Category: Reviews

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Distant Early Warning: Coupland on McLuhan

If I had to pick a patron saint, a hero, or a single intellectual influence for my adult self, it would undoubtedly be Marshall McLuhan. If you’ve spent any time at all reading my work, you’ve seen his name and his ideas. Marshall McLuhan: You Know Nothing of My Work! (Atlas & Co., 2010) is the latest biography of the man and differs from previous versions in many ways, not the least of which is the author. Having struggled through several of Douglas Coupland’s novels, I had my reservations about his writing this book. I am glad to say he eloquently quelled most of my concerns.

The world weighs on my shoulders
But what am I to do?
You sometimes drive me crazy
But I worry about you — Rush, “Distant Early Warning”

There are several things that people often overlook or misunderstand about McLuhan that Coupland nailed in this book. One was his devout Catholic faith, which rooted his thinking in many ways once he found it, and another was his deep disdain of the media and its attendant technology. In spite of his insight, foresight, and prescience, he hated this stuff. Coupland points out many times that McLuhan wouldn’t have liked our current reliance on technology and connectivity one bit, but he would’ve found it interesting. Another of Coupland’s key insights is that, above all else, McLuhan was an artist, “one who happened to use ideas and words as others might use paint” (p. 16). Seen in this way, a lot of his work might make a hell of a lot more sense to newbies, critics, and haters alike. Like the best artists, he was a pattern perceiver of the highest order.

There’s really no considering this book, its author, or its subject without considering Canada. Yes, Canada, The Great White Wasteland that brought us Rush, hockey, Bob and Doug McKenzie, Justin Bieber, Coupland and McLuhan, as well as the latter’s most obvious forebear, Harold Innis. It’s cold up there, folks — cold and spread out. It makes one appreciate the human element.

“Call it religion or call it optimism,” Coupland writes, “but hope, for Marshall, lay in the fact that humans are social creatures first, and that our ability to express intelligence and build civilizations stems from our inherent social needs as individuals” (p. 165). Or, as McLuhan himself put it, “The user is the content” (Take that, so-called “social media experts”). McLuhan’s consistent focus on the individual is what has kept his ideas fresh in the face of new contrivances.

I know it makes no difference
To what you’re going through
But I see the tip of the iceberg
And I worry about you — Rush, “Distant Early Warning”

My problem with Coupland’s past work has had less to do with his writing ability (he’s an excellent writer) and more to do with his appropriation of Salingerisms, and not even a biography could escape. Coupland alludes to Catcher in the Rye by comparing McLuhan to Holden Caulfield on page 111. It’s an apt comparison, and it characterizes The Mechanical Bride-era McLuhan accurately, but I have to admit being irked at the reference.

With all of that said, You Know Nothing of My Work made me proud (I fancy myself something of a McLuhan scholar, so this is meant as a heartfelt compliment), and it made me cry (Though I already knew the story of McLuhan’s last days, a word-man unable to use words is still one of the saddest things I can imagine). I’d like to think Marshall McLuhan would’ve liked this book. It’s treats him with respect, humility, and humor, and I think it “gets” him. What else could he want from a biography?

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Here is a scene that illustrates the heights of McLuhan’s fame, what Coupland calls “every geek’s dream,” and this book’s namesake: Marshall Mcluhan in Woddy Allen’s Annie Hall (1977) [runtime: 2:43]:

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The BMX-Files: A Brief History in Two DVDs

In the June, 1987 issue of FREESTYLIN’ Magazine, underground BMX rider and zine-maker Carl Marquardt described a ramp trick he called a “flakie”: a backflip fakie air. His friend and fellow rider Paul Mackles had offered him $100 if he pulled it. Three years later, Mat Hoffman did the damn thing at a contest in Paris. In his usual methodical style, Mat worked on it in secret in Oklahoma for months beforehand. As he puts it in The Ride of My Life (Harper-Entertainment, 2002), “To make it, I needed at least six feet of air so my head would clear the coping. It was the kind of stunt that required 100 percent conviction each time. I practiced them every day until I had the flip fakie pretty wired, landing high on the transition rather than jarring into the flat bottom Then, I got invited to France.” The photos of Mat’s first public flip-fakie landed on several magazine covers, including the July, 1990 issue of Go: The Rider’s Manual (the publication that combined FREESTYLIN’ with its forebear, BMX Action).

Mat Hoffman burst into the BMX mass mind via the letters page of FREESTYLIN’. Masquerading as the then thirteen-year-old Mat, his mom sent in a picture of him blasting a nine-foot air on his driveway quarterpipe. In his response, editor Andy Jenkins’ described the air as “not normal,” and I think everyone — myself included — knew we were going to see a lot more of this high-flying kid in the coming years. Even so, little did we know…

More than once, Mat Hoffman has been called the “Michael Jordan of BMX.” As Tony Hawk — who could be considered Mat’s equivalent in skateboarding — puts it in The Birth of Big Air (Team Marketing, 2010), “If you know anything about BMX, you know who Mat Hoffman is. And maybe that’s all you know.” This movie illustrates why that’s the case. He’s paid the price for his place in BMX lore — with his body. “There’s not an extremity he hasn’t broken in a violent manner,” says Mat’s orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Carlan Yates. Mat’s basically dedicated his physical form to the advancement of BMX. There have been smoother riders, there have been people who’ve done it longer, there are people finishing things Mat only started, but no one — no one — has pushed the limits of vert riding on a BMX bike more than Mat Hoffman has. No one. Ever.

