Though the current project started as a series of posts charting my grief journey after the death of my mother, I am no longer actively grieving. Now, the blog charts a conversation in living, mainly whatever I want it to be. This is an activity that goes well with the theme of this blog (updated 2018). The Sense of Doubt blog is dedicated to my motto: EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY. I promote questioning everything because just when I think I know something is concrete, I find out that it’s not.
Hey, Mom! The Explanation.
Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.
This one is truly a MAJOR hodge podge, a jumble, what my students have come to know as a Gallimaufry as it is one of our words of the day. I am writing this and finishing it on Saturday the 15th because I have been so hammered with final grades. Gave an exam last Thursday at LCC and grades were due Monday the 10th, Park University grades were due Tuesday the 18th, final at Concordia Wednesday the 12th, then Thursday (presumably today) the 13th I spent all day figuring the Concordia total and bringing the grades to current, then research paper grades due for CTU on Friday the 14th, and so here we are. Shall we go, you and I, to where the land meets the sky?
So, here's a Twitter message from the library at Concordia University that I liked.
Piper's engagement announcement. Did I share this already?
Some funny images my students shared.
Batman by the late great Jim Aparo vs. the Snow Beast from Batman issue #337.
I just really like this image.
From Detective Comics issue # 119:
Every semester when it's time to say goodbye to a class of students I write in the subject line of my goodbye email the nod to Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker's Guide series: "So long and thanks for all the fish." This semester out of love and out of the desire to dress up my communications with more imagery, I went hunting for "So long and thanks for all the fish" images. Guess what I found?
Because I need to share more comic book art, here's two by DAVID LAPHAM (great but not late) of the current masterpiece Stray Bullets and his new Lodger (which if the latter is not named for the David Bowie album then I know NOTHING!).
Liesel got a copy of this and I was reminded of its existence.
After Tuesday's post on appropriation, which feels like I created it a lifetime ago given how much I have done since, there's this Instagram message about the arts from Speech, whom I love. Thank you for keepin' it real, Speech!
AND THESE CAME TO MY ATTENTION when a friend online was justly accusing Air BnB of fraud. What's that from? What's that from?
The Answer. It's from this:
Finally, one of my students asked me to follow him on Instagram and followed me back. Here's one of three male students in my Concordia class with his javelin throwing excellence. Thanks Dalton!
The person I met, Godiva Lee, also does a "Get Trek" podcast, but I can't find that one yet.
I will ask her and report back.
I found an awesome massage therapist. Angelle St. Pierre and Yoga Nidra and Sound Healing Angelle St.Pierre, LMT Portland, OR https://www.angellestpierre.com/
I bought some clay for Liesel...
My new colleagues are awesome (from LCC).
Official Serendipitously Appropriate Instrument of Nomenclature Validation from the Committee of Nomenclature Management.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1812.13 - 10:10
NEW (written 1708.27) NOTE on time: I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of your death, Mom, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of your death, Mom. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom.
A Sense of Doubt blog post #1391 - It's About Family: If extraordinary, add the ordinary: POP!
In reading an article on Incredible 2 in Entertainment Weekly, I was struck (Eureka! An Epiphany!) by a quote by Samuel L. Jackson.
"Ordinariness of who you really are is as interesting as this super thing you can do," Jackson insists. "These are movies about a real family with real family problems. Being a superhero doesn't put food on the table. You have to do something else to be part of real life."
Suddenly, I realized that all my favorite comics, my truly favorite comics, are about families. Sure I like loners like Daredevil and Batman, but I like them even better when they have established their own families.
But the comics for which I have enduring love are all families: Fantastic Four, Teen Titans, the Legion of Superheroes, the Avengers, The Uncanny X-men.
And it's that Chris Claremont rule that Marvel often forgets. After the X-Men have been romping out in space fighting the Brood for six issues, then show them at a picnic playing Baseball. They need R&R and we need a break from the cosmic diaspora.
The best comics do both at the same time. They build the family stuff and the relationships while keeping the action high, during the epics, and then showing down time in between.
The extraordinary fits itself around the edges of the ordinary. Because Reed Richards has to (or at least wants to) bathe and shave. But who knew the Thing needed to scrub his rocky hide? Well, we did as of this splash page by Stan Lee and the GREAT John Buscema for Silver Surfer #5 published back in 1969.
In fact, for many fans (all fans?) it may be the ordinary activities that we can relate to best. I have not fought the Brood in space and faced down the planet-eating majesty of Galactus, but I shower every day and I have played a few games of backyard Baseball.
