The Sunday NY Times had a report about a musician who quit his job and posted a song a day on his blog. One minute journalists are hissing and spitting about "people in their bathrobes" presuming to usurp them and the next they're glorifying the new lifestyle mythos. Didn't read past the first page but it sounded like it was about an individual trying to cope not just with creativity but the stresses of fan adoration, frequent commenters, people music-animating and -remixing his work--in other words, being a one man band of self promotion. Yawn. Not too interested in the problems of someone replicating how the record industry promotes an artist: that is, via behind the scenes stories and a cult of personality. Every musician his own Tigerbeat. As artists using blogs we want transparency but on some level our projects should still be difficult for journalists, not spoonfeeding them stories in terms they already understand. To adapt a favorite quote about art from AbEx painter Adolf Gottlieb: "I'd like more status than I have now, but not at the cost of closing the gap between blogging and the public. I'd like to widen it!"
isnt the act of blogging a form of self promotion? and under your own name no less! pull the plug, tom, before its too late!
ok, art = inscrutability. now i dont understand.
which is not to say i dont not disagree. but couldnt closing the gap also serve to demystify "the artist" by puncturing a hole in the cult of personality? seeing a band live for the first time often had that effect on me, to say nothing of meeting them in person.
I'm all for mystification, just not for the usual ways of doing it. Book tour, dust jacket photo, day in the life story, "his sandy hair touching the collar of a faded Brooks Brothers shirt, he demurred in a voice raspy from the day's interviews." (I made that up.)
Having only skimmed the Clive Thompson story it seemed more about branding than art.
I'm more interested in the techno model of a changing, faceless dj/producer. Akin to aliases, changing bod(ies) of work, an impersonal stance that inevitably acquires personality--the "name" being the one concession to branding.
Slightly off topic, do you think Josh Marshall's videos add to his site? I saw Greg Palast is doing it too--badly. He reads his articles and struggles to maintain eye contact with the camera.
well, as one who never much cared about artist profiles in magazines, i cant really disagree. although im sure ive enjoyed the occasional auto/biography.
its true the article relates to branding but its also about a grassroots myspace engendered up-from-the-people methodology versus a corporate top-down model which something i would suppose you could support.
regarding jmm: generally speaking i dont watch many of the videos because i assume they are rehashing what theyve written, and most are poorly done. and my computer sucks. but i imagine its good training for them for future mainstream media appearances and i want them to have these skills honed as they are advocating for positions i generally support.
I support the up-from-the-people methodology for Digital Media Tree since Rupert Murdoch hasn't bought us yet. I'm suspicious when the up-from-the-people methodology is itself branded and flacked in Sunday Magazine pieces. But you know all that.
Same objections with Marshall et al. At what point does one honed for the mass media simply become part of the mass media?
when they refer to david broder as a man of the people or tim russert* as just a blue collar guy from buffalo, theyve probably lost their credibility.
*apparently russert manufactured the nickname that he used in his self-serving book about his father. according to a local buffalonian in the know, noone ever referred to papa russert as "big russ."
i did watch at least one of the firedoglake vlog entry during the libby trial which was somewhat useful and refreshingly unpretentious. it wasnt a terrible way at the end of the days proceedings to distill the voluminous information they were posting on a minute to minute basis.
Yes, I watched several of those. They were helpful and refreshingly unpretentious. I think with Marshall and others it would make sense to use video if you were analyzing clips--easier to show than describe--but there's no need to be a talking head saying the same things you are writing.
pamela juggs atlas is teh best vlogger evah!!!!1111!!!
What the mob thinks bout this:
slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/14/170216
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The Sunday NY Times had a report about a musician who quit his job and posted a song a day on his blog. One minute journalists are hissing and spitting about "people in their bathrobes" presuming to usurp them and the next they're glorifying the new lifestyle mythos. Didn't read past the first page but it sounded like it was about an individual trying to cope not just with creativity but the stresses of fan adoration, frequent commenters, people music-animating and -remixing his work--in other words, being a one man band of self promotion. Yawn. Not too interested in the problems of someone replicating how the record industry promotes an artist: that is, via behind the scenes stories and a cult of personality. Every musician his own Tigerbeat. As artists using blogs we want transparency but on some level our projects should still be difficult for journalists, not spoonfeeding them stories in terms they already understand. To adapt a favorite quote about art from AbEx painter Adolf Gottlieb: "I'd like more status than I have now, but not at the cost of closing the gap between blogging and the public. I'd like to widen it!"
- tom moody 5-14-2007 4:45 pm
isnt the act of blogging a form of self promotion? and under your own name no less! pull the plug, tom, before its too late!
ok, art = inscrutability. now i
dontunderstand.which is not to say i dont not disagree. but couldnt closing the gap also serve to demystify "the artist" by puncturing a hole in the cult of personality? seeing a band live for the first time often had that effect on me, to say nothing of meeting them in person.
- dave 5-14-2007 5:43 pm
I'm all for mystification, just not for the usual ways of doing it. Book tour, dust jacket photo, day in the life story, "his sandy hair touching the collar of a faded Brooks Brothers shirt, he demurred in a voice raspy from the day's interviews." (I made that up.)
Having only skimmed the Clive Thompson story it seemed more about branding than art.
I'm more interested in the techno model of a changing, faceless dj/producer. Akin to aliases, changing bod(ies) of work, an impersonal stance that inevitably acquires personality--the "name" being the one concession to branding.
Slightly off topic, do you think Josh Marshall's videos add to his site? I saw Greg Palast is doing it too--badly. He reads his articles and struggles to maintain eye contact with the camera.
- tom moody 5-14-2007 6:03 pm
well, as one who never much cared about artist profiles in magazines, i cant really disagree. although im sure ive enjoyed the occasional auto/biography.
its true the article relates to branding but its also about a grassroots myspace engendered up-from-the-people methodology versus a corporate top-down model which something i would suppose you could support.
regarding jmm: generally speaking i dont watch many of the videos because i assume they are rehashing what theyve written, and most are poorly done. and my computer sucks. but i imagine its good training for them for future mainstream media appearances and i want them to have these skills honed as they are advocating for positions i generally support.
- dave 5-14-2007 6:30 pm
I support the up-from-the-people methodology for Digital Media Tree since Rupert Murdoch hasn't bought us yet. I'm suspicious when the up-from-the-people methodology is itself branded and flacked in Sunday Magazine pieces. But you know all that.
Same objections with Marshall et al. At what point does one honed for the mass media simply become part of the mass media?
- tom moody 5-14-2007 6:38 pm
when they refer to david broder as a man of the people or tim russert* as just a blue collar guy from buffalo, theyve probably lost their credibility.
*apparently russert manufactured the nickname that he used in his self-serving book about his father. according to a local buffalonian in the know, noone ever referred to papa russert as "big russ."
- dave 5-14-2007 6:57 pm
i did watch at least one of the firedoglake vlog entry during the libby trial which was somewhat useful and refreshingly unpretentious. it wasnt a terrible way at the end of the days proceedings to distill the voluminous information they were posting on a minute to minute basis.
- dave 5-14-2007 7:04 pm
Yes, I watched several of those. They were helpful and refreshingly unpretentious. I think with Marshall and others it would make sense to use video if you were analyzing clips--easier to show than describe--but there's no need to be a talking head saying the same things you are writing.
- tom moody 5-14-2007 8:04 pm
pamela juggs atlas is teh best vlogger evah!!!!1111!!!
- mark 5-14-2007 9:12 pm
What the mob thinks bout this:
slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/14/170216
- drx (guest) 5-15-2007 10:38 am