Sample

It's late, and I'm tired, but I thought I'd mention what I've been up to for the last few days in order to set up my next few entries. On Wednesday afternoon, Judith Butler came to Purchase and delivered a lecture entitled "Transgender and the Spirit of Revolt." Sam and I attended a dinner with her and our former professors afterwards, and although we picked up the food, and were unable to speak with her, as a result of a perhaps insensitive and verbose acquantance, it was an enjoyable time nonetheless. I was going to go see her speak again at NYU on Thursday, but decided against it, although I'm very much interested in her lecture topic of the night, which was on secularism, torture, and the ways in which rhetoric is invoked and employed in our foriegn dealings. Today, the four of us (Sam, Rachel, Lexy, and I, who I will hereafter refer to as the Four of Us....) went up to Bard College for the Arendt conference. I wish I could make it tomorrow, but I need some time to do other things. Today was quite fun, despite the fact that we didn't get to hang out with Kiran or to visit Arendt's grave. Hitchen's keynote address was quite bad, and rather contrary to the spirit of Arendt's work, which was to be expected I suppose, although I don't think he would agree with me in that characterization. Like in other instances, however, he would be wrong. He comes off as a pompous blowhard, and he was not only rude, but made terrible arguments as well. Whenever he was asked a thoughtful question which brought into the light either his lack of familiarity with the material, or his own faulty logic, he would dodge the question, blatantly, in a manner which he must have picked up from the Bush Administration. Although he did have some interesting things to say, and I will give him credit for taking as many questions as he did in what he surely must have realized was a hostile environment, I nonetheless cannot excuse his rude remarks and refusal to engage the questions posed to him. A more detailed review of the conference later. Afterwards, we attended a dinner party, that he and other panelists were at. So Sam and I attended dinner parties with Judith Butler and Christopher Hitchens this week. Not bad, eh?

zen and music

I recently read an article about a zen buddhist practitioner whose teacher would often ecourage to reflect on sound. He would strike a bell, be mindful of the creation of a noise, and mindful as it faded out, and eventually into nothing. "Do you hear the no-sound?" To many, this sounds like merely a throw away question, a useless Koan. I was reminded of this listening to Reich last night, and also found it an appropriate analogy for our lives. We are created by conditions, cultivated, grow, and eventually fade into nothing, with only the residual effects of our interactions living on in the emerging 'sound' of others. A piece will begin with only a pulse, seemingly randomly, but slowly evolves and grows. Reich's work, as suggested by a critic, holds up a mirror, showing us our thoughts, experiences, lives, indeed our very way of being. It causes us to be aware of listening, engaged in a way few pieces of art can do. Most music is passive, background music. Listening to Reich, on the contrary, is like reading a book. The experience becomes subjective; depending on where one's attention lies, the sculpture of sound shifts, as we become aware (and simultaneously unaware of other) phases and overlying harmonies.

This year has been full of amazing experiences for me; graduating, traveling Europe, visiting world-class museums, hearing Janet Cardiff's "40 part motet," seeing Explosions in the Sky Broken Social Scene, Mogwai, Mono, and others. The Carnegie Hall show is easily on par with any of those. I really can't overstate how revealing Reich's music is.

Reich @ 70- Carnegie Hall, Saturday 10/21/2006

Last night, I attended a show at Carnegie Hall, with exactly the three people I had originally envisioned attending with when I first became aware of the concert many months ago; my girlfriend Lexy, my good friend Rob, who I met when I was 14, and who turned me on to jazz and other 'highbrow' experimental music, and my friend and bandmate Mike, a classical composition major. I learned of the Reich @ 70 event when looking through upcoming events in a Lincoln Center mailing. The show was simply phenomenal, absolutely transcendent. Reich music has a hypnotic quality, completely trance inducing, yet familiar and natural. His work captures the sound between sound, and forces the listener to meditate on how we think and perceive, and truly challenges what music is, while at the same time tapping into ancient rhythms and pulses.

