I'm not about to defend Eshun's -- uh -- excesses in More Brilliant
than the Sun. He has a tendency to throw a lot of stuff about, and
frankly a lot of it is more like an academic version of scat-poetry
than serious analysis. (I've always liked that he included "fiction"
in the subtitle -- it's appropriate.)
But if you're willing to follow along, and excuse the sometimes
excessive dips into self-created jargon, he has some interesting
ideas. No digging for a needle in a haystack -- they're good, fairly
big ideas. But they sit alongside the specialized terms he invents,
and you just have to be willing to accept that he uses his own
ridiculous shorthand for things. Often, I don't like his terms, or
his willingness to invent dozens of terms that don't really hold
water, but I do like some of his ideas.
And his attitude, which might not be great for hangin' out with, is
perfect for approaching Sun-Ra, and the Martian, or the pre-revealed
Drexciya. Who else besides Dan S. went out of their way to
demonstrate **belief** in the stories of extraterrestrial (or
subaquatic) origins that these acts clearly saw as part of the deal?
And he's even got an almost cute kind of belligerence in defending
that. (For this alone, he ought to be adored by candy ravers
everywhere who still believe in Santa Claus.)
Fair enough?
-marc
PS. I'd still rather read Eshun's writing, which can be hard to
take, than Simon Reynolds', whose work is easier to read and easier
still to disagree with. Reynolds basically calls all of 313 purist
wusses, worshipping a dead-end aesthetic. All because not enough of
us, apparently, take as many freakin' drugs as he would like us to.
As the KMS website used to ask -- do you want the red pill, or the
green one?
At 11:11 AM +0000 11/25/02, Neil Wallace wrote:
Ive always avoided this book as ive seen kodwo on a few music
documentaries and he always seems to be completely up his own a$$
