FLYING LOTUS - Rickshaw
TRIM - Taliban
WILEY - Taliban
Just to see a different image on the site I've posted something.
It's been a strange couple of months.
Feeling unmoored. That's rich and rewarding too. But I haven't settled into a routine for over a month. Mainly poor health, travel, visitors, moving offices, storms and a new semester.
The back injury due to too much laptop time has loomed large over the period, thanks to an unexperienced physiotherapist yanking my neck-back and enhancing the referred nerve pain down my left arm.
He even said, 'I've got to warn you that it might not help. You might feel worse after we've done this'.
I said a little jokingly, 'Are you telling me that so I can't sue you?'.
He mumbled in North Shore and continued. Click Kerthump. Weeks of pain.
Then a throat infection because the pain killers reduced my immunity. Sounded like Brando in his last few moments of The Godfather.
Late June: finished semester duties with marking and examiners meetings, flew to LA and stayed there and San Diego for a couple of days hoping to fly to a cultural studies conference in Kingston, Jamaica. Failed to make it.
A doctor friend in California advised not travelling and prescribed a blitz of antibiotics. I was laid up for three days in Cali before enjoying a few more days hanging out with friends, Scrabble-ing, and shopping at malls. Not exactly what I'd hoped for (meeting friends in JA, academic dialogue, sound systems and music sites) but the compensations of close friends, lots of tunes and sunshine partly made up for it. Some Karachi research leads too.
Then came back on 9 July and my entire Department was moved to an adjacent building with confusing zigzagging corridors. A lot hasn't happened on time and we are still without shelves and working among boxes at the beginning of another semester. Sub-contraction rules.
A public service announcement has not been made yet, but the higher-ups seem to want to merge us with an 'under-performing' department, now in the same building (aha!). Hardly anyone wants to become the Department of Pictures or whatever. But there's ignorance of our fields, suspicion of interdisciplinarity and cultural studies, the 19th century disciplines rule. Like post-structuralism never happened too.
No persecution complex, honest, but I think we're still considered a bit Mickey Mouse (making movies, film appreciation, TV trash, and that linguistic continental theory) though we publish a fair bit around the globe and have pretty good organizational processes. We may also not be the ideal sized economic unit for the model NZ university at present.
Decide a change, tell people it's a process, then use that process to smooth over and rationalize the decision you already made before the beginning of the process. You make people think that they are contributing to the organizational change that way. Secondary power after an apparent fait àccomplis.
It's really hard to stave off the grumpiness about the big institution in the first couple of weeks of semester when we are signing a lot of forms, worried about economic full-time student units, opening up courses and new research supervisions.
God, I never write about work this much.
But this week, my first lecture withered into a non-technological monologue once the e-lectern froze and melted down. No powerpoint, no DVD, and then no lights. The next day the tutorial students and I were assigned a room that was being renovated. Blame it all on someone else. Then my mac had to be replaced and all the new software is on the new one, though it doesn't all work, and all the old one is on my laptop. And it's a hassle to make it compatible. Technical support is also grumpy of course.
The excellent third season of the US version of The Office has reminded me that I could be selling paper. I think the US version is better than the English one, by the way. Longer time to develop characters and multiple plot lines which is their greater skill and resource.
Anyhow, I'm amazed at the resilience, spirit and continued enthusiasm of colleagues who have to go through these infrastructural problems and labour on. Washing up glasses after a seminar can have its pleasant moments.
Workwise, I've named no names and disrespected no one in particular, so I should be safe, touch wood.
I'll confess that I am often in a battle with my inner Babu, which is what the Indians called the civil service bods who became Macaulay's 'brown Englishmen' for the Brits in Raj time. On top of that is that girmitya consciousness that Vijays Mishra and Prashad have pointed to as a 'structure of feeling' in the desi diaspora and the immigrant: I'm so grateful I have a salaried job. It could all go kaput at any time. Must not upset the boss whatever. Pass me the machete and let's take the plantation!
I'll tell you if the intellectual buzz wasn't there and I didn't need the money and I could do something else....
I really believe we can be more efficient administrators with better processes, information gathering...
The critical conscience of society, said like Bruce Forsyth in the theme for The Generation Game or 'Here's Johnny' in the Tonight Show...
