focus of America's culture war in recent years. Where other universities have caved in and revised or enlarged the canon, Columbia's course has remained intact. Denby's intention as a writer and protagonist in the culture war was to record the experience and the personal impact of the course. He has produced a cry from the heart in favor of the classics of western civilization, relaying with infectious enthusiasm how literature touched his soul.--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly
Does a great books canon exist? Left-wing critics denounce the notion of a canon, while right-wingers often use it to assert unquestioned Western supremacy. This superb book suggests an answer. Denby, the film critic for New York magazine, returned to his alma mater, Columbia University, after 30 years to retake the two core curriculum courses, grapple with the world's classics and regenerate his own lapsed reading habit. It is a heartening portrait of (elite) American education and a substantial?sometimes enthralling?read. His teachers are committed pedagogues, the students a diverse (religious faith separates more than does ethnicity) and thoughtful lot. But the students are young, and the book's richest moments are when the mature Denby engages with the texts. Reading the tragedy of Oedipus Rex, he feels anxious, recognizing the ironic truth "[W]hat we avoid, we become." Hobbes's comments on the state of nature lead Denby to muse on insider trading and the time he was mugged. He contrasts Beauvoir's call for female liberty with the "Take Back the Night" antirape march on campus. Denby steps aside to interview academics and analyze the debate about the canon; he acknowledges that white male critics too long ignored the likes of Virginia Woolf, but resolutely argues for the seeking out of all great books, not merely ones that represent excluded groups. Why? Because the "Western classics were at war with each other," and learning to read Hegel and Marx, or the Bible and Nietzsche, is no lesson in indoctrination but the beginning of "an ethically strenuous education" and "a set of bracing intellectual habits." Author tour. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See also: greatness - books - literature

2005, Sep 13; 13:39 ::: Dead White European Male

Dead white men or DWEM (an acronym standing for "Dead White European Male"), is a pejorative racial epithet used most commonly in reference to noted European males from the past. Particularly implied were such figures as Plato, Dante, Christopher Columbus, William Shakespeare and Isaac Newton.

Other typical "dead white males" include:

  • Ancient Greek philosophers
  • European philosophers, scientists, explorers and political figures
  • European and American authors (especially those in the traditional Literary canon)
  • Founding Fathers of the United States --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_White_Males [Sept 2005]

    See also: West - white - Europe - bias - canon - ethnicity - death - men

    2005, Sep 13; 13:38 ::: Eurocentrism

    Eurocentrism is the practice, conscious or otherwise, of placing emphasis on European (and, generally, Western) concerns, culture and values at the expense of those of other cultures. It is an instance of ethnocentrism, perhaps especially relevant because of its alignment with current and past real power structures in the world. It can be a less overt form of white supremacy.

    The source of a cultural tradition can be seen in the balance of emphasis given to various thinkers and ideas in discussing a subject. In the 1960s a reaction against the priority given to a canon of "Dead White European Males" provided a slogan which neatly sums up the charge of eurocentrism (alongside other important -centrisms).

    In Britain, eurocentric or eurocentrist may occasionally be used in political discourse to mean europhile. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocentrism [Sept 2005]

    See also: West - white - Europe - bias - canon - ethnicity

    2005, Sep 13; 13:15 ::: Black music and repetition

    One of the characteristics of Afro-American and Caribbean music often cited by critics in a spirit of censure, is that there is too much stress on repetition and not enough "originality". There is a well documented tendency among classically trained, Eurocentric musicologists to write off black music as "repetitive" or "banal". This book, needless to say, is written against that critical tendency. It wouldn't be stretching the point that it is dedicated to the power and value of repetition. The very structure of the book insists on repetition. Far from seeing repetition as a wart to be removed from the face of the text, I see it as a beauty spot: repetition is the basis of all rhythm and rhythm is at the core of life. --Dick Hebdige, p.15, 1987

    See also: Dick Hebdige - rhythm - musicology - black music - repetition - originality - music - music criticism

    2005, Sep 13; 11:50 ::: Black and white music

    Mixtape

    To me, making a tape is like writing a letter—there's a lot of erasing and rethinking and starting again. A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You've got to kick off with a corker, to hold the attention (I started with "Got to Get You Off My Mind," but then realized that she might not get any further than track one, side one if I delivered what she wanted straightaway, so I buried it in the middle of side two), and then you've got to up it a notch, or cool it a notch, and you can't have white music and black music together, unless the white music sounds like black music, and you can't have two tracks by the same artist side by side, unless you've done the whole thing in pairs and...oh, there are loads of rules. -- Nick Hornby via High Fidelity (1995) via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mix_tapes#History

    Elvis Presley
    The location is Memphis, a true melting pot of all sorts of music: both black music (blues, rhythm & blues, gospel) and white music (country & western, hillbilly). --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_Presley's_Sun_recordings#Elvis_and_Sun_Records [Sept 2005]

    Techno
    For various reasons, techno is seen by the American mainstream, even among African-Americans, as "white" music, even though its originators and many of its producers are Black. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techno_music [Sept 2005]

    See also: black music - white music - music

    2005, Sep 13; 11:50 ::: 1980s American dance music

    Together Forever (1982) - Exodus

    See also: American music - 1980s music - disco - house - music - USA

    2005, Sep 13; 11:34 ::: Betty Boop as similacrum

    Betty Boop from the opening title sequence of the earliest entries in the Betty Boop Cartoons series.
    Image sourced here.