Besides, fans like to endlessly debate things like who hits a home run father the Hulk or the Thing?
How different would a game of Baseball be by the X-Men with some or all of them using their powers?
And here, thanks to Samuel L. Jackson (Thanks, man, you're a mensch), I have hit on the thing that had me stymied for a series of books that I am writing called POP!
For this task I am drawing inspiration from Terry Pratchett's DISCWORLD novels (of which I have read about 20) and various comedies and parodies that I like, holding myself to be a bit less silly than Monty Python or Mad Magazine and yet both parody the superhero genre and the world around us in terms of politics, culture, consumerism, and mass media.
And yet, I have not made much progress in the years since I conceived the idea. Partly, the slow progress is due to time: work, career change plans, going to school, married and family life, and more have not always lent me the time I want for writing. Even this blog, which was supposed to galvanize my fiction writing -- so much so that I years ago thought about releasing Pop! in monthly or even weekly episodes on this blog -- has become more of a main activity, one that I enjoy immensely and need for self-care, but one which does not always allow me the time to produce very much (or any) original content.
And yet, when I did spend time on Pop! I felt like my process was not yet yielding the results I wanted. I had chosen a comic to use a basis for parody -- THE LAST GALACTUS STORY -- and my process was to rewrite it with an eye on satire and then once I had a core plot banged out, I would dress it up with tinsel and garlands, trick it out with a subwoofer and some chrome hub caps to make it less like the original more of my thing.
It's a strong foundation, and I have a lot good ideas and some good stuff written, but something has been missing.
What's missing is a focus on the ordinary, which is also a staple of the Discworld books.
And then Samuel L. Jackson reminded me of how important the ordinary is when juxtaposed with the extraordinary.
In the 1990s, I made a major push (major for me) to start publishing comic books with an idea that I called Night People, an idea from my friend Steve Curl about people who come just at night, which to me seemed to be about the UNDEAD and the classic movie monsters that I love so much.
Since Seinfeld was big at the time, my idea was to do a comic about class monsters "doing nothing," much like Seinfeld promoted itself as a show "about nothing." I wrote a first issue script and a Bible for the series. I worked with an artist, and we started the thing, hit some conventions, generated some interest, collected some emails and postal addresses for a mailing list (this is 1994-1995 after all), but the work fizzled. My teaching work ramped up as I took on extra classes while my freelance writing career really took off and I was writing for reference books, newspapers, and magazines.
But I liked the idea, I still do. Not to ape Seinfeld note for note, I would mix up the formula, but the dialogue rich discussion of the little things of life with snappy comebacks and amusing anecdotes intrigued me. It's definitely something to think about with POP!
And then there's the problem that superheroes are already so chimerical and surreal that they are almost parodies of themselves anyway and in fact sometimes the comics ARE parodies of themselves. But that's a conundrum for another time.
For now, I renew my support for what I love best about comics: the sense of FAMILY.
And along with the bonus content imagery, here's some bonus content thoughts on this book series from my journals in which I free-write ideas. SOME POP! NOTES
I think of POP! As a kitchen sink kind of thing. I want to pack in as much as I can and amp it all up for comic effect, which is why using THE LAST GALACTUS STORY as a basis for the first POP! Series is a great idea.
I was reminded of this last night as I was reading Charles Stross’ Accelerando: (bottom of page 227): “...the phones on the front desk are already ringing with inquiries from attorneys, fast-food vendors, and a particularly on-the-ball celebrity magazine...” And this reminded me that the media machine’s gears spin and churn all the time. There’s no pause for the system that never sleeps. This is the world of POP! It’s total immersion in AMUSING OURSELVES TO DEATH. It’s a boiling pot of everything and the kitchen sink, which is what is perfect about use of the Galactus story as a spoof. I need to tour the entire POP! Universe.
In reading my new book from the Church of the Subgenius, Revelation X, The Bob Apocryphon, I came across a list on page 116 that intrigued me. It’s a list of near-future prophecies, some of which are just silly, like “As a backlash against animal rights fanatics, Cruelty Plus^tm products introduced.” And though that’s funny, it has no ring of truth. But others caught my eye, especially “Definite link between eating disorders and F-Rays (TV) established. Legislation passed requiring video viewing permit for all citizens over twenty.”
It was the “video viewing permit” that caught my attention. What would the world be like that required a permit to be entertained, to watch TV?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm......
Legion of Super-Heroes celebrating Christmas. Art by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1812.12 - 10:10
- Days ago = 1257 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
At the band's web site, they call themselves "true hip-hop trailblazers since 1991" and "cultural champions of consciousness." It's statements like these that prove why I love them. And BTW, they have a new album, which can also be found via the band's web site.
