The Essential (F'ing) Davidson! - KAPOW

Kimmie (AKA DKB) made me look this up many weeks ago.



Pretty good, right?
Because he is wearing a tuxedo, and it is night, and he is not crying, it reminds me of this song:

Download: Tuxedomoon- No Tears

(b/c its chorus says "No Tears for the Creatures of the Night: No Tears!")



I got this song on a mix CD that AKA Music put out years ago.
(Just last night, a secret meeting of philosophers convened at Oscar's, and we decided that this was, for all of us, the only record store in Philadelphia that we really liked.)

Most of the band's songs don't sound like this, I'm told. This is antsy-dancey post-punk. A really fast keyboard line cranks out of it; mucho post-macho guitars. So, while it is a tough little number, you don't have to be, or even want to be, a tuff-guy to appreciate it.

It would sound great on the soundtrack to a remake of Fritz Lang's M, about which I just watched a videoblurb on NYTimes.com.
M is one of my favorite movies ever; I am bad at putting together lists of things (top, worst, year-end) but I can always remember that this movie would go on the list.

But here comes a list: things I bought/got for Xmas.
(CHRIStmas is not my birthday; don't worry, you are not the only one who gets confused about this.)
I'm only going to list media: you are hopefully none too concerned with the colors, brands, and number of socks that I received
(black and browns; Gold-Toe and Dockers; five thousand-ish, FYI)
because I asked for precisely such sundry necessaries.

[Partial list: more to come...]

Books

The Essential Davidson (!!!!!!!!!!!) by Donald(oh...) Davidson
(Famous!)
Man of Reason by Genevieve Lloyd
(Feminist!)
A Collected Marquise de Sade
(Fisting!)
The Big Bento Box of Unuseless Japanese Inventions by Kenji Kawakami
(Funny!)
Therapy of Desire by Martha Nussbaum
(Fundamentals on Freedom From disturbance!)
Origins of Greek Thought by Pierre Vernant
(Foucault's Friend!)
The Odd One in: On Comedy by Alenka Zupančič
(Freedom = Funny!)
Introduction to Kant's Anthropology (Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents) by Michel Foucault
(Foucault!)

Next List: CDs/records that I scored...

Specific Obscene Enjoyment

On Facebook, some degenerates who I know have added an app that tells you your ten most-used words. Accurately, a friend described El Jefe's as resembling an angry haiku.
Now, I - and you too; hell, all of us - would love to know what my words are. But I refuse to let FB all up in my Face by adding stuff.



Instead, I present the following accidental poems. Stochastic or Tyche-type Poesy. These are quotes that begin and end the passages that I wanted my students to read. I didn't write them out so that they would make rad short bits;
BUT THEY DID because this is exactly the kind of RAnDom (=rad+random, see?) stuff that intrudes into my life.

‘There I had already learned…message was “I don’t care”.’
‘This notion of the imaginary…not being part of American reality.’
‘What if, then, there is no ‘normal role’?...or not in the expected way.’
'Is that why so many examples…take the risk and have a position.’
'In combination with psychoanalysis…threatening to explode.’

‘With the logic of Real-as-impossible…between the object and das Ding.’
‘Your analysis of contemporary…void filled by appearances.’
‘By the late 1980s profound…there is no way out for them.’
‘In your work you have…even more radical and intrusive.’

‘the problematic of Franz Fanon…potentially redemptive disciplinary drive.’
‘And in contemporary…racist, chauvinist or whatever.’
‘And against this abstract machine…the eyes of its own people.’
‘This idea of de facto closure…justifies absolute ruthlessness.’
‘On the other hand…specific obscene enjoyment.’


I taught Slavoj Zizek for my last weeks of class. It seemed to go well.
Partly because I soft-pedaled some of the more difficult ideas.
Partly because I taught Zizek as if he were Freud. Concepts like the Oedipus complex (You want to f**k your Mother! You will kill, and then supplant, your father!
Stop thinking those asterisks look like buttholes, you pervert!)
are not that hard to grasp, although they may be a little hard to swallow.


Stop It!

The WRapper

I was The Wrapper Xmas gifts today, and it reminded me of this song.
"The Rapper" by Jaggerz.
The name (of the song) is misleading, and
the name (of the group) don't make no sense at all.



