I was thinking on my walk today that other people don't know the right questions to ask. Now that's my objection to other people's work, but of course, I'm blaming them for not asking the kind of questions that interest me. There is no absolute measure of what an interesting or not interesting question is. Interesting to whom? What I mean is this:
I'm the first person (or one of the first at least) in the Hispanic field to try to do "word and music studies." I guess that would depend on how this is defined.
I'm the first person word and music studies to do a book that combines classical and vernacular musical traditions in adaptations of a single poet. (or maybe at all, in a comparative perspective).
Almost nobody, it seems, really looks at the music itself very closely when they study popular music in my field.
I was thinking of Linda Hutcheon today and discovered she had a book on theory adaptations, to go along with her theory of parody. I don't remember her as being very interesting: clear and helpful, yes, but I don't remember it having a spark. I'll have to go back and see. There is a general field of translation / parody / adaptation / musical setting theory that I am in, more or less. Since Hutcheon also has her theory of postmodernism I will have to look at that, since I'm arguing for a postmodernism in musical settings of Lorca. I cannot even remember my objections to Hutcheon, except maybe that she looked only at prose fiction, whereas for me the interest lies in poetry / music. I remember thinking that she missed Kenneth Koch. So maybe the idea of an interesting question is subjective. Her idea of historiographic metafiction fits the books she knew at the time (historiographic metafiction) but didn't seem pertinent to what I was interested in.
Scholarly writing and how to get it done. / And a workshop for my own ideas, scholarly and poetic
Featured Post
BFRC
I am posting this as a benchmark, not because I think I'm playing very well yet. The idea would be post a video every month for a ye...
Sunday, May 31, 2020
Friday, May 29, 2020
Thrombus
Thrombus is a heavy-sounding word
strong and direct like the lethal thing it is
yet colder and more clinical
than its cousin blood clot.
The word thrombus came up in the crossword puzzle today. I didn't know what it meant so I looked it up. Then I wrote this poem on my walk. It is part of my vocabulary lessons series.
strong and direct like the lethal thing it is
yet colder and more clinical
than its cousin blood clot.
The word thrombus came up in the crossword puzzle today. I didn't know what it meant so I looked it up. Then I wrote this poem on my walk. It is part of my vocabulary lessons series.
Feel Good Quotes
Feel good quotes are phrases that you quote from other people designed to produce a warm buzz in the reader, except in a reader like me of course. I am suspicious of them and the feelings that produce.
Dream of an Imaginary Book
I was at a concert hall. The singer had a book for sale there titled The Penguin Book of Lieder. She was there and I wanted to ask her about it. I was leafing through it and it seemed to be about her own career rather than what the title implied. There was a chapter about her tour of Thailand and another Asian country.
HOW TO THINK ABOUT WORDS LIKE A POET DOES
I love the word mawkish
It pops in the mouth and in the ear
It is yellow like a lemon
Nobody knows what a mawk is
So the word seems archaic, made up
Like every other word in the dictionary
But more so
It pops in the mouth and in the ear
It is yellow like a lemon
Nobody knows what a mawk is
So the word seems archaic, made up
Like every other word in the dictionary
But more so
Thursday, May 28, 2020
Don't know much about....
Whenever I have the thought, "I don't know much about..." then I can make a list of what I do know about it. It turns out, then, that I know more than I thought I did.
So today's topic will be orchestration.
My first thought is that you would know have to know the range of instruments. There would be low, like basses and tubas, then medium low, like trombones, bassoons and cellos. Above that there are violas and other things in that range, and then violins, oboes, and flutes at the very top. Clarinets have a wide range. You would have to know the exact range, and comfort levels of each instrument, along with timbres and how they blend or stick out.
Then you would have to know how to write for strings. That is the meat and potatoes level. You'd have to think about functions of other kinds of instruments. Are they soloing or offering timbral richness to a chord? You'd have to think structurally about what the piece is doing at particular moments, and about the total texture you want.
You would have to know harmony, voice leading, and the like. How to orchestrate chords between instruments. Voices can be doubled, or not. You would have to know when to leave out certain instruments.
So I don't know much about, but I know something about what I don't know about it. I know what I would have to learn in order to know about it, or actually do it. Of course, deeper into the subject I would discover more things that I'm not thinking of right now.
Try this with a subject that you don't know anything about. Or suggest one to me. I will tell you what I don't know about it.
So today's topic will be orchestration.
My first thought is that you would know have to know the range of instruments. There would be low, like basses and tubas, then medium low, like trombones, bassoons and cellos. Above that there are violas and other things in that range, and then violins, oboes, and flutes at the very top. Clarinets have a wide range. You would have to know the exact range, and comfort levels of each instrument, along with timbres and how they blend or stick out.
Then you would have to know how to write for strings. That is the meat and potatoes level. You'd have to think about functions of other kinds of instruments. Are they soloing or offering timbral richness to a chord? You'd have to think structurally about what the piece is doing at particular moments, and about the total texture you want.
You would have to know harmony, voice leading, and the like. How to orchestrate chords between instruments. Voices can be doubled, or not. You would have to know when to leave out certain instruments.
So I don't know much about, but I know something about what I don't know about it. I know what I would have to learn in order to know about it, or actually do it. Of course, deeper into the subject I would discover more things that I'm not thinking of right now.
Try this with a subject that you don't know anything about. Or suggest one to me. I will tell you what I don't know about it.
Decepción
I ordered a book on Lorca and flamenco, written by a flamenco singer with quite a few books to his name. I had hoped that it would have something to offer, but it is quite bad in many very obvious ways. I feel an almost visceral disgust at a particular kind of discourse, and can barely stand to look at it.