Arrested Development is "true" hip-hop doing more than just rap, blending gospel/spiritual, sampling, DJing and turntablism, mixing, beatboxing, scratching, rap, R&B, soul, blues, and more. Afrika Bambaataa of Zulu Nation defined hip hop as having nine elements, four of which are the main pillars of the genre. Arrested Development does it all.
But that's the present. When I talk about this issue, my rap, I start in the past and make sure that everyone understands that we would not have modern music as we know it today if not for black people, Africans.
WE OWE AN UNPAYABLE DEBT OF GRATITUDE TO AFRICAN PEOPLE FOR OUR MODERN MUSIC.
African-Americans invented the word and concept "cool." All that is "cool" comes from African-Americans, who were first AFRICAN. They were brought to this side of the world without their consent and enslaved to white people who believed them completely inferior, little better than animals.
This is also around the time I write the word "race" on the board and cross it out. The idea of different "races" in humanity is a hegemonic concept to perpetuate an illusion of difference, to perpetuate the myth of inferiority, and to ground racism, prejudice, bigotry, hatred in a sociological construct or even a scientific mandate that does not exist. As late as the 19th century, so-called "legitimate scientists" were attempting to use "science" to prove the illusion of superiority for white people and to link the mythical inferiority of black people to primates and apes as some kind of equal measure. I know. It sounds insane. But it's true.
There is one race.
The human race.
PERIOD.
The rest is just coloring: hair color, eye color, skin color. It's all plumage.
We might see racism disappear when the aliens from another planet (or dimension) show up on earth, openly, and maybe with hostile intentions. Nothing galvanizes togetherness more than unity against something that is even more completely and totally DIFFERENT than you are.
Back to music, slavery, and AFRICANS:
African people were brought to the Americas: twelve million total and 350,000 into the original thirteen colonies of the United States. And with them they brought music.
Most of the music that survived is about how it sucked to be a slave, work songs like "Hammer, Ring" and "Arwhoolie (Cornfield holler)." As the African slaves were turned to Christianity, they also created and sang religious songs, often which were how God would help them with the terrible life that was slavery in the cotton fields of the South, songs like "Do, Lord, Remember Me" and "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" come from this tradition that is now known as gospel music.
Many of these songs of work and God have survived because they were sung around white people who wrote them down, and though the slaves passed along songs and music by oral tradition, many of the truly wonderful songs were not written down and are lost in the past.
These other songs were the recreational ones about good food, fun times, laughter, families, booty, and love. They were songs for dancing, drinking, and whooping it up. But their spirit lived on and was later expressed in ROCK AND ROLL.
It's these songs from the days of slavery that gave rise to Blues as an official musical form in the late 19th century. Without Blues, there would be no ragtime and without those forms there would be no jazz music.
Though country and folk music influenced the development of rock and roll and its origins, without the contributions of black people, there's no "cool," and so there is no rock and roll as we know it today.
When rock and roll first began to appear and be heard, most white people hated it. "That's not music that's noise" was a common refrain from the 1940s all the way into the 1960s when the Beatles and the British Invasion formed the second round of white people appropriating of the sounds of rock and roll pioneers. Rock and Roll was not even played on the major radio networks for some time.
One of the first great appropriators of the music created by black people was Elvis Presley. Merging a rockabilly style with rhythm and blues, Elvis put a white face on a new cultural movement, a new form of music, a face that was more palatable to bigoted white people.
Even so, Elvis' gyrations and "Hound Dog" music was much too black, and much too sexy even for many white people in the 1950s when he became a national sensation with appearances on the Milton Berle show and the Ed Sullivan show.
The second Milton Berle Show appearance came on June 5 at NBC's Hollywood studio, amid another hectic tour. Berle persuaded Presley to leave his guitar backstage, advising, "Let 'em see you, son."[102] During the performance, Presley abruptly halted an uptempo rendition of "Hound Dog" with a wave of his arm and launched into a slow, grinding version accentuated with energetic, exaggerated body movements.[102] Presley's gyrations created a storm of controversy.[103] Television critics were outraged: Jack Gould of The New York Times wrote, "Mr. Presley has no discernible singing ability. ... His phrasing, if it can be called that, consists of the stereotyped variations that go with a beginner's aria in a bathtub. ... His one specialty is an accented movement of the body ... primarily identified with the repertoire of the blond bombshells of the burlesque runway."[104] Ben Gross of the New York Daily News opined that popular music "has reached its lowest depths in the 'grunt and groin' antics of one Elvis Presley. ... Elvis, who rotates his pelvis ... gave an exhibition that was suggestive and vulgar, tinged with the kind of animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos".[105]Ed Sullivan, whose own variety show was the nation's most popular, declared him "unfit for family viewing".[106] To Presley's displeasure, he soon found himself being referred to as "Elvis the Pelvis", which he called "one of the most childish expressions I ever heard, comin' from an adult."[107]
What is appropriation?
