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Zorn List Digest       Saturday, March 23 2002       Volume 03 : Number 848



In this issue:
-
       Re: hip hop
       them crazy opera singers
       Re: How Come? INSTANT POLL
       Re: How Come?
       Previte plus
       Re: How Come?
       Re: Joseph and John
       Re: How Come?
       RE: radical jewish culture and other favorite Z-list topics
       Re: How Come?
       Re: radical jewish culture and other favorite Z-list topics
       Re: radical jewish culture and other favorite Z-list topics
       Re: radical jewish culture and other favorite Z-list topics

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 12:07:42 -0600
From: Matthew Ross Davis <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: hip hop

and i'm not even sure i'd make the assumption to begin with

skip Heller([e-mail])@Wed, Mar 20, 2002 at 01:06:44PM -0800:
> on 3/20/02 1:01 PM, [e-mail] at [e-mail]
> wrote:
>
> > I doubt that Dr. Dre even knows who John Cage is.
> >
> > -
> >
> ... and somehow I would never count this against him.
>
> skip h
>
>
> -

- -

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 11:00:05 -0800
From: "gorilla thing" <[e-mail]>
Subject: them crazy opera singers

not to interrupt the fascinating debate:
but are there any opera singers doing
some cutting edge crazy freaky music?

- -Chad

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- -

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 13:59:41 -0600
From: Joseph Zitt <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: How Come? INSTANT POLL

On Sat, Mar 23, 2002 at 12:48:01AM -0800, Jim Flannery wrote:
> If this thread had a soundtrack, would it be ...
>
> a) Cale/Riley, "The Hall of Mirrors in the Temple of Versailles"
> b) Country Joe & the Fish, "Here We Go Again"
> c) Flipper, "Brainwash"

d) Alvin Lucier, "I am Sitting in a Room"

- --
| [e-mail]           http://www.metatronpress.com/jzitt |
| New book: Surprise Me with Beauty: the Music of Human Systems        |
|                            http://www.metatronpress.com/nj/smwb.html |
| Latest CDs: Collaborations/ All Souls  http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt |
| Comma: Voices of New Music    Silence: the John Cage Discussion List |


- -

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 14:00:51 -0600
From: Joseph Zitt <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: How Come?

On Sat, Mar 23, 2002 at 01:12:04AM -0800, john schuller wrote:

> Try again. I have a lot of time this weekend.

No need. Your rhetoric has collapsed.

- --
| [e-mail]           http://www.metatronpress.com/jzitt |
| New book: Surprise Me with Beauty: the Music of Human Systems        |
|                            http://www.metatronpress.com/nj/smwb.html |
| Latest CDs: Collaborations/ All Souls  http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt |
| Comma: Voices of New Music    Silence: the John Cage Discussion List |


- -

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 14:19:45 -0500
From: "Alan Kayser" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Previte plus

Marcin wrote


"If slay the suitors is by empty suitsm then its enja counterpart, titled
empty suits, isn't the best thisng he's done neither. I think that the
firsyt two 'weather clear...' cds were his peak. But i'm looking forward tho
hear 'miro'."

SLAY THE SUITORS is on Avant, and seems to be a stripped down version of the
band used on EMPTY SUITS, which is on Gramavision.  SLAY THE SUITORS does
not claim to be by the Empty Suits band.  Neither one is on Enja, though.

MIRO is something very special, totally unique.

BTW, I agree with those who are quite put off by the bickering between
Joseph and John.  Enough is enough.  Please do this arguing off line.

Alan E Kayser




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- -

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 11:20:05 -0800
From: "john schuller" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: How Come?

No my friend. I do believe that you have just collapsed. You have failed to
answer any of my questions. I think you have now proved yourself for what
you are and are not.

Looks like I am now done with you.

And the soundtrack to this debate was Flipper's Brainwashed with the
lockgroove ending and everything.


>From: Joseph Zitt <[e-mail]>
>To: john schuller <[e-mail]>
>CC: [e-mail]
>Subject: Re: How Come?
>Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 14:00:51 -0600
>
>On Sat, Mar 23, 2002 at 01:12:04AM -0800, john schuller wrote:
>
> > Try again. I have a lot of time this weekend.
>
>No need. Your rhetoric has collapsed.
>
>--
>| [e-mail]           http://www.metatronpress.com/jzitt |
>| New book: Surprise Me with Beauty: the Music of Human Systems        |
>|                            http://www.metatronpress.com/nj/smwb.html |
>| Latest CDs: Collaborations/ All Souls  http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt |
>| Comma: Voices of New Music    Silence: the John Cage Discussion List |
>




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<DIV> </DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></html>


_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.