“Let’s just say it would’ve sucked to have been born a hundred years ago or a hundred years from now because I would’ve missed out on all of this.” — Dennis McCoy

If you have any doubts about the pedigree of BMX as a sport, Joe Kid on a Stingray (Bang Pictures, 2005) will put them to rest. Its twisted and dirty 1970s roots are exposed and explained. Watching grainy footage of Stu Thomson winning races on a Schwinn Stingray is as sketchy as it is sick. Any story of people sitting on the verge of something that has become as big as BMX has is inspiring, and Joe Kid… is no exception.

“Ask anyone, ‘who invented freestyle?’ Bob Haro!” — Ron Wilkerson

From imitating motocross riders to emulating skateboard tricks, BMX evolved from racing to freestyling (all of which is just called “BMX” these days). Bob Haro was bored with racing and started doing tricks between motos. Eventually, his wheelies, endos, and 180s lead to actual sanctioned freestyle shows at the races. Through touring and innovating, Haro, R.L. Osborn, Mike Buff, Pat Romano, and Ron Wilton made trick riding into something to be taken seriously.

“Maybe that’s our problem. Maybe we just never grew up.” — Bob Osborn

It would be remiss to document the history of BMX without mentioning Bob Osborn. Through BMX Action and FREESTYLIN’ (and their aforementioned combined form, Go), Osborn, his son R. L., and his daughter Windy created the look of BMX media and brought the sport to the world. They also acquainted the world with Andy Jenkins, Mark Lewman, and Spike Jones, who have all gone on to create other great things in art, movies, television, skateboarding, and advertising. Trusting the youth is often difficult for adults to do, but Bob did, and the world is much better for it.

In the late 1980s, I was street riding with some friends in Huntsville, Alabama. One of them, Dave Nash, was wearing these Airwalks held together with duct tape. Someone there asked him why he didn’t just get some new shoes, and he responded, “Because I don’t want to spend any more money on this sport.” It was one of the most depressing things I’ve ever heard anyone say. The initial decline of BMX was a scary, strange thing to witness as a kid, but it was actually a positive move. Just as skateboarding had done before it, BMX changed hands from the companies to the riders.

Speaking of, anyone know where Chris Moeller was during the making of this movie? In many ways, S&M Bicycles, along with the efforts of Hoffman, Wilkerson, and the Plywood Hoods, represents the largely unsung part of the bridge from what BMX was in the 1980s to what it is now.

Anyway, big props to Jeff Tremaine, Mark Lewman, Johnny Knoxville, and Mark Eaton for documenting the history of our sport. If you’re a hardcore BMXer of any era, these two movies are your history. If you are bike-curious but know nothing about the sport, these two movies will give you a pretty in-depth crash course.

I don’t know if Mat Hoffman ever collected Paul Mackles’ money for doing Carl Marquardt’s “flakie,” but he was in the same issue of FREESTYLIN’ Magazine, along with another youngster Scotty Freeman, in a piece called “Little Giants.” He was fifteen years old.

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Here’s the official teaser for Joe Kid on a Stingray [runtime: 3:25]:

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Special thanks to Brian Tunney for additional reporting and fact-checking.

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2010: Everything is Amazing and Nobody’s Happy

For my requisite year-end wrap-up I ganked the title from Louis CK’s recent appearance on Conan. This was a year of reassessing our relationship with technology, and that’s part of Louis’ aim in the clip (embedded below[runtime: 4:12]; with thanks to Linda Stone). I rounded up most of the books on the topic for 21C Magazine, and I don’t feel any closer to figuring it out (It’s really not something to figure out).

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Anyway, here’s my list:

Record of the year: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West. As pedestrian as it might seem, I have to give it to Mr. West. He may be a douchebag, but if he is, he’s the most talented, honest douchebag ever, and this record proves it over and over again. It’s not flawless, but it’s easily the best of 2010.

Runners up: High on Fire Snakes for the Divine, The Sword Warp Riders, Camu Tao King of Hearts, Deftones Diamond Eyes, Brian Eno Small Craft on a Milk Sea, School of Seven Bells Disconnect from Desire, Peter Gabriel Scratch My Back, Blonde Redhead Penny Sparkle, Antipop Consortium Fluorescent Black, Black Milk Album of the Year, and 65daysofstatic We Were Exploding Anyway.

Verse of the year: Nicky Minaj on “Monster.” This seven-minute posse jam includes Jay-Z, Kanye, Rick Ross, and Bon Iver (for whatever reason), but Nicky’s sixteen makes them all look straight silly. As good as this album is, hers here is easily the best verse on the whole thing.

Live show of the year: Atari Teenage Riot. I was supposed to see Atari Teenage Riot in Seattle at a club called DV8 on December 15th, 1997, but broke up with my girlfriend of six years and just drank with friends instead. I remember the date also because it was my birthday.

I finally got to see them in Austin at Red 7 on September 27th, 2010. the show was well worth the thirteen-year wait. I lost my freshly-purchased ATR t-shirt attempting to delete myself in the pit, but I got it back thanks to ATR’s nice fans. Start the riot!

