Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Back to Natacha Atlas - Always
I've been listening to a lot of music again lately, from punk to techno to global/world sounds and, as always, I find myself returning to the British/Belgian/Middle Eastern singer Natacha Atlas. Admittedly, I haven't picked up any of her new releases since about 2002, but I have heard some of her more recent material on a few innovative radio shows, plus I've just had the pleasure of rediscovering the music that she made about a decade ago, when she was also the lead singer for the world-techno collective known as Transglobal Underground. (Right now, I am listening to her first album, Disaspora, for the first time in a few years - it's not that I ever stopped appreciating Diaspora, just that I have spent much more time with somewhat more recent releases, such as Gedida.)
For those who don't know much about Natacha Atlas, I strongly suggest a viewing of the Natacha Atlas Website. Not only does it tell you a lot about this artist and her music; it's a joy to look at, too (for the great fun graphics and design, among other reasons, IMO).
That site also links to some interesting articles, including a feature on the aforesaid first solo album, Disaspora, that appeared in The Wire . This article includes some of the best descriptions of Natacha's music that I have seen, by interviewer/reviewer Peter Shapiro:
Inhabiting parameters far outside the realm of the established World Music orthodoxy, Atlas and her partners in crime thumb their noses at both the purist commentators whose dodgy notions of racial identity freeze cultural mobility in a mire of essentialism, and the fusionists whose stupefyingly earnest crossover projects imprison non-Western music within the confines of coffee-table exotica. What comes across most in her music is the paradoxical combination of euphoria and dread that emerges from the unfettered state of rootlessness....
For Britain's post-colonial, expatriate community this sense of mischief is a radical and powerful political statement. A playful refusal to conform to received identities jostles the rigidity of a class structure that refuses to accept anything that can't be pinned down and classified. Its sense of humour riffs off the fact that immigrants were originally lured here solely for - and defined by - their labour. Of course, the notion that there is one singular and unique English character is simply another version of the fundamentalist impulse that the music of TGU and Atlas refuses to acknowledge....
The best music has always resulted from it being pushed and pulled along this spectrum: for instance, the holy roller zeal knocking against the urges of the flesh in the songs of Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis, Al Green, Khaled. The fall-out from post-colonialism has put a new twist on this previously internal dialogue. For Malaysian Speed Metal kids of the Black Rock Coalition or Bally Sagoo and Apache Indian (with whom Atlas worked on "Arranged Marriage"), the inner conflict between tradition and mobility has been projected outward as a challenge. Whether it's by wearing her belly-dancing costume into a five-star hotel in Israel or by singing the praises of Allah in a very secular context, Atlas positions herself firmly in the latter camp....
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P.S. I think Gedida is still my favorite of her albums, among the ones that I know. And, certainly, one of the more interesting songs on that album is "Bastet," which was printed on the U.S. CD jacket in English, though it was sung - or actually rapped - in Arabic:
I want to challenge you to open the doors of your minds and discuss yesterday, today and tomorrow.
Let's talk about ideas, inspiration, liberation, consciousness raising, experimentation, invocation and innovation.
Let's make investigations into the reasons for domination and proclamations by government politicians and media propaganda.
What's all this misinformation all over the world?
Power struggles continue with perpetrators of corruption, a continual cycle of the same condition.
The endless flow of distorted political, religious belief systems that act like an addiction.
Let's break it down, let's make analogies and use anomalies to discover political deception.
Let's analyze, philosoph[iz]e, and sympathize with the millions subject to deprivation and oppression, and let's make it a necessity to become aware.
Lord help us to unite with wisdom.
For those who don't know much about Natacha Atlas, I strongly suggest a viewing of the Natacha Atlas Website. Not only does it tell you a lot about this artist and her music; it's a joy to look at, too (for the great fun graphics and design, among other reasons, IMO).