- -

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 14:47:49 -0600
From: Joseph Zitt <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Joseph and John

On Sat, Mar 23, 2002 at 11:23:46AM -0000, Iain Kitt wrote:
> Am I the only person finding Joseph and John's exchanges are  becoming
> increasingly tiresome?

I certainly am.

- --
| [e-mail]           http://www.metatronpress.com/jzitt |
| New book: Surprise Me with Beauty: the Music of Human Systems        |
|                            http://www.metatronpress.com/nj/smwb.html |
| Latest CDs: Collaborations/ All Souls  http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt |
| Comma: Voices of New Music    Silence: the John Cage Discussion List |


- -

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 15:11:09 -0500
From: "Carl Bayard" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: How Come?

this entire exchange is beginning to remind me of Woody Allen's classic
"Gossage-Varabedian Papers", where two guys play a confused correspondance
chess match...

minus the humour, of course...

- ----- Original Message -----
From: "john schuller" <[e-mail]>
To: <[e-mail]>
Cc: <[e-mail]>
Sent: Saturday, March 23, 2002 2:20 PM
Subject: Re: How Come?


> No my friend. I do believe that you have just collapsed. You have failed
to
> answer any of my questions. I think you have now proved yourself for what
> you are and are not.
>
> Looks like I am now done with you.
>
> And the soundtrack to this debate was Flipper's Brainwashed with the
> lockgroove ending and everything.
>
>
> >From: Joseph Zitt <[e-mail]>
> >To: john schuller <[e-mail]>
> >CC: [e-mail]
> >Subject: Re: How Come?
> >Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 14:00:51 -0600
> >
> >On Sat, Mar 23, 2002 at 01:12:04AM -0800, john schuller wrote:
> >
> > > Try again. I have a lot of time this weekend.
> >
> >No need. Your rhetoric has collapsed.
> >
> >--
> >| [e-mail]           http://www.metatronpress.com/jzitt |
> >| New book: Surprise Me with Beauty: the Music of Human Systems        |
> >|                            http://www.metatronpress.com/nj/smwb.html |
> >| Latest CDs: Collaborations/ All Souls  http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt |
> >| Comma: Voices of New Music    Silence: the John Cage Discussion List |
> >
>
>
>
>
> <html><DIV>
> <DIV>
> <DIV>
> <DIV>
> <DIV>
> <DIV>
> <DIV>
> <DIV> </DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></html>
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at
http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.
>
>
> -
>
>


- -

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 20:31:34 +0000
From: "Bill Ashline" <[e-mail]>
Subject: RE: radical jewish culture and other favorite Z-list topics

>From: "Steve Smith" <[e-mail]>

>According to a Lewis Lapham essay in a recent issue of Harpers, it seems to
>me that most public intellectuals now view it as their sole remaining
>option/duty to go off and hold tony, erudite gatherings at which to
>complain
>to one another that no one else listens to them anymore.

Lapham's probably right, at least in terms of what gets configured as
"public intellectual" these days, though I'd hardly consider him to be one
himself.  I mean, the guy actually did state this:

And President Clinton? "A godsend, because he's like a pi±ata. I mean every
conceivable kind of story comes out of him -- heartwarming flood-victim
stories; Monica Lewinsky stories; bankrupt, seething corruption stories; the
failed marriage, the rescued marriage, the lovely dog. It's almost as if he
was hired to be the paid entertainment."

But confirming what I wrote earlier he did note this:

"When I first came to New York in the '60s, I could afford to, even on a
newspaper reporter's salary, live on the Upper East Side," Lapham recalls.
"But the kids that are now working for Harper's magazine cannot. They have
to live in Brooklyn or they have to live in Hoboken."  Hoboken. Horrors. It
worries me that the literary and journalism professions may soon be overrun
by wealthy children, I tell him. "Entry-level publishing jobs -- working for
Random House, for example -- pay $24,000 a year," I say. "What young person
can afford to go into that?"  "You have to be a fairly hard-bitten idealist,
or you have to have an indulgent parent, or you have to have a trust fund.
And there are some hard-bitten idealists. We have several of them working
for Harper's magazine -- kids that are making $24,000 and have no other
visible means of support. But it's a small number."

>
>The average American most likely thinks Charlie Rose is an intellectual.
>Certainly Terry Gross, if they get that far towards the left of the dial.

Or the guys on Crossfire.  Or Stephen Segal (because of that eastern thing).
  Or Sting.  One of the successes of the American system--keep people so
distracted by their jobs and technology so that they no longer have any
tangible idea of what the word "intellectual" means any more, their own
intellectual life falling by the wayside as a result.


