MJ in his prime...

So, because of all the wedding hoopla, and work, and my successful attempt to disconnect myself from Okayplayer, I didn't find out about the tragic passing of James Yancey (aka Jay Dee/J Dilla) until last week. For folks who don't know Dilla's music -- it might turn out that you do. He barely promoted himself at all, even in his solo career, but he made some of the best and most distinctive hiphop in the last 20 years. Amongst heavy-duty hiphop fans he was totally revered, to the point of fetishization.

I've been wanting to write something about him for the last week. But his history, and his struggle to make music through the illness, are well documented in articles by the Detroit Free Press and MTV.com. And you can hear a lot of his live music at TheRootsLive.com, which recently produced a tribute (this link also gives you the uncharacteristically personal and emotional statement from Roots MC Black Thought, which is a must-read).

I guess I don't have a whole lot to add. Dilla's work demonstrates, even on first listen, that he had one of those minds just built for music. There aren't too many composers out there whose music you hear, then right away understand their personal connection to sound and rhythm. And that quality obviously extended to his collaborations with other musicians. He had a talent where whoever he was working with -- Tribe, D'Angelo, Common, Talib Kweli, Madlib, Badu, Busta, etc. -- it seemed like the perfect match, and at the same time his music brought so much new out of those artists that they seem deeper and stronger with him behind the boards.

Anyway, I've also been thinking about the signature Dilla "sound," if there is one. Dilla was versatile almost to a fault. He went from producing R&B (Janet Jackson's "Got Till It's Gone", D'Angelo) to jazzy boom-bap (Common's "The Light," "Dynamite," for the Roots, etc.), to sparse, percussive bangers ("So Hardcore," the best track on Busta Rhymes' When Disaster Strikes). And that doesn't even count the entirely new style of beatmaking he introduced for his own group, Slum Village -- which I don't even want to try to describe. Whatever he made, it was usually characterized by the absence of instruments rather than their presence. That's one of the ways you can tell a Dilla beat in the first few seconds. The archetypical Jay Dee beat is uneven drums, with a sloppy hi-hat and a too-loud snare, an expressive bassline so weird that no one would play it in real life, and a loop filtered beyond recognition. Overall, his beats tend toward purposeful sloppiness, but the good kind. The kind practiced deliberately by jazz and funk bands in an effort to get further into your guts. Hearing (and feeling) a good Dilla beat makes you worry that your heart rhythm will go out of synch with your lungs. Or, if that doesn't make any sense, it's like the experience of patting your head, rubbing your stomach, and chewing gum while you're walking down the street. Discombobulating and exhilarating at the same time.

What I really wanted was to write a sort of blow-by-blow review of Dilla's work, and make a list of his incredible innovations and moments of genius. But ?uestlove already did it here, and much better than I would have. So if you like hiphop, soul, jazz, or funk, go get Fantastic Vol. II. Get Like Water for Chocolate. Get Donuts, get Jaylib, and Mama's Gun, and Voodoo, and Labcabincalifornia. You'll have Dilla fever soon enough.

One last thing:
I've noticed that it really seems to get to me when people with remarkable, unique approaches to creating music die. Elliott Smith's is another that comes to mind right away. I think my sense of good in the world, more than I'd care to admit, is inextricably tied up with my sense of good in the world of music. The existence of people like James Yancey and Elliott Smith is sometimes what gets me up in the morning. The gratitude I feel for their music, and the hope I hold for the things they haven't written yet. I'm discovering that the indescribable feeling you get, tearing off the shrink wrap, is hard to live without.

James Yancey's music gave me that feeling, no question. But obviously I can't describe it very well. If you want to pay your respects to Mr. Yancey, find the music and listen to it. I'm sure that wherever he is, or isn't, that would make him happy.

"it's unbelievable..."

Man.

This is a huge settlement, both in financial terms and in terms of its impact on future litigation. Not only did Bridgeport win a high-profile, lucrative sampling case in a what has become murky territory for the law, but they actually got the album pulled from shelves and the radio.

A number of things entertain me about this. Where the RIAA is insanely vigilant against piracy, they regularly appear on record and in amicus briefs in opposition to restrictive sampling law. And now we see why. I don't know Ready to Die's current sales volume, but imagine if this happened to the Blueprint or College Dropout. Pulled off the shelves and ITunes for sampling violation? Damn. Of course, it wouldn't happen to those artists because the modern-day sample climate in mainstream hiphop is incredibly paranoid, especially since the 2004 ruling I linked to above, but breakout hits from lesser-known (and less cautious) labels often emerge from the underground, and those're the people who don't have the budget to clear the samples, but could be seriously exposed in a situation like this.