This is tied to what I feel about Ben Sidran's Concert for García Lorca. It's not even good jazz, and what I don't want to hear an American read aloud from the duende lecture in Spanish in a horrid accent. The Spanish teacher in me shudders. Isn't this the worst kind of kitsch!
From my own dislikes I have something to learn. It's telling me something about myself and my relation to the subject matter.
This is tied to what I feel about Ben Sidran's Concert for García Lorca. It's not even good jazz, and what I don't want to hear an American read aloud from the duende lecture in Spanish in a horrid accent. The Spanish teacher in me shudders. Isn't this the worst kind of kitsch!
From my own dislikes I have something to learn. It's telling me something about myself and my relation to the subject matter.
PERHAPS THAT IS WHY YOU ARE SO CONFUSED
My solemnity is
dark humor
a scowl on the face
of the sunny sky
my deepest reverence
irreverence
perhaps that is why
you are so confused
dark humor
a scowl on the face
of the sunny sky
my deepest reverence
irreverence
perhaps that is why
you are so confused
A Dream
In this dream my daughter and I both woke up in the middle of the night and were talking. Suddenly I realized that the date was different, that we were in the past. I tried to find something to confirm this, and she said, look Dad, I'm 12-years old again! I took a picture of her 12-year old self to prove the reality of the experience. I thought that since we were back in the past we could warn people of the Covid Virus, but I wasn't quite sure how that would work.
Now she was acting like a 12-year old, though really like a much younger child. Daddy! Daddy! The next morning, still in the dream, I was trying to find the photo on my phone to prove its reality, but I could not. I saw other images of my grandmother and others there.
Then I tried to go back to sleep; I was in my dad's study at my parents', and there was a reel-to-reel tape playing on and on. Now it was playing a tape of a solemn funeral oration for my mom's friend Joyce (who is still alive). I got up to try to turn it off so I wouldn't wake the other people in the house, and encountered multiple power-switches in a confusing array of stereo equipment. I finally found the one to turn it off. Julia was coming back into the room to bug me as I was trying to get back to sleep. It wasn't clear whether she was her 12-year old self or her 24-year old self at this point.
As I was waking up for real I still wanted the experience to be real. I almost checked my phone for the photo.
Now she was acting like a 12-year old, though really like a much younger child. Daddy! Daddy! The next morning, still in the dream, I was trying to find the photo on my phone to prove its reality, but I could not. I saw other images of my grandmother and others there.
Then I tried to go back to sleep; I was in my dad's study at my parents', and there was a reel-to-reel tape playing on and on. Now it was playing a tape of a solemn funeral oration for my mom's friend Joyce (who is still alive). I got up to try to turn it off so I wouldn't wake the other people in the house, and encountered multiple power-switches in a confusing array of stereo equipment. I finally found the one to turn it off. Julia was coming back into the room to bug me as I was trying to get back to sleep. It wasn't clear whether she was her 12-year old self or her 24-year old self at this point.
As I was waking up for real I still wanted the experience to be real. I almost checked my phone for the photo.
Tuesday, May 26, 2020
THERE WAS A TIME
When I was young, John O'Hara,
novelist and short-story writer,
was better known than Frank--
Frank O'Hara, poet and museum curator.
Now, I think, the situation is reversed.
Frank is more famous every day.
John is still remembered
but with fewer fervent fans.
novelist and short-story writer,
was better known than Frank--
Frank O'Hara, poet and museum curator.
Now, I think, the situation is reversed.
Frank is more famous every day.
John is still remembered
but with fewer fervent fans.
What comes first, pleasure or understanding (a ramble)
Charles Rosen say understanding comes first. So if you can understand a piece of music, then you can like it. I think that's right.
I listened to a lecture by Kenneth Koch from Naropa; got there from the Allen Ginsberg project where I was looking at Ginsberg and his views of Blake, Bob Dylan, and Aristide Bruant. Koch says if your students don't understand a poem, then ask them what they like. From the pleasure they derive from it they can arrive at more understanding. I think that is also right.
[Koch also says that writers don't read as much as scholars because when they start reading, they get inspired and start writing their own poems. That happened to me today reading the brilliant poet Eileen Myles.]
I think you can understand through dislike too, if you don't cling to your dislike too much. If you have too much invested in disliking something, then that will interfere with what you can learn from that dislike. Or, conversely, if you have so much invested in liking a poet's work that you will a visceral reaction to someone else not liking it, then you won't be able to learn from their dislike.
I'm struggling because I dislike something about Morente, who is one of the main flamenco interpreters of Lorca. If I could put my finger on the source of my irritation, then I could have insight into what he is doing.
Understanding music is feeling that the way it proceeds is "logical" or makes "sense." I am not that interested in interpretation as telling somebody, in other words, what the words of the poem mean. I mean, I learned how to do it, of course, because I am a professional academic literary critic, but I am not that interested in interpretation. I do interpret when I read, but I am uninterested in defending my exact account of it, or in telling someone else they are wrong. That probably explains my impatience with a lot of Lorca criticism that is trying to decode his work. Let it alone!
A lot of interpretations do go wrong, though, in the sense that the cleverer the interpretation, the more likely it is to be wrong. Even if we see interpretation as decoding a secret message the poet encoded there (a view that Koch and I both agree is wrong), then it is unlikely that the real meaning is only revealed to one person, the super-clever literary critic living 200-years later.
Koch also says that he has his students write bad poems, that end up being good ones. Just like mine.
What if?
What if there were
no spatulas?
Could we still turn things over?
What if there were no radio waves?
