7/16/2004
ANOTHER CASHIER WILL ONLY BE TOO PLEASED TO SERVE YOU
Last post on this version. New version is where it should be.
7/15/2004
MORE WEIRDNESS...PHASING OUT RCD 1.1
Okay, the comments are back, but things inside here have really been mucked with. I have a guess as to what's happened: Although I said below I never "tampered" in any way with this, I meant that I recently haven't tampered with things. In setting up this blog a year ago, I tampered quite a bit with Blogger's code, and was probably even a bit reckless about it. My guess is that my tampering has come back to bite me on the ass. I've noticed that since Blogger has updated their service, things have been a little off with comments and other aspects of it (I often have trouble just getting on to the bloody site). I've heard the same from a couple other people as well.
So, rather than risk losing all of this or dealing with hassles on a site which should be hassle-free, I'm going to start over. I'll keep this version of the blog, but it'll be archived. I've been thinking of updating the look anyway (so many nice new templates to choose from now...), and a new look might even signal a fresh start and attitude. Hopefully the hyper-links will work, and I believe Blogger now offers their own comments system--it should be a better deal all around.
Sayonara, phase I--it's been, um, fun. Details on phase II to follow, hopefully soon...
"Looking for love in a looking glass world is pretty hard to find."
PRE-CAUTION
Just to be safe (given the bizarre disappearance of the comments), I've changed the password to this site. If you're someone who's posted here before and would like to do so again, e-mail me, and I'll update you. I probably won't respond during the day (I'm not supposed to be on here NOW), unless the post office fixes their free internet terminal.
BABY COME BACK
Hmm, through no fault or tampering of my own, all the comments seem to have disappeared from this page. No clue what happened. I've checked some other blogger sites, and no one else seems to be affected (though I realize the comments fields aren't built into my blogger template--I had to add them from somewhere else). That's a bummer if they're gone--I enjoyed a lot of the comments in there, especially from "regulars" like Richard Riegel and GJ. Will try and clear this up tonight, but if not, apologies to anyone who took the time to add their two cents.
7/14/2004
From the "desk" of Gregg Juke ("The Mysterious GJ")
Film Critics or Rock Critics?
Well then, this place has been getting deeper (and deeper) in celluloid over the last few months than my friend Dave and I were in 6th grade (when we finally got the chance to run the movie projector, and used the opportunity to spill the film all over the classroom floor)...
So: Who are the best contemporary film composers out there that have come from a rock/pop music background? We'll define the terms loosely-- "contemporary" = still living, "film" = movies _or_ TV, and "pop music" = any non-classical, or mostly non-classical background, which could include rock, jazz, blues, world, weird; basically playing in a band, as a solo artist, or producing rather than "composing" and conducting via the traditional academic route...
I tried to think of a bunch of these folks off-the-cuff; I'm sure there must be more, but I came up with Mark Isham, Danny Elfman, Howard Shore, Neal Young, David Torn, Quincy Jones, Mark Mothersbaugh, Stewart Copeland, Peter Gabriel, Stan Ridgeway, and Herbie Hancock. Anybody else?
ITEM
Bloggers Suffer Burnout. By Daniel Terdiman in Wired News.
7/12/2004
EVERYTHING MUST GO:
STILLS FROM WILD PALMS
7/11/2004
INSIDE TRADING
I'm going to take Anthony Miccio up on his Fall CD-R offer (they've long been a blank spot for me, and I've long assumed I'm missing something, but I just don't feel like making the effort to buy or even download for some reason). Eventually, I'd like to try the same thing here--offer some of my more interesting compilations in return for some of your more interesting compilations. I know someone who's taken this idea even further recently with a couple of his friends: trading CD compilations based on themes ("Everybody make a compilation of their favourite songs with girls names in the title. Go!"), and exchanging said comps (they all live in the same city) at a small get-together where they listen to and chat about the collections (and presumably drink lots as well). Apparently they're even considering the idea of preparing material beforehand: hand-outs, band histories, q&a sessions, etc. Sounds positively insane, and totally irresistible. I can see this idea spreading far and wide, with mix CD exchanges and town hall-style listening sessions becoming our generation's version of the Weekly Bridge Club.
CAPSULE MADNESS
Which film guide is best?
Alex Abramovich in Slate reads "nine of the most popular film guides cover to cover" and ranks them accordingly.
7/09/2004
FOP, FOP, FOP MUSIC
I had a good laugh at the last line of Joe Clark's letter to eye this week (scroll down to the headline, "Without Merrit"). (I assume it's this Joe Clark and not the other one, though admittedly the letter would be even funnier in that case.)
ALBUM WHICH IN 20 YEARS TIME SERIOUS MUSIC CRITICS WON'T (BUT SHOULD) CALL A 'LOST CLASSIC' THAT FOOLED EVERYONE UPON ITS RELEASE
One of the greatest glam albums in the world ever.