Finds of the year: Cloaks and Yelawolf. The noisiest dubstep out (Thanks to Justin Broadrick for the tip) and another Alabama boy does good. Enough said (Thanks to El-P for the tip). Hollerrrrr!

Event of the year: Geekend 2010. Yeah, SXSW was fun (thanks to Dave Allen, Ume, Frosty, Jah Furry, and Bruce Sterling), but Geekend was better.

Movie of the year: Inception. You all know nothing else came close.

Book of the year: Program or Be Programmed by Douglas Rushkoff. Ignore it at your peril.

Site of the year: 900 Bats. Aesop Rock, Alex Pardee, Alexander Tarrant, Chrissy Piper, Colin Evoy Sebestyen, Coro, DJ Big Wiz, Jeremy Fish, Justin Metros, Kimya Dawson, Nick Flanagan, and Rob Sonic, among others are behind this rogue burst of creative energy. Jeremy Fish did the illustrations for the site, and Alex Pardee supplied the logo. The site was named for the 900 bats that were killed by renovation workers at Bala Fort in Alwar district who put them on fire to avoid disruption in work. Boooo…

Speaking of, mad thanks to my mans Aesop Rock, dälek, and Aaron Berkowitz for helping me coordinate what would have been the party of the century. Sorry it all fell apart at the last minute. Instead, I spent the end of my fortieth trip around the sun with the fam. It’s all good.

Video of the Year: “Miracles” by Insane Clown Posse. The clip that spawned a thousand “think” pieces, leave it to ICP to remind us that we all need to take pause and realize how amazing our world is. As Violent J puts it, “Magic everywhere in this bitch.” Belie’e dat [runtime: 4:23].

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Book Byrning: Books by and about David Byrne

Though I am unlikely to be alone in this, I have a confession to make. There is a group of artists whom I tend to romanticize because I missed a certain time their careers. I will always wonder what it must’ve been like to see Peter Gabriel, Laurie Anderson, David Gilmour, David Bowie, David Byrne, or Brian Eno in the early-to-mid-80s. I’m old enough to remember buying Talking Heads records in junior-high and high school and to have seen their odd videos, but not old enough to have grasped the historical and cultural context from which those records sprang. Regardless, Byrne has remained an ever-present, ever-relevant influence since.

Song and Circumstance: The Work of David Byrne (Continuum, 2010) by Sytze Steenstra goes a long way to resolving my historical ignorance. His academic approach to the subject of David Byrne and his work reveals heretofore unconnected links in the man’s music, thinking, and artistic path.

For instance, Byrne had been reading a lot of systems theory and cybernetics literature before meeting and collaborating with Brian Eno. Eno’s production style was informed by much of the same work: command and control systems, feedback loops, etc. This coincidence explains at least part of why the two work together so seemlessly on Talking Heads’ and their own records and have gotten on so well ever since.

I wouldn’t be surprised if poetry — poetry in the broadest sense, in the sense of a world filled with metaphor, rhyme, and recurring patterns, shapes, and designs — is how the world works. The world isn’t logical, it’s a song.
— David Byrne

To wit, below is a spread from Jennifer New’s Drawing From Life: The Journal as Art (Princeton Architectural Press, 2005) showing two pages of David Byrne’s many journals: The left is a flowchart of a song and the right is his sketch of the legendary Big Suit from Stop Making Sense (1985).

Byrne truly attempted to apply cybernetic and systems thinking to his art and music, constructing such flowcharts, diagrams, and algorithms for everything from goal setting to formulating innovation and success. Steenstra’s book covers the science of Byrne’s art, as well as the usual musical biography fodder (e.g., humble art-school beginnings, the onset of success, the infighting, the band’s break up, etc.), but it’s the former that sets this book apart.

If you know me, you know that one of the only things I love as much as music is bicycles. Well, David Byrne’s own Bicycle Diaries (Viking, 2010) explores and explains why they’re so seductive in ways I never could.

This book was written almost by accident. That is, Byrne’s fascination with bicycles and writing about seeing the world from behind handlebars was unintentional. He first started riding them in New York in the early 80s, finding it easier to get around by bike than by cab or subway. Then came the feeling of freedom that riding bicycles affords. Later in his career, Byrne discovered über-portable folding bikes and started taking them with him on tour. He writes,

That same sense of liberation I experienced in New York recurred as I pedaled around many of the world’s  principle cities. I felt more connected to the life on the streets than I would have inside a car or in some form of public transport: I could stop whenever I wanted to; it was often (very often) faster than a car or taxi fro getting from point A to point B; and I didn’t have to follow any set route. The same exhilaration, as the air and street life whizzed by, happened again in each town. It was, for me, addictive (p. 2).

Though his bicycle is the enabling mechanism for this book and the urban environment is the backdrop, Byrne’s observations and insights are only half about bicycles or cities. In these entries, he discusses everything from economics and diversity to the semiotics of cell phone ring tones. It’s a ride as inspiring as it is fascinating.

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One of the many bike-related things Byrne writes about in Bicycle Diaries is his bike rack designs. Below is a Wall Street Journal video showing the making of them [runtime: 3:00], as well as David Byrne and one of his bikes.

