The Problems of Canonization

In 1994, scholar Harold Bloom proposed the idea of a literary "Western Canon," a collection of works that he deemed to be under fire by a so-called "school of resentment" represented by scholars who criticized the hegemony of classical European literature. Bloom's selection of works were ones that he considered to be important solely for their aesthetic qualities, rather than their social aspects. Bloom's ideas are what Taylor would likely describe as representative of modernist ideas of aesthetics; namely, that art should exist for art's sake, for nothing else other than beauty. The fact that Bloom chose to only label western works as being beautiful is on the surface entirely antithetical to the idea that social factors have nothing to do with aesthetics, but, as scholar Timothy D. Taylor shows, the viewing of western works as the most beautiful and aesthetically perfect is entirely consistent with the modernist view of aesthetics, which Taylor argues "strips everything of history, culture, and the social." Indeed, Bloom's views that European art forms are under attack are views that entirely ignore the history of colonialism, which put said western works on a pedestal in the first place. It is not at all surprising that Bloom is an incredibly controversial figure, and that he is viewed as an elitist by many. But even if Bloom had never materialized his reactionary views into words, the idea of a literary canon has undoubtedly existed as long as the study of western literature has. I am certainly not the first person to notice similarities between academic ideas of literary canons and contemporary ideas of musical canons. For example, music critic Jim DeRogatis made a comparison between Bloom's western canon and contemporary music canons in his book Kill Your Idols, which is largely a criticism of commonly accepted musical canons. DeRogatis notes the connection between canons and nostalgia, arguing that the negative effects of nostalgia are often what inspire the creation of canons (this argument could be applied to Bloom's canon as well). However, rather than using this argument to attack canons of traditional "European music," as many other authors have, DeRogatis applies this argument to canons of rock music, which he sees as entirely antithetical to a musical form that was originally rebellious. DeRogatis argues in Kill Your Idols that nostalgia for the 60s among baby boomers has led to the creation of a rock music canon, which includes artists such as The Beatles, The Beach Boys, and The Rolling Stones, and that such a canon is just as elitist as Bloom's western canon or other scholars' notions of a European music canon. Just to provide some more context, DeRogatis's argument is basically that the unofficial rock music canon as viewed by many people consists of "classic rock" bands from the 60s and 70s who were involved in some way in the hippie movement (indeed, the very term "classic rock" itself conveys the idea of a canon). When analyzing both the "European music" canon and the aforementioned rock music canon we can see many similarities. In fact, the rock music canon that DeRogatis describes and attacks is largely a European music canon, as bands such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, and Led Zeppelin are generally viewed as the most "aesthetically perfect" bands of this canon. Furthermore, in both examples of canons we can see how hegemonic these notions truly are, and how canons are used to serve dominant social groups. With some notable exceptions (Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Carlos Santana), members of the classic rock canon are generally white men, as are members of the traditional "European music" canon. It could even be argued that the rock music canon is even more problematic, since much of its repertoire is derived from African American musical forms, especially in the case of Led Zeppelin, who actually covered songs by African American musicians on their albums and credited themselves as the songwriters (I'll save my rants on Led Zeppelin for another time though). But on the other hand, as Taylor notes, many romantic composers derived their works from Other musical styles as well. So the European music canon and the rock music canon really aren't a whole lot different. I'd like to apply this argument to a quote from scholar Philip Tagg that references Jimi Hendrix. Specifically, Tagg mentions the idea of how many music scholars would "laugh when you propose a Jimi Hendrix memorial guitar scholarship or suggest a series of workshops on the accordion… or try to start a course in Country and Western ensemble playing," but then goes on to say that "quite a few white European fans of ‘Afro-American music’ reading these lines would probably approve of the Jimi Hendrix scholarship but feel less sympathy for the accordion or C&W ideas…. [This] means that the most ironical effect of the twisted view of European music has been to perpetuate the rules of a ‘better-than-thou’ game in the field of musical aesthetics, so that even those of us trying to beat the ancien [sic] regime actually end up by playing the same game as our rivals, instead of changing the rules or moving to another sport altogether." While Hendrix does stand in contrast to the mostly white rock music canon, this quote still illustrates how "classic rock" has been canonized and how this is just as hegemonic as canonizing classical or romantic music. While many people who do canonize rock music probably think that they are rebelling against hegemony, in the process they are simply creating a new form of it. This is especially true since, as stated before, members of the rock music canon are largely white. True, the canon does include Jimi Hendrix, but he is definitely an exception. Can anyone think of any other black musicians who are frequently labeled "classic rock?" None of my friends could when I asked them, and I can think of way more examples of white people who are. There is one point of disagreement I have with the above quote, but I also think that if Tagg wrote this article today instead of in 1989 he would have written it differently. Specifically, I would like to argue that while Tagg puts country music in opposition to classical music and classic rock, recently a canon of country music has been emerging. Many contemporary musical elitists are beginning to put country music onto a pedestal, just like people did with rock music before. In fact, the people who are currently creating a country music canon probably think they are doing so as a rebellious act as well. If you don't believe my argument about country music, I'll just mention that I work as a monitor in the music building at my school and one of the genres I hear the most is bluegrass, played by students presumably because of its perceived authenticity. While the creators of this country music canon may have rebellious intentions, just as the baby boomers did before them, we can see from the latter example that canons are inherently un-rebellious, since instead of dismantling cultural norms they simply change them slightly.