The show began with Pat Metheny playing a piece which Reich wrote for him, almost 20 years ago, called Electric Counterpoint, where the guitarist plays a solo piece over tracks he has prerecorded, 10 guitars and 2 bass guitar. The phase evolves slowly, and because of the phase relation and slight changes in key and time signature, it is strangely ambiguous and swells like the tide. In the final of the 3 movements (fast, slow, fast) the time signature is shifting between 3/2 and 12/8, and between C minor and E minor, creating a phase as sets of 3 and 4 interlock. Watching Pat Metheny perform was a treat in itself, as he stoof in the center of Carnegie Halls' biggest stage, looking the part of the rock star, his long hair wild and with his feet apart, his guitar hanging in of him, yet playing a flawless piece written for a virtuoso. I'd say he was the most impressive opening act I'd ever seen. It would be hard to imagine anyone topping that performance, and I certainly wouldn't want to go on after such a brilliant rendition. Knowing that he was to be followed by the Kronos Quartet, I suspended judgment temporarily, and I was of course not disappointed. Different Trains was written specifically for Kronos, Reich's first piece for a string quartet. The work evokes America before the War, Europe during the War, and After the War. Reich uses the piece to examine his early childhood train rides across America, knowing now as an adult that if he had been in Europe, as a Jew, he would have been riding very different trains. He uses a series of taped vocal segments, recorded by himself interviewing his Nanny, as well as Holocaust survivors his own age. The pitch of the voices determined what he wrote for the Quartet,. as they echo the tape segments, all integrated with noises from American and European trains from the '30's and '40's. The evolution of the sound, as well as the ideas and meanings found in the words themselves, is breathtaking to witness. Reich's music sums up the mood and feeling of those times in a way that no book, film, or photograph is capable of doing. Finally, Steve Reich and Musicians played his classic and groundbreaking work, Music For 18 Musicians, with special guest Synergy Vocals. There's little I could say about Music... that hasn't already been said, and the hour long epic was as beautifl to watch as to hear. Reich and two of his co-performers simultaneously played the same Marimba for 5 minutes, one of the players facing the instrument upside-down, and none with sheet music. Despite this, they didn't miss a note. It was also incredible to watch, as Pulse, the first movement, runs through the 11 chords which make up the work, and each subsequent movement works off of one of those chords, finally progressing through all 11, and resolving the chord progression with a satisfying resolution. The length of the initial 11 chords is determined by the breath of the bass clarinetist, and the other clarinetist, strings, and vocalists follow his lead. Simultaneously, the marimbas and pianos are creating a pulsing phase which creates so many sub melodies and overtones it's hard to believe that Music... is entirely acoustic, and that no digital or analog effects are employed. The vibraphonist also acts as a sort of internal conductor, as he played his melody only once, in advance to cue the others for the chord-change, creating not only interesting harmony, but also freeing western music from the need for an outside, non-performing conductor. Reich picked up this technique from West African and Balinese drum music, where the gamelan or master drummer cues changes. The four of us were all left in awe, trapped in contemplation as we slowly shuffled down the staircase from the balcony, in what now seemed less like descending a staircase, and more like walking-meditation.

(Although I took several pictures, I could not, of course, take pictures during the performace. Not to mention that with low lighting and balcony seats, the photos are of no interest except in depicting the hall and set up of the instruments. I'll post those in my photoalbum soon, so check that if you are interested.)

just musing

Hollywood loves to sell us this idealic, black and white vision of high school. The groups always need to be clearly defined, seperated, and maybe one character, the protagonist most likely, will be realistic and capable of navigating between them. Real life is course not like this, but somehow it has begun to conform to the image we've been fed. My guess is the '80's had alot to do with this. Anyway, I think most people who went to high school in the late 90's (or early 2000's, or whtvr we call them. infact, blog post on that subject soon....) can simply think of cheerleading. In hollywoodland, cheerleaders are the top of the food chain, the popular, hot girls, always parading around in their uniforms, snidley looking down their noses at the lesser students, those who can't make the squad or toss around a pig skin in some silly homoerotic wargame. In the real world, at least in the north east, cheerleading is generally for the unpopular girls, who gravitate towards it, as far as I can tell, in hopes that it will make them popular, granting them the power girls on tv and in the movies have. I've noticed a male equivalent to this trend. (I hesitate in employing gender binary and making such generalizations, but unfortunaly gender is still a prevalent and ubiquitous demarcation line. More on this later too, I suppose. But I've observed over the years many unpopular highschool age boys, 'uncool' almost unarguably, who have gravitated towards metal, usually the worst kinds, for similar reasons. The rebel sell, again. The whole rise of 'emo' and the alternative press/fuse crap has made it worse I think, as the verieties of metal which seem to make these kids seem cooler have gotten worse.