Some things would still work
others wouldn't.
no spatulas?
Could we still turn things over?
What if there were no radio waves?
Some things would still work
others wouldn't.
Monday, May 25, 2020
Sunday, May 24, 2020
An illusion
The idea of living at a late date in history is kind of an optical illusion. Every date in history is the latest moment of history so far. The illusion is caused by the fact that we are thinking only of the centuries that have already passed, not of those that are yet to come. So if you were at 1,000 A,D. you would be thinking of everything before you and not everything that would come afterwards. You would be justified in thinking that you were at a late stage of human history. Now this belief seems naive, when attributed to someone of that period, because we know that a lot more came to pass after that. But it seems justified to us. This could be a story for Borges, a kind of "refutation of time."
So too our condescension toward the past. Someone posted in Facebook about Unamuno's racism, and then I thought that everyone was racist back then. That is true, that we should understand the context of things like that. But our own moment could be just as prone to error, in other ways, as his. It doesn't excuse me to say, of some erroneous or toxic belief of mine, that others share it at my own historical moment, because who is to say that it is an early or too late time in our historical development? I think about it in terms of the advice I would give to my former self. Well, I can't listen to the advice that my future self could give me either.
So too our condescension toward the past. Someone posted in Facebook about Unamuno's racism, and then I thought that everyone was racist back then. That is true, that we should understand the context of things like that. But our own moment could be just as prone to error, in other ways, as his. It doesn't excuse me to say, of some erroneous or toxic belief of mine, that others share it at my own historical moment, because who is to say that it is an early or too late time in our historical development? I think about it in terms of the advice I would give to my former self. Well, I can't listen to the advice that my future self could give me either.
Saturday, May 23, 2020
Friday, May 22, 2020
Time for another poem I wrote a while back
What is Poetry? Jonathan’s Theory
Poetry is a special language, elevated and
strange, rarefied, ethereal, exalted,
prophetic, visionary, different. Kenneth Koch
thought so, though his poetry is hilariously
funny, backing into that ecstatic language
rather than seeking it head-on.
Poetry is ceremonial, with a gravitas
suited to special occasions. Hermetic
and difficult to understand (though
Koch’s is not), archaic or suggestive
of archaic cultures. In short,
poetry has to be poetic.
That’s one theory. But Eliot’s
patient etherized on the table is un-
beautiful. Williams wanted the
speech of immigrant Polish mothers
in his poetry. Ginsberg wrote of being
fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists. And
Frank O’Hara’s practiced a studied casualness in his
Lunch Poems, with the tone of an intimate diary
or conversation. Think too
of Jaime Gil de Biedma’s “words of the family,
warmly worn out.”
Or Creeley: “As I sd to my
friend because I am always talking,
John I sd which was not his name.” So modern
and contemporary poets
often seek the anti-poetic,
like Nicanor Parra’s anti-poems of course,
breaking down the barrier between
special uses of language and
ordinary, instrumental ones. The
barrier so important for Mallarmé, for example,
almost like the fourth wall in the theater, which
modern playwrights also tore down. Some poets
continue to use language more
formal than that of every day
conversation, more lyrical, avoiding
vulgarity. Some would never use the word vomit or can opener
in a poem, for example. Some use
a neutral vocabulary, free of both elevated and
colloquial registers, and some don’t seem
to care about language at all.
I don’t care for those poets, but who am I to say?
Dull or surprisingly undull poetry can be written in
all of these modes.
Still, simply breaking down the barrier
separating these special poetic languages
from other uses of language
doesn’t always work. Doesn’t poetry still
have to “charge language with meaning,”
as Pound said, in some way or another? So
everything anti-poetic or conversational, everything
vulgar is there in a poem
because of its poetic charge. Just think for a moment
about why Ginsberg’s motorcyclists are “saintly.” Koch sought
the ecstatic Romantic tone of Shelley but
without symbolism and a lot of other Romantic
baggage he didn’t need anymore. We all know idiots
who think a Frank O’Hara
poem is easy to write, or that
all poetry should be accessible to everyone.
Really, the enemy is not one particular
kind of poetry or the other, but
dullness. Poetry is the supreme exercise
of the human intelligence and imagination, so any
conception of poetry that cuts
off any part of that
from consideration is vile. I once wrote
that it should kick you in the ass
with its transformative power,
and I meant it. Of course Emily Dickinson said
it should makes you feel like
the top of your head has been taken off,
or was it the back?
If you have heard me
criticize poets who I think put forward
this limitation of the imagination as their
main agenda,
I won’t apologize. They are like those harsh
music teachers
whose agenda is to prevent children
without talent from playing
music by discouraging them
when they are still young. Everyone
should play music or sing, in my
opinion. Koch thought that they
should be strangled, in a poem called “Fresh Air.”
There is enough violence in the world
so let’s just say their punishment
should be having to read their own poetry
aloud to each other
for years
in a sing-song “poet’s voice.” Poetry
can be as bad as you want it to, as I think
I’m demonstrating in these poems, but if it’s dull
or just sort of ok in a
lukewarm way, you should just
start again with a fresher
conception of everything
of which it might be capable.
Time to reprise my poem "Delusions of Mediocrity"
Delusions of mediocrity
I turn 55 in the summer of 2015. My friend the poet Ken Irby dies.
I’ve been to Argentina that summer and start running when I get back.
I am no longer President of the University Senate.
Pet-sitting at my girlfriend’s house while she is on a trip (dog, chickens)
I begin to fool around on her electric piano. I’ve heard there’s something
called a tri-tone substitution, so I try it out. Also, that you can replace
the tonic with the iii chord. Using these simple ideas, I write my first song.