I really want to know how they made this case, considering that the samples would be pretty hard to recognize and identify for your average jury. Maybe Bridgeport music hired Questlove as a jury consultant.

Anyway, this quote piqued my interest (from the Tennessean) .

"We're glad the jury listened very closely to the evidence and found appropriately for Westbound and Bridgeport."

I'm trying to imagine prosecution: "So, here, you can clearly hear a half-second of the guitar lick, right before Biggie says 'I put the 12 gauge to your brain/Make your shit splatter.' Listen very closely to this evidence."

But of course, there was probably never any contention over whether the sample was used, but rather whether the sample falls under fair use guidelines. I think it does, but obviously the jury was following the 2004 ruling that even one second of recorded material, regardless of use, should be actionable. For what it's worth, there's no question in my mind that the fair use doctrine applies here. After all, we're not talking about "Ice, Ice Baby."

P.S. I'd be remiss if I didn't link to Jesse Kriss's History of Sampling 1.2, a graphic representation of sampling's history. It requires some serious Javascript but it is awesome.

Anna Eshoo chronicles...

Josh makes reference to Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, (D. CA) as an aside to his recent piece on Mark Warner's press coverage.

That prompted me to recall my various encounters with Congresswoman Eshoo. By the way, keep in mind that whenever I use phrases like "which prompted me to..." in this blog, what I mean is: "I was bored and someone or something provided me with the thinnest of pretenses to stop working and write a NewPlastic post."

The first time I saw Anna Eshoo, I was, no joke, a drum major in my junior-high marching band. I wasn't one of those fancy drum majors who do twirls and tricks and stuff. A week before the May Day parade, my band teacher said that we needed a drum major. By the way, for people not in the know, the only reason a drum major exists is because marching bands walk on flat ground, with no conductor, so you need a big long stick to show the folks in back where the beat is. I have a suspicion that the band teachers approached me to do it because I was an inch away from quitting the band, and somehow they knew that, in my little world, even the role of drum major was superior to plodding along in a line. We were not one of those tricksy marching bands. We walked and played, simultaneously, and we didn't even do that very well.

Anyway, after the march was over, Anna Eshoo came down the parade route after us. I was with my mom, who, when the Congresswoman appeared, shouted:

"YAAAAY!! Womens' Suffrage!! Whoohoooo!"

That's a verbatim quote. Believe me. I was with my then-girlfriend, Caitlin Levin, who thought I was weird enough as it was (I think that was why we were dating), and she heard the whole thing. I hid behind a tree.

Come to think of it, that encounter wasn't particularly impressive or edifying. And that's the best of the bunch.

Speaking of female members of Congress, and my mom embarassing me, it reminds of the time my parents held a living-room fundraiser for Barbara Boxer. Caitlin wasn't there to document the mortification of that particular occassion -- but she didn't need to be.

Why?

Because I still have my pair of "Barbara Boxer" boxers.

They say "Barbara Boxer" on them.

...

Back off, ladies. I've got a ring on my finger now.

also re: fortune cookies...

I was looking for other things people add to the end of fortune cookie fortunes, and I came across this site.

I was, to put it mildly, STOKED.

Why? Because I have, for the last few years, held on to a hilarious, weird, horribly bleak fortune cookie that simply read: "Everything is not yet lost."

Things didn't stay tubular for too long, though.

Scroll down.

Dammit!!

fortune cookie suggestion...

So, you know how people play that stupid game where you add "...in bed" or "...between the sheets" to the end of every fortune cookie fortune? The claim is that this addition always seems to both work grammatically and transform the fortune into something more risque. But of course, what usually ends up happening is you get something like this:

You: "Wait, wait, lemme read mine! I'll go, I'll go!...Ahem: 'You will be traveling to distant lands for business purposes'...IN BED!!"

(silence)

You: "...huh."

Anyway, a few days ago in the car, inspired by recent conversations/blog entries, I came up with a better fortune cookie addition. I hereby present it to you, free:

Upon completing the recitation of your fortune cookie, append the phrase: "...at the RENFAIR!"

Wait for hilarity to ensue.

Taos Music...

Taos, NM has a remarkable music scene, for a town of around 5,000 people.

I don't know how to describe it. It's not "Americana," though that'd definitely be the record-store genre classification.

Maybe AmeriCaneToad.

Taos is known for having the highest per-capita number of art galleries of any city in the world. But its quotient of mandolins and bouzoukis is probably pretty damn high, too, if the CDs and the live music are any evidence.

I was very happy.

