Glimmer Spotlight 1
Mar. 8th, 2015 07:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
koganbotI've been wanting to comment on an ever-increasing number of Mark Sinker posts, especially this on Freaky Trigger where he continues a convo (prior installment here) that, among other things, draws on my hallway-classroom metaphor. Here's a preliminary map (or something) of how I might start responding, when I get the chance.*
1. I'll start with the question, "What would Mark say that he's saying here?" although, in order for this to be an exercise in understanding rather than typing, I'll try wherever possible to avoid using the words he uses.
Or you should try, if you want to anticipate me in taking a shot at it. Also, "saying" is a generic here that includes "doing."
2. You can walk and chew gum at the same time.
In other words, if I say or do A, that doesn't necessarily mean I'm not also saying or doing B, C, D, E, and F, including some K's and L's and M's I'm unaware of.
3. A special instance of the principle "You can walk and chew gum at the same time" is my attack on the hallway-classroom split.
The split goes, in the hallway you talk to and about each other; in the classroom you talk about some third thing: the subject matter. My claim is that good rock critics don't buy into this divide, so they refuse to honor the boundary between hallway and classroom.
4. I'm an alienation addict.
Notes:
(1) Further, I'll allow myself, if I want, to state what I think are Mark's conscious unstated assumptions — unstated (I think) because he thought they went without saying, or he didn't have space for them, or he thought spelling them out would be a distraction, etc. In any event, these should be assumptions that I believe he'd agree were indeed his assumptions, and they shouldn't be assumptions that he was only half aware of or fell into unconsciously and unwillingly.
I'm also way more likely, at least at first, to ruminate on the question rather than try to answer it.
(2) I also call this the MORE IS MORE principle. I think this principle is Mark's as much as mine, but it seems to me that many of Mark's apparent worries in these two pieces, particularly regarding constraints, would evaporate if he would stop forgetting this principle. In any event, "you can walk and chew gum at the same time" was a trope of mine throughout the early iteration of my fanzine Why Music Sucks (issues 1 through 7, 1987 through 1991), and you could say it's an underlying method of my and Mark's writing, to do as much as we can, at once...
(3) ...though with the drawback that, while we're piling so much in and on top of everything, points that desperately need highlighting can get lost. In any event, my idea of the hallway-classroom split (which I'll reiterate, is a split I do not buy into) is a deliberate simplification of reality (e.g., of what goes on in actual hallways and classrooms, and btw, according to my metaphor, anything in the world that isn't a classroom is a hallway), and what I wrote above in point 3 is a deliberate simplification of my metaphor. But the simplification is necessary as well as deliberate, in that I think you need to understand my idea — how much the split is in effect, and why it needs to be attacked — to understand yourself and your world. And strangely enough, most everybody gets the core idea a bit wrong, hence the bold AND italics. Here it is again:
Hallway = talk to and about each other
Classroom = talk about some third thing: the subject matter
Good intellectuals don't honor the boundary between hallway and classroom.**
That the metaphor means this doesn't imply that it doesn't also mean a whole hunk of other things, as well. It too can walk and chew gum at once.
For a sense of what I mean by "to and about each other," here are a couple excerpts from the Smash Hits (Australia) letter pages circa 1990***:
**This is a simplification too. Can't say it's essential that, to be a good intellectual, a mathematician (for instance) must act out and display her hairstyle.
***I quoted these in issue 6 of one of my fanzines, Why Music Sucks, though at this point I was so pissed off at my readers that, in an attempt to start over, I'd drastically changed the name (this issue was called Chelsea Bailey's House Of Fun a.k.a. Mildred #6) and had appointed Kylie Minogue's Bra-Strap as editor. I didn't really work out my hallway-classroom metaphor until a couple of months later, in letters to Robert Christgau and Simon Frith, and first expounded it in public in Why Music Sucks #7 in early '91.
Here from the early '00s is what's kind of the canonical write-up of the split (same link as above).
(4) Addicted to alienation: This means, among other things, that I despair of ever genuinely communicating with and understanding others, and of being understood, and that I find this despair far too familiar — so, though it's not at all comforting, it's not as scary as hope is. Therefore, I know enough to find it — alienation, despair — very dangerous. Don't know if I'll elaborate on this or not. It's there.
*Posting here on my lj since I don't know if Freaky Trigger has fixed its spam filter problems, which had been delaying the posting of comments on old threads.
1. I'll start with the question, "What would Mark say that he's saying here?" although, in order for this to be an exercise in understanding rather than typing, I'll try wherever possible to avoid using the words he uses.
Or you should try, if you want to anticipate me in taking a shot at it. Also, "saying" is a generic here that includes "doing."
2. You can walk and chew gum at the same time.
In other words, if I say or do A, that doesn't necessarily mean I'm not also saying or doing B, C, D, E, and F, including some K's and L's and M's I'm unaware of.