7/08/2004
THE PETER CETERA CONDUNDRUM
"If You Leave Me Now" in Three Kings vs. "If You Leave Me Now" in Sex & the City vs. any other pop song in any movie or TV show ever.
KITE FLIGHT FROM BAGHDAD
re: Fahrenheit 911
Perhaps following Hitchens's lead, this particular critique of Fahrenheit has been making the rounds, repeated ad nauseum as more fuel against all of Moore's "big lies," but while there's nothing to suggest that director's motives aren't in fact a bit suspect here, the idea that this captures an "undisturbed" or "tranquil" Iraq just doesn't wash--not, anyway, if you manage to look beyond just the central figures on the screen (i.e., cast your glance for a second or two away from the kids faces, which only occupy a relatively small fraction of the frame). There is something unspeakably bleak in this sequence, and in fact those children are flying kites in what looks at best like a ravaged ghetto, with cold, decimated apartment (?) blocks in the background. Moore's camera does not prettify the scenery, and he can't. And anyway, even if the scene is as calculating and manipulative as Hitchens and all the others insist it is, should the viewer be denied what nonetheless appears to be a genuine moment of human resolve or joy in the face of what many if not most viewers on this side of the world must surely consider a horrible fate (sucks to be you, kid)? Are we supposed to assume that Iraqi children never had smiles on their faces or never flew kites in the sky prior to the U.S. occupation? Should Moore have deliberately chosen something visually (and blatantly) crude and humiliating instead? And could that not be just as deliberately manipulative or misleading? Just asking.
7/07/2004
THE ANXIETY OF INFLUENCE
Sarah Kerr on Kael & Sontag, in Bookforum.
Sample: "Something is at work here: At a few points, Seligman seems to drop his fine-tuned critical apparatus and merge with the consciousness of his domineering heroines. In describing the intense experience of reading their prose, he borrows Sontagian and Kaelesque notions: 'your intellect responds to their writing in a manner that's so overpowering, so encompassing, and so concentrated that it's like an erotic experience.' At another point he makes the casually brilliant observation that 'Kael is the rare (literary) example of the untroubled consciousness.' How crucially true of her this seems. She wrote without a sense of guilt, as so few critics do--she was uniquely free. But then he goes on: 'Her sentences get their nervous agitation not from self-doubt, of which she had none, but from impatience, the arguer's impatience with those who don't get it.' Those italics at the end raise the possibility, which Seligman doesn't seem to mind, that the burden of guilt hasn't disappeared--it just got transferred to readers who can't see the light."
Also, worth a chuckle, at least: Gary Indiana's loony letter in this week's Voice--in response to Joy Press's review of the book--practically begs to be reprinted in full but, how about we just stick to the funnier bits of unintentional parody?
"Pauline Kael spent her entire career reviewing other people's movies, in writing that grew increasingly intemperate, biased, vulgar, grotesquely exhibitionistic, and finally, mindless.
"Sontag has directed many films and theatrical works, in several languages and countries, and has written novels, plays, and seminal essays on art, photography, politics, philosophy, film, religious heterodoxy, modern warfare, anthropology, literature, dance, theater, and most importantly, ideas, of which Kael had about three, or perhaps two, which she reiterated in ever more desperately pointless ways, as a gymnast stricken with aphasia might repeatedly attempt to perform a somersault without ever managing to land on his feet. Craig Seligman's sole excuse for linking these two writers is their shared Semitic ancestry."
[My favourite line in there: "or perhaps two." Or wait, no, it's "several languages." On third thought, maybe it's "other people's movies." I mean, God forbid a critic should do such a thing.]
7/04/2004
HOW LONG IS YOUR BOOK, PT. II
Beppe Colli from Italy writes: "The longest one I own is: Studying Popular Music, by Richard Middleton. I think it goes into your category #5 ["books that follow a story or a thesis or a particular tack of criticism"]. It was originally published in 1990 by Open University Press (UK). It's 414 pages long, but I don't really know how to compare it to other books I own, since this one is: a) translated into Italian and b) printed in tiny characters, while other books I own are in their original English and printed in large caracters."
I must admit, I haven't heard of either Richard Middleton or that book. I'm pretty sure the longest single-author book of rock criticism I own and have read (though truthfully maybe not every single word) is Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul, which is 634 pages. At approximately 300 words a page, that's over 190,000 words. That's a lot of words.
(I asked this question, by the way, for no particular reason--just popped into my head. Meaningless trivia, yes.)
7/01/2004
HAPPY CANADA DAY
HOW LONG IS YOUR BOOK?
Does anyone know what is the longest book of rock criticism ever published? Specifically I mean the longest book of rock criticism by one author. This isn't a clear-cut question, for within it, there are at least five sub-genres I can think of: collections of previous essays by an author; books of album or single reviews; specific genre studies; biographies (which, in many, but not all, cases, can count as criticism); and books that follow a story or a thesis or a particular tack of criticism. The first and last categories interest me most, but if anyone has any ideas about any of them (and if you can toss in the page count, that'd be great), feel free to comment.