Camille & I went out and saw a bunch of live music while we were there, and I bought three CDs of local artists, though there were plenty more to choose from. Taos Music is a good introductory website for the scene, and you can also buy music through it (getting more money into the hands of the local artists).

I brought back Am I Born To Die, a collaboration between Chipper Thompson and Mason Brown, which has been in non-stop rotation in the car since then. Their version of "Pretty Peggy-o," I'm sorry to say, puts Bob Dylan's a little bit to shame. It's got a sweetness and delicacy that Dylan missed, and the whole fun of the song (to me at least) is in the mix of gentleness and surprising brutality. Their takes on "Banks of the Ohio" and "Oh Death" are also terrific. I think these kinds of albums are important for people whose sense of traditional American music has been deadened by the post-O Brother, Where Art Thou flood of "roots" releases.

I also brought back a collaboration between Thompson and Roger Landes, a Southwestern bouzouki master and founder of Zoukfest (no relation to this). Fans of Uncle Tupelo have heard a lot of bouzouki, because it was all over their third album, March 16-20th, 1992, which is incredible and a must-have. Go get it. Bouzouki has a lute-ish sound. When Camille heard the album, she said "One word: Renfair." Then we argued about whether it really sounded like a Renfair, even though neither of us has been to the Renfair. The whole Renfair thing came up because I described the band Big Country as "U2 meets up with Talking Heads at the Renfair." That's actually a good description, by the way. Moving on.

Bouzouki's been a mainstay in Irish music for a while now, though it's actually Greek in origin. When you think about it, "bouzouki" does sound like the kind of thing you'd marinate in garlic and lemon juice and bake wrapped in filo. It also sounds like a slang word made up by Missy Elliott to describe some bodily area she wants to inform us she's shaved. Anyway, the album I brought back is called The Janissary Stomp, and it's good if you've got a high bouzouki tolerance.

Finally, I bought an album by "Dulcimer Dan" Arterburn, who is, believe it or not, one of multiple "Dulcimer Dan's" out there. The album's called Just Pickin'. I assume the "...Ma" is implied. This album is only for folks that are seriously addicted to the twangahol. I doubt I'll be playing it too often in the car. Because even though I loved it at first listen, it's pretty infrequent that I feel like pretending I'm in the Blue Ridge Mountains ca. 1904. Even more rare that Camille wants to take that little trip. But I'll have the album just in case.

One last aside: I have no idea how these guys keep their instruments in tune when there's literally no moisture in the air at all. It'd be like playing bluegrass in an airlock.

advice

I'm back from my honeymoon.

In case anyone's interested in honeymoon advice -- make sure you ask whoever takes your room reservation about the bathroom situation.

I'll give you some tips.

Wrong way to conduct this conversation:

You: So, you have a room for those dates?
Other guy: You betcha.
You: Does it have its own bathroom?
Other guy: (pause) ...yes.
You: Sounds great! See you then!

Right way:

You: So, you have a room for those dates?
Other guy: You betcha.
You: Does it have its own bathroom?
Other guy: Sure.
You: Is the bathroom significantly separate from the rest of the room?
Other guy: Yes.
You: Not to belabor the point, but by "separate," do you mean "Right on the other side of a waist high adobe wall?"
Other guy: Nope, it's completely separate from your bedroom.
You: Okay. And, just to cover the obvious loophole here, it's not located in someone else's bedroom, right?
Other guy: Don't worry.
You: Ha ha. One last thing. Will people sitting in the hammock outside be unable to avoid looking directly through a window at the toilet, or, failing that, the shower, resulting inevitably in awkward eye contact?
Other guy: (pause) ...no.
You: Forget it. We're going to Cancun.

And...SCENE!

long time coming...

David Irving's been sentenced to three years in Austrian prison, for holocaust denial.

In some ways, this is terrific, because one of the first things that comes to mind when you hear about his brand of disgusting, irresponsible scholarship is: "there oughta be a law against that."

In Austria (and eight other European countries), there is.

So in my heart, I hope he serves every day and I hope it's awful.

But in my head, I wonder about whether this is a fair or appropriate use of the criminal justice system.

Bad scholarship shouldn't be illegal, nor should being an unrepentant bigot.

Scholarship that meets the legal standards of inciteful hate speech or libel should be illegal, and it is.

I haven't read too much of Irving's material, but I've read excerpts, and while there's no doubt he's a holocaust denier (which in my book puts him just below oil-company lawyers and Fred Phelps in the seventh ring of hell), I don't know whether his writings ought to classify him as a criminal. Obviously, in Austria and Germany the legislatures feel that the damage caused by Holocaust denial is significant enough to represent a threat to freedom, health, or safety. Or, at least, they perceived that threat when the laws were passed.