3. A special instance of the principle "You can walk and chew gum at the same time" is my attack on the hallway-classroom split.
The split goes, in the hallway you talk to and about each other; in the classroom you talk about some third thing: the subject matter. My claim is that good rock critics don't buy into this divide, so they refuse to honor the boundary between hallway and classroom.
4. I'm an alienation addict.
Notes:
(1) Further, I'll allow myself, if I want, to state what I think are Mark's conscious unstated assumptions — unstated (I think) because he thought they went without saying, or he didn't have space for them, or he thought spelling them out would be a distraction, etc. In any event, these should be assumptions that I believe he'd agree were indeed his assumptions, and they shouldn't be assumptions that he was only half aware of or fell into unconsciously and unwillingly.
I'm also way more likely, at least at first, to ruminate on the question rather than try to answer it.
(2) I also call this the MORE IS MORE principle. I think this principle is Mark's as much as mine, but it seems to me that many of Mark's apparent worries in these two pieces, particularly regarding constraints, would evaporate if he would stop forgetting this principle. In any event, "you can walk and chew gum at the same time" was a trope of mine throughout the early iteration of my fanzine Why Music Sucks (issues 1 through 7, 1987 through 1991), and you could say it's an underlying method of my and Mark's writing, to do as much as we can, at once...
(3) ...though with the drawback that, while we're piling so much in and on top of everything, points that desperately need highlighting can get lost. In any event, my idea of the hallway-classroom split (which I'll reiterate, is a split I do not buy into) is a deliberate simplification of reality (e.g., of what goes on in actual hallways and classrooms, and btw, according to my metaphor, anything in the world that isn't a classroom is a hallway), and what I wrote above in point 3 is a deliberate simplification of my metaphor. But the simplification is necessary as well as deliberate, in that I think you need to understand my idea — how much the split is in effect, and why it needs to be attacked — to understand yourself and your world. And strangely enough, most everybody gets the core idea a bit wrong, hence the bold AND italics. Here it is again:
Hallway = talk to and about each other
Classroom = talk about some third thing: the subject matter
Good intellectuals don't honor the boundary between hallway and classroom.**
That the metaphor means this doesn't imply that it doesn't also mean a whole hunk of other things, as well. It too can walk and chew gum at once.
For a sense of what I mean by "to and about each other," here are a couple excerpts from the Smash Hits (Australia) letter pages circa 1990***:
"Calling all gorgeous guys on Earth who are 14 or older. We are two 15 year old chicks who are absolutely in love with Guns N' Roses, Mötley Crüe, Bon Jovi, Poison, and stax more! Interested?"Oh, and since I'm off on my lj rather than in Freaky Trigger, I'll probably elaborate on hallway-classroom before I get around to examining the question I claimed I was starting with, about what Mark would say Mark is saying. Right now we're dealing with what Frank would say Frank is saying.
"I'm sick of it! Once again I was game enough to wear my Bon Jovi badge to school and what do I get for it? A black eye. I'm sick of people always saying that Jon Bon Jovi has AIDS; they know it's not true but they say it just to shit people up the wall. So to all you terrorists out there, I think you're jealous because you're not as good looking or popular as him!"
**This is a simplification too. Can't say it's essential that, to be a good intellectual, a mathematician (for instance) must act out and display her hairstyle.
***I quoted these in issue 6 of one of my fanzines, Why Music Sucks, though at this point I was so pissed off at my readers that, in an attempt to start over, I'd drastically changed the name (this issue was called Chelsea Bailey's House Of Fun a.k.a. Mildred #6) and had appointed Kylie Minogue's Bra-Strap as editor. I didn't really work out my hallway-classroom metaphor until a couple of months later, in letters to Robert Christgau and Simon Frith, and first expounded it in public in Why Music Sucks #7 in early '91.
Here from the early '00s is what's kind of the canonical write-up of the split (same link as above).
(4) Addicted to alienation: This means, among other things, that I despair of ever genuinely communicating with and understanding others, and of being understood, and that I find this despair far too familiar — so, though it's not at all comforting, it's not as scary as hope is. Therefore, I know enough to find it — alienation, despair — very dangerous. Don't know if I'll elaborate on this or not. It's there.
*Posting here on my lj since I don't know if Freaky Trigger has fixed its spam filter problems, which had been delaying the posting of comments on old threads.
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no subject
Date: 2015-03-09 06:02 pm (UTC)freaky trigger's comments system has righted itself somewhat, though it can still be cranky or slow -- and now and then it will accuse you of posting too quickly* and not let a comment through :)
*this hardly ever seems to be the case
Tierless nocturnal creature watch, part 94
Date: 2015-03-26 08:29 pm (UTC)Meanwhile, Minx fans are saying Minx will comeback in mid-May, because Dal Shabet will release a delayed mini-album on 15th April and Minx were supposed to comeback after that.