Comments on: Music. Response. http://www.openjournalmontreal.com/music-response/ Wed, 01 Feb 2012 23:11:22 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: neil http://www.openjournalmontreal.com/music-response/comment-page-1/#comment-69 neil Mon, 12 Sep 2005 02:25:16 +0000 http://open.touchbasic.com/journal/?p=127#comment-69 Though known for unabashed cynicism and over-the-top antics, Vice magazine provided some insight that relates to these remarks at hand. let me explain. in offering this nugget about vice, i don't mean to put under erasure the encounters on the ground; the auto-reflective impulse of encountering things abroad, in moments trust and surrender and a substantial relinquishment of control, is an exercise in continued reverence, meaning that it can become a series of moments of epistemic rupture and subsequent recouperation, openning the way for something else entirely. the relevance of vice, beyond its sideways chuckles, rests in an article that i read recently regarding one of the magazine's carousing surfer-cum-journalists, who had undertaken a trip to mogadishu, somalia with the goal of staking out some of the better surfing spots on africa's eastern coast. the crushingly colloquial, from-the-hip commentary animated the experience this guy had been having. the primary frame of the article was the familiar lawless import of "mogadishu: most dangerous place in the world". yet, as the article unfolded, the author returned continually to the experience of and encounter with music. musicality was a quality that he detected; it was pervasive. he was capitvated and mystified, not by the discernable "african-ness" of the local scene but rather by the local import of uk grime and dizee rascale and roots manuva, arguably diasporic music produced abroad and coming back to haunt somalia, subsequently articulated locally on the street to the crews of kids playing football, thugs with guns, and people cruising around. the people whom he supposed would be moving their bodies to the rhythms of some resiliant form of authentic local music were dancing to other things. i think he was suprised and amazed at the dergulated flow of music into this zone; despite the apparent lack of formal, institutionalized rule and such, he was moved by the way in which the music reached the ground. really, i think, it suggested to him what we may well call the workings of a deregulated global cultural economy that is at once diffuse and rooted in various places. in that, i think he may have felt that, rather than finding he had farther to go in terms some mythic identification with others that is impossible, he instead moved from sympathy to kind of empathy based on the musical taste at play. though petty notions of taste can't bridge the political or economic gaps created by the visscitudes of late transnational capital, the music served as a hinge, a common way of becoming affected that was startling. the author acknowledged this in a vice-like, roundabout way. yet, to read of those few moments of expression in such an unlikely venue--the hypercritical rag that eats its own tail--suprised me: vice had done political economy, cultural studies, and an ethics of identification all at once. further, it cut through the simultaneously lame self-celebratory and apologist stuff inherent in scholarly ethnography and made a significant point. the author's self-consciousness and awareness--his surfing extravaganza and adventurous encounter with the dark continent--charged his suprised enchanment and genuine epiphany with efficacy. Though known for unabashed cynicism and over-the-top antics, Vice magazine provided some insight that relates to these remarks at hand. let me explain.
in offering this nugget about vice, i don’t mean to put under erasure the encounters on the ground; the auto-reflective impulse of encountering things abroad, in moments trust and surrender and a substantial relinquishment of control, is an exercise in continued reverence, meaning that it can become a series of moments of epistemic rupture and subsequent recouperation, openning the way for something else entirely. the relevance of vice, beyond its sideways chuckles, rests in an article that i read recently regarding one of the magazine’s carousing surfer-cum-journalists, who had undertaken a trip to mogadishu, somalia with the goal of staking out some of the better surfing spots on africa’s eastern coast. the crushingly colloquial, from-the-hip commentary animated the experience this guy had been having. the primary frame of the article was the familiar lawless import of “mogadishu: most dangerous place in the world”. yet, as the article unfolded, the author returned continually to the experience of and encounter with music. musicality was a quality that he detected; it was pervasive. he was capitvated and mystified, not by the discernable “african-ness” of the local scene but rather by the local import of uk grime and dizee rascale and roots manuva, arguably diasporic music produced abroad and coming back to haunt somalia, subsequently articulated locally on the street to the crews of kids playing football, thugs with guns, and people cruising around. the people whom he supposed would be moving their bodies to the rhythms of some resiliant form of authentic local music were dancing to other things.

i think he was suprised and amazed at the dergulated flow of music into this zone; despite the apparent lack of formal, institutionalized rule and such, he was moved by the way in which the music reached the ground. really, i think, it suggested to him what we may well call the workings of a deregulated global cultural economy that is at once diffuse and rooted in various places. in that, i think he may have felt that, rather than finding he had farther to go in terms some mythic identification with others that is impossible, he instead moved from sympathy to kind of empathy based on the musical taste at play. though petty notions of taste can’t bridge the political or economic gaps created by the visscitudes of late transnational capital, the music served as a hinge, a common way of becoming affected that was startling. the author acknowledged this in a vice-like, roundabout way. yet, to read of those few moments of expression in such an unlikely venue–the hypercritical rag that eats its own tail–suprised me: vice had done political economy, cultural studies, and an ethics of identification all at once. further, it cut through the simultaneously lame self-celebratory and apologist stuff inherent in scholarly ethnography and made a significant point. the author’s self-consciousness and awareness–his surfing extravaganza and adventurous encounter with the dark continent–charged his suprised enchanment and genuine epiphany with efficacy.

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