I have no trouble seeing the damage caused by holocaust denial, just as I have no trouble seeing the damage caused by expressions of racial or ethnic prejudice. These actions present a threat to the psychological health of individuals and their communities, as well as a threat to the integrity of current ideas and the historical record. But that's a risk inherent to the preservation of free speech. Without demonstrating a clear and present danger to freedom, health, security, etc. (not manufacturing one, as the Bush administration did with the Patriot Act), the anti-Holocaust denial laws do not seem justified.

Irving's nemesis, Deborah Lipstadt, agrees that the free speech concern should take precedent. But she manages a nice dig at the end of the article, which I think is warranted considering what he put her through.

Nothing is served by having David Irving in a jail cell, except that he has become an international news issue. Let him go home and let him continue talking to six people in a basement. Let him fade into obscurity where he belongs.

Ice cold!!

fixed link

The House of Labor blog link was broken.

Now it's fixed.

Don't say I never did anything for you.

Because I did -- I just fixed the link.

Try it.

It's fixed.

...and the response.

Who I work for, apparently.

The guy on the right is Bruce Raynor, the General President of Unite Here.

It ought to be patently obvious to anyone that his quote was taken out of context (the presence of Kim Jong Il pretty much destroys the pretense of credibility). But for the record, the quote came from a 2003 article in the NYT about UNITE's efforts to organize Cintas (archived at CommonDreams).

Here's what he said:

"There's no reason to subject the workers to an election," he said, adding that employees were often vulnerable to threats, intimidation and firing during election drives. (my emphasis)

The context is kinda important, don't you think? In fact, I wouldn't even call the threat of intimidation and harassment "context" in this case. I'd call it "a secondary clause in the same damn sentence which apparently, for stylistic reasons, the author decided to present without quotation marks."

Incidentally, violating labor law has been a matter of course for Cintas, so you can see why an NLRB-sponsored election might prompt serious concerns. This guy has a lot more in common with Kim Jong Il and Castro than Bruce Raynor.

Anyway, the ad I linked to above was created by the Center for Union Facts, a newly-formed non-profit that has gone on the attack against union organizing with front-page ads in the NYT, the WSJ, & the Post. The site itself is poorly researched at best, and libelous at worst -- if not actually in violation of labor law. As an example, check out Nathan Newman's dissection of their statistics regarding "labor racketeering." And it goes without saying that when you stock "impartial" government agencies with rabid anti-union advocates, and you instruct them to go after unions, you'll get more government cases against unions. So simple volume of cases isn't much to base an argument on -- though, as I'll get to below, the substance of those cases is indeed crucial.

The CUF is a front group. It's run by Rick Berman, who some of you may remember from his industry-funded attacks on smoking laws, drunk-driving laws, health laws, and environmental laws. If that doesn't float your boat, how about his industry-funded attacks on the minimum wage laws, living wage laws, and healthcare laws? Yup, that's him too. Quick CV: he's worked as a labor lawyer for steel & auto producers. He's worked as a lobbyist for food, alcohol, & tobacco industries.

And -- wait for it -- he was the labor law director of the US Chamber of Commerce under Nixon.

So, no big surprises there.

What's funny about the site, to me, is that no matter how corrupt and greedy they try to make unions look, the numbers that are supposed to shock us are actually pretty paltry. The president of an international union makes $200,000 a year? Good lord! And the political contributions, which are supposed to enrage the common man, are comically small compared with industry counterparts. In fact, they're small compared with the $5 million/year Berman plans to spend on this campaign.

HOWEVER: It should definitely be noted that the CUF site, though its contents are hopelessly biased in their presentation, does offer a wealth of details in the areas of corruption & criminal behavior. Labor movement proponents (including myself) have often been heard to argue that crime and corruption are just as prevalent, or more prevalent, in corporate America or government as they are in organized labor. While this may be true, there's a reason we hold ourselves to a higher standard, and we can't choose when that standard is enforced. The actions of union leaders in practicing, condoning, or ignoring corrupt/criminal behavior within their organizations is despicable, and should be decried at all levels of the movement, and outside it.

The thing is, of course, that exposure isn't what they're after. Berman admitted as much when he was working for the restaurant industry, in an interview the Chain Leader trade publication (link unavailable):

“Our offensive strategy is to shoot the messenger. Given the activists’ plans to alarm beyond all reason, we’ve got to attack their credibility as spokespersons.”

