Here you are.
- Daniel Cramer x Karen Dalton =
I’m on my way home to Boulder this Sunday.
I have a few more papers to write, but my mind is already somewhere else, somewhere craggier. So here are some pictures of mountains by Daniel Gustave Cramer (by way of It’s Nice That).
And here is a 1962 recording of Karen Dalton performing “the Prettiest Train” at the Attic in Boulder (which I think used to be below what is now Buchanan’s Coffee on the Hill).
Dalton, “her husband, and her daughter lived in a small shack in the Colorado mountains, with no electricity or running water, but a splendid view and plenty of space to ride horses. Occasionally, Dalton would play at the Attic, which at that time was the nucleus for Boulder’s folk scene.” ::read a pitchfork review
This train has left the station, you know, this train
This train has left the station, I said, this train
This train has left the station, this train takes on every nation…
Eagle on the dollar gonna rise and fly
- “Sound is Touch” and Beijing Opera
I’ve been trying to define what holds this blog together. I care about fabric, clothing and the processes that bring them to me. I love music. Music is like fabric, and vice versa. I guess that’s it, then.
I added something to that effect to my “about” page, and almost immediately, my coworker Brittany starts playing a segment from WNYC’s Radio Lab called “Sound is Touch”, from a show called “Musical Language”…
The show explores the relationship between language and music. Intonation and music. Chinese tonality and pitch-perfection. Music and the mind. Soooooo well done.
This is the stuff I’m here for.
[singlepic=90,200,,,right]The part on Stravinsky reminded me of my first reaction to Beijing Opera. Since I first encountered it a few years ago, Beijing Opera has been hard for me to appreciate at any level, let alone watch for 3 hours. It still sounds either harsh or cartoonish to me, or cloying. As far as I can tell, this is by no means uncommon.
Now for the experimental portion of this blog: Today’s postsong is a selection of Beijing Opera—an aria from Xia Jia Bang called, appropriately, “Mental Battle”. Listen to it after you listen to the sections of the above Radio Lab piece on Chinese tonality, and then the section on Stravinsky. What am I missing about this music (besides not understanding classical Chinese)? Why can’t I parse it yet, musically? Do I just need to give it some time to sink in?
For anyone who’s learning Chinese, teaching Chinese, blogging about China, doing business in China, studying in China, or going to the Olympics in China, you may eventually find yourself staring at a colorful Tom and Jerry scene, with masked characters howling, and someone you need to impress is asking you what you think. You should be honest, but maybe you can train your ear a little so you honestly don’t hate it.
There may be a few parts I’m starting to like.
- “Rust is futuristic moss”
Two things, maybe three:
1) Words by
2)
3)“The School Robot.
They change for P.E. quickly, excitedly.
I’m more deliberate as I get ready.
I’m careful not to reveal the
three thousand wires
that run down my back.”
“We played chess for 48 hours straight.
I thought it was her move.”
- Porn Sword Tobacco
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I bought this cd a few years ago, and can’t keep quiet about it any longer. Porn Sword Tobacco is Henrik Jonsson, from Göteborg, Sweden. He combines “Brian Eno’s ambient [sic] and the cosmic trips of Tangerine Dream and the avant-garde parsimony of Eric Satie.” ::article.
To me, it has the flavor of the works of another Swede who could be accused of Avant-garde parsimony. Both are as “chilly and forbidding” as the weather these days in Seattle.
The meat is in the textures. From the same article:
“I LOVE soft noise, for example the background noise on ‘Don’t quit your day job’ is the engine and tape spinning from my old Roland space echo. I feel free when I hear a good NOISE.”
Today’s postsong is Watts Towers from the album Explains Freedom.
- Art Car
I want one:
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More incredible things at BibliOdyssey. I could spend hours on this site, and will.
Postsong via Anderz: Harlem Clavinette by JJ Johnson, from Superbad: The Very Best Of Blaxploitation.
- Events this Weekend in Seattle
- Punk Rock Flea Market — $1 admission, “Proceeds above expenses benefit the Low Income Housing Institute”
- Urban Craft Uprising— “growing the crafting community and showcasing the best indie crafts out there.”
- Cuz the Power of the People Don’t Stop! — “Commemorate the 8th Anniversary of the 1999 WTO Protests”
Today’s postsong is Billy Bragg’s “A New England”, and comes via Andres.