Oh well, on the bright side: back to exercise, and regular stretches for the radial nerve these days, thanks to a superior physiotherapist.
The NZ International Film Festival opened with Apron Strings, a feature Shuchi (Kothari) and Dianne Taylor wrote. I'm so proud. I did get to see some good films: Arthur Russell, Stax, Albert Ayler, and the fantastic Waltz with Bashir. Loved the scene with the soldiers on a boat with OMD's 'Enola Gay'.
The 50,000 word manuscript by 31 August is spluttering along like an auto rickshaw, hence the Flying Lotus track. Loving his album too. Best of 2008 for me so far.
Blogwise of note: Check out Wayne & Wax with some detail on the signifying chains and networks of the R & B Desi crossover. Thank you EPMD.
And with Pakistan's northwestern territories and the Taliban still high profile in the news, the image above might be the Helmand Beauty shop, not the one in Kabul. I guess like Ted Swedenburg, I'm interested in the resonances of the War on Terror, Islamophobia and Islamophilia in pop culture. I found Trim's mixtape track Taliban online, and then Simon Barber, an Honours student, whose essay on Grime I supervised last semester, put me on to Wiley's version. Seems that a lot of Grimeheads are using Taliban as a metaphor for the changing politics of culture in Londonistan, with the police, the drug trade, crime and East London Muslims 'round the way. The occupation south of the river. Haven't found much in the Grime forums yet or transcribed the rhymes, but looking forward to exploring this more.
Back to that 50,000-word manuscript. Yikes.
M.I.A. - Bamboo Banga (DJ Eli Mix)
The Modern Lovers - Roadrunner
It ain't where you're from, it's where you're @ to para-sign Rakim. Back in the homeland, more security with 42 days of detention getting through the lower house of Whitehall.
I've been indisposed for almost as long with work. Not much chance of me joining the post-managerial class. Working over a hot keyboard has taken its toll. Due my fourth session with the physio next week.
I think it was mainly the writing frenzy for this departmental seminar I did on 'Situating popular music: the case of M.I.A'. In the end, it was more the first part rather than the subtitle, though Maya did make an appearance for about fifteen minutes. I'm sure she'd have been taken under Warhol's wing for an NYC weekend if the wig & spex were still here.
Will post the seminar material when I've tidied it up a bit. The prep was draining though helpful, and took me from the several vistas of The Clash's 'Straight to Hell' to M.I.A.'s lines of flight in 'Paper Planes', all in less than an hour. It certainly cleared out some space in my head for the new world order and mobility of music.
On these issues I'm fighting my own impulses to 'make it move, make it move, make it dance and groove' après Sly and Robbie. When so much energy is spent putting things in their place, let us slip away from the categories. But then the nomadic is no picnic on the highways or byways.
Maya's never standing still for long. A couple of days before the seminar the vinyl gods sent me to Real Groovy and without looking for it, I came upon the Homeland Security Remixes.
I prefer the 'Paper Planes' tunes with their multiple vocal stylings, but DJ Eli's version of Bamboo Banga was new to me. Is that the early 80s synthy riff of Yazoo's 'Don't Go' or 'Situation' (the Francois Kevorkian US remix)? Will have to check.
If it is the former as I first suspected, I thought it was an arresting juxtaposition:
Maya on the move in her paper planes with her visa, laptop wireless and mobile phone, crossing the borders with the friction of UPS trucks.
At the same time the memory of Alison Yazoo's absent voice is belting out 'don't go' like a family member that wants to shut the door, stand in front of it, and not let you pass. Or let you through only if you realize you're not coming back.
Maya's already taken Jonathan Richman's Bostonian road-tripping to the air. Is she coming back to ground in the remix?
Was this some weird diasporic feedback loop? Don't go. Stay. You'll lose all the stuff that matters, only gain restricted access and carbon counts. But the radio is still on and if the BPM don't get that high, the words are still 'a 100 miles an hour'.
DELTRON 3030
The News (A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Microsoft Inc.)
Haven't blogged for ages because I had to get loads of stuff out of the way before leaving for UK research trip on 10 April. Then too busy to blog during the 3 plus weeks in the old country.
It was bloody cold most of the time. Yorkshire dampness in the bones dissolved a quarter of a century.