Awesome Song Of The Week! "Walk The World Away" by Teddy Brown

It's Thursday afternoon. You're probably done with classes/work by now and ready to kick back with some awesome music. That's why it's time for

AWESOME SONG OF THE WEEK!!!

This week's awesome song is "Walk The World Away" by Teddy Brown. A terrific example of Jamaican R&B, this is a song that catches you by surprise, starting out with just some mellow acoustic guitar and eventually transforming into a spectacle of choral vocals, horns, and bombastic drums. This song is as epic as it is beautiful, and while the production is over-the-top to say the least, the melody is exquisitely simple. It's probably the only song out there that reminds me of both energetic Motown singles and chill campfire songs. The lyrics are also great; while a lot of them don't really make sense, they're beautiful in their ambiguity. I've never really been able to understand what exactly this song is about, but this is one song that I've truly been able to relate to more than any other.

Want some background information on Teddy Brown? Me too. I don't know much about Teddy Brown, since I discovered this song on a compilation that didn't give any background information about him. A google search turned up this myspace page for a Jamaican singer named Teddy Brown, who might be the same guy, since the vocal style is pretty similar. But I'm not positive, since "Walk The World Away" appears nowhere on the myspace page, the compilation I found it on didn't have a picture of Teddy Brown, the songs on the myspace page are a really different style then "Walk The World Away," and the biography says Teddy Brown got his start in 1980, even though I think "Walk The World Away" was released before then. Who knows. Just enjoy the song.

Asian Appropriation Alert: The Weapon

Found out from Angry Asian Man that up-and-coming Shia LeBouf-esque Disney channel star David Henrie will be playing an Asian guy in a movie of comic book The Weapon. To quote Angry Asian Man:

"I am not familiar with The Weapon, but from what I've read about it, Tommy Zhou is indeed an Asian character. David Henrie, who I had never even heard of before reading this news item, is not an Asian person. Hooray for Hollywood, you've done it again. That's racist!"

I also have to add that this is another case of something like Keanu Reeves in Cowboy Bebop or that guy from Across the Universe in 21. Even if we're not talking about representation, how could someone who's been compared to Shia LeBouf (is that how you spell his name? I really don't care) truly be the best actor for this part, regardless of race? Especially when the character is written to be a specific race?

Anyway, I'm still amazed by how often this is happening. And it seems like this movie is gonna suck anyway.

Awesome Song Of The Week! "Everything Beautiful is Far Away" by Grandaddy

Sup everyone! It's time for:

AWESOME SONG OF THE WEEK!!!

This week's awesome song is by California indie band Grandaddy and is entitled "Everything Beautiful is Far Away." Yes, the title is absolutely terrible. But give the song a second chance.

When you first start listening to this song, it seems rather unremarkable. The first seven seconds of random electronic noise are probably enough to make most people skip to the next track, and even people who make it a little farther in will probably be unimpressed by the generic indie guitar chords, nasal vocals, and angsty lyrics about an astronaut stranded on a distant planet (because there's never been a song about that before). If you haven't listened to the song yet, or if you only listened to the beginning of it, you may be asking "Jake, how could this possibly be the awesome song of the week?" Keep listening, readers. Keep listening.

Things start to pick up around the end of the second verse (around 0:30), where we have a really hooky melody with some really tight harmony. The second verse is very similar to the first, but with the addition of little electronic flourishes that, in my opinion, add so much to the song. At the end of this verse we have some tight harmonies again, and things are starting to look up.