The name: because it is not about hip-hop- the song is from 1970, before hip-hop-rapping. They mean a guy who spits game at girls. He tries to pick up on all the ladies ... with sexy results ... Which makes for some funny lines in the song.
The group: because they didn't want to be confused with another band called The Jaggers, and Jaggerz really sets you apart from The Jaggers.
("s" and "z" are even right next to each other on the keyboard, making it easy to type them wrong. And while they didn't have personal computers in 1970, they did have typewriters: likewise QWERTY.
Lest you forget that bit of our technological past, for we are still haunted by the ghosts of technology past.)
Now, if they pronounced it "Yaygers", like Jaegermeister, maybe I can see a difference. I have a tie with the Jaegermeister symbol on it; oddly it is the symbol for patron saints of hunting. Jaeger means hunter auf Deutsch. Why anyone would put either a saintly symbol on a tie or a liquor brand symbol on a tie is beyond me.
(for formal deer hunts?) (for Rapping at 'classy broads'?)

Wikipedia 'clarifies' thus: "The Jaggerz had completed their evolution into how they are most known." Ah yes, I see, of course. The article also helpfully distinguishes between their Golden Age and their Waning Years, despite the fact that the article affirms their status as One Hit Wonders. Of course, I see, yes.


Please note that the chorus of this song is truly a delight.
Please note also that I do not know why the background video is something from the ABC Family channel. And, no, I can't tell who is dating who in the video either.


I won't say what I wrapped, even though the people I am giving to don't read my blog. They can use computers; these family members are not that old. But, I think they may not have been told of the giant excursion into S O U N D that is this blog yet.

RAPPER!

"500 Miles" : Away From Home

I am more than 500 miles away from home; but I will be returning soon. For Xmas, yep.



<{([ Download a version of above song here ])}>
or find many many different versions of this standard on YouTube here



Note that this is not The Proclaimers song, "(I'm Gonna Be) 500 Miles". That's a different tune. Of course, this is itself a song that is different from itself: the YouTube clip is from country legend Bobby Bare (not Booby Bare- that means something completely different...), but the download is an even better version by Leon Bibb.
I had to post a different clip, because what I have on vinyl, does not even exist upon the whole wide worldwide internet.
Believe It!
I will eventually try to put some of the album I have ("Encore!") on YouTube someday. But that seems like a bit much planning and execution for today. But, the task grows ever-more pressing... as more "pressings" that I want to put up are not put up by other people. (haha- "pressings": that's lingo for records!)
Other people: So Lazy!
(not this guy, though: his was the only site I could find with pictures of the album I have. I like him. He is German, and you noticed that the Bobby Bare had German subtitles...)

I thought the lyrics said, "If you miss me when I'm gone, you will know that I am gone..."
( In fact, they say "If you miss the train I'm on, ... " )
I took the first lyrics to be sort of smart-ass. Like, well, if you don't miss me now, when I'm really gone, boy-howdy-by-golly, then you'll sure 'nuff start to miss me. But the song isn't a breakup song, so those lyrics wouldn't work well anyhow. Plus, that just ain't what the man said.



Speakin' a what a man said, click on the above pic for a bigger version; you can read all about Bibb there. Great verbiage like "separates the man from the boys", "concertizing", "has also appeared at most of the major nightclubs in the United States and Canada." "Most" of the venues in North America: that is a lot of concertizing!
So often, Bibb must have been 500 miles away from home.

Ideological Pubic Hair: Zizek Enjoins you to Kill All Hippies

Yes, I'm deferring grading, and my super-ego is raging about it.
But you can take a little break with me. Watch the YouTube video below. It is Slavoj Zizek, talking about toilets and pubic hair, and how they both reinforce (or at least symbolize) ideological constraints.
No, honestly, that's what he says.



and yes, I am teaching him, and themes just like these, in my class. Right now -yesterday, tomorrow, which added together are today- in my introduction to philosophy class.
I got the book for free too: B O O M .
I said for a while too that I must be Zizek's secret (whoops, typed "sextet": Freudian Slip!) love child. Because we are both hyper.
I also declared, since he has a bit of a tic where he touches his nose all the time, that he had sucessfully passed through oral, anal, AND phallic stages. Where does that put him?

The Nasal Phase!

Serious Serial Vol. 2: Titular

OH PART TWO!!!
As I just posted, new things happened (which is, of course, the same old story: new things Just Keeping Happening).
I got some new-old books, all with great titles (hopefully, they read well too):
Middlemarch, by Georg Eliot. (Georg is a GIRL!, by the way.)

Diary of a Madman, and other stories: Gogol. This is the actual cover of the book that I bought: used, very, I'm sure you can see.

N. Gogol is well-known for his novel, Dead Souls, ahem:



An Even Better song, everyone's new favorite Joy Division song, is below. Be a deary and listen to both, why don't you? You ask: why put both then? I reply: because the theme of today's blog revolves around TITLES- that is what 'titular' means, you little dirty- and so I was compelled to post the song enTITLEd "Dead Souls". You recognize the decisive and deciding logic now, I'm sure.