It would be great if a site called "Union facts" actually contained a balanced presentation of, well, union facts. Like the union/non-union wage differential, unionization rates in public/private sector, by industry, skill level, etc. Benefits across union/non-union professions, union stance/involvement in various social/political issues, history, relevant law & how it's generally applied, etc. That would put the corruption, crime, and political contributions in context, and -- I'd argue -- would do a lot more to erode call attention to the existing problems.

the starting gun...

This is why I haven't been blogging much for the last little period of time.

There were over 1,400 Local 2 members signed in and over 700 labor and community allies. Needless to say, we didn't all fit in the 900-person ballroom at the Renaissance Parc 55. I can't tell you anything about the program itself. I know lots about the translation equipment, the truck, the t-shirts, the signs, the music (picked by ME, MOTHERFUCKERS!!), the photo display...

We would've been able to hold it in a bigger room, except all the big convention hotels in the city are either under boycott or full from the business we moved there as part of the boycott.

My bad.

thank god someone is marrying me...

...because I am not to be trusted with my own facial hair (recently unearthed, from a Culture Clash performance in 2003). Before people get all up in arms about me breaking my ironclad guarantee to NewPlastic readers, let me state for the record that you were promised no pictures of people you don't know, drunk. Y'all know me, and anyway, I might have been drunk when I decided to grow that ri-cock-ulous goatee, but I was sober for this picture. I can't speak for Sarah Stillman, who's sitting next to me, but even so -- everyone knows Sarah.

While we're on the subject of unearthed photos, check this out (forwarded to me by alert reader and former colleague Jocelyn Lippert). I would like to meet the person who took this photo and explain some things.

Also, the hotel I'm standing in front of has since been sold. Coincidence? I think not. Vague, tangential, Busta-Rhymes-to-Kevin-Bacon-type connection?

You be the judge.

found a new one.

Everyone knows, I'm a sucker for generators.

So here's another one, which has entertained me to no end.

LFO is prominent.

But terrible lyrics are easy to come up with. Harder to find are lyrics that are simultaneously the worst and the best.

A few examples from hiphop (there are tons more in the rock/pop world):

"Anything can happen, you can't stop the shining
You lookin at my watch, but my mind's really the diamond
- Wyclef

"during sex lay there i'ma have to ask if it's good
this rap stuff stressful let's go see if we can relax in the woods"
- Silkk the Shocker

"I don't have no problem with you fuckin' me
But I have a little problem with you not fuckin' me"
-ODB (the undisputed king of best/worst hiphop lines)

And finally, this entire verse from Nice & Smooth's "Sometimes I Rhyme Slow" is either your favorite or the worst thing you've ever heard.

"Sometimes I rhyme slow sometimes I rhyme quick
I'm sweeter and thicker than a chico stick
Here's an ice cream cone honey take a lick
I go to Bay Plaza and catch a flick
Wore my Timberland boots so I can stomp ticks
Scandalous get a wiff of this mist
Just like the Yar Boys now I'm blissed
I feel good per se good state of mind
Drive a red Sterling and the seats recline
I love it when a lady treats me kind
Go to Tavern on the Green have a glass of wine
He say, she say I heard it through the grapevine
No static, got an automatic
Too much of anything makes you an addict
Teasin, skeezin, all so pleasin
Don't ask why I got my own reasons
Smooth B Greg Nice Slick Nick clique
Sometimes I rhyme slow sometimes I rhyme quick..."

Greg Nice stomps ticks.
Don't ask why. He has his own reasons.

new webcomics

I added a few more webcomics to the link list down there. Folks who read webcomics probably know about most/all of these already, but for the rest, they're worth a look if you're looking for a reason to come to work in the morning.

A Softer World - Vaguely surrealist photo collage w/dark & hilarious text.

Dinosaur Comics - The exact opposite of A Softer World. The same six panels of dinosaur clip-art every day, with different dialogue. Fairly addictive.

Dr. McNinja - Son of an Irish ninja family grows up to become a doctor, disappointing his parents. Fairly self-explanatory.

Overcompensating - This is constantly described as Jeffrey Rowland's autobiographical comic, but as far as I can tell it bears only passing resemblance to real events. It's extremely funny and charming.

Perry Bible Fellowship - The best new find. Totally bizarre, crude, and hilarious short gag strips with a revolving variety of art styles and characters.

Wigu - Jeffrey Rowland's previous strip, an epic, which you just have to read. Like Achewood, it's an entire world with characters informed by the same permeated personality. Lots of fun.

My Ferrari does 185...

This weekend I attended the final night of the San Francisco Tape Music Festival. If it continues, I'll be going back -- it was overwhelming, unique, confrontational -- all the stuff good live music should be, without any of the distractions.

