The beats, the business model, the moon, and the stars

I really like this post by Jonathan Bradley about distinguishing genres by sound versus distinguishing them by culture. This was my response (I was fundamentally saying that the two interweave - sound is culture - and that the direction of his argument wasn't against using sound as a criterion but against reducing one's criteria to sound):

( The beats, the business model, the moon, and the stars )

I also linked Wittgenstein excerpts about family resemblance and the ilX discussion of Superwords as both being crucially useful tools in understanding this issue. (The ilX thread didn't start off about Superwords, and when it got there the topic was just one among many, so you have to search "superword" and then keep searching.)

Grapefruit Yogurt

Today:

--I ate the tastiest grapefruit I've ever had in my life. The label says "California Ruby Red," which doesn't tell me who grew it.

--Am listening to Cold Flamez "Kiss Me Miss Me Lick Me" ("Thanks for the sex, it was great, I admit it"), while reading Jeff Weiss's jerkin' story in August 6th's L.A. Weekly ("We're Jerkin' (starring the New Boyz, J-Hawk, and Pink Dollaz)").

--Finally reading Sam Ubl's term paper on Robert Christgau.

--Sampling Jonathan Bradley's blogs: here and here and here (he writes about Vanessa Carlton's "Nolita Fairytale"!) and here.

--Will Buffy, if I have time.

EDIT: I also like this comment of mine to Jonathan's post here:

Well, I think societies also share - if that's the right word - conflicts and arguments and misunderstandings. E.g., black-white relations can play a large role in a society, but a factor in that relationship is that people often don't share meanings (and sometimes even shape their meanings to be misunderstood by others of a different class or social group). But our noticing some particular, characteristic misunderstandings in one society might be one way we distinguish that society from other societies, that are shaped by different misunderstandings.