i'll agree with all that. while not knowledgable enough about philosophers to take each to task, it definately was pretentious. if you can't relate your points to the reader, than there's no point of writing it. maybe there's a point i'm not knowledgable enough to get, maybe there's a point but it's just not well expressed, or maybe there's no point and it's just intellectual diareaha. but you should always write for your reader, and i think this was over the top for the metro times. but what the hell do i know- i learned how to write at the real detroit school ;)
anyways- there may be a point to the fast and furious deadline concept. while sitting in the airport in frankfurt waiting for my flight out of germany, i probably wrote my berlin/hawtin article 20 times in my head, each one more fantastic than the last. i believe at one point i even pondered the potential of writing the entire article withou mentioning hawtin by name, as i felt like the children playing on the giant spaceship in the middle of the food court (yes- it was actually there, not a sleep deprived hallucination) more aptly encapsulated my experience. time is almost always essential for proper internal editing. but hey- the metrotimes is read by over 100,000 people in detroit, plus i'm sure thousands have read this article online. i won't get down on someone for 'myth making.' it certainly perpetuates the culture more effectively than a jaded 'duh- all djs do that.' A good music journalist should make there subject sound like the most important/intelligent/hedonistic/outstanding/debauched thing on the planet. that's what drags people in. what's the other option- insipid tabloid emptiness? talk about what he was wearing and dating? does anyone need to know that magda's bathroom has a heated towel rack? i'm babbling now. ok- later On Fri, 12 Nov 2004, Tristan Watkins wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Martin Dust [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Sent: 12 November 2004 20:06 > > To: [email protected] > > Subject: Re: (313) Magick Times: Detroit > > > > Austin Osman Spare called this a state of "neither neither" - > > a state of mind where the internal chatter is silenced and a > > strange kind of auto-pilot takes over. This can often happen > > if you drive the same route to work everyday - you arrive not > > even aware of how complete the journey was, let allow all the > > internal instructions needed to drive car. > > Yeah, exactly. This is what I was talking about in my post yesterday. That > you can get to 'the zone' or whatever you want to call that immersive state > through lots of different ways, not just through DJing. > > > I just went back and re-read the quote. interestingly, only > > half the later half is a direct quote, the previous paragraph > > being the writer's explanation of the concept, therefore > > highly suspect... > > I was never trying to discredit what Hawtin was on about. I was just trying > to dilute the importance the author gave to it. I mean the dude uses this > fairly banal observation about the creative process as the starting point > for his tirade about Berlin being the mecca of the arts, citing loads of > crap about Hegel, Kant, Negri, etc. If you're looking at two hundred years > of a city's history, you're bound to find loads of important > artistic/philospohical contributors, without extending that laundry list of > Germans to people who never lived there (like Nietzsche for one). I mean do > we really need a reminder of how many important philosophers came from > Germany? It's philosophical name-dropping at its worst because the content > is never put to use, except for a crappy paragraph on Hegel, who could never > be summarized out of context. > > I just thought it was a tenuous place to begin the exploration of the import > of electronic music to art globally, and pretty non-unique to Berlin. He > could've just said "Berlin's cool because it's got loads of clubbers who > love good music and lots of really good DJs live there", but that's not a > very interesting story (albeit true). Am I the only one that thought it was > excessively long given that it had hardly any coherent focus? A couple of > bits thrown in at the end about the DJs other than Hawtin for what? Because > the journalist got time with them too? > > Sorry... I never meant to rip this thing to shreds, it just seemed like it > could've used some more time and insight. Conversely, the dude probably got > the thing out on time under tight pressure, whereas my Movement report is > not as long, took me two months to write/edit and is only now about to see > the light of day. > > Tristan > ======= > http://www.phonopsia.co.uk > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >