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Nubile Noir: Veronica Mars

One writer described Veronica Mars during her pre-fandom days as “outrageous,” writing that the writing was “clunky,” the one-liners too “crisp,” and the teens too “clever and in charge.” The show was saved in her book when someone called it “camp.” That made it all click for her. I only take issue with that designation because I have a narrower definition of camp (I immediately think John Waters), but by her estimate, if Veronica Mars is camp then so are the Scream movies. The thing she’s referring to is the over-the-top, in-your-face stance of the show. It’s not as if Andrew WK wrote the dialog, but you know everything is not this well-scripted IRL, and dramatic events don’t self-organize into perfect act breaks. Well, that’s probably because… It’s a fucking TV show!

With that said, it’s one of the best TV shows I’ve ever indulged in. Kristen Bell’s depiction of Veronica Mars is more than enough to carry this show, but the inimitable Enrico Colantoni (Just Shoot Me and Flashpoint; as her dad Keith Mars), Percy Daggs III (as Veronica’s sidekick Wallace), Jason Dohring (as complex pretty boy Logan Echolls), and Francis Capra (as bad boy Weevil) as well as minor characters like Tina Majorino (Napoleon Dynamite; as the aptly named computer wiz Mac) all do major heavy lifting.

Annoy, little blond one! Annoy like the wind! — Logan Echolls

Rob Thomas (not to be confused with that lame Matchbox 20 dude) put this show together during a five-year dry spell in what had been a flood of good fortune in Hollywood. According to Neptune Noir (Benbella, 2007), the critical essay collection he edited, it saved his career and his soul.

The series so far (I wanted to wait until I watched the whole thing to write this, but I’m only on the second season, and I’m convinced. I also wanted to wait until I finished the book, but the book keeps spoiling the series!) mixes elements of Heathers (snarky, dark humor), Twin Peaks (the haunting of the show by Lily Kane, just as Laura Palmer did in Twin Peaks), 21 Jump Street (whip-smart whippersnapper detectives), American Beauty (stereotypes on the surface, crazies underneath), and several other teen dramas and comedies. The writing is razor sharp, the plot twists are white-knuckled, and the characters are as multidimensional as they are memorable. It’s everything I want from a TV show or a movie.

And speaking of, the way we watch hath changed. If it weren’t for the streaming of TV online, I wouldn’t know the first thing about this show. This is important for a show like Veronica Mars, which is available on Netflix Instant, or other cult favorites like Twin Peaks: The ratings don’t matter online. A show that critics loved but mass audiences barely got can thrive in the minds of millions through internet-enabled rediscovery. In the case of Veronica Mars, this is good.

So, while I’ve never owned a television, I do love the medium done brave and done well. And Veronica Mars is a prime example of that. I am hereby recommending it to you.

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Here’s a fan-made trailer for season one [run time 2:16]:

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Rappin’ is My Radio: New Books on Rap Poetics

One of my favorite Hip-hop studio tales is from the recording of “Brooklyn’s Finest.” The story goes that Jay-Z and Biggie were sitting in legendary D&D studios in New York City listening to Clark Kent’s beat, a pen and a pad on the table between them. “They’re both looking at the pad like, Go ahead, you take it. No, you take it,” says Roc-A-Fella co-founder Biggs, “That’s when they found out that both of them don’t write.” That is, neither of these emcees write any of their rhymes down. They write, edit, and recite straight off the dome. Their method isn’t freestyling per se, but it’s still quite amazing.

Insight like this into the creative processes of Hip-hop is rare, but becoming more prevalent as the culture is recognized for what it is: the last salient, significant musical and cultural movement in history — and one that is now global in scale (Omoniyi, 2009). A few years back, Brian Coleman‘s book Check the Technique (Villard, 2007; née Rakim Told Me, WaxFacts, 2005) set out to fix this by providing liner notes to classic albums. “…it’s about talking to the artists themselves about their work as musicians, as creators.” he explains. “It seems to me that when you talk about music a lot of times, people tend to view the image of a group or at least the end product of their art, an album, as the most important thing. I think that the process of making them what they are as a group is as, if not more, important.” No question.

The books assembled here focus on language use, a tack that is often taken for granted in studies of Hip-hop (Alim, 2009), but one that is central to the culture and the music. Michael Eric Dyson (2004) puts it thusly:

Rap is a profound musical, cultural, and social creativity. It expresses the desire of young black people to reclaim their history, reactivate forms of black radicalism, and contest the powers of despair and economic depression that presently besiege the black community. Besides being the most powerful form of black musical expression today, rap projects a style of self into the world that generates forms of cultural resistance and transforms the ugly terrain of ghetto existence into a searing portrait of life as it must be lived by millions of voiceless people. For that reason alone, rap deserves attention and should be taken seriously (p. 67-68).

Enter How to Rap: The Art and Science of the Hip-hop MC (Chicago Review Press, 2009) by Paul Edwards. This book is a collection of discussions with hundreds of emcees of all stripes about inspiration, techniques, writing, freestyling, flow, content, style, subject matter, etc. More specific topics like rhyme schemes, metaphors, rhythm, delivery, and collaboration are covered, and with a chapter each on working in the studio and performing live, contextual considerations are given due time as well. Comments, advice, and insight on all of the above from nearly everyone in Hip-hop who matters (including our dude Cage Kennylz) from every school and era that matters. Is your favorite emcee in here? Mine is. Here’s Sean Price on the art of flow:

Like Bruce Lee said, if the water is in the jug, it becomes that jug. If the water is in that bowl, it becomes that bowl. That’s how I approach it (p. 64).