I can hardly play piano—lessons as a kid and all that—but I know elementary
concepts of music theory (apparently). I write a few more songs
on a cheap keyboard I have in my own apartment. I’m playing every day
by now. My songs all sound similar to one another, because I am exploring
a few ideas, but I learn more keys and gradually branch out. My lyrics are
not good. “Like stars emerging on a cloudless night / We got together and
it felt so right. / Let’s live a life together, / in sweet harmony.” I struggle to
write down the music using free music notation software. (It’s hard to use
that phrase in a poem, isn’t it?). In September I run my first 5k.
I go running on campus one day, though, and have asthma attack. In October
my friend loses use of both arms in bicycle accident, temporarily.
I help to nurse her back to health.
I take her
to Davis to celebrate my mom’s 80th birthday in November, and to Austin
in January. My sister has Semantic Dementia and lives in Davis too.
She is musician and poet too, but cannot read, or read music, any more.
She has lost many words, especially nouns and proper names.
She does not know my name any more.
Cared for by my mother and by Norbie, she is cheerful. Norbie,
her husband, my new brother-in-law, has loved her for years and
pokes gentle fun at me, calling me Professor Mayhew and
exaggerating the importance of my Senate Presidency.
In 2016 I play piano every day except when traveling. We go
to Austin (as I’ve already mentioned), Tallahassee, and Cuba. Getting back
to my songs, I write more, back from Cuba. One uses the chord changes
to “Bemsha Swing,” by Thelonious Monk. Another two use the progression to
“Hit the Road Jack,” the so-called “Flamenco cadence.” I have recorded
some songs at the studio in the public library. My playing is terrible,
hesitant, too staccato, dynamically insensitive, but I suffer from “delusions
of mediocrity.” The idea that I could play as well as amateurs playing
in local bars and coffee shops. Those guys are actually good though,
and I am not, though writing these songs gives me an odd feeling
that for too long I have blocked myself off from the wellsprings of my own
creativity. That sounds awkward in a poem too. It is too explanatory and
discursive. Creativity has become a management consultant buzzword
so all the cool poets now are being deliberately unoriginal. Good thing
I’m not one of them. Anyway, my songs are inspired by Bill Evans-type
sonorities. They are harmonically complex by now, full of colors I find
fascinating. Since I’ve been listening to jazz all my life I seem to have
a lot of good ideas for songs. Now I finally understand Lorca’s love of
Debussy and Falla. The nuanced chromaticism of his Suites, so different
from stereotypical notions of Lorca as poet of duende and
Andalusian Kitsch. I set a few Lorca poems to music.
I take voice lessons all spring. I play in front
of the hardware store where they have a piano where everyone can play.
Record heat and humidity render it unplayable, though, by mid-summer.
Also, in the student union, where there is a grand piano whose keys also
begin to stick. One day I sit in on drums at Martin and Durand’s house
with a country band (Martin’s band), just with snare drum and wire brushes.
They are gently tolerant of my playing, which isn’t too bad, I guess.
I realize I’ve been playing drums for 20 years but rarely in public,
typical for my isolated and bookish existence, typical
of all the ways I get in my own way, sabotaging my own
happiness through cowardice and asinine, egotistical stoicism.
It is summer of 2016 now, as you might have guessed. My short un-
successful musical career is almost a year old. We commemorate a year
of Ken’s dying and I offer to play a song called “Elegy for Ken Irby”
at Judy’s house. (I once called it “Italian Movie Theme” before I realized
that it was an elegy for him.) Meanwhile my so-called creativity
is at a high point. I don’t even care that my poems are bad
and write bad poems on purpose that everyone loves, including this one
that I conceive of in my head this morning as I run five kilometers.
People like my songs too. Between pride and embarrassment, I settle for
a kind of homespun enthusiasm, the way anyone should be enthusiastic
about their hobbies, things that make them happy to do from day to day.
That seems better than wondering every day whether I am talented
or just a fuck-up. I am happy and in love with life itself, despite
intermittent depression that makes it hard to get through the days,
sometimes. I love my friends and family too, some “hid in death’s dateless
night” but most still living, and of course I love Beth, the
woman I wrote those songs for. Life seems uneventful, at times, but is
actually crammed full of events, good, bad, small, momentous,
I realize. I realize that the next year might be eventful too and
decide to keep my radio dials tuned to as many stations
as possible to see what might happen.
Scholars
I emailed a Lorca scholar with a very specific question. He said, "I'm afraid I cannot be of much help" and then proceeded to answer my question with extraordinarily precise information.
Thursday, May 21, 2020
Generosity
I want to be all about generosity and gratitude. This is what belonging to the zen center for four and a half months has instilled in me. When you meditate alone, you are doing therapy for yourself, but if you are part of the sangha then you will be thinking beyond the self. There is nothing wrong with therapy either; in fact, deeply unhappy people have a hard time with generous or grateful feelings toward others, so you might want to get yourself together as well.
I feel uncomfortable with this, because I am not trying to boast about being generous, or even tell you what you should do. Most of what I feel I ought to be doing is to decrease social isolation so I took these steps:
I started a facebook group for scholars in my discipline.
I am giving an article-writing workshop for our graduate students in June, with 5 sessions.
It isn't very much, but I feel that people can be generous with what they are best at. People ask me to review scholarly articles for their journals, and ask me again after I have done one, so perhaps editors feel that I am good at that.
***
To this end, and because I am feeling generous today, I will offer an article critique for the first 3 people who email me at jmayhew@ku.edu. Please nothing longer than 8 thousand words, and no astrophysics or botany. English, Spanish, Catalan, and French only.
