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This month's Bookforum has two--count'em, two--Serious Novelists sneering at the French for liking "bad" American writers. John Banville looks down at "enfant terrible" Michel Houllebecq's infatuation with H. P. Lovecraft and Gary Indiana can't believe a writer as great as Emmanuele Carrere (accent grave over the first e rejected by my browser) likes Philip K. Dick. This is in two different articles, mind you. Well, get over it, you losers. Much as it disgusts you, those unsavory recluses had what the first George Bush called the "vision thing," which (respectively posthumously and belatedly) caught the popular imagination (especially filmmakers'), while few outside of the editorial offices of Bookforum, where the flame of genteel writing is perpetually kept burning, know who John Banville and Gary Indiana are. I swear, sometimes I think the literary clique exists only to bash H. P. Lovecraft and Philip K. Dick. They've clearly run out of other things to write about.
(Lovecraft is on the cover, by the way--he sucks but sells magazines. "Enfant terrible" is the headline writer's phrase; I don't think Banville actually uses it.)
"Procession (Cooked)" [mp3 removed]
This is the tune I posted previously with more fleshed out (slap) bass and some atmospheric sweeps. The mood is a bit eerier and the bass drum quite insistent as befits a marching band of otter-like creatures in LED-mesh raiments moving slowly through the streets after ketamine has been dumped in the village water supply.
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Update: The DVD scan collection is still going strong but the ministeck patterns have been removed. What happened? No lawyer threats, I hope. The page now identifies its creator as Stacia Yeapanis, artist and curator of the DVD museum.
"Procession (Raw)" [mp3 removed]
This is a bare bones version of a tune I'm working on. I've since moved it along several stages, adding more instruments and a bit more elaborate drumming than this lone, slightly hamhanded tom, but this draft has its charms. A sort of folk processional (why does everything I write end up sounding Irish? some deep genetic roots I didn't know I had?) is played on a very flatulent sounding Sidstation, then repeats with some bright house-y chords with a sampled Absynth.
I'm teaching myself to write in Cubase and it's painfully slow because it's not as intuitive as Harmony Assistant, the other program I've been using, or my old Mac. The scheme relies more on key commands and shortcuts that you only learn by accident, or belatedly discover buried in the fine print of the manual. Ultimately the advantage will be more control over more instruments, being able to mix midi and sound files, and having access to some of the juicy plugins that are out there. (Again--I would never talk this way about Photoshop filters: I think music engineers "get it" better than art engineers.)
This week, dear diary, I've learned: (1) how to reset Kontakt to reduce latency (note lag); it's still not 100% but is vastly improved; (2) how to trigger a 120 bpm sampled beat so it plays in sync with a midi part (after some experimentation, I reset the tempo track to 122 bpm and added a triggering note every four beats, which is the length of the sample); (3) how to sync the Sid with an external midi clock; (4) how to turn off program changes in the Korg I'm using as a midi controller, so the Sid's presets don't keep switching as I dial around the Korg. I'm also getting a better handle on bending notes with the Korg's filter knobs.
Bonus: "Procession (Panning Wah-Wah Organ Version)" [mp3 removed]
Images from Frankie Martin's installation "One Minute Rave," at Canada. Press a button outside a cloth-draped doorway, enter the room with the black light, strobe, and cardboard cutout DJ, and you have exactly one minute to freak out. Actually you can do it multiple times, but you have to keep sticking your hand outside the doorjamb to hit the switch that activates the music and lights. Some very nice handcrafted work, geometric patterns, psychedelic drawing, and pure kitsch from the era of smart drinks, glow in the dark whistles, and floor shattering bass lines. Which is still going on in many parts of the country, and/or in a state of being perpetually revived, as the '60s psychedelic thing continues to morph with new technology and new crops of initiates. The vibe might also be "the early years of rave" before the DIY spirit gave over to corporate interests, if that era ever in fact existed. Maybe it's just an ideal rave of the mind. To put it in some historical context, this was to the early '90s what Kenny Scharf's black light rooms were to the late '60s, but less sardonic and more girly--and I mean the latter in a good way. It's truer to the spirit of the show than saying "post-feminist" and it's certainly not grrr-ly.