It’s not all koans and riddles though. For instance, here’s Clipse’s Pusha-T on Jay-Z and writing in your head:

Anything that you’ve ever heard of anybody saying about seeing Jay-Z in the studio, what does he do? He mumbles to himself, he walks around, he mumbles to himself, he walks around, he mumbles to himself, then he’s like OK, I got it. It’s not like, stroll into the booth and [record immediately]–he plays with the idea. Paper and pen is nothing but comfort, to me it’s nothing but being comfortable and being able to look at it, digest it, and say OK, this is how it’s supposed to [go]. But if you can train your mind to do it without that, that’s dope (p. 144).

The next few pages go on to explain the reasons one might want to learn to write in one’s head, and techniques for doing so. How to Rap covers every technique in this way. Weighing in at over 300 pages and introduced by a Kool G. Rap-penned foreword, this is seriously the handbook emcees have been waiting for.

Adam Bradley’s Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip-hop (Basic Civitas, 2008) breaks down emceeing in a different, but just as useful and intriguing manner. He digs deep into the meter, rhyme, and rhythm of rap in search of its poetics. “In the hands of unskilled poets and MCs alike,” writes Bradley, “rhyme can be an impediment, and awkward thing that leads to unnatural sounds and unintended meanings. But rhyme well used makes for powerful expression; it at once taps into the most primal pleasure centers of the human brain, those of sound patterning, and maintains an elevated, ceremonial distance from regular speech” (p. 57). Emcees must stay elevated, maintain that distance, but not drift too far away.

Since rap is a battle-borne art form, emcees must continually add on with their contributions while maintaining the culture’s heritage. That is, a practitioner must make something new while still adhering to the rules. Thomas Kuhn (1977) described an essential tension in science between innovation and tradition: Too innovative and the theory is untestable, too traditional and it’s not useful. The same tension can be said to exist in Hip-hop, as if one “innovates” without regard to “tradition,” one is no longer doing Hip-hop. Where lyrical interpolations are concerned, one must not adhere too closely to the original source lest one be accused of biting. “What separates ‘biting’ and ‘enlightening’ is the difference between repetition and repetition with a difference,” Bradley writes (2008, p. 150) It’s a delicate balance to be sure, but one of which a violation is not difficult to discern.

Bradley, along with Andrew DuBois, continues his exploration of rap’s poetics with The Anthology of Rap (Yale University Press, 2010). This giant tome compiles over three hundred lyrics from over thirty years of Hip-hop. The editors shot here for diversity rather than inclusion, thereby showing rap’s poetic and stylistic breadth rather than just its sheer quantity, though the book does weigh in at just under 900 pages. It also sports an foreword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., afterwords by Chuck D and Common, and essays that contextualize each major era of rap music. The four eras according to the editors are The Old School (1978-1984), The Golden Age (1985-1992), Rap Goes Mainstream (1993-1999), and New Millennium Rap (2000-2010). Among the undisputed legends and usual suspects, other monsters on the mic include Jay Electronica, Ras Kass, Edan, Eyedea (R.I.P., Mikey), O.C., Big L, Pharoahe Monch, Black Sheep, Brother Ali, and the homies Aesop Rock and Chino XL, among many, many others. Bradley points out in Book of Rhymes that lyrics are to be taken and judged differently when spoken as when on the page, and The Anthology of Rap gives one a chance to do the latter. It is comprehensive, definitive, and essential to be sure.

And if you don’t think people care about lyrics anymore, these are Sean Price‘s final words in Paul Edward’s How to Rap book:

I think it’s going to get back to lyrics, man, and that’s good. I’m ready for that, I can rhyme. Redman, he can rhyme, Jadakiss, he can rhyme–it’s going to get back to them [MCs] who can spit real hard-body lyrics, lyrics that count—Talib Kweli and all of them, they spit bodies. I like those dudes (p. 312).

Word is bond.

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Here’s the book trailer for The Anthology of Rap [runtime: 3:12]:

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References:

Alim, H. S. (2009). Straight outta Compton, straight aus Munchen: Global linguistic flows, and the politics of language in a global hip-hop nation. In H. S. Alim, A. Ibrahim, & A. Pennycook (Eds.), Global linguistic flows: Hip-hop cultures, youth identities, and the politics of language (pp. 1-23). New York: Routledge.

Bradley, A. (2008). Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip-hop. New York: Basic Civitas.

Bradley, A. & DuBois, A. (2010). The Anthology of Rap. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Coleman, B. (2007). Check the Technique: Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies. New York: Villard.

Dyson, M. E. (2004). The culture of hip-hop. In M. Forman & M. A. Neal (Eds.),That’s the joint: The hip-hop studies reader (pp. 61-68). New York: Routledge.

Edwards, P. (2009). How to Rap: The Art and Science of the Hip-hop MC. Chicago: Chicago Review Press.

Erwin, J., Malcolm, S. A., Duncan-Mao, A., Matthews, A., Monroe, J., Samuel, A., & Satten, V. (2006, August). “Told You So: The Making of Reasonable Doubt.” XXL Magazine, 10, 7, pp. 89-102.