It took place at the ODC theater, down in the Mission. They sit you down, completely darken the room, then play tape music over a spectacularly designed set of 16 speakers. However, the sound in this place was incredible. From my notebook: "Electrical noises skittering across the ceiling. Clouds of static opening overhead. Voices whispering across the hall, feel intimate. Swooping synthetic noise. Groups of sounds stuffed into a corner to my right, grumbling."

The concert was a tribute to Luc Ferrari, who died last year. Before I go on about how great it was, this is probably not something that anyone who reads this blog will actually want to go out and buy. If you have the money, spend it on something that has less of a chance of inducing overpowering nausea and discomfort. If you like electro-acoustic music, or are serious about listening to and enjoying sound, then by all means.

The Program:

Etudes Aux Sons Tendus/Study on Stretched Sounds (1958)
Presque Rien Avec Filles/Almost Nothing with Girls (1989)
Tautologos 1 (1961)
Place des Abbesses (1977)
Les Anecdotiques/Exploitation of Concepts no.6 (2004)

There are a couple ways to look at this kind of music. On one hand, it was basically ~100 people, sitting in the dark, being assaulted by random noises we don't really enjoy or understand. If aliens were watching us, they'd assume we had all been prescribed radical behavior modification therapy, or that we were blind and someone was playing a horrible trick on us.

Of course, no one in the audience seemed at all ruffled. This was an achingly hip event in an already hip district of the hippest town in the country. They weren't going to stand up and shout "Fuck this! I'm going to Arby's." One woman was so into it that she actually whooped after a few of the pieces, as if she'd just caught Tom Jones' sweaty undershirt, instead of listening to what most people would describe as three minutes of R2D2 farting in his sleep.

Here's the play-by-play, as I experienced the evening's program:

Etudes Aux Sons Tendus: Unfortunately, the first piece of the night was the least likeable, and the most terrifying. You have to imagine this theater, with its exposed beams and industrial pipe, lit eerily from below by a laptop screen under a single spotlight. Given the sounds, and the ambiance, I kept expecting a man-bat to drop from the ceiling and drain the guy next to me, leaving only his scarf, Pumas, and bloodsoaked (but still ironic) t-shirt. In the liner notes, Jean-Christophe Thomas described Etudes with the phrase "uncompromised disparity," which is pretty much on the mark, whatever it means. I heard squeals, beeps, abrupt cuts and splices, accompanied by an assemblage of feedback, industrial noise, and carefully shaped squall -- it really was like being in a sonic haunted house. By the end I was mystified and regretting my decision not to stay home and watch Homicide with Camille (by the way, in case you're wondering why I mention her a lot -- our pre-nup contractually obligates me to work her into every post).

I had actually heard Presque Rien Avec Filles in college, but it'd be a serious stretch to say I remembered it even the least little bit. Ferrari composed this piece after he'd gotten a good hold on his technique and sensibility, melding undiluted "field" recordings with electronics, interviews, his own verbal cues, etc. Female voices meander in and out of a general "outdoor" texture, while the sounds gain density and dissipate gently. The highlight for me came when Ferrari dissects the voices and begins to intersperse electronic tones and clicks, echoing and conversing with the filles. I started smiling, cause I there's nothing quite like obliterating language to wake up your ear.

Tautologos 3 could also be accurately titled: 65 Electric Organs Fall Out of a Cargo Plane and Land on Detroit. Not much else to say, except that the structure exists, and the piece has an undeniable emotional effect. To all the folks out there who think these guys just make random, unlistenable stretches of electronic sound -- something actually does separate good composers from not-good ones. At some level, every good composer (and performer, for that matter) understands the connection between sound, emotion, and physiology. They know how to get to you. John Lennon claimed to Rolling Stone in 1971 that he was an artist, and if you gave him a tuba he'd "bring you something out of it." So, even though I didn't particularly like Tautologos 3, my heart was racing at the end, and I felt exhilarated and paranoid and exhausted all at the same time.

Place des Abbesses was the standout of the night. This piece was captivating, and reminded me why I'd been so taken with the few recordings by Ferrari I heard in college. Snatches of flute, clarinet, synth, plucked strings, woven into a modal feel that was very appropriate for these Terry Riley stomping grounds (Warning: before you click Riley's link, be advised that, despite the man's boundless creative talent, it's probably the worst website ever made). I know Ferrari was a fan of Riley's In C, so the circular, wandering tonality makes sense. The winds don't play melodies, they play little gestures and hints of jazz licks, like three seconds of Debussy or a snippet of "Body and Soul." Ferrari makes particular use of the similarities between pure, open clarinet tone and bottle hiss. Drums and rudimentary rhythmic patterns emerge and fade away. Seriously, it was mesmerizing -- and I know so because I had that awkward, intense desire not to interact with anyone as soon as the lights came up for intermission. I didn't want to hear them all dissecting it in the lobby, or talking about Sam Alito or the Super Bowl. That's how I know something's good, when it ends and my first thought is "Whoa," followed immediately by "Wait, do I have to talk to these fuckers now?"

