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Sunday, June 8, 2003 |
One of the more interesting exercises in applying .... One of the more interesting exercises in applying McLuhanistics to our world is doing the media analysis backwards. What do I mean by "backwards?" When we are learning to work the tetrads, we often take a medium and figure out its extension, reversal, obsolescence and retrieval effects or messages. But most of the time - in fact, according to McLuhan, all of the time - we observe the effects before the causes, that is, we perceive effects and only later can we identify and name the new medium from which the effects emerge. And it's awfully difficult sometimes to peg the tetrad quadrant of a newly observed effect.
Case in point is this article from United Press International that points out, surprisingly, that Jews are flooding back into Germany. In fact, more Jews are going to Germany than to any other country in the world, including Israel. More than half a million Jews lived in Germany before World War II; after the war, only 15,000 were left. By 1990, that number had crept up to only 33,000. But today, there are over 200,000 Jews who have made modern Germany their new home.
"Rabbi Carl Feit, a Talmudic scholar and cancer researcher at New York's Yeshiva University ... interpreted the Jews' return to Germany as "a fulfillment of a biblical spiritual theme -- the rebirth and rejuvenation for which there are many examples in history, where Jewish people in one part of the world or another have seemed to have been eclipsed only to reappear against all odds and common expectations." Feit added, "The biblical paradigm for this rebirth was the return of the Jews to Israel" from the Babylonian captivity in 516 B.C."
So is this a retrieval? Or is it a reversal? The latter would require an extension that had been pushed beyond its limit, indicating an evolution to a new form. The former suggests a new medium that extends something... the question is, what? Either way, today's Germany bears observing, not as an example of the "Old Europe" that the U.S. administration derides, but exemplary of something quite new, and perhaps quite ahead of the rest of the world.
Discuss document.write("(" + ct_22_qhcv + ")"); [What is The Message?]
9:20:40 PM 
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Reid responds to comments on LinkedIn Wiki Page. Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn has just gone through and responded to many of the points raised in the LinkedIn wiki page. If you had posted comments and were waiting for him to respond, please go check out his comments. He has interspersed his comments in dialog in wiki style. Thanks to the people who posted comments and thanks to Reid for all of the thoughtful responses. Now my wiki is much smarter. ;-) By Joichi Ito jito@neoteny.com. [Joi Ito's Web]
3:40:23 PM
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POST post-modern, EX post-modernism
What comes next? What is POST post-modern? I wouldn't say it's merely neo-classical. The information age, the networked age, a new age fits after the decline of our recent "Medievalism". Because it is new, it is difficult to label. - Gary Santoro
...to a collection of Jean Arp links in celebration of the old dadaist's birthday. If, as Arp wrote, "Dada wished to destroy the hoaxes of reason and to discover an unreasoned order," then I think Dada was post modernism emergent.
TranscendAnce...
French modern art contains the genius of Renoir, Matisse, Monet and more, much more. But at some point, those of us with a classificatory or historical bent will want to draw a line and create a distinction: up to this point is modern art; after this is something else, perhaps "post modern." And naturally, during some period this "post modernism" will wane and be replaced by the next thing. Genres are mere folders in the file drawer containing what I'm talking about.
I'm engaged in a conversation with myself about when post modernism ended, and for that matter, when it began. It seems obvious, but perhaps bears stating that the study of post modernism could not begin until post modernism itself was well advanced. In fact the study itself sounds the death knell of the movement. We can imagine post modernism popped into the ether bottle, then removed and pinned like a butterfly in the display case of criticism. I'm betting V. Nabokov, ensconced in a hotel suite in Montreux, could feel the critical needle probing for his heart. All his modern Russian work had long since been subsumed by his oeuvre in English: Ada providing apical dominance for the tree of the American novel for the next thirty years.
Cultural expression doesn't move in lockstep fashion, with literature, graphic arts, theater, music, and ephemeral expressions (such as new modes of play) all advancing at the same pace through a critical context. So post modern art will have different temporal boundaries from post modern literature, and post modern music. One American novelist who transcends the boundaries between post modern and the perhaps neo-classical revival that has succeeded it, is Thomas Pynchon. You can see the marvelous expression of a hip, clear, dark vision in the first three novels, then a transcendance (as distinct from transcendEnce TYVM Jake Deridda) through a natural realism in Vineland to a three point landing in the structured framework of Mason and Dixon.