- Thanksgiving Breakfast and the Light in the Triangle Apartment
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I snapped this photo after John’s girlfriend Juliet cooked some excellent pancakes for us, before the steam settled… I’m happy to be moving out tomorrow, but I’ll miss the light in this apartment. It comes in from all sides. Some hits from over the last year:
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Shenandoah, ashing through the fan:
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John, trumpeting sun:
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Juliet, dancing pancake maker:
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Today’s postsong is by Gorillaz, and comes c/o Ms. Virginia in Brooklyn.
- Ludovico Technique
Murketing’s Rob Walker is in the New York Times magazine today, on “Why imaginary brands can be even better than the real thing.” I was curious about what the possibly-redundant phrase “imaginary brands” referred to, and my imagination went wild with what I might encounter after clicking over to the full article…
Would it be Shepherd Fairey’s once-imaginary Giant brand? Or how about American Apparel and the “brand-free” brand, or the jaded - about - branding branding of Blackspot and Antipreneur? Or did this have to do with the MacLeod / Doctorow / Fawkes / Godin dialectic of whether branding is dead or not or is or not, kinda? No one disputes that “people who like using the word ‘Brand’ a lot are assholes,” but how could anyone refute Godin’s final say, in haiku form:
Big brands are dying.
Little brands are doing great.
Branding is a weird gig.I ventured over to the article, for something else entirely:
There is no shortage of logos in the world, no dearth of brands striving for consumer allegiance and no chance that the creation of new brands and logos will cease. In fact there’s an interesting subset of brands and logos that don’t bother with what seems like a crucial component: an actual product, service or company. Consider the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. It’s part of the fictional universe depicted in the 1979 film “Alien” and its sequels; Nostromo, the spaceship freighter in the first movie, is a Weyland-Yutani vessel. The company doesn’t do much in the way of branding in, you know, reality. But as it turns out, it’s possible to buy yourself a Weyland-Yutani T-shirt, or even a Nostromo T. It also turns out many people have. ::link
Oh. Cool, t-shirts. I want one.
It’s the weekend. Let’s all just sit back and listen to Orchestra Baobab (c/o Andres).
- carrot/rope
“Finally, fresh, organic and locally grown clothes!” says Alex Lau (sarcastically?).
Consumers demanded fresh food before they understood what organic food was. Then we wanted local and fair trade food, or better yet, direct trade. Now we’re starting to see that clothing can be organic. But “locally grown” clothing? Even when the Economist tackles the question of whether ’tis nobler to shop locally, it’s just talking about food.
If what we eat is good for us and also our community, shouldn’t what we wear also be?
Just because most of what we wear is grown and manufactured overseas doesn’t mean it has to be that way. American Apparel has branded itself as “brand-free, sweatshop-free,” “made in downtown L.A.” and “vertically integrated manufacturing,” and at least some of their organic cotton comes from California. As the largest textile manufacturer in the U.S., the impact would be huge if they supported California agriculture by sourcing local (think of all the green-collar jobs). But if they’re going public, will that be an option?University of Vermont associate professor of environmental studies Stephanie Kaza, in describing a project by then-student Stevia Morton, says:
“‘Buying local’ is now a common phrase among those concerned about sustainability, but usually we think of it as applied to food,” explains Morton’s advisor, Stephanie Kaza, associate professor of environmental studies. “Stevia’s project raises the possibility of buying local in clothing — something almost impossible in the United States. Her work is on the forefront of what I hope will be an emerging values movement in support of locally grown clothing. Offering this alternative is one way to voice concern for sweatshop labor, corporate control of production and fashion homogenization.” ::link
Playing on the “100-mile diet” (the idea of only eating foods grown within a hundred miles of your table), Obviously.ca gets credit for coining the phrase “100-mile closet.” And just as the 100-mile diet is an impossibility for most of us on the planet, but serves as a standard to measure against, the 100-mile closet (the idea of a wardrobe packed with locally sourced and manufactured clothes) gives us the mental framework on which to “hang up” all the clothes we’ve ever owned. It gives us something to look for when we shop that we’ve never looked for before.
I’d love to find out who is actually working on making it happen.
Over the next months, as part of marketing and entrepreneurship classes at BGI, I’ll be exploring these ideas. I’m going to use this blog (the 100milecloset category, to be specific) as a space to explore what it means to start a company focused on “fresh, organic and locally grown clothes.” Between the food system and the clothing system, between textiles and consumables, the line is blurrier than we should think.
Also, I bought 100milecloset.org… now what can I put there?
100-mile music: “By Night into Paradise” by Victoria B.C. band Chet.
- Bodily Art
Great, unsettling works by Eric Bostrom, Shawn Eisenach and others at cheese is sliced.
This one wins the “What is a carrot rope?” award:
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