Around 1:20 you'll realize why this is the awesome song of the week. This song lacks a chorus and instead features a beautiful instrumental part played on the synth that's incredibly layered and beautiful, blending wonderfully with the texture of the drums. Once you've made it to this point, just lay back and let the music wash over you. It's synthesized perfection.

Just for some background info, Grandaddy were an indie rock band from northern California that blended geek rock, synth pop, new wave, and electronic noise into really dense, textured, and incredibly catchy songs. If you've seen 28 Days Later or the TV show Screenwipe, you've heard their most famous song. Grandaddy broke up a few years ago, but released a few awesome albums (Under the Western Freeway and The Sophtware Slump are my favorites), and their lead singer and songwriter Jason Lytle is releasing some solo stuff (which isn't quite as good).

What will the next awesome song be? Check in next week to find out.

Cool Thing Of The Week: Windows 7

So yea, I migrated from XP to Windows 7 (64 bit) today. It took about 2 hours, and so far I have to say that I'm pretty impressed. It's damn snappy, boots up faster than XP ever did, and is full of little touches that become second nature very quickly. I've also got to say that I have had some compatibility issues with some older hardware (an ancient pci ethernet card that stopped being supported in 2006) but a suprisingly pleasant time otherwise. So far I've yet to run into any hiccups or really any issues at all. I'm sure a lot of this has to do with the hardware upgrade - I got 4 GB of ram super cheap over labor day weekend, bringing me to a total of 6 GB. I also installed it on a 10,000 RPM HDD, so you could attribute some of the speed increases to hardware. You could, that is, until I told you that I'm dual booting XP and 7, and that they're both playing nice. For anyone that's ever used a Microsoft OS, that will be a bit of a shock. MS never really liked supporting dual booting all that much, but the 7 installer make it extremely simple. So basically, 7 shows Microsoft doing a lot of things right - a focus on performance, finally accepting that some people might want more than one OS on their system, and far fewer resources consumed than Vista. It's the 98SE/ME/XP saga all over again.

The Atlas of North American English

This is something for all the language nerds out there. It's called the Atlas of North American English, and the coolest feature on it is a map of the United States and Canada that highlights different dialects of English. To view it, click on the link above, then click on "The Dialects of North America," then click "Mapping Features." On this map, North America (excluding Mexico, since it doesn't apply nearly as much, although it still could be interesting), is divided into regions based on the primary dialect spoken in that region. You can click on these regions and then listen to recordings of people from those regions speaking to actually hear these dialectic differences. It's a great way to waste time on the internet (although, admittedly, not everyone will enjoy it).

But there's one major issue I have with this map. Can anyone guess what it is after looking at the map? I'll give you a huge hint: I'm from California.

For some reason, the linguists who designed this map, two of whom are from Pennsylvania, gave New York City its own dialect but only assigned one dialect to THE ENTIRE WESTERN HALF OF THE UNITED STATES. I can tell you that people from Northern California speak differently than people from Southern California. Shit, people from some parts of LA speak differently than people from other parts of LA. Entire studies have been done on the dialects of California and it's a fact that AT LEAST four different dialects exist within California (anyone from there can tell you there are way more). But apparently that's bullshit; I didn't realize that everyone from the western half of the United States speaks exactly the same.

Not to make too big a deal out of it, even though I already am, but this map has a huge bias in favor of the east coast, which is annoying but not all that surprising. Probably the three best linguistics departments in the country (MIT, Harvard, and UMass) are in Massachusetts (which, as a linguistics student, I can say I'm proud to go to school in). But an affect of this is obviously that more attention is going to be paid to east coast dialects in the most prominent studies. And of course the reverse happens as well; the study I cited above was done at UC Santa Barbara, in California. It seems that people only pay attention to the dialects near them, which again makes sense if you think about it; they're the easiest ones to find native speakers for.

Also, I'm over-exaggerating a bit. If you actually listen to the recordings you'll hear tons of different dialects within every region. Still, that map is just a little lazy.

Awesome Song Of The Week! Peace by The Sparta Locals

So I'm back from Japan now and getting back into more of a regular schedule that doesn't involve failing to write a travel blog, so I'm incredibly happy to announce that I'll be starting a new series for The Tartar Sauce!

