Thursday, November 24, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
My Beef with "There's no new good music": an argument supported with 10 of 2011's finest albums by Daniel Ford
My beef with “there’s no new good music”: an argument supported with 10 of 2011’s finest albums
For some music lovers out there, the medium quit evolving the moment when the Beatles broke up, or the Sex Pistols, or the Velvet Underground, or Pink Floyd. The world, for them, is now a cold, grey, empty place with nothing to provide them comfort but a well-worn copy of their favorite band’s opus—recorded and released 15, 20, even 30 years ago—and whose members are now dead or dying. For these lost souls, the day that the music died is quite real. And so when one of these “there’s nothing worthwhile or exciting happening in music today” subscribers passes a line of excited concert goers stretching and winding its way up the block it’s not just confusing, it’s verging on sacrilege. Why spend time and money listening to a band whose songs are just parodies and desperate echoes of what came before? The following are 10 of 2011’s finest albums, proving that music today is alive and well.
For some music lovers out there, the medium quit evolving the moment when the Beatles broke up, or the Sex Pistols, or the Velvet Underground, or Pink Floyd. The world, for them, is now a cold, grey, empty place with nothing to provide them comfort but a well-worn copy of their favorite band’s opus—recorded and released 15, 20, even 30 years ago—and whose members are now dead or dying. For these lost souls, the day that the music died is quite real. And so when one of these “there’s nothing worthwhile or exciting happening in music today” subscribers passes a line of excited concert goers stretching and winding its way up the block it’s not just confusing, it’s verging on sacrilege. Why spend time and money listening to a band whose songs are just parodies and desperate echoes of what came before? The following are 10 of 2011’s finest albums, proving that music today is alive and well.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Why Should We Care? by Erin Irvin
Wiki Page about National Museum of Iraq and Background on its Looting
"Why Should We Care?" John Malcolm Russell's 2003 Article from Art Journal
Okay, this really affected me when I heard about it, which, sadly, was only very recently. Let’s talk about that second link, which is what introduced me to this issue. You can click through to access it from your local library, or purchase it for a paltry sum. John Malcolm Russell's "Why Should We Care", which, as you can see above, is a 2003 article in Art Journal that starts out as a this lament for the loss of ancient artifacts from the Iraq Museum, but soon becomes a lament for the loss of cultural definition thereby entailed. And he makes an interesting point—it's not about the stolen cult vase; it's about what the stolen cult vase represents.
Archeology has always fascinated me; I think if I wasn’t prone to words and music, I’d have been some sort of excavator. Discovery is the student of Creation. That’s what interests me about this kind of work. I mean, think about it. Within their environmental context, objects embody time. They are direct connections to the past, present, and even the future. Artists took time to hone their skills in order to tell a story and, moreover, structuralize the world through their creations.
But, that world is instantly fragmented when these objects are dispersed. Without them, these links in time are gone, or at least dulled beyond recognition.
And who are any of us if we can’t define ourselves by what's come before?
Russell argues that we aren't much and I have to say I agree. If we don't honor the past, we risk being what we're told we are, we allow ourselves to be filled with the ideals of consumerism and narrow nationalism, but, most importantly, we lose all sense of culture. That's the significance of these objects—the archaeological context surrounding them. The ultimate goal is to learn about our ancestors. And we can learn a lot from an artifact, as long as its environmental context is intact.
Russell's strongest evidence of this is his class experiment. When he’s professoring and not journalisting, he takes his class to a museum and splits the group in two. One half is sent to a gallery of excavated artifacts, the other to a gallery of market pieces, but none of them are told the difference. The students are told to study their respective galleries and then present what they learned about the past from the objects within. The perpetually identical results of the exercise don't lie: those who study the market gallery learn nothing beyond the visual, while those who study the excavated gallery talk about what they learned from the people who used those objects. We can always learn more about where we came from and the peoples of the past from the excavated gallery (where the entire display is made up of artifacts taken from the same excavation site, thus giving viewers a glimpse into the world those objects came from) as opposed to the market gallery (where lone, random artifacts are placed together in displays, thus giving viewers only traces of a glimpse into history). Objects, he points out, can’t speak for themselves—and, as keys to the past, they can’t function on their own; they need their surroundings.
He raises some interesting questions. How do we get people to care? You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. Let’s suppose this article was spread heavily around the world. People may learn why they should care, but does that mean they will? What next? If there are people out there pillaging and plundering even now, what about ‘should’ is going to change their behavior? So, the question becomes what steps are we, the ones who do care, going to take to put an end to all this looting? Is the author a fatalist, spouting a woebegone rant that begins to sound very desperate, as if it’s too late? Or is it really, as the title would have us believe, a tool to incite any and all readers to action? If so, what do we do now?
This guy’s genuine fervor isn’t without merit, but it feels like it’s only the beginning. The good news is there seem to be a large number of people who do care about the past, or there wouldn’t be discussions on NPR, nor college degrees and professional work in this field. Perhaps it’s simply time for these troupes of caring students-of-the-world to rally, and secure the past for the future.
Thoughts?
xxErin
"Why Should We Care?" John Malcolm Russell's 2003 Article from Art Journal
Okay, this really affected me when I heard about it, which, sadly, was only very recently. Let’s talk about that second link, which is what introduced me to this issue. You can click through to access it from your local library, or purchase it for a paltry sum. John Malcolm Russell's "Why Should We Care", which, as you can see above, is a 2003 article in Art Journal that starts out as a this lament for the loss of ancient artifacts from the Iraq Museum, but soon becomes a lament for the loss of cultural definition thereby entailed. And he makes an interesting point—it's not about the stolen cult vase; it's about what the stolen cult vase represents.