I feel uncomfortable with this, because I am not trying to boast about being generous, or even tell you what you should do. Most of what I feel I ought to be doing is to decrease social isolation so I took these steps:
I started a facebook group for scholars in my discipline.
I am giving an article-writing workshop for our graduate students in June, with 5 sessions.
It isn't very much, but I feel that people can be generous with what they are best at. People ask me to review scholarly articles for their journals, and ask me again after I have done one, so perhaps editors feel that I am good at that.
***
To this end, and because I am feeling generous today, I will offer an article critique for the first 3 people who email me at jmayhew@ku.edu. Please nothing longer than 8 thousand words, and no astrophysics or botany. English, Spanish, Catalan, and French only.
The Three Stages of Academic Writing
1. First, the writer doesn't know that you can't just write the way you talk. There is no effort to make the writing sound "academic" at all. I never went through this stage, because, well, I had already read enough not to do this. But I have had graduate students who write like this.
2. The second stage is when the writer is trying to sound formal, academic, and professional. They have an academic voice in their head that they are emulating. Their writing will be formal enough, now, and hit the proper register. Their prose blends in with that of others. It doesn't seem out of place in an academic journal. This does not mean it is good. In fact, it might very well be bad in the typical ways that academic writing is bad. They might jargon, heavy-handed sign-posting.
3. The third stage is when the writer decides to pursue a personal style. This can be any style sh/e wants, but it is the writer now who makes the decisions, no longer worried about sounding academic enough. How do we balance the different stylistic ideas we have in our heads? Clarity, elegance, concision, precision of meaning, specificity... What exact tone do we want to convey? Confidence, friendliness, humor? Notice that I am not giving a formula for how you should write, but simply saying it is up to you to decide. So many writers do not even know that there are choices to be made. Once you know what you want, you can pursue it. Your writing will start to move in that direction, and will improve along the axis that you have chosen. Writing "better" is a useless goal; you want to move in a particular direction that you have chosen, like writing "clearer," or "more elegantly." Or "sounding less stuffy."
For me, the third stage has meant sounding a little less academic, more like the tone of everyday speech. It is not a reversion to step 1, but a reconsideration. I have tried variations on the plain style and the classic style.
It is the same way in the writing of poetry. An inexpert writer either writes just prose, without realizing that the poem is something different. Or else they will write stupid sounding rhyming doggerel. The next stage is to sound "poetic" on purpose, with a lot of lyrical writing, or writing imitative of what wouldn't seem out of place in a literary journal of the day. The third stage is to decide what style you will pursue of your own accord. Maybe this style will make your poems unpublishable, because they don't fit what people expect to see in a journal.
2. The second stage is when the writer is trying to sound formal, academic, and professional. They have an academic voice in their head that they are emulating. Their writing will be formal enough, now, and hit the proper register. Their prose blends in with that of others. It doesn't seem out of place in an academic journal. This does not mean it is good. In fact, it might very well be bad in the typical ways that academic writing is bad. They might jargon, heavy-handed sign-posting.
3. The third stage is when the writer decides to pursue a personal style. This can be any style sh/e wants, but it is the writer now who makes the decisions, no longer worried about sounding academic enough. How do we balance the different stylistic ideas we have in our heads? Clarity, elegance, concision, precision of meaning, specificity... What exact tone do we want to convey? Confidence, friendliness, humor? Notice that I am not giving a formula for how you should write, but simply saying it is up to you to decide. So many writers do not even know that there are choices to be made. Once you know what you want, you can pursue it. Your writing will start to move in that direction, and will improve along the axis that you have chosen. Writing "better" is a useless goal; you want to move in a particular direction that you have chosen, like writing "clearer," or "more elegantly." Or "sounding less stuffy."
For me, the third stage has meant sounding a little less academic, more like the tone of everyday speech. It is not a reversion to step 1, but a reconsideration. I have tried variations on the plain style and the classic style.
It is the same way in the writing of poetry. An inexpert writer either writes just prose, without realizing that the poem is something different. Or else they will write stupid sounding rhyming doggerel. The next stage is to sound "poetic" on purpose, with a lot of lyrical writing, or writing imitative of what wouldn't seem out of place in a literary journal of the day. The third stage is to decide what style you will pursue of your own accord. Maybe this style will make your poems unpublishable, because they don't fit what people expect to see in a journal.
Monday, May 18, 2020
How I became an Agnostic
A leaf fell from a tree, but I didn't see which one
I felt a stirring in my loins, but I don't know why
I felt deep urges
I heard the train whistle from a distance at night
Was it from the mind of God
or from the workings of random chance?
Sunday, May 17, 2020
Getting it backwards
I found a reference which said, essentially, "Germana Montero, who would later become famous under the stage name of Germaine Heygel." But of course, Germaine Heygel is her birth name, and she became known as "Germaine Montero." She was billed at times as "Germana" in some films, according the imdb.
Friday, May 15, 2020
There are no astronauts
There are no astronauts
in the Flat Earth Society
no pilots, no mapmakers,
only the odd land-surveyor
No beautiful women belong
no birdwatchers, no tenders of plants
There are no gravediggers
in the Optimist Club
There are no astronauts
in the Flat Earth Society
Only the odd landsurveyor
only the odd grave-digger
in the Flat Earth Society
no pilots, no mapmakers,
only the odd land-surveyor
No beautiful women belong
no birdwatchers, no tenders of plants
There are no gravediggers
in the Optimist Club
There are no astronauts
in the Flat Earth Society
Only the odd landsurveyor
only the odd grave-digger
1948
I was trying to figure out when the earliest Germaine Montero Lorca recording was. So I did a search for her name in the catalogue of the French National Library. They have 25 pages of listing of her recordings. Anyway, so I came up with 1955. Then I looked to see when the LP was invented, which was 1948.
