Re: laptop hell

[Bill Ashline <bashline@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: "dan latorre" <dan@xxxxxxxx>
> Subject: RE: [microsound] laptop hell
>
> perhaps instead of focusing on the devices used, discussion should also
> be about the power of vanity and fame and celebrity within the heavily
> mediated consumer-corporate-culture of the present moment? and should we
> examine and observe it empirically or via a text (Bible text?, Derrida
> text?, Deleuze text?) Let's drop the texts, and observe and share
> findings...

Well, observing something "empirically" is itself a "text," every bit of one 
as any text by Deleuze.  So is the text that we shouldn't read the empirical 
world according to any "graphic" texts, like a Deleuze or Kant, or Kafka for 
example.  Any time you listen to music like Alto Nova and notice a dub 
influence, you're reading a text.  The CD has the status of textuality that 
belongs to any book, whether it calls itself a text or not.  The observer's 
observation is always conditioned by the various texts of life, whether they 
be history, culture, familial background, etc., and these things can be 
"read" as biographers often do.

It's interesting to see some of the "theory fatigue" around these parts from 
time to time (not necessarily with the comment above).  Some people don't 
bother reading any and become defensive.  ("I have a right to my opinions 
about theory whether I've read any or not"--the anti-intellectual 
remark--not worth taking seriously, which is why it exemplifies its own 
resentment publicly).  Or the scolding about the use of theory by the 
smarter audience--mirroring in a sense some of the criticisms of Derrida's 
reception in the Anglo-American world ("those fuckers didn't get their 
Derrida right goddamn it")--failing to recognize that there are such things 
as productive "misreadings" something Derrida himself was noted for and 
approved (the disapprobation toward certain American Derrideans by certain 
Derrridean scholars was not shared by Derrida himself, who was in fact 
encouraged by certain of these creative "misreadings.")

A better approach:  if you're not on the theory "bandwagon," feel free to 
get off without uttering too many sounds.  If it doesn't apply to you, why 
not ignore it without comment.  If you're on the theory page but get uptight 
about the readings, why not specify when theory is simply being used to 
"look cool" rather than productively moving in more interesting directions.  
Is the use of theory with regard to music always a "bad thing?"  Blanket 
assessments are uninteresting, though they do keep one warm.

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