It's called Awesome Song of the Week! (The exclamation point is part of the title.) Every Thursday I'll be posting a link to a really really awesome song and giving a short writeup about it. Basically, this is a way for readers to hopefully get into some cool new music, and a way for me to flaunt my infinite knowledge of pop music. Wait, did I say "infinite knowledge of pop music"? Because I meant to say "ego." Anyway, these songs are obviously gonna reflect my personal taste, and if you consistently read this then you'll get some idea of what kinds of music I like, but hopefully you'll like some of it too. Also, I'm gonna try and keep the songs on the obscure side, not because I want to brag about how I listen to experimental Japanese new wave, but because I want people who've never heard experimental Japanese new wave to get into it. 

Anyway, here's the first installment! Let's see how it goes.

This week's song is "Peace" by the Sparta Locals. The reason I picked this song for the first installment is because it is, without question, my favorite song of all time. It is a perfect song. Just listen to it:

"Peace" contains everything that makes a good song good: it's upbeat; it's powerful; it's epic; it's got an outstanding melody and a driving rhythm; and it's insanely difficult to play. Seriously, listen to the guitar part after the first chanting part (around 1:30). You hear those really fast notes followed by those descending notes? Notice how there are two guitarists in the band? Well, both guitarists are playing those really fast notes. In fact, they ALTERNATE EACH FUCKING NOTE. The Sparta Locals are SUCH A TIGHT BAND. And the final section of the song that starts at 2:30... what more can I say than that it's absolutely brilliant. That section sounds like all hell is breaking loose and all the music is just exploding into an all consuming abyss. And yet it's still incredibly tight. That's just one thing that makes this song amazing. Also, I'm assuming the lyrics to "Peace" are really good too, because the singer is obviously really passionate about them.

Now just for some background info, the Sparta Locals are a recent Japanese indie/post-punk band who are hugely influenced by Gang of Four. Their overall sound is basically a faster, tighter version of Gang of Four that uses Asian pentatonic scales a lot of the time. They're from Fukuoka originally, but moved to Tokyo to become part of the music scene there. Sadly, the Sparta Locals recently announced that they will be breaking up. But at least they quit while they were ahead. Seriously, all their albums are good.

Now, I know what you may be thinking. "Oh, the pretentious music kid went for the obscure choice first." Yeah, it's true that the Sparta Locals are really fucking obscure. In fact, they're still basically underground in Japan. I only met one person there who had heard of them. But that's not why I picked this song first. As I said, this is my favorite song ever. It's my most played song in iTunes. Listen to it. Like, 500 times. 

On an unrelated note, I'm also planning on starting another series, but it won't be for at least a couple weeks. Until then, it's a secret. Also, I'll probably start doing web clippings too, whenever I have some good ones.

Web Clips for 9/6/09

Well, I thought I wouldn't do web clips anymore, but there's just so many clippy things and snippets I need to share. I suppose I wont make it a daily thing, but weekly or so shouldn't be too intrusive.

I'll be moving back into college so the next couple of days could get busy. Just fyi.

People can be politically silly on craigslist.

This is flying around, it's pretty awesome:


I added social media links to posts on our feed. Should I add them to the site posts as well? They would look similarly unobtrusive. Would people use them? Let me know in the comments, thanks.

Do you suck at TF2? Get a tutor for free at the TF2 mentor project.

A recent Wikipedia survey found that, of the people who edit Wikipedia, only 13% are women. Though troublesome, I'd attribute a lot of it to the geekiness of editing Wikipedia. The survey also found that of Wikipedia readers, 69% are men and 31% are women, which probably also has a lot to do with it.

Hire the voice of Serious Sam, for just a dollar a word. Be sure to click on the samples on the right there. Badass answering machine, anyone?

Man Vs. Door.

Don't Miss Out: GOG.com 1-Year Anniversary Promo

Yea, so I guess we have ourselves a newborn section here what with all of the deals that have been floating around lately (and all of the post titles including the words "don't miss out").

This one is BIG, and fairly well known already, but if you miss it you'll probably feel such powerful regret that you'll kill yourself. So to prevent mass suicide, I feel I must warn as many as possible.

It's pretty simple: GOG.com, the awesome, awesome, awesome digital distribution site for old PC classics, is 1 year old. They're celebrating by making every game in their Interplay catalog buy one, get one free.

For serious guys, simply check any number of games in the catalog they have here (make sure it's an even number) and get them for half price. Thinking about picking up Fallout for just $6? Get Fallout 2 for free. Thinking of diving into the awesome Descent series? Get the entire series for just $6. Already have those games, no worry, there's 33 games on the list. Surely there's at least 2 fantastic games there that you haven't played.