The LP format created the possibility of the album. (The album before that was a literal album that you would use to store individual 78 rpm records). The album is the origin of the "literary turn" in popular music, I hypothesize, because it allows for projects of greater scope. The length in and of itself just creates the possibility that the album is not a collection of single songs (singles), but something more conceptual. A lot of things wouldn't have been possible, like "Kind of Blue," etc... or Ray Charles's country music compilation. Of course, there are still albums that are just collections of singles with no particular cohesiveness, but going from 4 minutes a side to 20 is huge.
I hadn't really thought about this before no, but I'm doing to have to mention it. Montero's recording might very well be the first Long playing Lorca record in any genre. Whoopee!
{So if there are any earlier Germaine Montero Lorca recordings, they would have to be between 1948 and 1955.
JTM
My daughter has a productivity system. On the vertical axis of a spread sheet are things she wants to work on, on the horizontal axis are the days of the month, 1-31. Then she can put a check mark on what she works on every day. She puts her priorities at the top of the chart, so she can monitor if she is working on those almost every day, like long tone studies. She has things like exercise and meditation on the chart, because those are part of what she needs to be to be a good trumpet player.
At the end of the month, there should be more check marks at the top of the chart than the bottom.
She records herself, listens back, critiques herself, and then repeats the process until she is satisfied. She then posts the video on a facebook group of classical trumpet players. Everyday they give themselves a different assignment. She shared with me a video of the head to "Confirmation," which she recorded 12 times in order to get it the way she wanted.
There will be an opening in the St. Louis Symphony, and in the Army Ceremonial Band that she can audition for. Her goal is to have a job and not just a gig.
At the end of the month, there should be more check marks at the top of the chart than the bottom.
She records herself, listens back, critiques herself, and then repeats the process until she is satisfied. She then posts the video on a facebook group of classical trumpet players. Everyday they give themselves a different assignment. She shared with me a video of the head to "Confirmation," which she recorded 12 times in order to get it the way she wanted.
There will be an opening in the St. Louis Symphony, and in the Army Ceremonial Band that she can audition for. Her goal is to have a job and not just a gig.
Thursday, May 14, 2020
Days of not @#$%ing around
I am sharing these productivity notes with you. I now keep my log in inverse chronological order, so I can open the document and write in it immediately.
I use ! to mean something I have accomplished that impresses me at the time.
I came up with a new term today, "quarter final." This means that the document is not in a form to be published (final) or submitted (semi-final) but that it is ready to share with a colleague.
What I call a day of not $%^&ing off around is a day I am committed to the writing and piano playing. I use the vulgarity as a kind of response to my inner critic who might want to talk to me in that language. As you can see, there are two recent days I didn't work on my project. One was an all-day zen retreat, the other was a weekend day when I mowed my girlfriend's lawn. They weren't exactly days of doing nothing either.
When I am writing a chapter that is not complete yet, I like to write 400 words a day. Once the chapter is in revision phase then the word count will not increase by much, and might even decrease.
I use ! to mean something I have accomplished that impresses me at the time.
I came up with a new term today, "quarter final." This means that the document is not in a form to be published (final) or submitted (semi-final) but that it is ready to share with a colleague.
What I call a day of not $%^&ing off around is a day I am committed to the writing and piano playing. I use the vulgarity as a kind of response to my inner critic who might want to talk to me in that language. As you can see, there are two recent days I didn't work on my project. One was an all-day zen retreat, the other was a weekend day when I mowed my girlfriend's lawn. They weren't exactly days of doing nothing either.
When I am writing a chapter that is not complete yet, I like to write 400 words a day. Once the chapter is in revision phase then the word count will not increase by much, and might even decrease.
May 14 (Thursday): day 16 of not fucking around
Had idea for article workshop / blog post about this / wrote Alesha and Araceli about it
Interchange of emails about this
Revised intro to quarter-final stage / shared with Areceli!
Looked at “Words and Music” chapter to see what is missing for completed chapter
Completed this chapter in “quarterfinal form.”
Morning zen practice
Walking bass / “Anthropology” / Rhythm Changes
May 13, day 15 of not fucking around
Worked on intro / preface: shifted material around; considerable progress!
Wrote blog post
Checked “enroll and pay” numbers for Fall semester for my classes
Emailed Araceli
Worked on facebook group
Blue skies / Bass lines
Liquor store / ran dishes
May 12, day 14 of not fucking around
Flamenco chapter, 16,000 words!
300 words on preface!
Natalia’s oral exam!
Cleaned off computer desktop / deleted old documents!
Emailed Araceli about reading each other’s work!
Zen practice: 6:45 a.m. / called Fae
Downloaded pro tools / practiced bass lines
May 11, day 13 of not fucking around
Flamenco chapter, 15,600 words!
Called apartment about crows nest on my balcony / emailed to follow up.
Rolling prairie pick up
Piano: continued figuring out chords to “Blue Skies”
May 10
Listened to Enrique Morente’s Lorca
Lawnmowing / helped with chickens / cleaned kitchen / called mom
Figured out melody and some chords to “Blue Skies”
May 9
zen retreat by zoom
May, 8, day 12 of not fucking around
Flamenco chapter: 15,200 words!
Ran dishes / laundry /beef stew / bought ,,, stock
Piano: 2 hours / performed for Friday night group by zoom.