Finally, Les Anecdotiques presented a perfect example of Ferrari's documentary-style composition. He describes the piece as taking place on three different planes: sequences of recorded material from his travels around the world, electronic sounds/detritus, interviews with young women which add "balance to the discourse." The piece visits and revisits locations, musical themes, narratives, situations. Even though my mind wandered over the course of the 55 minutes, it was wandering in the way your mind wanders when you're hiking a mountain or taking a bus tour of an unfamiliar city. You come in and out of engagement with what's around you, but you preserve a constant sense of immersion in another world. The piece begins with a heartstopping whoosh of sound, then a woman asking "Qu'est-ce que je sens?" ("What do I feel?"). It ends with the question only partially resolved. Sound rushes from the back of the hall to the front, seeming to sail through the front speakers and out of the room, to Greenland, or Gibraltar, or another dimension. Everyone breathed a sigh of wonder and relief.

If you want to get a better sense of Ferrari and where he's coming from, Paris Transatlantic published a fascinating interview in 1998. It does a much better job than I have.

The other thing to do is get La Creation Du Monde, by Bernard Parmegiani. I think, of the electro-acoustic music set, his work remains the most accessible. By the way, I searched for about five minutes for a good description/review of this masterpiece, with no luck, until I remembered that I wrote an entire term paper on it -- and the reason I wrote a term paper on it is that as far as I'm aware no substantive analysis of this piece exists in English. With any luck, in the future Creation will be regarded like the B-Minor Mass, or Beethoven 9, or Mahler 8, or OK Computer, or whatever your preferred musical representation of the human experience is. Ferrari probably will not make it into that company, since he's too much of a radical, and "disparity" isn't a good sonic accompaniment to touchy-feely events at the UN. But who knows.

VrrrrrrrRRRRROOOOOOOOM!!!

Via The Rest is Noise, a new ad from Honda UK.

My favorite is the rolling pencil.

By the way, I think it's worth keeping in mind when you're watching something like this how successfully these ads build an association in your mind between the personality of the ad and that of the company.

Honda is not dedicated to creative, witty, innovative media explorations. It's just a car company with a great marketing department, and an even greater talent for contracting with terrific marketing agencies.

Despite that ad that's gotten me misty on a few occasions, Honda is not in the business of making childrens' dreams come true by building cars based on their crayon drawings. Honda is in the business of systematically dismantling the US and European auto markets by offering a cheaper, higher-quality alternative.

Honda will never get anywhere with the macho, patriotic angle. Unlike Ford, you would laugh out loud if a Honda add contained the slogan "Built Honda Tough." Or "The 2006 Civic - Like a Rock."

So they go with the playful, technologically savvy persona that gets under your skin and makes you feel like buying a Honda to go with your Wired subscription.

Anyway. Speaking of playfull & technologically savvy, I went to the last night of the San Francisco Tape Music Festival on Sunday. "Review" forthcoming.

TORIES!!

Canada is a savage wasteland full of gun nuts and werewolves.

By the way, before this election I'm ashamed to say that I had little or no idea how the Canadian Parliament worked. I assumed, more or less, that it would resemble this.

Which turns out to be true.

I don't have anything substantive to say, because that would require revealing my paucity of knowledge on Canadian politics. It's sad because I'm marrying a Canadian-American mulatto.

send canned food to Bill Ford

If his company keeps tanking it like this, he'll never be able to take home a salary to feed his family.

He hasn't gotten paid by Ford since 2001.

Ford said: “We will be making painful sacrifices to protect Ford’s heritage and secure our future.”

Wow. The man's already given up his salary. Isn't that enough? Next the shareholders are going to demand that he forfeit his millions of dollars in stock options and bonus compensation.

Incidentally, it's vaguely gratifying to know that the recent profit slippage at Ford and GM is due not only to cheaper, superior imported products but to decreased demand for SUVs.

Ha.

apologies in advance...

...but that was the worst MLK Day ever, for me.

The celebration at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco was freezing and only intermittently inspiring. Celebrity guest speakers (like local TV personalities or the city mayor) do not make for revelation or introspection, especially when they're not prepared. We sang a completely overhauled version of "Gimme that Old Time Religion," honoring various local and national civil rights figures. That sucked. To give you a sense, it referred to Sojourner Truth as "an awesome lady" for the sake of rhyme, and implored us to honor "Medgar Evans" of Mississippi not once but twice.

