Postmodern Musics: Paper Day

This week in PoMo we all wrote and read and discussed "papers" about various thoughts and themes and ideas that have arisen from our readings and musings and conversings thus far in the semester. It was a highly enjoyable couple of hours made only slightly less enjoyable by the fact that my cold really picked up steam as the class progressed.

At this point I want to discuss briefly something that I've noticed as I've gone about this project for about a month now. My goal at the outset was not to actively look for connections between the things people say and musical associations, but I've found that the more I make note of these associations, the more readily they come to mind. And not just in PoMo. I'm drawing connections between music and the world around me so often that it's almost like my life has a soundtrack, but the DJ who's controlling it can't listen to more than a few bars of a given song before it switches to something else. My life has become an expansive play of musical intertextuality and I rather enjoy it. As I go about my life I feel rather like this:

and it's great. Anyway, on to the musics.

First, let me say that because I've been tracking music in this class I decided it was fitting that I talk about music in the paper that I wrote. The 2 songs I used were:

"Come Together" - The Beatles

and "Free Jazz" - Ornette Coleman

As I wrote the paper I listened to "Free Jazz" a couple of times and I feel like I gained a greater appreciation for that subgenre of jazz music that I ever have before.

And the musical associations from the day's discussion:

"Let It Go" - Idina Menzel, from the Frozen soundtrack
"like a fractal"

"Disturbia" - Rihanna
"Utopias that are actually disturbias" (Jenny actually said "dystopias" not "disturbias," but my cold-addled brain heard "disturbias" so, yep.)

"(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" - The Rolling Stones
"And yet the satisfaction..." 

"I Wanna Talk About Me" - Toby Keith
"I like that you talk about...time" 

"So What" - Miles Davis
"So what."

"Cotton Eye Joe" - Rednex
"Where it was going was..." 

"The Impression That I Get" - The Might Mighty Bosstones
"like the feeling that I get when I'm reading poetry"

"Wannabe" - Spice Girls
"Tell me what you want"

Additional musics mentioned or brought up by others in the class:

"Heavy Metal Drummer" - Wilco
Michael mentioned that this song popped into his head during a part of our discussion. I wasn't familiar with it myself, but I'm glad he brought it up because me gusta.

"All the Small Things" - Blink 182
This was the title of Jenny's paper.

Postmodern Musics: Walking On Broken Glass

So this week we were talking about social construction and we read some Judith Butler and some Richard Rorty and some Kenneth Bruffee. We talked about a lot of things like taxonomies and the need to ask the question "why is what you just said persuasive to you" and heteronormativity and the social construction of gender and the body and warring factions of librarians, and so on. And we had chili and rice pudding and banana bread to boot. It was all very exciting.

Before class started something happened, I wasn't paying close attention to that side of the room so I missed it, and Beth's mug ended up on the ground in shattered bits. Immediately everyone jumped up and starting running about getting paper towels and a broom to soak up the spilled liquids and I just sat in my chair doing nothing. The reason for my inaction was twofold: 1) everyone was doing already everything I might have thought to do, 2) the sound of the glass shattering was beautiful and it kept replaying in my mind. So that was the first "music" to come to mind yesterday. I didn't think to take a picture at the time, so here's an artsy picture of shattered glass that I found on the internet:

 

This leads us to our musics, with the inciting contexts in italics/quotation marks:

 "Walking on Broken Glass" - Annie Lennox
the context was, well, the broken glass on the floor of the classroom

"Meat is Murder" – The Smiths  

"Meat is murder"

"Be Still My Heart" – Postal Service 

"Richard Powers?!?" - Amelia, as she clutched her hands over her heart

"From Russia with Love" - Matt Monro

"from Russia"

"My Body is a Cage" – Arcade Fire

“What about my body?”

"Because We Can" - Fatboy Slim 

"Because we can"

Collide – Howie Day (This one was surprising. I haven't thought of this song in a long time.)

...I don't remember the context. Someone must've said the word collide.

"Peace Like a River" – Paul Simon

“why can’t your identity be like a cloud or a river?”

