Favorite Obsession: Oct. 2-Oct. 11

Don't You Cross That Line

The UAW is on strike. According to the AP, "It is the first UAW strike against Chrysler since 1997...and the first strike against Chrysler during contract talks since 1985."

I have never been on strike, since there is really no union for what I do. But in 2003 my mother went on strike with her local teacher's union, after working without a contract for a number of years. My mother is not a terribly political person, but the fervor with which she fought her bosses was inspiring.

Some teachers went the scab route. Fearing for their own personal well-being, with no sense of solidarity, they crossed the picket line. Not a good idea. What friendships may have existed between the teachers-turned-scabs and their colleagues ended at the moment. The rest of that year was made unbearable for them. Most of them left for other schools at the end of the year. Interesting, to say the least.

Yippie!

"I never understand the radical who comes on TV in a suit and tie. Turn off the sound and he could be the mayor! The words may be radical, but television is a nonverbal instrument! The way to understand TV is to shut off the sound. No one remembers any words they hear; the mind is a technicolor movie of images, not words."

Jerry Rubin, Do It!: Scenarios of the Revolution (1970)

On Forgetting How to Compose

In a recent interview on New Music Box, composer Jennifer Higdon spoke very candidly about something that many composers experience quite frequently. That is, the feeling that, upon starting a new composition, one has totally and completely forgotten how to compose. At moments like these, I'll often call Missy, Andrew, Judd, or Joel. Picking up the phone, I just ask: "How, again, do you write music?" To which they almost always reply: "Damned if I know."

Newspeak Kicks Off 2007-2008

Sunday, October 07, 2007 at 7 pm
Kitting Factory, Old Office, $6

The very large Newspeak ensemble engulfs the very small Knitting Factory Old Office for a night of exciting music at overwhelming volumes. We’re playing pieces by Mazzariello, Mazzoli, Weisman and Little that are sure to please, plus a special surprise. Come early for a live set by the magically mysterious Massey performing cuts from “Music for War” and stick around for The Motion Sick, from Boston, doing that-indie-rock-thing they do so well. Doors are at 7; Newspeak at 8:00 or so. Good times for all, and only $6 (cheap!)

Location:

The Knitting Factory, Old Office
74 Leonard Street
New York, NY 10013

Box Office/Info: 212-219-3132

For more information on Newspeak and our 2007-2008 season, check out these pages.

Favorite Obsession: Sept. 27-Oct. 1

Marilyn Manson - Mechanical Animals (1998)
(nothing, Interscope)

Just Doing Our Job

On September 18th, the NY Times featured an article and audio slide show about a recently discovered photo album showing the members of the Nazi officer corps during their off-hours at Auschwitz. This is important, Rebecca Erbelding from the US Holocaust Museum tells us, because so little is known about the daily lives of those who managed the death camps; it provides "great insight into the banality of evil." What is more chilling, she continues, is that these images--photos of parties, romps in the woods, and sing-a-longs--were taking place within miles of the daily murder of thousands of Jews and other victims.

One of the lines from Ms. Erbelding that most struck me was the following: "the album reminds us that the perpetrators of the Holocaust were human beings--men and women with families, children and pets--who celebrated holidays and took vacations." In other words, these were people like you and me. People who were just doing their jobs--as unspeakable as those jobs were. People trying to live as normal a life as they could under their particular circumstances.

During the composition of my piece Soldier Songs, as I've mentioned, I interviewed a number of veterans. During these interviews, each soldier made statements to the effect that they were "just doing their jobs." One even said that his daily goal was "do (his) job, look out for (his) friends, get through the day." In this, there is little room for analysis. There is little room to ask questions about what is right or wrong. The goal is to survive.

So my question is this: By "just doing one's job", can one be held accountable in some way for actions that one did not directly commit? Does the doing of one's job in this context support, by default, the entire apparatus in operation? In the end, who should be held accountable, and does it depend on who wins or loses?

Going a step further: Within a democracy, how does this effect the average civilian/consumer/citizen? Are citizens complicit, through the support of their national apparatus, in the actions of that nation's government and/or military? And if not, at what point does this complicity take effect? At what point, if ever, is a population truly responsible for the actions of it's national politico-military-industrial complex?

