purple

[Philip Sherburne <philip@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<<talks about snd's 'makesnd_cassette': like mercury "sliding over itself, 
shimmying into new 
forms", and "silted noise... sonic dust motes scattered by the whirring 
of a hard disk". Is this just purple music writing or is he picking up 
on something?>>

<In this instance (my cynicism?) would suggest the former - there is an 
interesting genealogy of this stylistic form of purple-prose which can be 
traced back through The Wire to c. 1998... (still, it does make you want to 
fire up your modem and buy makesnd_cassette, doesn't it...?).>

must fess up (said the author) -- there was at least a hint of, if not
purple, shades of magenta in that description (though i'm nowhere close to
the neologism-ism of reynolds, or the tangentialism of hrvatski!).  consider
me busted, cheeks the color of my prose.

no, but really:  i DO think, as a writer enthusiastic about this stuff, but
attempting not to become mere PR abettor, there's a need to find new
descriptive conceits.  and, for whatever reason, that often results in
"materialism" (scare-quotes to separate it from Marxian materialism).  why?
perhaps it's [microsound's] avoidance of traditional song-structure that
lends itself to more microscopic descriptors.  perhaps it's the onomatopoeic
quality of the sounds ("buzz," "whirr," etc.).  perhaps it's that the
dustier my records get (because i do live in a state of post-move filth),
the more snd sounds like itself.  click, pop, sssss.

funny, because this leads me back to an older thread from this list -- how
do we evaluate this stuff?  because a whirr is not a whirr is not just a
whirr.  

i don't know:  maybe it's simply that we associate the clicks and pops
(analogue glitches, no?) of an snd, brinkmann or pole with dust on a record,
and leap for the obvious metaphor.  or maybe we really do fetishize the
technology -- i know i've resorted to "laptop" as an adjective one too many
times in the last month.

i don't have any answers, but i put on snd's "makesnd cassette" in
preparation for writing this, and i must say:  i stand behind it.  

purply,
p