Let's do some math here. That's 4 games for $12, 6 games for $18, 10 games for $30. 10 for $30 is the same as the amazing Steam sale that happened a few weeks ago.

Or just think, for the price of one crappy AAA title ($60) you could have 20 PC classics.

"BUT Backdoorangel!!!11!!!11!11!!! how do I know if these games are good?"

Seriously? did you read Bobbicus' testimonial? The games are also rated by the community, so you can know that these are some of the best games for the best price. Ever.

There's only about 4 days left to grab these games for this price. If you're going back to school, this is your next 2 months of procrastination. If you're not, well, the point is go and buy some sweet games.

My (geeky) Dream Girl

When I meet my dream girl, this is the EXACT conversation we're going to have, told here in the form of a theatrical scene:

(Lights up. ME is on a computer playing StarCraft, WOMAN enters, intruiged)

DREAM GIRL: Hey, what'cha doing?

ME: (Alt+Tabs) Oh it's nothing, nothing.

DREAM GIRL: Oh no no, I'm actually interested in whatever geeky thing you're doing right there.

ME: Oh, um, well, I was, I was playing StarCraft. Trying to, build up resources.

DREAM GIRL: Oh oh, I like StarCraft.

ME: (mumbles) Huh, I'll bet you do.

DREAM GIRL: What was that?

ME: Nothing, nothing. You like StarCraft?

DREAM GIRL: Yea totally! I play it all the time. Looked like you were Protoss. If you've been AFK this long you've probably been nuked or rushed by now.

ME: Crap! (returnes playing) hey yea, thanks.

DREAM GIRL: (pause) Yea. Hey, do you want a Mountain Dew? I have an extra one here.

ME: Hey thanks! I love Mountain Dew!

DREAM GIRL: No problem. Hey, I was wondering, do you want to maybe, play StarCraft with me?

ME: (stops game) Um, yea. Absolutely!

DREAM GIRL: Great! Except, I play a slightly different version if that's OK?

ME: Um , sure, what's different?

DREAM GIRL: Well, I don't want to spoil the details, but it involves (whispers) S-E-X.

ME: S-s-sex? Really?

DREAM GIRL: I can't hold it in any longer! I love you and I want to get married and have sex and play magic and video games and go to E3 and Comic-Con and have more sex all day for the rest of our lives!

ME: Let's do it. (they kiss)

(blackout)

Wiki of the Week: LyricWiki

So you search the internet for such-and-such a song lyrics because you're just not sure whether that singer said "continental grape" or "oriental rape." You click the first link that comes along entitled, "such-and-such a song lyrics" and BAM! You're in one of the sketchiest places on the internet.

HTML banners flash around you, icons blink with links to "download "such-and-such" to your phone as the ringtone!" "Get unlimited access to over 450,000 songs to burn for you happy time!" "Link to this page and make money!" Firefox notifies you that it has just blocked 7...8..9..23 pop-up windows, and prevented the site from installing an add-on.

You glance at the URL bar only to notice the site's domain ends in ".ru." This is bad, very bad.

You panic, quickly select the text that looks like it might be lyrics, and run to your nearest word processor to safely past and read unharmed.

A quick keyword search reveals that it was, in fact, "oriental rape."

It shouldn't be this way, and it doesn't have to be.

LyricWiki is a wiki devoted entirely to song lyrics. They check all of their articles, and they are the most comprehensive lyrics site on the web with over 880,000 pages, so you don't have to worry about them not having what you're looking for. All kidding aside, it's a truly great resource.

LyricWiki actually made headlines a little while ago, when the big music industry publishers forced LyricWiki to shut down its API. What a bunch of fuckers, right? Well, at least the site is still up and useful.

LyricWiki.

Play God with Earth Editor!

Everyone's wanted to play god, right? Well, now you can with Earth Editor!

Earth Editor is another simulation toy from Dan-Ball.jp, the website of this one gifted Japanese Java programmer, full of fun toys and games. The most popular being probably the powder game.

Earth Editor is simply delightful. It's a lot like the powder game, except there is a gravitational pull in the center of the screen, making it easy to create worlds. You can also create other gravitational pulls and repels. There's a few elements from the powder game that you can use to create a world, and a "meteor" element, that gravitate toward the world, and explodes on impact. I'm probably not a good judge of this, as I'm pretty easily amused, But I've spent hours creating and destroying worlds, creating moons, seeing how many worlds I can create in the space at once. It's a load of fun. Really, just check it out. Earth Editor.