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- -

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 12:55:40 -0800
From: "s~Z" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: How Come?

>>>I take it you are a Skinnerian...<<<

I'm not much of anyian, but got tipped off to the thought of
Advaita and Ramesh Balsekar by Leonard Cohen in a recent online
chat. Reading Balsekar's take on Advaita has confirmed a lot of
things I've thought over the years, but have not had the fortitude
to admit I believed. In the context of Advaita this discussion of
choice is hilarious.

>>> Isn't it choice for "me" to investigate it deeply or not?<<<

Sure as hell feels like a choice doesn't it?




- -

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 21:25:11 +0000
From: "Bill Ashline" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: radical jewish culture and other favorite Z-list topics

>From: skip Heller <[e-mail]>

>Woody Allen, during his mortality soliliquy in HANNAH AND HER SISTERS, said
>(paraphrasing like mad), "All these great minds and, in the end, none of
>them has any more answers than I do".  It's true -- you can read all the
>books you want on philsophy, religion etc, but it's all speculation in the
>end.

The life of the mind is the answer--in and of itself, with no reduction to
use-value and no demand for application or "relevance."  Without a capacity
to think, we can't see whether we are the effects of social and political
stasis or potential movers of change.

>
>That a lot of educated people who have read the endless speculation does
>not
>make their opinions worthier or more important than those of Americans who
>drive busses.

But if we had a viable public intellectual culture, we might value bus
drivers for something more than just driving buses.  And bus drivers might
see themselves as something more as well.  Scratch the surface and maybe
that bus driver knows his Plato backwards and forwards or keeps meticulous
discographies of John Zorn.  We might stop reducing people to what they "do"
rather than who they are.

>There was a time in American history where intellectuals were
>celebrated for their intellectualness (espec in the atomic-age 50s, when TV
>latched onto these guys as technological purveyors of the better life just
>before us in the future).  But, in the end, they didn't help Americans to
>become better-educated as a nation, nor did most of them manage to make
>their thoughts compelling to a larger group of people than the people who
>already had those kinds of thoughts (sorry for such an awkward sentence).

It wasn't the fault of the intellectuals that Americans lost interest in
reading.  That itself was an effect of technology that served the status quo
quite well.  The politicians have talked a lot lately about education.  But
they care not one wit about it.  They don't want an educated public capable
of making decisions about public life.  They want public educated enough to
handle the machinery of corporate life, and that's it.  An "instrumental"
education, if you will.  If you're an educator, you worry about things like
the loss of a sense of history, of interest and concern about current
events, political awareness, literary and philosophical broadmindedness,
etc.  The contributions of people like Edmond Wilson, C. Wright Mills, and
Dwight MacDonald were just as important to American cultural life as those
of Dave Brubeck or Miles Davis.  The contributions of Alex Cockburn, Edward
Said, Noam Chomsky, and Cornel West today are every bit as significant and
more than those of John Zorn and Cecil Taylor.  Whether we decide to pay
attention or not can have everything to do with whether we find our
aesthetic sustenance in Brittany Spears rather than Johnny 'Guitar' Watson
or nutritional sustenance in Cocoa Pops rather than meusli, or Tom Brokaw
rather than Amy Goodman.

>I find it difficult to decry the decline of the public profile of these
>people.  Call me nuts.  I find it sadder -- and more destructive to
>America's self-respect -- when athletes behave like huns (on and off the
>field/court/ring) and make more money than the dignified pros Ali, Aaron,
>and Kareem put together.

I find it sadder and more destructive to America's respect, self and
otherwise, that anyone, including myself, bothers to pay any attention or
who worships someone who can handle a ball better than one who can handle a
classroom and is paid accordingly.  That and no one even bothers to yell
"obscenity!"




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- -

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 17:08:19 -0500
From: Mike Chamberlain <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: radical jewish culture and other favorite Z-list topics

on 3/23/02 4:25 PM, Bill Ashline at [e-mail] wrote:


>
> I find it sadder and more destructive to America's respect, self and
> otherwise, that anyone, including myself, bothers to pay any attention or
> who worships someone who can handle a ball better than one who can handle a
> classroom and is paid accordingly.  That and no one even bothers to yell
> "obscenity!"
>
Biil,  I think I know what you mean, but the "who" before "worships"
confuses the issue.

Apart from the fact that teachers and nurses are not well-paid (I'm a
teacher, so you might want to throw that out as a self-serving argument
before you examine my income tax statement), there's obscenity in the fact
that a farmer with hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in land and
equipment is paid less per box of Wheaties than Tiger Woods is.  Or that
Britney Spears--and I know whereof I speak, as I have a 12-year-old
daughter--makes far more money and gets far more attention than, say, Mark
Dresser.

