Silent City

squatting in style, circa 1845

So, the mics in the WRMC studio are currently...nonfunctional. Which means that all of the illuminating commentary probably annoying rambling that goes on the air is getting moved over here. As the title of this post indicates, tonight's theme was cities. I acknowledge that this is perhaps a not-super relevant theme to folks in the lovely town of Middlebury. However, I'm going with it anyway, in part because most denizens of Middlebury College are transient - for many of us, Midd is a brief rural respite from lives lived for the most part in denser, more urban areas. I also think talking about cities is important because many of the issues that I am here associating with cities occur in other places as well and are simply more noticeable in cities.

In fact, the primary "issue" (ugh, such terrible terminology) that I'm looking at tonight could be imagined not even as cities but instead as negotiations of space. Who has the right to use a space? Who has the right to determine how a space is used? To what degree are these negotiations tied up in that great triad of race-class-gender? Of course, in an urban environment (which I'm very crudely categorizing here as somewhere densely populated) the lack of affordable and available private space gives those negotiations an added sense of urgency.

While some of tonight's music did make the list by dint of simply being about New York or Boston or where ever, most of it falls roughy within a few themes. Fairly obviously, for example, Dead Broad's "Above The Law" discusses police brutality. Nirvana's "Something In The Way" recalls Kurt's time living on the streets. Although this is something present in many of the songs, I look at Amanda Palmer's "From St. Kilda To Fitzroy" and "Massachusetts Avenue" as well as "Gentleman In The Park" as articulating most strongly the overlap of uses in public space. Amanda's songs, I think, do a really good job of exploring the way in which private or personal moments often occur in public in cities; "From St. Kilda To Fitzroy" has the added benefit describing a moment of post-coital bliss, so there's that.

We had a brief interlude in the middle of the show with songs talking, generally in a derogatory way, about the suburbs. I think Bratmobile's "What's Wrong With You?" is particularly interesting in that bunch, as it very clearly uses the suburbs as a metonym for a broader social//political alignment. I suppose that's not particularly unusual, but Bratmobile does it pretty well.

The final thematic set looked at resistances to homelessness//the idea that the right to exist in a place should be dependent upon often extortionate rent practices. I'm especially smitten with Rasputina's "Calico Indians." The song describes the anti-rent movement of the early nineteenth century, in which tenant farmers organized against rents being levied to cover the debts of the feudal estate. In honor of the Boston Tea Party, the farmers adopted "calico Indian" costumes, which I think is a really interesting negotiation of symbols and appropriation. On the one hand, it seems like gross cultural appropriation, etc, etc. But I also think that there's - possibly - some sort of, probably subconscious, realignment of colonial sympathies going on. In either case, major props to Rasputina for digging up some very early squatters. And accompanying their story with cellos.

And finally, we arrive at Patrick Stump. I think this song is really interesting because there's such a bizarre mash of opinions contained in it. In verse one, Lupe (who really deserves more credit for his role in this), sings, "Forget all the drugs and gangs, corruption, and pollution," which strikes me as pretty weirdly passive. In the second verse, however, he comes in throwing some serious shade on racial discrimination in housing, finishing with, "Maybe we had the same dream, not the same reality, actually mine's a pretty bad education and gentrification, despite all the above that I love." I don't know. Maybe I've just Stockholm Syndromed this song and am now looking for reasons to justify my interest in it. Ehh.

Okay, finally, a couple of links. On the timely side of things, Color Lines just put out a pretty great (well, in terms of quality of reporting, not quality of phenomenon) report on gentrification in San Francisco. On the relevant side, while running a google search for songs about squatting - most results of which dealt unfortunately with weight room activities - I came across this gem of an article positing a link between squatting and the production of music. Check it out!

As ever, the playlist for tonight's show can be found here.

God B'W Ye//Good Bye//Good Buy

too melodramatic? perhaps. 

When I sat down to compose this, I wasn't at all sure what I was going to say. I mean, consumerism is bad right? That seems pretty simple and not really worthy of a blog post. However, despite believing - adamantly - that our patterns of consumption shape our personal relationships as well as constructions of person, when I picture consumerism, I tend to use a pretty limited scope. Tonight's playlist, for example, basically looked at shopping, and said nothing of the way that we consume music, television, books, art, media, celebrities....people. And let's be real - as a deejay, I can hardly be said to condemn media/music consumption. What makes these categories different? Are they as different as I would like to believe them to be? I'm not sure. My main man Simmel seems to suggest that, within a capitalist framework, you can't really differentiate between the ways that we look at objects, places, and people; subjected to the universalizing force of money, they become indistinguishable. However - and maybe I'm clutching at straws here - I do think that there is something fundamentally different about the way that we consume stuff, even if only in terms of environmental impact. But that feels an awful lot like rationalization. So I'm not sure. What do you think?

Anyway, on to the links!

Timely, if not quite perfectly relevant. Bitch posted this review of some really interesting contemporary poets who address pop culture in their work.

Do you know Toren? I don't, but it seems like a fair number of Middlebury-associated people do. A little while back he wrote a pretty cool article about Macklemore/Lorde and the perhaps futile effort of looking for politics in pop music. To be honest, I didn't agree with a lot of things that Toren wrote; the idea, for example, that, "We all fall somewhere on the racism spectrum, don’t we? Where’s the cutoff?" seems way too apologetic to me. But I digress. It's some good food for thought. Check it out. 

Last week, over break, I attended a fascinating exhibition looking at the impact of riot grrrrl on contemporary art (it's at Vox Populi gallery in Philadelphia right now, but it's traveling, so keep an eye out). I was particularly struck by a piece by Stephanie Syjuco, in which she covered two walls of a gallery with posters with tear-off tabs that linked to not-sanctioned pdfs for books/articles dealing with the commons, DIY, public space, etc. I was so, so torn because as I got caught up in the rush of tearing off tabs (books! so many free books!), I realized that my actions - my excessive consumption - depleted the commons and the ability of future visitors to experience the exhibition (and get the books!). I'm still conflicted about the piece, but it did light a fire in me to share more pdfs. So here's Simmel. The passage I read on air tonight came from page 14, but it's all gold.

Also in the art world, I've been majorly crushing on these embroidered bodega bags from Nicoletta de la Brown. Not only are they beautiful, but they also make a really interesting statement about disposability and the attachments that we form to transient goods.

Finally, also rather timely, an exhibition opened at e-flux last week featuring the work of Mladen Stilinovic. I haven't been myself, but have it on excellent authority that it's good stuff. Even if you don't make it down to New York to check it out, you should still take a look at the curator's statement.


As ever, comments are (almost desperately) welcome. Also as ever, the playlist for tonight's show can be found here.