Was haunted in Leeds, Bradford, and Ilkley
(days of Yorkshire past - the Queens Road postbox pictured here is just around the corner from Silverlode House on Queens Drive, my home 1976-1984).
Dabbled in the contemporary archive of Islamophiliacs and phobias.
Picked up some media studies technology and music texts and reading tips.
Began reading the news as novel more seriously with Gordon Burn. Learned that I have to read David Peace's Red Riding Trilogy.
Hung out with a top bloke and academic and met another and more to talk music and politics over dinners and drink. The vibe and 'the crack' really are different in the UK.
Saw former JB's saxophonist Maceo quote Hamlet at Leeds Uni.
Flew to rendition rendezvous Shannon Airport and took part in a hugely enjoyable seminar on The Smiths and Morrissey at the University of Limerick. Irish hospitality, some great pubs and good scholar after scholar and more and more.
Sleepy afternoon train to Dublin. Met family friend there, quick hike to Trinity College to see very old book and spectacularly roofed library.
Back to Leeds on yellow plane.
Ilkley visit with tears only at the place where I used to chuck broken branches up into the trees to knock down conkers. How Enid Blyton. Lovely evening with Dave and family.
Back down to London for the last week, most of which was spent in hospital with my mother, in for spinal surgery in Stanmore. Alan Bennett meets Dennis Potter in dub conference volume 1.
Highlights included seeing new nephew Bilal and the rest of the fanau.
Kulcha highlight:
A wet Sunday afternoon in Victoria Park, ending in sunshine and SpaceApe giving it the full dreadsome vocals of 'Ghost Town' as grizzly gurgling Jerry Dammers conducted orchestrations with cue cards that read 'First Movement', 'Groove' and 'Second Movement'. Thanks to Stephen and Jon.
Retail:
Picked up discounted CDs, some newbies and oldies comps. including Kilt By Death, then more functionally: two pairs of long overdue shoes and a coat.
More music:
Plenty of Studio One and Moodisc sevens purloined politely from brother.
More on all this in further segments I'm sure.
I thought it would slip into the mist of my academic amnesia like a hundred other jargon-l(e)aden talks I've sat through over the years. I didn't expect it to bug me so much. But a seminar paper about mimesis, counter-mimesis and war has really bothered me for days afterwards. I'm not sure if it was the writer-presenter's fault or success. I'm sure I misunderstood since I don't really 'get' the Lacanian lingo and the Zizek cult. So I'm not slagging off the scholarship. There were some useful resources on the military-industrial-media-entertainment network. I can deal with Slavoj's columns and repetitive academic prose in small doses but I can't fully fathom it and, to be honest, can't be arsed to work out how psychoanalysis apparently tells us everything. It bothers me that it's a secular religion for some graduate students. On the day after the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war to end an hour's talk with a powerpoint image of the George Bush action figure, and say that this is what the war is about - the 'fantasy' that veils the 'real' - was dismaying. I guess that was the provocation of the paper - the whole point was the hollowness of the war behind the semiotic overdrive. This little action man, twelve inches high, that was it. But it made me queasy. In any case the juxtaposition of this kind of mimesis with Hamas children's TV propaganda and its anti-semitism seemed an unconvincing ideological symmetry for the sake of the argument. Bush and Hamas are not equal and opposite reactions. The Q & A session following the seminar paper descended into a litany of obvious grandstanding points about US foreign policy (the kind you'd make in a pub after a few pints) and ended with simplistic anti-Americanism when others in attendance added that the USA has, unlike Europe, 'no alternative political imaginary'. Euro-, or rather, Brit smugness makes you just want to sing the praises of the home of the brave on the one hand and big up the anti Brit insurgencies on the other. Gobsmacked, I wish I'd said something like: What about the mimetic foreign policy of the UK in Iraq and Afghanistan? I like a smattering of semiotic irony and culture jamming meself, but I'm glad I research, write and teach about an 'insignificant thing' like popular music when war academia is an excuse to test out your continental theory toys on blood for oil. For language games, I'd rather read this sort of stuff. And then Theory goes to war Strike 1. Or Theory goes to war Strike 2. No symmetry though. Sometimes I wish I was a librarian instead.