- --Mike


- -

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 14:34:38 -0800
From: skip Heller <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: radical jewish culture and other favorite Z-list topics

on 3/23/02 1:25 PM, Bill Ashline at [e-mail] wrote:


> The life of the mind is the answer--in and of itself, with no reduction to
> use-value and no demand for application or "relevance."  Without a capacity
> to think, we can't see whether we are the effects of social and political
> stasis or potential movers of change.

I think different people have a different notion of what constitutes the
life of the mind.  For some, like my father, mechanical things formed the
basis of his personal philsophy.  It was a challenge to which he is quite
well-suited, and the stuff in which he finds stimulation largely has to do
with engines and motor design.  He has little use for books about theology.
That's the lifestyle of his mind.  That's the thing to which he brings his
intellect.  To me, that stuff is completely foreign.  I have no talent for
it.  But he's down with it, and can deal with the most advanced aspects of
it.   And if you ask him who has been an important proponent of cultural
change in the last century, he ain't naming Cornel West.  He'd probably say
someone like Virgil Exner.  And, given the lifestyle his mind adopts, he's
copmpletely right.  Exner was a total mover that way.  But how you see it is
largely through what color your glasses are.

> But if we had a viable public intellectual culture, we might value bus
> drivers for something more than just driving buses.  And bus drivers might
> see themselves as something more as well.  Scratch the surface and maybe
> that bus driver knows his Plato backwards and forwards or keeps meticulous
> discographies of John Zorn.  We might stop reducing people to what they "do"
> rather than who they are.
>
Whether or not there is a "viable public intellectual culture", the stuff
that bus drivers know is often interesting and useful.  BTW -- I used a bus
driver as an example because my father is one, and I know how much stuff he
knows.  I also know that relatively few people (away fr the ruling class)
look down their noses at bus drivers.  We weren't at all socially
stigmatized by his profession (but then, I grew up around factory workers).
I know my father and his friends never saw themselves as defined by their
job titles, and I have no reason to believe these guys were unique in that
respect.
>
> It wasn't the fault of the intellectuals that Americans lost interest in
> reading.  That itself was an effect of technology that served the status quo
> quite well.  The politicians have talked a lot lately about education.  But
> they care not one wit about it.  They don't want an educated public capable
> of making decisions about public life.  They want public educated enough to
> handle the machinery of corporate life, and that's it.  An "instrumental"
> education, if you will.  If you're an educator, you worry about things like
> the loss of a sense of history, of interest and concern about current
> events, political awareness, literary and philosophical broadmindedness,
> etc.  The contributions of people like Edmond Wilson, C. Wright Mills, and
> Dwight MacDonald were just as important to American cultural life as those
> of Dave Brubeck or Miles Davis.  The contributions of Alex Cockburn, Edward
> Said, Noam Chomsky, and Cornel West today are every bit as significant and
> more than those of John Zorn and Cecil Taylor.  Whether we decide to pay
> attention or not can have everything to do with whether we find our
> aesthetic sustenance in Brittany Spears rather than Johnny 'Guitar' Watson
> or nutritional sustenance in Cocoa Pops rather than meusli, or Tom Brokaw
> rather than Amy Goodman.
>
Most Americans don't find any of these people very signifigant.  It does
mean they're not worthy.  The systematic dumbing down of Americans (if they
don't read, they have no idea how horribly their country is run, and
therefore are not motivated to vote) has kept most of these people out of
the sort of public limelight that leads to celebrity (reknown, whatever you
call it).  But most Americans agree to it, and, often when I meet teachers,
I am appalled at who gets certified.  On the other hand, there's no armed
guard keeping anyone out of the library.  I spent a lot of time there, and I
don't think of myself as in any way remarkable.  As for what constitutes
American cultural life, the culture generally reflects the interests of the
people within it.  More people crave JLo than JZo.  I think Zorn knew that
going in, and he certainly seems to accept it.  As my favorite journalist,
Nick Tosches said, every country gets the entertainment it deserves.
>
> I find it sadder and more destructive to America's respect, self and
> otherwise, that anyone, including myself, bothers to pay any attention or
> who worships someone who can handle a ball better than one who can handle a
> classroom and is paid accordingly.  That and no one even bothers to yell
> "obscenity!"
>
Well, that's your cross to bear.  I get the feeling you hate the notion of
sports as a rule somehow.  Personally, the last real philsophical crisis I
faced was last yr when my home team (Lakers) was up against my hometown team
(76ers).  And don't get me started on boxing.

skip h


- -

------------------------------

End of Zorn List Digest V3 #848
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