On a related note, I personally can never just skim the surface of a subject I'm interested in without feeling inauthentic, and thus i require a commitment most people are unwhilling to make. I buy too much music.... But look at this guy www.scaruffi.com I'm not that bad. Although, sadly perhaps, I aspire to be like him. Not a bad role-model, eh?

60 days

I've been home for almost two months, and yet it feels like a lifetime ago that I was living out of my backpack, relaxing on the beaches of the Mare Teranneo. I also feel idle, and that I'm not accomplishing enough. I have been keeping busy, though. Visited Caitlin in Charleston, worked two catering jobs, sitting in on Morris's theories of sexuality class, went to a conference on Arendt at Yale, the Dodge Poetry Fest, saw tons of great shows in the city and other places, caught the Dada exhibit at the MoMA, saw ASMZ in Harrisburg PA, partied at Purchase, worked alot at Sbux, read a few books, and joined the gym. Hopefully I'll have some soings finished by the end of the year, but my schedule hasn't been regular enough so far. I've also been regularly writing for the Silent Ballet, which has been good. Deadlines! I think I'm going to start drawing/painting again, too. I need a car. CMJ is coming up, and I'll be working at Lincoln Center in exchange for a badge, so hopefully I'll have lots to report on that. I think I'm going to see the Knife, Steve Earle, Forward Russia!, the Shins/Album Leaf, the magnetic feilds, stephen brodsky/chromeo, the decemeberists, grails/mgr/made out of babies/kayo dot, longwave, and the fall. Blonde Redhead cancelled. I'm actually not too amped for this year, altho there are a few shows I'm looking forward too.

In other news my application is just about finished for the Fulbright in Thailand. Now we wait.... I'm going to begin looking into backup options, and may get certified, doing TOEFL online, perhaps. I am also applying for some jobs in the city, so hopefully one of those will work out. I need to get away from starbucks.

“They called each other tú again…”

Love in a Time of Cholera or (El Amor en Los Tiempos de Cholera)- by Gabriel García Márquez

Garcia Marquez manages to create a touching and uplifting story about two lovers who manage to resume their affair after more than 50 years apart. It is in this unrealistic plot device, but the very suspension of the rules of reality, set in such a believable setting of turn of the century Colombia, is what makes Marquez’s narrative so compelling.

It is not often that a character’s complete life is followed so completely, and non-linearly. Despite this method of storytelling, and the tremendous and subtle foreshadowing, each new revelation is still a pleasure, and surprise, to read. I am reminded somewhat of the tone of Arundhati Roy’s God of Small Things, although perhaps this is just a stylistic element common is brilliant post-colonial fiction.

Marquez’s characterization is brilliant and believable, but is also a liability, as the introduction to the novel is, in retrospect, somewhat slow, as we seem to build attachments to characters who are not central to the books main narrative. This is acceptable, but throws the reader off somewhat.

Much like the character of Florentino Ariza, one gets the impression that Marquez is also an old man attempting to impart some of old ages wisdom on his readers, what little he may gleam from years of love. Through his three main characters, we are treated to ruminations on love and life, and although he occasionally offers us a troubling account of rape or religion, his insights in living are touching and valuable.