Hail Caesar
I saw the Coen Brother's "Hail Caesar" yesterday streaming on Netflix. This film is higher rated by critics than by audiences, but I think the popular response is correct. There were funny moments, but the overall production seemed overproduced and self-indulgent. A lot of attention went into costumes and elaborate parodies of movies like Ben Hur. It's the kind of thing Tarantino does much better.
The movie seemed pointless. The moral decision of the main character at the end was whether to accept a job at Lockheed or stay at "Capitol" cinema. But there is not much at stake in this decision. The kidnapping of the George Clooney character by the "communist writers" is just plain stupid.
Maybe the critics liked it because it is meta and they enjoyed the allusions to other movies.
The movie seemed pointless. The moral decision of the main character at the end was whether to accept a job at Lockheed or stay at "Capitol" cinema. But there is not much at stake in this decision. The kidnapping of the George Clooney character by the "communist writers" is just plain stupid.
Maybe the critics liked it because it is meta and they enjoyed the allusions to other movies.
Article Workshop
I've decided to give an article workshop on zoom. It will be for our graduate students, but any lurkers on the blog are welcome too. There will be 8 sessions, since the idea is to have it last a semester (every two weeks). It will be free, but I ask that anyone who can afford to do so donate to their local food bank. Here is an outline:
THE SCHOLARLY ARTICLE
Week I: Outline of the course. The article as a "fixed form" like a sonnet or sonata. The gold standard of our field. Mastering the form is a matter of craftsmanship. Elements of the form. My experience as reviewer of articles for more than 30 years. (And also I've written a few.)
II: The critical problem and the thesis. What question are you addressing? What is your answer to this question? Does the thesis outline the argument of the article?
III: Rhetorical effects of the title. Epigraphs. The introduction. Its various functions. "Well begun is half done."
IV: The body of the article: presenting evidence. Developing an argument with individual segments.
V: Scholarly prose. [This could be a workshop in itself.] Finding a "voice."
VI: Savvy use of citation. How to quote, paraphrase, and integrate other critics into your argument.
VII: Signposting. How NOT to do it. Or how to do it less obtrusively.
VIII: The publishing process. Journals. Addressing the "revise and resubmit."
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
Walking
One way of measuring progress is if a something that was once difficult is now easy. I used to have a hard time constructing walking bass lines, let alone improvising them. Now I worked out these lines several separate chord changes and can improvise variations on them, such as Autumn Leaves (in several keys), Blues (in several keys), Rhythm Changes. It is still difficult for me to play these lines while I improvise over them on the right hand.
I am good at knowing what I like in these lines, and can avoid what I don't like. The basic rules are to outline the chords and have good voice leading, which usually means that beat four will lead easily to the root of beat one of the next chord. The other rule is that they shouldn't be too corny sounding or obvious, but still very convincing. Then I could get into having them be phrased confidently, being in the pocket and being truly jazz like. So this is still difficult in some sense: not just having the notes, but having it sound really good and then also doing the improv over them. Just knowing what you want is a huge step. How could you possibly achieve anything if you didn't know what you wanted?
I am good at knowing what I like in these lines, and can avoid what I don't like. The basic rules are to outline the chords and have good voice leading, which usually means that beat four will lead easily to the root of beat one of the next chord. The other rule is that they shouldn't be too corny sounding or obvious, but still very convincing. Then I could get into having them be phrased confidently, being in the pocket and being truly jazz like. So this is still difficult in some sense: not just having the notes, but having it sound really good and then also doing the improv over them. Just knowing what you want is a huge step. How could you possibly achieve anything if you didn't know what you wanted?
Blue Skies
I tried to learn a jazz standard by ear. I started with Irvin Berlin's "Blue Skies." I listened to some recordings and found out by ear, with my keyboard out, that it is usually played in C. The next step was to play the melody by ear. That wasn't hard to figure out.
The first chord is A minor. I tried to figure out the second chord but what I came up with didn't sound right. I tried to get E7 to work, but I was not satisfied with it. I got some other things "right," after I looked at what the chords were supposed to be. Then I remembered that I had played the song by looking at the chords, maybe a year ago, so I was partially reconstructing it from memory.
The result was an inexpert reharmonization of the tune. I'm not discouraged, because I learned something about my own abilities.
I can tell what key a song is in
I can figure out the melody
I can figure out some of the chords easily
I can hear when a chord is completely wrong when I try out something that isn't even in the ballpark
When I am wrong I can reharmonize things in a way that doesn't always sound completely bad
I have some musical memory to rely on.
On the other hand, I cannot
hear exactly what the chords should be / I'm at about 30%.
reharmonize with skill
I will try this with another song next.
If I play something and it sounds wrong, then that is actually a skillful event. It is MY ears that are telling me that, therefore my ear has some capacity.
***
I looked at a first sentence of one my chapters, and I realized it was not a good sentence, especially to introduce a chapter. You don't want to lead with a weak sentence. That feedback loop is like my "ear" for prose. I'm sure the sentence was functional in some previous version of the chapter, but it is not, so I changed it. Normally I read through a paragraph many times, on many days, making small changes, until I can come back to it and leave it alone.
The first chord is A minor. I tried to figure out the second chord but what I came up with didn't sound right. I tried to get E7 to work, but I was not satisfied with it. I got some other things "right," after I looked at what the chords were supposed to be. Then I remembered that I had played the song by looking at the chords, maybe a year ago, so I was partially reconstructing it from memory.
The result was an inexpert reharmonization of the tune. I'm not discouraged, because I learned something about my own abilities.
I can tell what key a song is in
I can figure out the melody
I can figure out some of the chords easily
I can hear when a chord is completely wrong when I try out something that isn't even in the ballpark
When I am wrong I can reharmonize things in a way that doesn't always sound completely bad
I have some musical memory to rely on.
