Platform aphasia: People start to operate under the implicit acknowledgment that there will be repetition and duplication in their speech. People say, “I don’t know if I told you this,” not because their memories are failing but because they are repeating stories and phrases to multiple people on various platforms, a variation on repeating things to yourself. In his novel, “10:04,” Ben Lerner repeats a scene where he eats octopus, repeats seeing a painting, and describes instantly misremembering a trip over one bridge because he’s looking at one (Brooklyn) while walking over another (Manhattan). He never says the word Instagram but that application is implicit: if your photo, the one you save and post and circulate, is of the Brooklyn Bridge, your memory may eventually form around that image and overwrite the reality of having walked over the other bridge one mile to the north. The word palimpsest comes up at least once in “10:04,” which describes this use of language. We overwrite ourselves quickly, forgetting which platform we were supposed to be using, posting and recording and reading and linking and talking, ungluing the idea of any present being the important present. But without a present there is no simultaneity and without a simultaneity there is no politically significant Us, which is a necessary magnetic pole of the collective You. How can We reach You? Where are you? When are you?
RECENT REACTIONS
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST
This was finished roughly a year ago. I shot the footage. Sachar Mathias edited both sound ("August Song" by Ui) and image. In the course of this thing, you will see both Catherine Lacey and Emmy The Great. Everything was filmed in LA.
LATE
Forgot how shiny and heavy and gleeful "Kandy Korn" is. Also never noticed that the Buzzcocks' "Why Can't I Touch It?" was generated by fooling around with the opening verse.
A MEMORY OF MIKA VAINIO
In May of 1998, I gave a talk at the Fuse 98: Beyond Typography conference in San Francisco. I had no business being there; my brother finagled me an invite. I gave a talk on the dangerous surfeit of possibilities presented by non-linear digital recording software like ProTools. I called it "Too Many Knobs." Organizer Jon Wozencroft found this pun too crude, so the title was changed (to what, I can't remember). I got to see my brother speak, which was fun. I also saw David Carson speak.
The highlight, for me, was the fact that Panasonic was scheduled to play. (They had not yet been forced to change their name.) I met Russell Haswell at the conference, and walked about with him a bit. He wore a track suit jacket, was wired, and used the word "diamond" repeatedly, for anything he thought was not terrible. I liked him immensely.
Before the scheduled show, Panasonic became unscheduled: customs had seized all of their gear. The oscillators they used at the time were military green boxes with huge bakelite knobs, made in Russia and covered with Cyrillic. Since these items looked "like weapons" to the airport authorities, they would not be released.
In Russell's company, I met the band at the club they were supposed to be playing. Ilpo and Mika were below deadpan. They didn't smile or speak. In their stead, Haswell played a set on MiniDisc.
I have encountered lots of abrasive noise since 1998, but I haven't heard another set like the one Haswell played that night. I don't have recollections of sounds as much as a sensory impression tied to images: wedges of aluminum and glass, stacked up like plates, rotating and grinding into each other, creating a range of high-pitched noises that suggested the number of unpleasant, high-pitched noises was much bigger than I'd known. Russell could get around up there.
Everyone left, except for maybe ten or fifteen people. Neither member of Panasonic had said anything since I met them. About half an hour into Haswell's set, Mika turned to me and said, "I don't like discos."
That is the only thing I ever heard him say.
THE GREATEST ART OF THE AUGHTS
I put some thought into that headline.
LAFAYETTE AVENUE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
The church is on Lafayette Avenue. It's two blocks from 25 South Portland, where we lived during the seventies. I learned how to play pool, piano and guitar at this church. I met my first crush there and was yelled at by enormous pastor for liking music more than religion. He wasn't wrong. (Photo by Nikola Tamindzic.)
PARTICULATE
I wish there were 100 albums this sprinkly and abrasive and luminous but there are probably about 40, tops. This is being reissued on vinyl.
A REDUCTIVE THEORY OF AMERICAN PRESTIGE TV
Do it in half as many episodes.
A REDUCTIVE THEORY OF WRITING
Writers tend to fall into three groups: one, two, or more. This means, at root, they write about one one person, the interaction between two people, or describe big narratives with a large cast of characters.
ONE: Franz Kafka, Ottessa Moshfegh, Lydia Davis
TWO: Mary Gaitskill, Norman Rush, Zadie Smith
MORE: Anton Chekhov, Jonathan Franzen, Margaret Atwood
LAURA BERLANT
PEARLS BEFORE
I saw Pearl Harbor and The Explosions open for someone, maybe The Boomtown Rats. (That doesn't sound right.) I assume people find this kind of music corny. Live television is unusually hard, and I doubt many bands could sound this good in this situation now. Pearl is very good at moving, so dedicated that I can't figure out if she's a total dork or a completely suave kickboxer hero. Maybe being both is the goal.
ON FINDING LOVE AND GIN IN THE DESERT
Ottessa Moshfegh, in the Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2017
MUCH OF DIGITAL LIFE SINCE 1999
CHRISTMAS
SATURDAY
Ruth Asawa, Untitled, c. 1970s
WEDNESDAY
Ruth Asawa, Poppy, 1965.
SUNDAY
Robert Motherwell, The Basque Suite: Untitled, 1971.
ROBERT PALMER'S SINGLES, 1981
As published in The New York Times on December 30, 1981.
COUNTING
From Sirius, Coleman Hawkins' last studio session, recorded on December 20, 1966 in New York.