Recording Surface

Sorry for the lack of posts. I’ve been preparing for and having guests, plus too much work. But I did manage to submit the following essay proposal, which was positively received. Now I’ve got to write the thing. Eeeek! (more…)

Yesterday we had a lovely wander of the university — including the inside of Charlie Wittman’s tower, where I’d never actually been before — and it’s small libraries, particularly the ones that look like they used to be boilerrooms and that have tape on the floor leading you in and out since there’s no way to orient yourself, no windows or even walls, just monotonous stacks of books. (more…)

(For the Love of Hate)

A few days ago I finally heard, a mere twelve years after it was released, Kathy McCarty’s Dead Dog’s Eyeball, her record of Daniel Johnston songs. The versions are nice as far as they go, but like most covers of Johnston’s songs I’ve heard, they are animated by one mistaken motivation: to realize the potential of the songs. (more…)

I’m sure there’s a theme in here somewhere. (more…)

The jazzist take on the relationship between Bix Beiderbecke’s biography and his music goes something like this: While Bix suffered lots of insecurities, doubts, disappointments, and despair in his life — all of which gave rise to the alcoholism that killed him at the age of 28 — he was able to overcome these once he stepped on stage or into the recording studio. (more…)

…But just because they are avenues of escape and not fantasies doesn’t mean they are all the same, or that they are all desirable. It seems to me there are two kinds of escape, at least, and here again, D.H. Lawrence’s stories in The Woman Who Rode Away outline the contours of each of them. (more…)

A few additional points on the last post: (more…)

In the essay “1968 and After,” Katja Diefenbach outlines the post-60s arc of minor politics by pointing to its “attribut[ing] too much significance to the de-territorializing, unleashing, progressive element of capitalism” and to its “merging [with the] cadre model of discipline, [which] led to a mobilization of life at every level.” (more…)

While most of the left responded to Bush’s Iraq speech with its obligatory capitol-steps sloganeering and advice on making a graceful withdrawal, others proffered very different ideas of exit. (more…)

I watched a couple of movies with the kiddos this weekend, and though I’d seen them before, I noticed new things in them. First was The Wizard of Oz. (more…)