On the other hand, I cannot
hear exactly what the chords should be / I'm at about 30%.
reharmonize with skill
I will try this with another song next.
If I play something and it sounds wrong, then that is actually a skillful event. It is MY ears that are telling me that, therefore my ear has some capacity.
***
I looked at a first sentence of one my chapters, and I realized it was not a good sentence, especially to introduce a chapter. You don't want to lead with a weak sentence. That feedback loop is like my "ear" for prose. I'm sure the sentence was functional in some previous version of the chapter, but it is not, so I changed it. Normally I read through a paragraph many times, on many days, making small changes, until I can come back to it and leave it alone.
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
Monday, May 11, 2020
Kosma
Joseph Kosma is interesting. He wrote the music to "Autumn Leaves," with words by Prévert, and was a Hungarian Jew who wrote a lot of other music as well. The English lyrics are my Johnny Mercer, one of the best lyricists in the great American songbook tradition. I found a recording of Autumn Leaves by Germaine Montero, whom I am studying now as a link between Lorca and the Chanson Française.
2 dreams
In one dream, someone was trying to get me up to work at 2 in the morning (this was about when I was having the dream). It wasn't the chair of my department, but it was in response to a request from her. We began to argue, and then I asked myself whether I was "communicating like a Buddhist." (I had read part of a book with the title in real life the morning before). Obviously I was not, and I woke up.
In the second, I paid for some food in a Mexican restaurant but there was nowhere to sit. I was in a crowd of people and had to leave because it was unsafe (social distancing). I was riding in a car with someone who had also ordered food. We were going to take it home. When I got back the restaurant was closed. Later, I was showing people some books I had purchased in Spain. One was the second volume Antonio Gamoneda's memoir. I said I didn't like it "no me gustó," but Gamoneda was there in my apartment too. I was embarrassed but he agreed with me that it wasn't very good and a conversation ensued, with other people giving their opinions. Donald, Gamoneda's translator, was also there.
In the second, I paid for some food in a Mexican restaurant but there was nowhere to sit. I was in a crowd of people and had to leave because it was unsafe (social distancing). I was riding in a car with someone who had also ordered food. We were going to take it home. When I got back the restaurant was closed. Later, I was showing people some books I had purchased in Spain. One was the second volume Antonio Gamoneda's memoir. I said I didn't like it "no me gustó," but Gamoneda was there in my apartment too. I was embarrassed but he agreed with me that it wasn't very good and a conversation ensued, with other people giving their opinions. Donald, Gamoneda's translator, was also there.
Sunday, May 10, 2020
Baseball Brides
I was watching a baseball game, in this dream. As it came into focus I noticed some of the players were women... all of them, then. Some were were wearing wedding dresses, as though they had come directly from their weddings to play baseball. After that the dream turned vaguely sexual...
Wednesday, May 6, 2020
Monday, May 4, 2020
Idea
My idea is to have my class do a research project on the poetry of Miguel Hernández as set to music. I could divide the class into different functions: researchers, writers, editors; music specialists. This would work with a smaller class.
Group
I started a facebook group for my academic field. It dawned on me that I get "likes" and comments when I post about my research on facebook, and many Hispanists are my friends on FB too, so maybe they would like to post about their research too. I don't really have numerous comments on the blog, so that would be a better forum.
Saturday, May 2, 2020
Germaine Montero
Elle était née à Paris, d'un père alsacien et d'une mère normande, mais elle avait choisi de s'appeler Montero après avoir, à dix-huit ans, découvert l'Espagne, et Lorca, auquel son nom reste lié. Germaine Montero, morte hier à l'âge de quatre-vingt-dix ans, a en effet débuté sur la scène espagnole dans le théâtre même du dramaturge poète, la Barraca, à Madrid. Elle y crée ses pièces, « Noces de sang », « Yerma », « La Maison de Bernada Alba », et les emmène en tournée dans toute la Péninsule, avec aussi les classiques espagnols. Après la mort de Federico Garcia Lorca, fusillé à Grenade en 1936, et l'explosion de la guerre civile, Germaine Montero rentre en France... pour l'y jouer, à nouveau : elle crée en France « Noces de sang » en 1939. Après avoir campé Laurence, l'héroïne de « Font-aux-Cabres », de Lope de Vega. Fidèle à l'Espagne, elle révèlera plus tard Valle Inclan en jouant, en 1946, « Divines Paroles ». Au théâtre encore, son tempérament de tragédienne la conduit à participer à de nombreuses créations importantes : « Les Frères Karamazov », de Dostoïevski, « L'Echange », de Claudel, « La Machine infernale », de Cocteau, et bien sûr la « Mère Courage », de Brecht, que Jean Vilar monte dans son TNP de Chaillot et dont elle reste l'interprète exemplaire. Mais elle peut aussi jouer Marcel Achard (« Jean de la Lune » ou Roussin (« La Mamma »)...
Tragédienne aussi de la chanson, sa voix puissante, reconnue par un grand prix du disque en 1953 et le grand prix de l'académie Charles-Cros en 1970, sert magnifiquement Bruant, Béranger, Prévert et Mac Orlan, et Lorca, bien sûr. Peu sollicitée par le cinéma, elle a tout de même tourné entre autres avec Henri Jeanson (« Lady Paname », 1949), René Clément (« Monsieur Ripois), Henri Decoin (« Le Masque de fer », en 1962, où elle incarnait Anne d'Autriche), Henri Verneuil (« Mélodie en sous-sol ») et Roger Vadim (« La Curée »).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)