More Books. Thomas Mann's Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man.

Flounder, by Günter Grass. The Flounder of the title is a character:

a talking fish.

I started watching movies again. Recents: Jesse James meets Frankenstein's Daughter, and Hour of the Wolf (another great title); this movie is a little more serious than the other. It is directed by Ingmar Bergman, and deals with
Love,
Art,


and Madness.


Oh, how very Euro.


Both were worth watching. Well, JJ VS FD is worth it, if you are me (you aren't) and were sick (you might have been). Don't tell me if you were- I don't want to hear about it. I get enough detailed descriptions of my students' illnesses, thx.

Serious Serial Vol. 1: Decisive

Lots of news on my end. Really important stuff has been going down, such as:
New Toilet and Toilet-related Environs!
New Records!
New Books!
New Lifestyle: watching movies!
----- I'll be talking about these in a two-part installment. Exciting, this serial blog action, correct? -----



(download Willie Hutch: "Get Ready For the Get Down" )

The above Willie Hutch track, or jam I should say, is in the vein of the Supafly and Black Caesar jams I posted back a little bit. (back a bit'tle?) It's from his album, "Mark of the Beast" (nice title...)
But on the toilet front (even though this song is decicedly and decisvely NON-TOILET), I got a new toilet the other day. Mine was cracked... don't know how. But now I am repainting my bathroom, which means that we have to say goodbye to the bathroom art.
No more classic chalk line-drawings, a la the Lascaux caves.

At one point, the above drawing morphed into the one below...


Here is Jeffrey's thoughful contribution:

Like normal Jeffrey Stuff, it appears to be merely scatological. Now, it is that, but it also has other aims: The Eternal Question, "Why do 'I' Exist?" has been thoughtfully integrated into the three headed Penis Monster. Thus, the Penis Monster has achieved its own species of eternity.

Willie Hutch has achieved his own species of eternity, through sampling. He's been amply sampled by West Coast hip-hop producers; horns, a little swagger and swing, a lightly dark cinematic feel. Tracks called stuff like "Vampin'" and "Mack's Stroll". If I were a producer, I'd be into it. He wrote songs all over the place; he partly wrote the Jackson 5's "I'll Be There", which is so very a stone cold classic. (If I were a jungle producer, I would have sampled a little of The 5, and lots and lots of Diana Ross and the Supremes; just getting that out there.)

Roughly on the topic of me being a producer (I would be so good at it: true, obvious- I'd be decisive, you see?)-
There is one more, as-of-this-moment final AMX mix in the pipeline. It is giving you the soulful tunes a la Pulp Fiction. Soul comes in two varieties here: sad old country and soul jams. Quick heads-up: James Brown, Ricky Nelson, Dionne Warwick, Al Green, and of course, my recent favorite, Jerry Butler. It'll devastate ya; decisively, naturally.

Get Loose, Philadelphia

This weekend, Love Train pulls into town. Love Train will have tons of great soul and RnB acts (about many of whom I've dropped knowledge before) playing, all under one roof. All represent the classic "Philly Sound"; smooooooth jams from mostly the 70's and mostly penned/produced by legendary producers Gamble and Huff.


Download "Get Up Get Down Get Funky Get Loose" by Teddy Pendergrass

You should go, but you can't: tickets start at $55. (One site selling tickets insists that the cheap tickets have "awesome" views though; the mid-price tix have merely "great" views, and the most dear tickets have "brilliant" views.)



Love Train is a concert supporting the recent compilation of the same name, which aims to put the musical descriptor "The Philly Sound" into people's minds, right up there with "Motown" and "Stax".
Playing are Jerry Butler,
The O'Jays,

the Delfonics, the Jones Girls,

Harold Melvin's Bluenotes (which used to have Teddy Pendergrass in it), and the (new) Stylistics.

I've told you about Jerry Butler multiple times before; Internet tells me that he has an album called "Sings Assorted Sounds With The Aid of Assorted Friends and Relatives"

and Internet implies that he is a Freemason.


The Delfonics had a bigBIGbig hit with "Didn't I Blow Your Mind (This Time)", which I believe the New Kids on the Block re-recorded. So, you've heard the song before, guaranteed, whether old or "New" (Get it?). You also might have heard it when I included it on this mix, which is about how I am the best thing going these days.

The Stylistics were the first of these bands that I knew by name, way back in college. Not surprisingly, my knowledge/ownership of "The Philly Sound" much expanded once I actually lived in Philadelphia.


The first song by the Stylistics that I loved is called "Pieces"; I still love it but am usually annoyed by the rest of their jams. A little saccharine, a little cloying, a little treacly. All the lead singing is done in a falsetto, FYI, which you either like or don't (I like).