"Anything Goes" –  Ella Fitzgerald 

"Anything goes"

Postmodern Musics - Erasure

That title should probably say "sous rature" rather than erasure, since that's the word/phrase that Heidegger and Derrida used in the original. But we read an English translation which translated sous rature as "erasure" (and used it often). I bet you can't guess what musics are going to be leading us off today.

But first, it snowed last night. I try to keep an upbeat attitude about the snow, especially considering this winter hasn't been anywhere near as awful as the Arctic Death Freeze of 2014. All the same, I felt a little like this going into PoMo today:

In fact, the social significance of snow and ice was mentioned today in class, if only in passing, so my attempt to insert Gilmore Girls into my post turned out to be relevant after all.

So in case it wasn't already clear, for PoMo today we read some Derrida. We also read about intertextuality and a brief(ish) introduction to what postmodernism is. We talked about a lot of different things in class today like nihilism and meaning and language and whether social context and history and more that I don't want to get into right. But that's not why I'm writing this post. I'm writing to talk about the music that popped into my head throughout our three hour long discussion. Be warned, there were more this time than there were last week.

I know I said with my last post that I wouldn't provide lengthy explanations of why these songs came to mind, but I've decided that I'll at least provide the word or phrase that provided the trigger.

So, in order of occurrence, here goes:

Erasure -  A Little Respect 

Okay, I know I said that I won't be providing much explanation for why these songs came to my head, but I have to say that this song was a recurring theme throughout class because every time someone said the word "erasure", my brainPod hit repeat. So really this song should be on today's list 6 or 8 times.

Power - Kanye West 

"schizoid"

Grand Illusion - Styx

"complete confusion"

It's Not Unusual - Tom Jones

"It's not unusual..."

Take My Breath Away - Berlin

"You just took her breath away."

Hazy Shade of Winter - The Bangles

"Time, time..."

Don't Know Much - Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville

"I don't know much..."

Just You Wait - Audrey Hepburn & Marni Nixon

"Oh just wait until..."

Bonus Track: Brick House - The Commodores

 

This song didn't pop into my head during class, but as I was doing the reading the word bricolage brought it to the fore time and again.

Postmodern Musics - Ceci n'est pas une pipe

No this isn't a post about postmodern music, but rather a post (and likely a series of posts) about the musics that pop into my head while I'm sitting, thinking, conversating, and otherwise engaging in my postmodern theory class.

I feel I need to clarify that this isn't something that is necessarily unique to PoMo (as it is affectionately called). In pretty much every class I take moment of my life, things happen (people say things, birds suddenly appear, etc.) that trigger musics to start playing in my head. In the past I've made half-hearted efforts to take note of the songs that pop into my head so that I can see which arise most frequently, but as it happened several times throughout PoMo today, I decided to make a concerted effort to pay attention to it whilst in this class throughout the semester.

So here's how this is going to go:

1) I'm just gonna list the songs. Without direct context. It's more fun that way, see. (Also I figure I can afford to check out of the class discussion for the few seconds it takes to jot down a song title, but not for the length of time it would take to note the exact context.)

2) I'm going to try and not force musical associations, but rather just let them happen naturally. (At least as naturally as is possible.)

3) I anticipate there will be times when I won't want to admit which songs popped into my head (coughcoughphysicalolivianewtonjohncough) but I'll not censor myself, no matter how shameful.

While I'll not be providing the direct context from the conversation that triggers the songs, I will try to give some sort of context from the class that day. For example, today we talked about Magritte and Foucault's reading thereof. Thus:

So, without further gilding the lily, here are the PoMo musics from the first day of school:


Physical - Olivia Newton John

I Am A Rock - Simon and Garfunkel

Changes - David Bowie

The Space Between - Dave Matthews Band

I should probably note that at one point we were talking about Zen koans and the phrase "the sound of silence" was explicitly said, but Simon and Garfunkel's classic of that name didn't come to mind until someone else in class said something about it. You'd think that since Art and Pauly had already made a foray into my mind earlier in class that an encore performance would be inevitable in such a situation. But it wasn't. So while the song did eventually find its way into my head, its presence wasn't organic so I don't list it here.