That site also links to some interesting articles, including a feature on the aforesaid first solo album, Disaspora, that appeared in The Wire . This article includes some of the best descriptions of Natacha's music that I have seen, by interviewer/reviewer Peter Shapiro:
Inhabiting parameters far outside the realm of the established World Music orthodoxy, Atlas and her partners in crime thumb their noses at both the purist commentators whose dodgy notions of racial identity freeze cultural mobility in a mire of essentialism, and the fusionists whose stupefyingly earnest crossover projects imprison non-Western music within the confines of coffee-table exotica. What comes across most in her music is the paradoxical combination of euphoria and dread that emerges from the unfettered state of rootlessness....
For Britain's post-colonial, expatriate community this sense of mischief is a radical and powerful political statement. A playful refusal to conform to received identities jostles the rigidity of a class structure that refuses to accept anything that can't be pinned down and classified. Its sense of humour riffs off the fact that immigrants were originally lured here solely for - and defined by - their labour. Of course, the notion that there is one singular and unique English character is simply another version of the fundamentalist impulse that the music of TGU and Atlas refuses to acknowledge....
The best music has always resulted from it being pushed and pulled along this spectrum: for instance, the holy roller zeal knocking against the urges of the flesh in the songs of Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis, Al Green, Khaled. The fall-out from post-colonialism has put a new twist on this previously internal dialogue. For Malaysian Speed Metal kids of the Black Rock Coalition or Bally Sagoo and Apache Indian (with whom Atlas worked on "Arranged Marriage"), the inner conflict between tradition and mobility has been projected outward as a challenge. Whether it's by wearing her belly-dancing costume into a five-star hotel in Israel or by singing the praises of Allah in a very secular context, Atlas positions herself firmly in the latter camp....
--------------
P.S. I think Gedida is still my favorite of her albums, among the ones that I know. And, certainly, one of the more interesting songs on that album is "Bastet," which was printed on the U.S. CD jacket in English, though it was sung - or actually rapped - in Arabic:
I want to challenge you to open the doors of your minds and discuss yesterday, today and tomorrow.
Let's talk about ideas, inspiration, liberation, consciousness raising, experimentation, invocation and innovation.
Let's make investigations into the reasons for domination and proclamations by government politicians and media propaganda.
What's all this misinformation all over the world?
Power struggles continue with perpetrators of corruption, a continual cycle of the same condition.
The endless flow of distorted political, religious belief systems that act like an addiction.
Let's break it down, let's make analogies and use anomalies to discover political deception.
Let's analyze, philosoph[iz]e, and sympathize with the millions subject to deprivation and oppression, and let's make it a necessity to become aware.
Lord help us to unite with wisdom.
Friday, January 27, 2006
We Need to Support Independent Places for Political Learning Right Now!
Quinlan Vos of Boredom Won’t Get Me Tonight said in response to my post on the New SPACE, "Dang, I wish there was wonderful stuff like that around these parts, that sounds great." In response to that, I can say, I wish there were more people around these parts who felt that this sounded great and actually acted on that feeling. Attendance at the New SPACE is not what it should be, and its future is quite uncertain. We're not sure why - maybe a combination of the disintegration of the radical left in NYC (as in many other places) with the fact that the radical left as we know it in NYC is very much connected to specific small circles and this group is kind of outside of those circles. (But, then, what use is a place that always appeals to the same circles of people - such as certain bookstores I can think of - that have talks that always draw the same little crowd? Isn't that the ultimate example of "preaching to the converted"?) The New SPACE might have started off in the face of extra challenges because it was created as a "splitoff" from the Brecht Forum, and its founders have not hesitated to publicly declare their dissatisfaction over their experiences with the Brecht Forum. However, this alone does not explain why classes that teach this wonderful stuff (yes, I think it's wonderful too) are not getting sufficient attendance. Once again, something is wrong if a learning place must depend so much on the approval and faithful attendance of a particular small, unchanging group.
Independent political learning places seem to be doing especially badly these days, and I would guess that there are a few reasons for this that go beyond the bad general condition of the left (though they may be very much connected to that). And probably, there are people who've really studied this problem who could offer a more concrete list of reasons than I can - and if not, there should be. Nonetheless, I think I can suggest a couple of reasons here...