Kuhn, T. (1977). The Essential Tension. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Onimiyi, T. (2009). “So I choose to do Am Naija style” Hip-hop, language, and postcolonial identities. In H. S. Alim, A. Ibrahim, & A. Pennycook (Eds.), Global linguistic flows: Hip-hop cultures, youth identities, and the politics of language (pp. 113-138). New York: Routledge.

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Apologies to Aesop Rock for ganking his “No Jumper Cables” lyric for the title of this piece (“Rappin’ is my radio, graffiti is my TV, B-boys keep them windmills breezy”).

[Top photo of Ras Kass by B+. Photocopy treatment by royc.]

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A False Sense of Obscurity: Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage

Self-identifying as a Rush fan has often felt like admitting that I used to play Dungeons & Dragons or, as I recently proclaimed to the folks at Geekend 2010, that I used to solve the Rubik’s Cube… competitively. Well, I’m coming out of the nerd closet: Rush is one of my all-time favorite bands, and Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage (2010) finally tells their story.

Contrary to what some might tell you, Rush is not a legacy band. Sure, they have some old, dusty hits that people still want to hear when they see them play live (e.g., “Tom Sawyer”), but they’ve maintained the same high level of craftpersonship throughout their thirty-plus years together. With that said, most Rush fans have a favorite era. Some like the really early Zepplin-inspired proto-Rush of the the late 60s-early 70s. Some like the epic, über-prog late-70s Rush. Most like the shorter, airwave-friendly prog of the Permanent Waves (1980) / Moving Pictures (1981) era and hate the keyboard-riddled period just after that (the rest of the 80s). As Geddy Lee puts it in the movie, “There are certain periods of Rush that are more universal than other periods.” I can honestly say that my favorite Rush songs span their four decades.

Growing up, my uncle Lynn had made me aware of Genesis, Yes, Pink Floyd, and prog rock in general, so though I was always aware of Rush, I didn’t become a fan in earnest until my first record store job. My boss there, Jay Cobb, played them incessantly. Not only was his rabid fandom contagious and the music intricate and interesting, but it made me think as well. Like my favorite band at that time (Oingo Boingo), Neil Peart’s lyrics challenged me like few bands did. Presto (1989) had just come out, and it was a return to form for a band whose previous several years had left them without a formidable part of their edge and a noticeable part of their fan-base. Presto sidestepped the synths and brought Alex Lifeson’s guitars back to center stage. It remains one of my most listened-to Rush records.

Beyond the Lighted Stage was directed by Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn, both devout Rush nerds, and it shows. Through original interviews, archival footage and photos, and special guests, their documentary follows the band from their upbringing, through their chronic obscurity and flirtations with the mainstream, to their current goings-on. The special guests include celebrity fans — everyone from the willfully annoying Jack Black, Tim Commerford, and Jason McGerr, to the always articulate Trent Reznor, Gene Simmons, Kirk Hammett, and Les Claypool, as well as the surprisingly brilliant Billy Corgan, Jimmy Chamberlin, and Sebastian Bach. The latter of whom says he was inspired to read by 2112 (1976). “I was into the story,” Bach says, “I read the back and it was dedicated to The Fountainhead, the book, and I went right out and bought The Fountainhead and read it. Not too many bands make a twelve-year-old go out and buy The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand! Goddammit, this rock band’s got me all fired-up about literature!” And so it goes with Rush and Rush fans.

I finally saw Rush on the 2003 Vapor Trails tour in Las Vegas, and yes, their career-spanning setlist included “Tom Sawyer.” It was when I told my friends about seeing the “world’s most popular cult band” (as Geddy put it) that I realized how nerdy it is to like Rush. It’s not quite like admitting that you solved the Rubik’s Cube competitively, but it’s not far off either.

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Here’s the official trailer for Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage [runtime: 2:19], which is now available on DVD and Blu-ray:

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The Essential Tension of Ideas

One of the key insights in Richard Florida’s latest book, The Great Reset (Harper, 2010) is that rapid transit increases the exchange of ideas and thereby spurs innovation. Where the car used to provide this mass connection, now it hinders it. Increasingly, our cognitive surplus is sitting traffic.

Ideas are networks, Steven Johnson argues in his new book, Where Good Ideas Come From (Riverhead, 2010). The book takes Florida’s tack, comparing cities to coral reefs in that their structure fosters innovation. Good ideas come from connected collectives, so connectivity is paramount.

Human history in essence is the history of ideas. — H. G. Wells

On the other end of the spectrum, in a recent post about Twitter, David Weinberger writes,

…despite the “Who cares what you had for breakfast?” crowd, it’s important that we’ve been filling the new social spaces — blogs, social networking sites, Twitter, messaging in all forms, shared creativity in every format — with the everyday and quotidian. When we don’t have to attract others by behaving outlandishly, we behave in the boring ways that make life livable. In so doing, we make the Net a better reflection of who we are.

And since we are taking the Net as the image of who we are, and since who we think we are is broadly determinative of who we become, this matters.