Better known as "cultural appropriation" or even "cultural misappropriation," this abuse occurs when a member of a hegemonic (dominant) group adopts (steals) the elements, arts, and/or fashions of a minority culture.
It's a form of re-packaging and re-branding. The true roots of the originators of an art form, like rock and roll, do not earn the recognition or reap the rewards on the same scale as the appropriators.
When appropriation occurs, then the art form or the thing appropriated is co-opted; it's drained of its power, of what makes it a thing of value.
Hence the term (also invented by African-Americans): "keepin' it real," which means staying true to the roots of a thing.
So we have this debt for our whole culture to the Africans who never wanted to be here in the first place.
Not to say the debt is totally unpaid. Because rhythm and blues gave the world Motown, soul music, and funk music among many many others. Black people had their own clubs, radio stations, and culture. But it was not ever the hegemony, though maybe, it is now or it is in part, at least. One can hardly say that Michael Jackson, Beyonce, Jay Z, Kanye West, and many others have not reaped great rewards.
By the mid-to-late 1970s and into the 1980s, most white people were on the band wagon with popular music in one form or another be it rock and roll, punk, new wave, or even country. Few were telling people to "shut that shit off" or "that's not music, it's noise." The appropriation worked, and though co-opted of its essence in many ways, all sorts of other cultural spin-offs came about, which has produced some of the greatest music of the 20th century. But there's no Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin without the contributions of a long history of black musical artists, like Chuck Berry, Billie Holiday, and more.
And then there was hip-hop or rap as many people misname it.
Seeing their creations appropriated and co-opted, in order to "keep it real," black people moved on and created something new.
SOMETHING REALLY NEW.
And then history repeated itself. When I started teaching in college class rooms in the late 1980s, and when I tried to play early hip hop -- such as Public Enemy, Boogie Down Productions (KRS-One), and N.W.A. -- I had white students tell me to "turn that shit off" and "that's not music, that's noise."
Hello, racism, you're alive and well even as late as the last years of the 1980s and the early 1990s.
Of course, these white students would rationalize (and did when accused) that they were not racist and that they just didn't like that kind of music, preferring Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, or Metallica.
SAME EXACT THING THAT rock and roll went through as it was being born and growing up.
SAME EXACT THING.
There was less racism by the 1990s, and more media, so the breakthrough of this new form of music was less underground than with rock and roll. Would hip hop and rap have needed an appropriator to help the breakthrough? Or could the forms have become as wildly popular as they are with just the greatness of Public Enemy to fuel the rise of the culture? Because very soon, hip hop ruled, by 1989, hip hop music comprised nearly a third of the Billboard Top 100 chart.
Sure, there was also MC Hammer, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Wu Tang Clan, and of course, the Jim Morrison of hip hop: Tupac Shakur.
But would even the Notorious B.I.G. versus Tupac in the East-West "rivalry" (or maybe we should call it gang warfare) have been enough to mainstream hip hop once the key players were dead and the fighting settled down? Maybe.
But hip hop gets a white champion anyway (and no, not Vanilla Ice).
Like Elvis, Eminem (or his Slim Shady "alter ego") was not an immediate success. But by the year 2000 and the release of The Marshall Mathers LP, Eminem had the same kind of success as Elvis and has successfully co-opted hip hop and rap through cultural appropriation.
Yes, yes, I know. If our society was color blind, if it was all the same, then we could say that Elvis and Eminem are just other artists making their music as part of the same culture.
Since I use this post a lot in teaching, I am visiting here from three years in the future to place this article link here (on 2105.20):
But we're not a color blind society, even when we want to be, even when we try to be.
Racism can be invisible, insidious, and deeply buried in our patterns of denial and rationalization.
I could argue that without appropriation these musical forms may not have gained the success that they did and have, surely this is even more true of rock and roll than it is of hip hop.
Here endeth the lesson.
Know appropriation and co-opting of a culture.
And when you listen to music, know where it came from and how much blood had to be spilled to get it where it is today.
Oh yeah, and Eminem even built his own mythology.
Sure, Elvis was a film star but these were mostly Elvis in modern musicals like Blue Hawaiiand Jailhouse Rock and then later live films.