Favorite Obsessions: Sept. 10-Sept. 27

Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention - "Freak Out" (1966)
(Barfko-Swill, 1993)

Frank Zappa - "The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life" (1991)
(Barfko-Swill, 1993)

Happy Birthday to MATA

I attended the MATA benefit concert last night, celebrating both MATA's 10th anniversary and the 70th birthday of festival co-founder Philip Glass. The event was truly impressive. The performances were excellent and remarkably diverse. Hearing Annie Gosfield's The Manufacture of Tangled Ivory, part II, next to Theo Bleckmann's entrancing anteroom, and Derek Bermel's Thracian Sketches next to Carla Kilstedt's Hold My Own truly illustrated MATA's mission. The mission, so eloquently stated by new executive director Missy Mazzoli at the evening's outset: to allow composers to be themselves, as this is when they are at their best.

Although the whole evening was great, if a bit warm, the high-point for me was the surprise, all-star performance of Knee Play 5 from Einstein on the Beach. This piece, one of my all time favorites, is also probably among the most influential on me as a composer. It has the simplicity and sophistication that I strive for in my own music, and embodied the spirit of an evening marked by honesty, sincerity and love of art.

Congratulations to Missy and everyone at MATA for a really spectacular event. And to MATA: best wishes for another 10 and more!

Being Frank

"The biggest threat to America today is not Communism, it's (the) moving (of) America toward a fascist theocracy. (...) Everything that has happened during the Reagan administration is steering us right down that pike."

- Frank Zappa, 1986

Favorite Obsession: September 4-September 10

Gillian Welch - "I Dream a Highway" from Time (The Revelator) (2001)
(Acony Records)

To The Man You Have To Give The Spirit

This from Bernard Holland's Obituary of Luciano Pavarotti in today's New York Times:

“I’m not a politician, I’m a musician,” [Pavarotti] told the BBC Music Magazine in an April 1998 article about his efforts for Bosnia. “I care about giving people a place where they can go to enjoy themselves and to begin to live again. To the man you have to give the spirit, and when you give him the spirit, you have done everything.”

Why I Don't Want an EZ Pass, Part II

In light of the recent strike in NYC over the installation of GPS units in cabs, I thought I would continue my EZ Pass post. Below is Part II. (Go here for Part I)

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What bothers me, though, is not whether or not the government listens to our phone conversations. We all know that they can and do. What bothers me is that people seem to be so docile about it. People seem to have either accepted surveillance as a normal part of life, or just don't even give it much thought. For me, neither of these feels quite right.

In one of our many talks on political music, my friend Seth mentioned a generation of composers—Italian I think—who "knew what it was like to live under fascism," and behaved accordingly, artistically and otherwise. Could this be it? Do we Americans just not know what it is like to live under fascism and so don't see constant surveillance as among its signifiers? I think this might be part of it, but, as my friend Jeff suggested, and I agree, it is something more uniquely American—more uniquely Capitalist.

I mentioned The Lives of Others earlier, which if you haven't seen you should. In this film, the East German Stasi monitor a playwright who is believed to be, among other things, straying from Communist ideology. (Ideology is something that will be discussed a lot in these pages, I predict.) In a fascist state ideology is key. After all, along with its cousins propaganda and force, ideology, one could argue, is a primary source of totalitarian strength. In this context, the government listens in to insure that its citizens are ideologically adherent, securing the regime's retention of power.

But in a Capitalist system the bottom line is, well, capital. Because of this—and here is Jeff's point—if the average American (which is to say the average apolitical consumer) was being monitored by the government, it would more likely be so that the they could be more efficiently and effectively sold to than it would be to insure any ideological adherence. Of course, one could further argue that buying is Capitalist ideology, and thus ideological adherence is, in fact, being monitored.

(to be continued…)

Favorite Obsession: August 28-September 3

Marc Blitzstein: The Cradle Will Rock - Original 1985 Cast Recording
(Jay Records, Released 1999)

Ol' Red Pete

"I still call myself a communist, because communism is no more what Russia made of it than Christianity is what the churches make of it."

- Pete Seeger, New York Times, January 22, 1995