Pg. 207. Fermina Daza, referring to her first-born son. “…she discovered with great delight that one does not love one’s children just because they are one’s children but because of the friendship formed while raising them”

Pg. 209. Dr. Juvenal Urbino’s take on marriage. “…matrimony: an absurd invention that could only exist by the infinite grace of God. It was against all scientific reason for two people who hardly knew each other, with no ties at all between them, with different characters, different upbringings, and even different genders, to suddenly find themselves committed to living together, to sleep in the same bed, to sharing the same destinies that perhaps were fated to go in opposite directions. He would say: “The problem with marriage is that it ends every nights after making love, and it must be rebuilt every morning before breakfast.”….The only possible bond was something as improbable and fickle as love,…”

Pg. 211. Fermina Daza on Life, Public and Private. “Life in the world, which hard caused her so much uncertainty before she was familiar with it, was nothing more than a system of atavistic contracts, banal ceremonies, preordained words, with which people entertained each other in society in order not to commit murder…. “The problem in public life is learning to overcome terror; the problem in married life is learning to overcome boredom.”…she understood that her adversaries were not convulsed with hatred but paralyzed by fear. Instead of frightening them even more, as she was already doing, she had the compassion to help them learn to know her.”

“…think of love as a state of grace: not the means to anything but the alpha and omega, an end in itself.”

Marquez is also an astute cultural critic and historian, encapsulating the spirit of Colombian nationalism, its triumphs as well as its failures. He points out, almost humorously, how the high fashion of Europe, such as expensive shoes made in the style of the empresses, were rejected in the Caribbean as they were identical to those worn by poor black women in the house. He also crafts an interesting passage where Dr. Urbino and his new wife discuss the simplification of the human organism, which she claims “…has too many things on it.” It should be more simple, he says, and less vulnerable to assault, clarifying “It’s something only God can do, of course, but in any event it would be good to have it established in theoretical terms.” He also succeeds in conveying the deep importance of El Libertador to the national identity, as well as cultural institutions such as poetry, music, and politics. In telling the story non-linearly, we are able to experience broad shifts in culture over decades, as depicted in the changing public attitudes to a Chinese winning the poetry contest. At first, no one believe such a man could truly have been the poet, while later generations could not believe that such a poem was considered good enough for its authorship to have been in question. These cultural changes are subtly hinted at all through the novel, as the old regime is slowly dismantled with the rise of anti-aristocratic populists movements, magazines such as Justice, which attacked “families with long last names,” etc.

“I do not believe in God, but I am afraid of Him.” –Florentino Ariza. This character is essential a loser, living out his whole life waiting for a childhood love. He never marries, has numerous illicit affairs, and inadvertently not only gains wealth through naivety, but causes to the death of several women he loved without realizing it. Regardless, we come to care about Florentino, and this is no small feat. “Unfaithful but not disloyal.” Florentino’s musketeer motto, one which maybe we all are more likely to invert. “…Florentine Ariza learned what he had already experienced many times without realizing it: that one can be in love with several people at the same time, feel the same sorrow with each, and not betray any of them.”


“They can all go to hell,” she said. “If we widows have any advantage, it is that there is no one left to give us orders.” –Fermina Daza.

A book filled with much happiness and melancholy, one whose characters, if judged by the standards of the real world, would no doubt be condemned, and yet, one can’t help but be delighted when the two long lost lover’s are reunited, in control of there lives, and sailing into the sunset, so to speak, away from family, restrictive social norms, and even the fear of death itself. “That poor old couple…” Fermina keeps musing. Well, not them.

transcendence

oblem with violnce, as i see it, is it is an action which is deeply animalistic, and thus our regression is immediatly satisfying in some way. like our anscestors, animal and otherwise, we feel as though we have some form of control, and seek to rationalize our decision to act on violence only after the decision has already been made. what makes us different is our ability to transcend our animalistic urges. we have created culture, granted much of which involves violence, but this is why violence persists. how can anything founded on violence not encourage its own violent demise? i think jefferson was perhaps recognizing this more than anything when he made his famous remarks on revolution. most people seemingly feel powerless, in many ways. so much of our lives have become beauracritized, politicized, economized.... often we just tell ourselves we are powerless, but really, we consent. somethings are worth more than our own life. our life is not all we have. those who think that indeed have far less. i'm reminded of a short passage from hegel's phenomenology. it is when we risk death that we first begin to assert ourself; when we recognize that it is in risking death that we become free, that we posit our lives with meaning at all. when we back down, when we fear death, is when we become slave. most of us are slaves. i though, culturally, we had gone far passed this stage in the development of our collective consciousness, but perhaps we've done some backpeddaling.

what are you so afraid of?