Today is the first day of my new studio. I recently moved into my own new apartment but only just this morning did I start setting the place up. I awoke at 5 AM from a strange dream about... personal finance? Whatever it was it sparked me to take notes on my thesis. Which in turn lead the subject of Direct Music and ultimately to the desire to finally put my studio together. One of the great things about this new apartment is that the space for my studio has a wall of windows looking out at snow-covered Northampton.
For anyone interested, on Feb. 8th I will be performing at Woodworks in Hadley, MA with Jordan Knecht and Point Reyes.
Facebook event:
http://www.facebook.com/events/295195113845494/
In preparation for the show, when I went home for the holidays I brought with me a small version of my noise kit which I used to jam with my father. He started off on the didgeridoo but then eventually shifted to the trombone. We then did a short recording session of trombone and a recording of an old story from his childhood. Pretty much the whole performance this coming Wednesday will be based heavily off of these recordings. I will do my best to make sure I get a recording of the piece, of the show, or both up on to the site.
Meanwhile, after numerous delays, Mackey and Ezra should be coming today for our first jam session of the year. Hopefully, this will also begin the process of recording our first EP as a trio. The working title is "Kitchen Shower".
Part of me is tempted to talk about Direct Music, but that will have to wait for another day.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Representative Vs. Direct Philosophy
I adore prefaces to books. I think that often they are the most interesting part. This is certainly true of Leo Tolstoy's Gospel In Brief, but that is for another day. In the preface to his work Nihil Unbound Enlightenment and Extinction Ray Brassier remarks that "Thinking has interests that do not coincide with those of the living; indeed, they can and have been pitted against the latter." Part of the task of being a philosopher is being a thought controller: choosing which thoughts should be supported and which shouldn't. This makes the whole philosophical task one that is directly related to life and death. To support a thought can be to support some human lives and not others. That is a lot of power for a person to wield. Especially if specific people are chosen to act as philosophers (thought controllers) on behalf of others.
I am not talking about philosophers like Ray Brassier or Slavoj Zizek, but those people who have taken up the mantle of thought controller who have been given disproportionate voices. Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Jon Stewart, The New York Times opinion columnists, all of these people spend most of their time promoting certain thoughts and fighting others. They are playing with the lives of human beings. And they are doing so with a disproportionally large voice compared to the rest of us. An extremely small number of people, relative to the size of the United States, control the thoughts that are being promoted to television watchers and newspaper readers. They are philosophizing but they have lost a crucial element: dialogue. The television does not hear you scream back at it. They are Representative Philosophers. They speak "on behalf" of others.
There is, of course, an alternative philosophy developing in the United States and across the world: Direct Philosophy. We see examples of it in the Internet and in Occupy camps all over the world. Each individual promotes the thoughts they support with a roughly equal voice. And with the help of the interactive nature of the computer and the "people's mic" dialogue has returned. It offers the possibility for thoughts to be supported not by the size of the voice broadcasting it but by the number of voices in support. it seems to me that the lives of human beings should be directly in the hands of the people and not the loudest, or richest, representatives.
I've often heard comments that I interpret to be asking the question "Why are Occupy protesters not participating in Representative Philosophy? (politics, voting, two-party system, etc.)". To which I respond, how are they to participate? It is not a dialogue the whole country is a part of, it is a set of monologues by pundits, so-called journalists, and politicians. The real question, I think, should be "Why are more Americans not participating in Direct Philosophy?" It's a place where you have a real voice in a dialogue about life and death, not just a television and the occasional ballot box.
I am not talking about philosophers like Ray Brassier or Slavoj Zizek, but those people who have taken up the mantle of thought controller who have been given disproportionate voices. Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Jon Stewart, The New York Times opinion columnists, all of these people spend most of their time promoting certain thoughts and fighting others. They are playing with the lives of human beings. And they are doing so with a disproportionally large voice compared to the rest of us. An extremely small number of people, relative to the size of the United States, control the thoughts that are being promoted to television watchers and newspaper readers. They are philosophizing but they have lost a crucial element: dialogue. The television does not hear you scream back at it. They are Representative Philosophers. They speak "on behalf" of others.
There is, of course, an alternative philosophy developing in the United States and across the world: Direct Philosophy. We see examples of it in the Internet and in Occupy camps all over the world. Each individual promotes the thoughts they support with a roughly equal voice. And with the help of the interactive nature of the computer and the "people's mic" dialogue has returned. It offers the possibility for thoughts to be supported not by the size of the voice broadcasting it but by the number of voices in support. it seems to me that the lives of human beings should be directly in the hands of the people and not the loudest, or richest, representatives.
I've often heard comments that I interpret to be asking the question "Why are Occupy protesters not participating in Representative Philosophy? (politics, voting, two-party system, etc.)". To which I respond, how are they to participate? It is not a dialogue the whole country is a part of, it is a set of monologues by pundits, so-called journalists, and politicians. The real question, I think, should be "Why are more Americans not participating in Direct Philosophy?" It's a place where you have a real voice in a dialogue about life and death, not just a television and the occasional ballot box.
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