"...Who claims Truth, Truth abandons. History is hir'd, or coerc'd, only in Interests that must ever prove base. She is too innocent, to be left within the reach of anyone in Power,?who need but touch her, and all her Credit is in the instant vanish'd, as if it had never been. She needs rather to be tended lovingly and honorably by fabulists and counterfeiters, Ballad-Mongers and Cranks of ev'ry Radius, Masters of Disguise to provide her the Costume, Toilette, and Bearing, and Speech nimble enough to keep her beyond the Desires, or even the Curiosity, of Government..." (p.350)
The study of games seems like it would bear fruit if conducted in parallel with critical assessments of art, music, and literature. One is reminded of the modern ascendancy of positional play in the chess world - Richard Reti's dominance of the board with his cocked and loaded bishop pair covering the long diagonals. From 1922 to 1950 - the modern period - the popularity of Alekhine's defense declined. Then from 1950 to 1970 - arguably a post modern period - the popularity of this opening increased to a peak. Since 1970 it has dropped off and is about as popular today as it was during World War II.
There was a modern period in western culture, and it was over in the twenties or there-abouts. There was a post modern period that emerged and it was certainly over by the time Bunuel filmed "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" in the early seventies. Since that time, there has been a new cultural period that the academy has not addressed. I suspect it could be labeled as a brand of neo-classicism. Regardless what we call it, it seems ever more important to me that the gardeners in the academy return to tending their garden, prune the diseased sport of post modern theory from all but a few specimens necessary to provide context in our measurement of progress, and get on with the job of studying and learning and teaching what is and what we imagine.
[Sandhill Trek: A Public Space for Self Expression]
2:06:43 PM
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Regarding my earlier post about the piece RIAA/MPAA make Edison's mistakes: I think it is important to point out that there are two parts to owning ones music, well actually three....
1. The Master recording
2. The Publishing portion
3. The Writing portion
With most recording contracts the record company advances the money and owns the recording, even though the advance is paid back by the artist - that's why the average contract is over 70 pages long. For most artists this is the only option available to them, especially at the beginning of their career. Some artists pay for the recording themselves and license the master to the record company. David Bowie and the Stones have been doing this for a long time. I did this with In the Arms of Love and The Santa Fe Sessions.
Publishing is different. Somebody has to administer your publishing. Either you pay 10-20% for administration or you give up 50% for an advance, which depending on the artist can be quite large. Funny things about publishing is that if you sign away 50% for the cash you will never get that 50% back, even after you have paid back the advance. A publishing contract is usually for a certain number of albums or songs and those songs remain under control of the publisher forever.
The publishing portion is equal to the writing portion, i.e. pays the same amount. That means that if you have signed away 50% of your publishing you have given away 25% of your income from writing a song.
You could say that if the artist doesn't like the contract they shouldn't sign it. I would answer that artists don't usually like dealing with this sort of thing in the first place, are usually not particularly knowledgeable about the matter, and most of the time one doesn't have much of a choice, especially at the beginning of one's career. At last one is offered a 70 page recording contract...it's all standard procedure say the manager and attorney....etc. etc.
It is usually after being in the business for a while that artists slowly learn about these things and start fighting. [Ottmar Liebert]
12:37:56 PM
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Beautiful. I am not usually a big fan of rap, although I do like MC Solaar, the poetic French rapper. But I think it is very cool that Snoop did his last video (Windows Media) in Brazil and even used some brazilian drumming....No bling-bling and no $400,000 Bentley in the video! Maybe Snoop is starting a new global era of american rapping. I mean how much gold and diamonds and cars and stuff can you cram into a video and how boring is that by now. If you had tons of money, would you spend it on more cars and more jewelry or would you travel and see the world? Kudos to Snoop for doing something different! Is Snoop the new Paul Simon?
[Ottmar Liebert]
12:31:12 PM
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Killer View of Fuji. In 1984 Miguel Arboleda (Laughing~Knees) took an astonishing photograph of Fuji. This is a once-in-a-lifetime view, and a kick-ass first... [Antipixel - Excerpts]
12:48:49 AM
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© Copyright 2009 Gary Santoro.
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The art of Alex Ross. Amazing. 