One being that many of the people who consider themselves radical these days (and are actually interested in radical theory) are going to official schools of the kind where they pay lots of money for classes in order to buy a degree. Granted, radical-left ideas are not the big, growing trend in academia right now, but people do find places within the academy where they can make time to learn and study some radical stuff (with some professors who can get away with being quite radical, theoretically, at least until right wingers set out to "expose" them and kick them out) while they are buying those degrees. Meanwhile, independent schools that do not promise "school credit" or teach basic marketable/sellable job skills are probably not so popular in the present backward social atmosphere, either because people are too busy trying to gain some "practical" advantage (e.g., build a "career") to take courses that will not advance them in the present system (although such classes might provide some good ideas on how to overthrow that system) or, in the present climate, they can’t even understand the idea of going to a school that doesn't hold out an offer for conventional advancement of some kind.
Yet, exactly because we are in such a socially regressive time, that is all the more reason to do whatever we can to support the existence of independent political learning places. It is almost a cliche to say that education is often the first step toward collective political action or change. But when the society is so dumbed down and people are so unused to thinking about social alternatives, this cliche applies more than ever. That’s why, even while independent political schools are becoming more difficult to keep open, they are also becoming more essential. This is true, especially, with regard to schools that can bring together adults who are not connected to any university or other official capitalist "learning" institution.
So, I think people should support these independent learning places wherever they find them. And personally speaking, I hope more people support the New SPACE. (Of course, the number of people who read this blog is probably even smaller than a class at the New SPACE. But maybe someone will stumble upon this post in a search or something and spread the word – you never know...)
Independent political learning places seem to be doing especially badly these days, and I would guess that there are a few reasons for this that go beyond the bad general condition of the left (though they may be very much connected to that). And probably, there are people who've really studied this problem who could offer a more concrete list of reasons than I can - and if not, there should be. Nonetheless, I think I can suggest a couple of reasons here...
One being that many of the people who consider themselves radical these days (and are actually interested in radical theory) are going to official schools of the kind where they pay lots of money for classes in order to buy a degree. Granted, radical-left ideas are not the big, growing trend in academia right now, but people do find places within the academy where they can make time to learn and study some radical stuff (with some professors who can get away with being quite radical, theoretically, at least until right wingers set out to "expose" them and kick them out) while they are buying those degrees. Meanwhile, independent schools that do not promise "school credit" or teach basic marketable/sellable job skills are probably not so popular in the present backward social atmosphere, either because people are too busy trying to gain some "practical" advantage (e.g., build a "career") to take courses that will not advance them in the present system (although such classes might provide some good ideas on how to overthrow that system) or, in the present climate, they can’t even understand the idea of going to a school that doesn't hold out an offer for conventional advancement of some kind.
Yet, exactly because we are in such a socially regressive time, that is all the more reason to do whatever we can to support the existence of independent political learning places. It is almost a cliche to say that education is often the first step toward collective political action or change. But when the society is so dumbed down and people are so unused to thinking about social alternatives, this cliche applies more than ever. That’s why, even while independent political schools are becoming more difficult to keep open, they are also becoming more essential. This is true, especially, with regard to schools that can bring together adults who are not connected to any university or other official capitalist "learning" institution.
So, I think people should support these independent learning places wherever they find them. And personally speaking, I hope more people support the New SPACE. (Of course, the number of people who read this blog is probably even smaller than a class at the New SPACE. But maybe someone will stumble upon this post in a search or something and spread the word – you never know...)