Thoughts on the Angels and How Exciting Christmas Is

Earlier this evening I was standing next to my mom in the kitchen mixing myself a cup of cocoa while this was playing in the background:

Mom turned to me and said something to the effect of, "Isn't this magnificent?" Just moments before I had been thinking to myself how much I love this rendition of "Hark the Herald, etc." because of how triumphant it is. It was a wonderful moment because that feeling of the magnificent triumph of this Christmas carol seemed to encapsulate perfectly some ponderings I've had recently about the chorus of angels that accompanied the Savior's birth.

I like to think that the night of the Savior's birth there was a pretty sweet party in heaven. The whole of eternity was pointing to this moment, and we were so excited that it was finally happening - that the Savior of mankind was finally making his way to Earth to save us all from sin and death - that we couldn't be contained. (I say we because I like to think that I was among the angels who was so excited I just couldn't even handle it.) So, in our excitement, we made our way down to check things out:

and in the euphoria of the moment we just had to tell someone about it. Or rather, we had to sing to someone about it. So we went out and found some local shepherds, and we said to them:

"Hey guys. It's happening! He's here!! Jesus Christ! You know, the Savior! The Prince of Peace and all that jazz! The guy who's gonna make it all happen! HE'S FINALLY HERE! IT'S FINALLY HAPPENING! GO SEE!!!"

See, on Earth I think a lot of times we tend to get so caught up in the daily minutiae of life that sometimes we don't see what's really important and what's eternally significant. So in this moment - this all important and thrilling moment - the angels stepped in and let us all know what's really important. And I really feel like Charles Wesley encapsulated that message when he wrote:

Hail! the heav'n born Prince of peace!
Hail! the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
Risen with healing in his wings
Mild he lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die:
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Hark! the herald angels sing,
"Glory to the newborn King!"

He's the real source of the magnificent triumph Mom and I were feeling earlier tonight. I love and am eternally grateful for my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and I thank God everyday for the incalculable gift of His Son, which gift we celebrate during this season.

The Definitive List of the Best Christmas Movies

I'm finally done with everything for this semester, and the strange stresslessness of life has left me not at all sleepy. So instead of sleeping I've ranked the best Christmas movies. I know in the title it says that this is a definitive list, but really that was just my way of saying that YES THIS IS THE DEFINITIVE LIST!! I'm right. If you disagree, well, then you'll just have to accept that you're wrong. Good, now that that's out of the way, let's proceed.

...

Actually, before we proceed to the actual list of best Christmas movies, there are a couple of other lists that I need to make first.

Christmas Movies that I've Never Really Liked Despite Popular Opinion

- Scrooged
- Christmas Vacation
- Love, Actually

Honorable Honorable Mention (aka good-to-fantastic movies that take place around or somehow involve Christmas, but because Christmas isn't a key player in the plot, weren't considered for the Top 10)

- The Hudsucker Proxy
- The Shop Around the Corner
- Die Hard
- The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe
- Ask Me Again


Honorable Mentions (in no particular order)

- Holiday Inn
- Mr. Krueger's Christmas
- Christmas in Connecticut
- Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer (clay-mation)
- A Christmas Carol (Both the George C. Scott and the Alastair Sim)
- Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
- The I Love Lucy Christmas special where they all dress up like Santa Claus
- Frosty the Snowman (cartoon)


Now we can get on to the list. Well, we will after GeorgeCScottScrooge stops being in the way:

whenever I read A Christmas Carol (which is every year) George C. Scott is how I picture Scrooge in my mind

The Definitive Top Ten List of the Best Christmas Movies

10. While You Were Sleeping

9. Elf

8. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the cartoon)

7. A Christmas Story

6. the home movie of Heather and her "My Child"

I don't have this one digitally so as to embed it here. But trust me, it's awesome.


5. Miracle on 34^th Street (the old one)

4. It’s a Wonderful Life

3. The Muppet Christmas Carol

2. White Christmas

1. The Bishop’s Wife

Feel free to let me know if you disagree with me, but let me reiterate that if you disagree, you're wrong. See I've spent minutes - several of them - thinking about this, and come to the conclusion that this is the way it should be.

Early Morning Cowboys

Sometimes I'm awake at 4:45 in the am and I take breaks from what I'm working on to watch videos of monkeys riding border collies and herding sheep around a rodeo arena.

Which naturally leads to me listening to awesome musics like this:

and this:

It's the simple joys in life.