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What a Time to Be Alive

May 6, 2022 · Leave a Comment

“What a time to be alive,” he groaned.

About a decade ago, a friend and I talked about how the world was in turmoil and disturbingly uncertain. I remember telling him my theory that the cause of almost all modern conflict is resistance to change. Humans are progressing and becoming more enlightened, for the most part, and the status quo doesn’t approve. A concerted and institutional effort to stop this change only gets more desperate. After all, change is inevitable — it’s happening whether anyone wants it, which is ultimately an optimistic view.

But, as I told my friend, it will get a lot worse before it gets better. So we sighed and shook our heads in grudging anticipation for the tough times ahead. But we had no idea it would get to this.

It’s not easy to write through democracy in crisis. ‘The American Experiment,’ once presented with holy reverence in high school civics classes, may not survive the strain of 250 years. What seemed hyperbolic and the province of chicken littles is now a rising possibility. It’s scary out there. And I find it unfathomable that this is acceptable to others who also sat through those civics classes. Some of them — elected officials, even — are cheering on democracy’s potential collapse.

How did we get here?

Sean Illing is the host of Vox Conversations. Within that weekly podcast, Sean launched a monthly series called The Philosophers. Each episode focuses on different philosophers and how their teachings are relevant today. And the installment on philosopher Hannah Arendt, author of 1973’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, is an eye-opener. The podcast isn’t an easy listen — not because it’s dense but because of how Arendt’s findings apply to our situation. I found the conversation illuminating, and though it didn’t add hope to my day, it brought some new perspectives.

The perceived helplessness is stifling, too. I’m a massive advocate of voting — if you saw me DJ close to the 2004 and 2008 elections, I was probably wearing a t-shirt with “VOTE!” written across my chest. But the right to vote, the bedrock of democracy, is increasingly compromised. And then there’s the fatigue of seeing too many elected officials not sounding the alarm as they should. In her fantastic Lorem Ipsum newsletter, Margot Boyer-Dry linked to this cartoon, accurately summing up the feeling in the air. 

But I think voting is still the most important action, in concert with other forms of activism, support, and donation. The guiding principle is to do the opposite of what the knuckleheads want. And they don’t want us to vote. The evidence is there. They want us to feel frustrated and powerless. They want us to ignore local and midterm elections and only care about presidential politics. And they want us to vote for third-party candidates and to believe those votes count.

The fact is that our political system is based on what’s called ‘first-past-the-post’ voting. Intrinsically, this creates a two-party system (even independents like Sanders have to align themselves with one of two parties), and voting outside of those, at best, does nothing but provide a limited sense of personal satisfaction. CGP Grey has a great video on first-past-the-post voting and how easily it can lead to undesirable outcomes. 

CGP Grey - Vote Leopard

Look, I’m not saying this is a great system. Far from it! If I had my way, there would be zero political parties in the US or, at the very least, a parliamentarian system. Ranked choice voting is the most probable alternative within the US system, but it’s still a pipe dream on a national level.1If you like the idea of ranked choice voting, the best way to advance the concept is to build support for it in your city or county. Ranked choice voting will need to trickle upward to acceptability.

You might cry that I’m asking you to vote for “the lesser of two evils.” I am, and that’s not a bad thing! That’s the only way to make first-past-the-post voting work for us. We find candidates that are a step in our preferred direction, even if those steps are baby steps. We won’t and don’t have to agree with everything — just those things that are important to us. If we’re consistent in electing ‘baby step’ candidates, those steps get larger and larger as new candidates see how the wind is blowing. The alternative is what we have now: steps backward. And, dismayingly, these backward steps are large steps. For those traditionally trod upon, they’re giant steps.

Speaking of those giant steps backward, here’s Margot Boyer-Dry again, from a recent edition of Lorem Ipsum:

Having moved through the years 2016-2022, this moment is hitting bluntly, mainly because it feels like there’s relatively little to be done from an establishment perspective (again, outside the voting, which we will all do responsibly, if with a degree of dejection). But what does that leave? Everything besides the establishment. I think we’re about to see a lot of guerilla change. Just wait until we all start hosting kids from Florida in our city apartments while they get medical care. Watch the startups normalize mail-order abortion pills. Observe the the Supreme Court’s crumbling in the cultural consciousness. There will be stuff to do; we just have to make it up. Sit tight.

🔗→ see also: Creating Sends a Signal

Filed Under: Commentary Tagged With: cgp grey, democracy, Hannah Arendt, Margot Boyer-Dry, Philosophy, Podcasts, Sean Illing, These Modern Times, voting, Vox

Groove On: How DJs Created the 12″ Single

April 26, 2019 · Leave a Comment

The other day I wrote about music delivery and formats (CD, LP, streaming) and how these often influence music creation. This latest installment of Vox’s always excellent Earworm series flips this around. The video documents how the 12” single filled the need of ‘70s club DJs requiring songs with more time to groove and at higher fidelity than a 7” or LP track could deliver.

Here are a few quick thoughts on the video:

  • People tend to forget how long disco — and club culture — was an active underground movement before its mainstream overload. Some of the early dates in the video may surprise some. And though not strictly ‘disco,’ David Mancuso’s first Loft party was in 1970, as an early benchmark.
  • Can we note how cool it is that some contemporary DJs like Questlove and Orlando’s DJ BMF often go back to playing 7” vinyl sets, just as Nicky Siano once did? Not only is this throwback an homage and a connector to the past, but I think one becomes a better DJ — learning techniques to apply to modern digital methods — by stripping the practice down to its roots.
  • Paul Morley, appearing in the video, has a place in 12” history not mentioned in the piece. He was a co-founder — alongside Trevor Horn — of ZTT Records and an original Art Of Noise member. Morley’s input was mainly in the label’s image, branding, and writing the grandiose label copy and manifestos that accompanied each release, but he certainly had a say in the label’s groundbreaking music direction. One element of that direction: ZTT 12” mixes weren’t merely extended versions. These were complete reworks of the original songs, with new instrumentation, drum tracks, and even extra vocals. This type of remixing is normal in dance music now — a simple extended version is a rarity — but, in ZTT’s time, it was a radical technique. I’m not sure if any label was doing these types of remixes before ZTT. My favorite ZTT rework/remix? This one for Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “Rage Hard” which takes the listener on a tour of the “strange world of the 12”.”
  • I would have loved to have heard “I Feel Love” for the first time with fresh, unprepared 1977 ears. Brian Eno’s initial reaction was probably shared by many.

Filed Under: Items of Note Tagged With: 12" Singles, Club Culture, DJs, Earworm, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Remix, Vox

8sided.blog

 
 
 
 
 
 
8sided.blog is a digital zine about sound, culture, and what Andrew Weatherall once referred to as 'the punk rock dream'.

It's also the online home of Michael Donaldson, a slightly jaded but surprisingly optimistic fellow who's haunted the music industry for longer than he cares to admit. A former Q-Burns Abstract Message.

"More than machinery, we need humanity."
 
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