Archeology has always fascinated me; I think if I wasn’t prone to words and music, I’d have been some sort of excavator. Discovery is the student of Creation. That’s what interests me about this kind of work. I mean, think about it. Within their environmental context, objects embody time. They are direct connections to the past, present, and even the future. Artists took time to hone their skills in order to tell a story and, moreover, structuralize the world through their creations.
But, that world is instantly fragmented when these objects are dispersed. Without them, these links in time are gone, or at least dulled beyond recognition.
And who are any of us if we can’t define ourselves by what's come before?
Russell argues that we aren't much and I have to say I agree. If we don't honor the past, we risk being what we're told we are, we allow ourselves to be filled with the ideals of consumerism and narrow nationalism, but, most importantly, we lose all sense of culture. That's the significance of these objects—the archaeological context surrounding them. The ultimate goal is to learn about our ancestors. And we can learn a lot from an artifact, as long as its environmental context is intact.
Russell's strongest evidence of this is his class experiment. When he’s professoring and not journalisting, he takes his class to a museum and splits the group in two. One half is sent to a gallery of excavated artifacts, the other to a gallery of market pieces, but none of them are told the difference. The students are told to study their respective galleries and then present what they learned about the past from the objects within. The perpetually identical results of the exercise don't lie: those who study the market gallery learn nothing beyond the visual, while those who study the excavated gallery talk about what they learned from the people who used those objects. We can always learn more about where we came from and the peoples of the past from the excavated gallery (where the entire display is made up of artifacts taken from the same excavation site, thus giving viewers a glimpse into the world those objects came from) as opposed to the market gallery (where lone, random artifacts are placed together in displays, thus giving viewers only traces of a glimpse into history). Objects, he points out, can’t speak for themselves—and, as keys to the past, they can’t function on their own; they need their surroundings.
He raises some interesting questions. How do we get people to care? You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. Let’s suppose this article was spread heavily around the world. People may learn why they should care, but does that mean they will? What next? If there are people out there pillaging and plundering even now, what about ‘should’ is going to change their behavior? So, the question becomes what steps are we, the ones who do care, going to take to put an end to all this looting? Is the author a fatalist, spouting a woebegone rant that begins to sound very desperate, as if it’s too late? Or is it really, as the title would have us believe, a tool to incite any and all readers to action? If so, what do we do now?
This guy’s genuine fervor isn’t without merit, but it feels like it’s only the beginning. The good news is there seem to be a large number of people who do care about the past, or there wouldn’t be discussions on NPR, nor college degrees and professional work in this field. Perhaps it’s simply time for these troupes of caring students-of-the-world to rally, and secure the past for the future.
Thoughts?
xxErin
Peaches. Words and Photographs by Justin Bristow
An irresponsible farmer recently abandoned a few rows of peach trees and blackberry bushes. My grandfather, being the stand-up guy that he is, took it upon himself to rescue and resurrect these fledgling plants.
I recently spent a Thursday afternoon helping harvest the fruits of his labor.
I recently spent a Thursday afternoon helping harvest the fruits of his labor.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Loving Youth Lagoon
Youth Lagoon is the musical moniker of 22 year old Trevor Powers from Boise, ID.
From the album The Year of Hibernation, available now on Fat Possum Records.
From the album The Year of Hibernation, available now on Fat Possum Records.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Jordans and Untrained Sphincters: The pressures of being 27 and married by Daniel Ford
I’m 27—going on 28—and married. I hadn’t anticipated it, but that means that people inevitably start wondering “so, when are you going to have kids?” as if that’s the next logical step in my adulthood. As if that’s the only thing that we have in our future that matters. No one asks “so when are you going to take that trip to Prague?” or “when are you going to get a dog?” or “when are you going to buy stock in Google?” Nope. People want to know when my wife and I are going to “start a family” as if that’s as easy as deciding Wendy’s or Whataburger (Wendy’s, duh).
Start a family? Make a little reproduction of me that will enter the world with a cone head and an untrained sphincter? Make a real live human being that will piss and moan for, like, 18 years about being hungry or being sick or needing the newest Jordans? That’s what I’m now supposed to do with my life? Now!? And though I don’t have the cajones to give the answer that I want to give, it’s always on the tip of my tongue: We’ve got other things going on right now, and we simply don’t have any room in our lives for kids.
Start a family? Make a little reproduction of me that will enter the world with a cone head and an untrained sphincter? Make a real live human being that will piss and moan for, like, 18 years about being hungry or being sick or needing the newest Jordans? That’s what I’m now supposed to do with my life? Now!? And though I don’t have the cajones to give the answer that I want to give, it’s always on the tip of my tongue: We’ve got other things going on right now, and we simply don’t have any room in our lives for kids.
Writing, Empty Theme Parks, and David Lynch's Secret by Erin Irvin
For those of you who perhaps haven’t seen David Lynch’s Twin Peaks,
but do intend on watching it at some point, you might want to skip this blog entry because there are pretty much a ton of spoilers about the show. (Honestly, it’s really for those who have seen it anyway, because if you haven’t you won’t get what I’m going on about.) For those who have seen it, please read on and give your own thoughts in the comment section below.
I recently (and finally, since my fiancé has been hounding me about it for y.e.a.r.s) finished watching Twin Peaks, and, though the mystery has been solved, I’ve found I’m no less intrigued by the story of Laura Palmer's death.
but do intend on watching it at some point, you might want to skip this blog entry because there are pretty much a ton of spoilers about the show. (Honestly, it’s really for those who have seen it anyway, because if you haven’t you won’t get what I’m going on about.) For those who have seen it, please read on and give your own thoughts in the comment section below.
I recently (and finally, since my fiancé has been hounding me about it for y.e.a.r.s) finished watching Twin Peaks, and, though the mystery has been solved, I’ve found I’m no less intrigued by the story of Laura Palmer's death.
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