Momenta Art in Williamsburg has its annual benefit coming up and I'm donating a piece. Jeez, the last time I did this was four years ago, shortly after I started this blog. Here's to both of us still being around in the world o'ephemera that is the art scene. I tried something new with the piece above, which is gluing the paper--many little cut out pieces printed with "drawn elements" from my home computer--directly onto a piece of plywood. I was expecting to struggle more but this came together fairly quickly--I'm happy not to drag out the process. Now, if I was Fred Tomaselli I'd collector-ify the piece by pouring polyurethane goo all over it, but I kind of hate that restaurant table decoupage look so I think I'll just give it a light coat of matte fixative and call it done. I like seeing the texture of the paper clinging to the wood--I also left some wood showing on the front, which I didn't expect to do. All this could change tomorrow but I only have a few more days to screw with it.
Tom DeLay Is Declasse
The New York Times tastefully summarized a recent paranoid speech by Tom DeLay, the former bug exterminator who was "mad about gummint regulation" and pretty much took over the US House of Representatives. Investigations are finally closing in on him so he's been desperately demagoguing on the "right not to die" issue. Here's more of his speech to the Family Research Council:
And so it’s bigger than any one of us, and we have to do everything that is in our power to save Terri Schiavo and anybody else that may be in this kind of position.The residents of DeLay's Congressional district--Missouri City, Sugarland, Rosenberg, Texas--may be happy to have someone in Congress making speeches like this. (I like to think the people I know from there aren't so simplistic.) But he doesn't just represent a minority bloc of home-schooled Christians, he has been the main power in the House since the late '90s, largely by turning on and off a spigot of corporate cash. What I don't get is how somewhat more urbane, well-educated Congressmen, Hill staffers, even smooth corporate lobbyist types, let this creature gain so much control. It recalls the rise of Joe McCarthy--there's something inherently weak in our Congressional system that allows ign'ant monsters to flourish. The good news is the poll numbers are overwhelming against DeLay on the Schiavo issue. We should all pray to Beelzebub and Madelyn Murray O'Hair that his reign will soon be ending. (Hat tip to mark for the speech link--there's also video but I don't think I can stand to watch it.)
And let me just finish with this: This is exactly the issue that’s going on in America. That attacks against the conservative movement, against me, and against many others. The point is, it’s, the other side has figured out how to win and defeat the conservative movement. And that is to go after people, personally charge them with frivolous charges, and link that up with all these do-gooder organizations funded by George Soros, and then, and then get the national media on their side. That whole syndicate that they have going on right now is for one purpose and one purpose only and that’s to destroy the conservative movement. It’s to destroy conservative leaders and it’s, uh, not just in elected office but leading. I mean Ed Feulner, today at the Heritage Foundation, was under attack in the National Journal. I mean they, they, this is a huge nationwide concerted effort to destroy everything we believe in, and, and you need to look at this and what’s going on and participate in fighting back.
Don’t, you know, the one way they stopped churches from getting into politics was Lyndon Johnson, who passed a law that said you couldn’t get in politics or you’re going to lose your tax exempt status because they were all opposed to him when he was running for president. [And before that, the US Constitution, which mandates separation of church and state.] That law we’re trying to repeal; it’s very difficult to do that. But the point is, is when they can knock out a leader then no other leader will step forward for awhile because they don’t want to go through the same thing. When, if they go after and get a pastor then other pastors shrink from what they should be doing. It forces Christians back into the church and that’s what’s going on in America: “The world is too bad. I’m going to go get inside this building and I’m not going to play in the world.” Uh, that’s not what Christ asked us to do. And, and so this, they understand that it is a political maneuver, and, and they are, uh, going to try to destroy the conservative movement and we have to fight back. [Just a reminder: the "conservative movement" controls all three branches of government plus the press.]
So, please, this afternoon, each and every one of you, if you know a senator give him a call. Tell him, they’ll say, “Our bill can pass in the House.” Tell him, “That’s fine. Your bill’s okay but the House bill is better and, uh, I want the House bill.” Particularly if you know Democrats, uh, don’t let them get off the hook, um, by hiding behind one House and the other is adjourned. We can do anything we need to do to pass any bill that we need to pass. So I appreciate what you’re doing. God bless you and thank you for the Family Research Council.
"House Classics for Solo Organ" [mp3 removed]
"Very Short Rave" [mp3 removed]
The latter is not to be confused with Frankie Martin's exhibition "One Minute Rave" at Canada, which I haven't seen yet. She has produced a seven-inch vinyl record of rave tunes lasting one minute. Mine clocks in at 1.5 but I promise you this is hot.