    The simulacrum, therefore, stands on its own as a copy without a model. For example, the cartoon Betty Boop was based on singer Helen Kane. Kane, however, rose to fame imitating Annette Hanshaw. Hanshaw and Kane have fallen into relative obscurity, while Betty Boop remains an icon of the flapper. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacrum [Sept 2005]

    2005, Sep 13; 10:34 ::: Photorealism as similacrum

    Tourists (1970) - Duane Hanson
    Image sourced here.

    Fredric Jameson uses the example of photorealism to describe simulacra. The painting is a copy of a photograph, not of reality. The photograph itself is a copy of the original. Therefore, the painting is a copy of a copy. Other art forms that play with simulacra include Pop art, Trompe l'oeil, Italian neo-Realism and the French New Wave. Jean Baudrillard puts forth God as an example. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacrum [Sept 2005]

    See also: hyperreality - copy - self-referentiality - similacrum - photography

    2005, Sep 12; 20:33 ::: Wikipedia as similacrum

    The online encyclopedia Wikipedia itself may be seen as a large-scale field experiment in the spread of simulacra. It is notable that many pages contain factoids about the meaning of words in the fictitious context of popular movies, video and role-playing games, usually derivative cliches in imitation of other such fictions. For instance the 1999 movie The Matrix explores the relationship between people and their simulacra; and in a further example of self-reference Neo, one of the lead characters from the movie, uses a hollowed out copy of Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation as a secret store. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacrum [Sept 2005]

    See also: self-referentiality - similacrum - Wikipedia

    2005, Sep 13; 00:40 ::: French Kiss (1989) - Lil Louis

    French Kiss (1989) - Lil Louis

    Lil Louis is the stage name used by Chicago-born house music producer and DJ Louis Burns. He scored a number of hits on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart in the eighties and nineties, three of which hit #1.

    His best known song, "French Kiss," featured vocals by Shawn Christopher and spent two weeks at #1 on the dance chart in 1989. The house track (now considered a classic) features a several-minutes-long breakdown in which the music gradually slowed down in tempo to a complete stop and left nothing but orgasmic moaning from Christopher. Even with its sensual sound, it crossed over to some dance-leaning pop radio stations and climbed to #50 on the Hot 100.

    In 2000 producer Josh Wink released "How's Your Evening So Far?" - credited to Wink vs. Lil Louis - a track which heavily sampled "French Kiss." The song peaked at #3 on the dance chart.

    Louis has released albums under the names Lil Louis & the World and Lil Louis & the Party. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lil_Louis [Sept 2005]

    See also: Lil Louis - 1980s music - French - kiss - house - music - USA

    2005, Sep 12; 20:33 ::: New Beat

    Rock to the Beat (Unlimited New Beat) (1999) - Various Artists [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

    Track listing
    1. A Split Second : Flesh 2. Erotic Dissidents : Move you Ass & Feel the Beat 3. Snowy Red : Euroshima 4. Electric Shock : Don't talk about sex 5. In-D : Virgin in D-Sky 6. Dirty Harry : D-Bop 7. Taste of Sugar : Hmmm Hmmm 8. Public Relations : Public Relations 9. Fatal Error : Fatal Error 10. Nux Nemo : Hiroshima 11. 2 DJ's : The Creation 12. PLB System : Just Like This 13. Mac Sample: House Inspector 14. Jade4U : Rock It To The Bone 15. Tragic Error : Tanzen

    CD2 1. Amnesia : Ibiza 2. Confetti's : Sound of C 3. Beat Professor : Beat Professor 4. Jamie Principle : Baby wants to ride 5. 101 : Rock to the beat 6. Lords of Acid : I sit on acid 7. Rhythm Device : Acid Rock 8. L&O : Even Now 9. Code 61 : Drop the deal 10. B-Sides : Compression 11. Kate B : Breakdown 12. Westbam : Monkey Say, Monkey Do 13. Tragic Error : Klatsche in Die Hande 14. Grauzone : Film 2 15. Arbeid Adelt : Death Disco

    New Beat music was a contemptorary genre to Techno and House music from Detroit and Chicago respectively, although not intrinsically linked [although New Beat clubs did play the Detroit and Chicago imports]. New Beat originated in Belgium in the late 1980s and was a forerunner to European House music. Legend has it that New Beat was invented by accident when a DJ mistakenly played a 45rpm acid house record at 33rpm. The iconic example of early New Beat is said to be the playing of the track Flesh by A Split Second, by DJ Marc Grouls. As well as A Split Second, New Beat was also heavily influenced by other Old-school EBM acts such as Front 242 and The Neon Judgement, as well as the likes of Fad Gadget, Gary Numan and Anne Clarke.

    Notable New Beat record labels include Antler-Subway and R&S.

    Notable New Beat artists include:

    • The Lords of Acid, of which Praga Khan (aka Maurice Engelen) was a member 101
    • Erotic Dissidents
    • Miss Nicky Trax
    • Poésie Noire
    --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_beat [Sept 2005]

    See also: 1980s music - New Beat - music - Belgium

    blog archive - previous blog - other blogs and sites

    your Amazon recommendations - Jahsonic - early adopter products