His description sounds like we’re evening out our representations of our online selves, reconciling them with our IRL selves, initiating a corrective of sorts. Coincidentally, in their sad version of “The SEED Salon,” a recent issue of WIRED had Kevin Kelly and Steven Johnson discuss the roots of innovation (by way of plugging their respective new books; here they are discussing same at the New York Public Library). Kelly states,

Ten years ago, I was arguing that the problem with TV was that there wasn’t enough bad TV. Making TV was so expensive that accountants prevented it from becoming really crappy—or really great. It was all mediocre. But that was before YouTube. Now there is great TV!

It sounds as though Weinberger and Kelly are calling for or defending a sort of “infodiversity,” which one would think would be a core tenet of media ecology. As Kelly puts it in What Technology Wants (Viking, 2010), “Both life and technology seem to be based on immaterial flows of information” (p. 10). He continues in WIRED,

To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap. Another example is spectrum. One reason we have this great explosion of innovation in wireless right now is that the US deregulated spectrum. Before that, spectrum was something too precious to be wasted on silliness. But when you deregulate—and say, OK, now waste it—then you get Wi-Fi.

In science, Thomas Kuhn called this idea “the essential tension.” In his book of the same name (University of Chicago Press, 1977), he described it as a tug-of-war between tradition and innovation. Kuhn wrote that this tension is essential, “…because the old must be revalued and reordered when assimilating the new” (p. 227). This is one of those ideas that infects one’s thinking in toto. As soon as I read about the essential tension, I began to see it everywhere — in music, in movies, in art, and indeed, in science. In all of the above, Weinberger, Johnson, and Kelly are all talking about and around this idea, in some instances the innovation side, and in others, the tradition side. We need both.

One cannot learn anything that is more than one step away from what one already knows. Learning progresses one step or level at a time. Johnson explores this idea in Where Good Ideas Come From by evoking Stuart Kauffman‘s “adjacent possible” (a term Johnson uses hundreds of times to great annoyance). The adjacent possible is that next step away. It is why innovation must be rooted in tradition. Go too far out and no one understands you, you are “ahead of your time.” Take the next step into the adjacent possible that no one else saw, and you have innovated. Taken another way, H. G. Wells once said that to write great science fiction, one must adopt a perspective that is two steps away from the current time. Going only one away is too familiar, and three is too far out. As Kelly puts it in the WIRED piece, “Innovating is about more than just having the idea yourself; you also have to bring everyone else to where your idea is. And that becomes really difficult if you’re too many steps ahead.” A new technology, literally “the knowledge of a skill,” is–in its very essence–the same thing as a new idea. For instance, Apple’s Newton was too many steps ahead of or away from what was happening at the time of its release. I’m sure you can think of several other examples.

Johnson, who has a knack for having at least one (usually more) infectious idea per book, further addresses the process of innovation with what he calls the “slow hunch.” This is the required incubation period of an innovative idea. The slow hunch often needs to find another hunch in order to come to fruition. That is, one person with an idea often needs to be coupled with another who has an idea so that the two can spur each other into action, beyond the power of either by itself (see the video below for a better explanation). It’s an argument for our increasing connectivity, and a damn good one.

That is not to say that there aren’t and won’t be problems. I think Kevin Kelly lays it out perfectly here:

…[T]here will be problems tomorrow because progress is not utopia. It is easy to mistake progressivism as utopianism because where else does increasing and everlasting improvement point to except utopia? Sadly, that confuses a direction with a destination. The future as unsoiled technological perfection is unattainable; the future as a territory of continuously expending possibilities is not only attainable but also exactly the road we are on now (p. 101).

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Here’s the book trailer for Steven Johnson’s Where Good Ideas Come From [runtime: 4:07]:

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References:

Florida, R. (2010). The great reset. New York: Harper.

Johnson, S. (2010). Where good ideas come from. New York: Riverhead.

Kelly, K. (2010). What technology wants. New York: Viking.

Kuhn, T. (1977). The essential tension. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Weinberger, D. (2010). “Why it’s good to be boring on the web.” JoHo The Blog.

WIRED. (2010, October) “Kevin Kelly and Steven Johnson on where ideas come from.” Wired.com.

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The Mesh We’re In: The Ecological Thought

If Special Agent Dale Cooper actually did quit the FBI and retire in Twin Peaks, this might be the book he would write. His beliefs in the connectivity of all things, Tibeten philosophy, and respecting others are all represented throughout The Ecological Thought (Harvard University Press, 2010). Actual author Timothy Morton puts so many aspects of our world into perspective that it makes describing this book and its ideas difficult. His writing flows like so much water over the falls, but the falls are the hard part.

Is this an environmental book? Yes and no. It’s environmental, anti-environmental, and post-environmental. The ecological thought knows the only way out is through. It’s not back-to-Nature, it’s get-past-Nature. It’s not about balance, it’s about difference. According to the ecological thought, this is the mesh we’re in:

Do we fill the hole in the world with holism or Heidegger? Or do we go all the way into the hole? Perhaps it’s a benign hole: through it we might glimpse the Universe. Many environmental writer tell us to “connect.” The issue is more about regrouping: reestablishing some functioning fantasy that will do for now, to preserve our sanity. Yet this is radically impossible, because of the total nature of the catastrophe and the fact that there is no script for it (we are “still here,” and so on). It’s like waking up: it becomes impossible to go back to sleep and dream in good faith. The ecological disaster is like being in a cinema when suddenly the movie itself melts. Then the screen melts. Then the cinema itself melts. Or you realize your chair is crawling with maggots. You can’t just change the movie. Fantasizing at all becomes dubious (p. 31-32).