Eminem created his own mythology to re-invent himself in a way that tried to erase his pathological appreciation of violence, his homophobia, and his racism.
It was kind of a brilliant marketing strategy.
Also, I have to admit that the opening riffs of "Lose Yourself" are some of the most urgent, powerful, driving, emphatic lead in riffs in all of modern music. For reals.
But then, there's great stuff like this, positive stuff, spiritual stuff, AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUFF.
And just because I tagged him, as Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote in Between the World and Me in discussing race and white people:
"people who believe themselves to be white."
Because it's all a melting pot and it always has been.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1812.11 - 10:10
- Days ago = 1256 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
A Sense of Doubt blog post #1389 - Best Ambient of 2018 - Musical Monday for 1812.10
Hi,
Grading Hell is a thing. One set of Final Grades due today, another set due tomorrow, an exam to give and start grading Wednesday, research papers to grade by Friday at midnight. This is the way the world ends with a scream not a whimper.
No, that's melodrama.
I am fine. I even slept in a little this morning until about 4:30 a.m.
I thought I had my Cocteau Twins mix all done, but I don't. WTF?!?
So just this. It's good for study and ambience.
Ambient Music Guide is one of my new favorite things.
Mix #1: Atmospheric Grooves is nearly 3 hours of mind-expanding ambient techno/trance, downtempo, lounge, psychill, Balearic, trip-hop, downtempo breaks, Krautrock, post-rock, ambient dub and more.
TRACKLIST
start time/title/artist/album/label
00:00 - An Offering Of Gratitude by Wanderwelle | Gathering Of The Ancient Spirits (Silent Season) 05:47 - Like A Feather by Gold Lounge feat. Mari Conti | Floating (Sine Music) 12:04 - Meeresleuchten by Lemmer & Pabast | Meeresleuchten e.p. (Sine Music) 16:35 - Pastellstrand (edit) by Lemmer & Pabast | Meeresleuchten e.p. (Sine Music) 20:40 - Dare by Axel Rigaud | Transformation (n5MD) 26:52 - Oregano In E Minor by log(m) & Laraaji | Zero Gravity (Interchill) 32:25 - However by Catpilot | Homecoming (Lemongrass Music) 36:32 - Love On A Real Train (Mike's mashup) by Atmosphere Factory vs Tangerine Dream | Sketches e.p. (Dakini Records) 44:16 - Kalakuta by Corrado Saija | Txalaparta (Lemongrass Music) 50:59 - Awake 34 by Shunkan Idou | Perspective (Cosmicleaf) 55:45 - Mystery Of Freedom (edit) by Kalpataru Tree | Rhythmic Fractals Of Earth's Imagination (Bandcamp) 1:02:20 - Encountered by Si Matthews | Across The Ether (Carpe Sonum) 1:10:10 - Perhatian by David Parsons | Atmanaut (Celestial Harmonies) 1:18:12 - Sea Level by One Arc Degree | The Glow Beneath (Synphaera) 1:24:53 - Kotaka by Translippers | Cycling To The Sun (Cosmicleaf) 1:30:45 - Life Finds A Way by Dr. Deep House | Peace Forever (Sine Music) 1:37:03 - Room With A View by Kuba | Animalia (Liquid Sound Design) 1:42:28 - Lazarus by Catpilot | Homecoming (Lemongrass Music) 1:44:54 - 4saken by Catpilot | Homecoming (Lemongrass Music) 1:47:48 - And Dream Of by Baby Grand | And Dream Of (clubgrand.co.uk) 1:52:30 - Overview Effect Five (edit) by Mystical Sun (mysticalsun.com) 1:58:29 - Mono-Metro by Michel Banabila | VoizNoiz (Steamin' Soundworks) 2:01:37 - Der Kaffee Spricht Zu Mir by Sankt Otten | Zwischen Demut Und Disco (Denovali) 2:08:04 - Purpure by Primal Code | La Via della Seta (Hypnus) 2:15:17 - Velocidad (edit) - Rruff | Origen e.p. (Ossmo) 2:21:41 - My Life by Ambidextrous | Echoes Of Science (Fantasy Enhancing) 2:29:30 - Playful New World by Kaya Project feat. Randolph Matthews | Up From The Dust (Bandcamp) 2:34:05 - Rain Bless Earth by Kaya Project Up From The Dust (Bandcamp) 2:39:21 - All That We Are by Gold Lounge | Floating (Sine Music) 2:44:38 - end
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1812.10 - 10:10
- Days ago = 1255 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
RADIO GEEKLY