A couple of speakers also continued perpetuating the myth of a "tired" Rosa Parks deciding she couldn't take it any more. I know it makes me sound like a history/CRM snob to be complaining about this, but it prevented me from applauding for Parks' achievements since they were so erroneously summarized. I'm glad that this complaint has become more mainstream since she died, what with folks re-evaluating her role in history. But for any of you who've taken the Parks myth at face value, check out the Times obituary, or one of the many CRM histories that effectively debunk it.

By the way, I understand the intent behind the myth. Mythical Rosa Parks has such quiet nobility, and behaves in such a quintessentially American fashion -- in the mold of the Founding Fathers, who were tired of being subjugated and "spontaneously" fought back. Everyone, including the CRM leaders and Parks herself, realized that carefully planning to overthrow the status quo, then going about it in a systematic and calculated way seems much less palatable under close scrutiny. I guess I was just hoping that 50 years later, after her death, we might start to get closer to the truth about her remarkable accomplishments and historical significance.

That's usually the way it works, right? Someone dies, they get impartially evaluated, and people immediately stop perpetuating myths about them?

Anyway, folks who have read this far can all probably guess the real source of my dissatisfaction on King day:

Me.

It depressing and frustrating that the platitudes don't work on me anymore. The exercise of gathering lots of people together to talk about beloved community doesn't feel like it holds much worth or power. I don't want to speculate on the number or proportion of attendees for whom MLK day celebrations mean a great deal. I'm sure it's a lot, and I'm sure it's still a lot less than we think. For me, the inspiration to others aside, it seemed like an empty waste of energy and resources at best, and a nearly-dangerous deception at worst. I am honestly glad that it couldn't possibly have felt like that to everyone.

---------------

Okay, now I've been thinking about it for a few minutes. I believe Monday's celebration felt empty to me because of the reasons for which we seemed to be gathered there:

1) To honor King and Parks for their contribution, by re-asserting how important it was, and for their ideals, by stressing how far we still have to go. Anyone who genuinely cares about -- and understands -- their contribution already knows how far we have to go to realize their ideals. So the "many rivers to cross" theme just became a platitude.

2) To celebrate blackness and the black community through music and culture. Terrific. Unfortunately, the freezing, cavernous, unintelligible Bill Graham Civic Auditorium was not the right place to do this.

3) To remind everyone that MLK Day is about practicing what you preach. It's not about saying, it's about doing. Unfortunately, the only thing I did was give $10 to the MLK Day celebration committee, so they could put the same celebration on next year (or, I hope, a better one). Campaigns for freedom, equality, and justice were mentioned as afterthoughts or asides, if they were mentioned at all. The relentless generality transformed the motto of "practicing what you preach" into "preaching about what you practice." Again, this may have sounded different to my ears, but the sad fact remains that the celebration didn't give the attendees much of an opportunity to learn anything. Unless you didn't know how awesome a lady Sojourner Truth was.

4) It's the third Monday of January -- better do something.

I don't remember what I did last MLK Day, but I remember it involved catching up with people in the movement, talking about organizing and change in non-superficial terms, and trying to confront some personal difficulties, hesitations, and insecurities that made me question my commitment. The previous MLK Day, I did a bunch of stuff but what I remember best is leading a panel on Civil Rights Music with Sumanth Gopinath, who is basically the man. Check out his essay: "Ringtones, or the Auditory Logic of Globalization." He is basically the man. And even though our presentation was a little sloppy, some folks were into it. Before that, all I remember is putting together screenings of "At the River I Stand." And of course the fight to get rid of MLK Day classes at Yale, which certainly gave a purpose to the MLK celebrations.

Here's hoping I brighten up before next year, or the celebration gets better, or both. People in SF have been complaining that this year's MLK Day should have included a march, as is traditionally done here -- but I thank sweet fancy Moses that didn't happen. There's nothing worse, and nothing that would, I expect, bother King more, than marching for basically no reason.

"What do we want?"
"To say we marched today!"
"When do we want it?"
"It's happening now!"

Alright, back to work.

miscellany

The 2005 Dressing of the Year.

(it's a popularity contest)

And, in honor of Newsradio's debut on DVD, here's a truly magnificent website that goes way, WAY deep into the world of screwball comedy, ensemble acting, and sitcom structure through the lens of Newsradio. It has the initial feel of something totally expendable, but there are actually a remarkable number of fascinating observations and explications.