Sustainability is a fantasy. Your Prius is no more or less sustainable than your bicycle or your diet. This world is not sustainable. There’s no “re-enchanting” it. There is only enchantment. The end isn’t coming; it already happened. This is what the end looks like. It’s camouflaged to look like the now.

“The effect of mimicry is camouflage…” wrote Jacques Lacan, “It is not a question of harmonizing with the background, but against a mottled background, of becoming mottled — exactly like the technique of camouflage practised in human warfare” (p. 99). Morton writes, “Camouflage, deception, and pure appearance are the stock in trade of life forms” (p. 18). Non-humans do so many things that are supposed to be what separates us (e.g., language, imagination, reason, play, technology, etc.). Solidarity is the only choice. And why are there life forms at all? “Only because it benefits some replicators to clump together” (p. 85). Please, don’t draw lines in the mesh.

Space isn’t something that happens beyond the ionosphere. We are in space right now. — Timothy Morton

Do you realize, we’re floating in space? — The Flaming Lips, “Do You Realize?”

“There is a bigger picture here” (p. 121). Indeed. Perspectives abound. The Ecological Thought thinks irresistible, impossible, impassible things, because it has to. Because we all have to.

References:

Lacan, J. (1977). The four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis. London: The Hogarth Press.

Lynch, D. & Frost, M. (Producers). (1990). Twin Peaks [Television series]. New York: ABC.

Morton, T. (2010). The ecological thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Obscured by Crowds: Clay Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus

In The Young & The Digital (Beacon, 2009), Craig Watkins points out an overlooked irony in our switch from television screens to computer screens: We gather together around the former to watch passively, while we individually engage with the latter to actively connect with each other. This insight forms the core of Clay Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age (Penguin, 2010). Shirky argues that the web has finally joined us in a prodigious version of McLuhan’s “global village” or Teilhard de Chardin’s “Noosphere,” wherein everyone online merges into one productive, creative, cooperative, collective consciousness. If that seems a little extreme, so are many of Shirky’s claims. The “cognitive surplus” marks the end of the individual literary mind and the emergence of the Borg-like clouds and crowds of Web 2.0.

Okay, not exactly, but he does argue for the potential of the cognitive collective. So, Wot’s… Uh, the deal?

Is Clay Shirky the new Seth Godin? I’d yet to read anything written by him that didn’t echo things I’d read David Weinberger or Howard Rheingold (or Marshall McLuhan, of course), and I hoped Cognitive Surplus would finally break the streak. Well, it does, and it doesn’t. As Shirky put it in his previous book, Here Comes Everybody (Penguin, 2008), “society doesn’t change when people adopt new tools; it changes when people adopt new behaviors.” This time around he argues that we adopt new behaviors when provided with new opportunities, which, by my estimate, are provided by new tools — especially online.

Steve Jobs once said that the computer and the television would never converge because we choose one when we want to engage and the other when we want to turn off. The problem with Shirky’s claims is that he never mentions this disparity of desire. A large percentage of people, given the opportunity or not, do not want to post things online, create a Facebook profile, or any of a number of other web-enabled sharing activities. For example, I do not like baseball. I don’t like watching it, much less playing it. If all of the sudden baseballs, gloves, and bats were free, and every home were equipped with a baseball diamond, my desire to play baseball would not increase. Most people do not want to comment on blog posts, video clips, or news stories, much less create their own, regardless of the tools or opportunities made available to them. Cognitive surplus or not, its potential is just that without the collective desire to put it into action.

Shirky’s incessant lolcat bashing and his insistence that we care more about “public and civic value” instead comes off as “net” elitism at its worse. The wisdom of crowds, in James Surowieki’s phrase, doesn’t necessarily lead to the greater good, whatever that is. You can’t argue for bringing brains together and then expect them to “do right.” Are lolcats stupid? Probably, but they’re certainly not ushering in the end of Western civilization. It’s still less popular to be smart than it is to be a smartass, but that’s not the end of the world, online or off-. The crowd is as wise as the crowd does. Glorifying it as such, as Jaron Lanier points out in You Are Not a Gadget (Knopf, 2010), is just plain wrong-headed.

The last chapter, “Looking for the Mouse,” is where Shirky shines though. [Although its namesake echoes a story by Jaron Lanier from a 1998 Wired article about children being smarter and expecting more from technology. Lanier wrote, “My favorite anecdote concerns a three-year-old girl who complained that the TV was broken because all she could do was change channels.” Shirky’s version involves a four-year-old girl digging in the cables behind a TV, “looking for the mouse.”] His ability to condense vast swaths of knowledge into a set of tactics for new media development in this last chapter is stunning compared to the previous 180 pages. Perhaps he is the new Seth Godin afterall.

References:

Lanier, J. (1998, January). “Taking Stock.” Wired, 6.01.

Lanier, J. (2010). You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto. New York: Knopf.

Shirky, C. (2010). Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age. New York: Penguin.

Surowieki, J. (2005). The Wisdom of Crowds. New York: Anchor.

Watkins, S. C. (2009). The Young & The Digital. New York: Beacon.