Monday, January 23, 2006
CrimethInc. Says This Well
One of the problems that I refer or allude to repeatedly in my posts was articulated pretty well - with refreshing simplicity - in the CrimethInc. book Days of War, Nights of Love (which I picked up used from the The Strand last week):
...When you're used to regarding people as objects, as resources to be spent or enemies to be feared and fought, it's hard to leave those values behind you when you come home. The hierarchy that private ownership imposes on relationships in the workplace can be found everywhere else in society: in schools, in churches, in families and friendships, everywhere the dynamics of domination and submission take place. It's almost impossible to imagine what a truly equal relationship could consist of, in a society where everyone is always jockeying for superiority.
...When you're used to regarding people as objects, as resources to be spent or enemies to be feared and fought, it's hard to leave those values behind you when you come home. The hierarchy that private ownership imposes on relationships in the workplace can be found everywhere else in society: in schools, in churches, in families and friendships, everywhere the dynamics of domination and submission take place. It's almost impossible to imagine what a truly equal relationship could consist of, in a society where everyone is always jockeying for superiority.
Class Struggle in the New Home
Well, I have moved to this new place in The Bronx but I am not sure how long this situation will last. I like the new location, a basic, traditionally working-class, mainly Latino Bronx neighborhood with a solidly urban feel to it – though also pretty well kept, especially on my street. (That is something I can’t help noticing after living in the middle of some real ugliness in my last neighborhood on Staten Island...which was more like a slum in the middle of a suburb, more New Jersey-like than New York-like). And the actual room that I’m residing in is an improvement too, good layout and spacious (though as people who know me know, that may not be so well kept all the time - but I'll try). Additionally, I love being just three blocks from the 2 train and not having to take a boat anymore (though I kind of enjoyed that novelty at first), and I know I am going to enjoy being just a few blocks from the Bronx Zoo (conflicted feelings about zoos notwithstanding). But the roommate situation, on the other hand, is...not so easy, to say the least. A number of things have already happened, including changing of certain terms of the agreement (about which I feel I don’t have any recourse, because I don’t have a written agreement - though I was sort of promised one, which I didn’t insist on right away, because I was feeling a little desperate, like most people who move into share apartments) and some other conflicts that have arisen that have left me feeling a bit powerless, reminding me of how much power in our society is dependent on economic control, even if that control comes from some small form of stewardship rather than ownership. To put it another way, I am reminded acutely how much being of limited and unstable economic means can cause one to be at the mercy/whim not only of actual bosses and landlords but of everyone else who manages to get just a fraction of an inch of advantage in the ubiquitous economic-capitalist hierarchy that has seeped into every tiny aspect of our existence. (Plus, I’m reminded of how much so many people are conditioned to seek every little advantage over other people.) I'm not going to go into much more detail about my present situation, in part because my roommate-subletter knows how to get to this blog, but recent conflicts and disappointments have reminded me that I cannot take a moment to rest or be off my guard in this life, not for one second. While I am doing somewhat better, economically at least, than I was a year ago, now I must deal with new, shall we say, challenges that seem to bury whatever advantages I might have gained during the past year. But enough whining and bitching, I suppose. Suffice to say, life is a struggle, especially when it seems that absolutely everything depends on money (though I know it is also a bit more complicated than that), and as I get older and experience a little more each year, my desire to help put an end to this awful social system only increases.
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P.S. It would be interesting if this actual blog post helped to get me kicked out - kind of a new twist on the now-familiar fired-for-blogging-against-the-boss scenario...
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P.S. It would be interesting if this actual blog post helped to get me kicked out - kind of a new twist on the now-familiar fired-for-blogging-against-the-boss scenario...
Monday, January 02, 2006
Back to My Home Town
This week, I am moving back to my home town (and the land of my ancestors - well, some of them), The Bronx. Preparing for this move has taken an awful lot of time (as usual), and because of that, combined with the extra wage work that I got for the "holidays," I have had hardly a moment to work on this blog during the past ten-plus days. Once I move, my Internet access might also be uncertain for a short time. Hopefully, the new connection will be set up quickly and it won't be like the two-month Net-deprivation nightmare that I went through the last time I moved. (That time was terrible - for other reasons too. Good riddance Tilden Street!) But, as usual, I am dealing with old and shaky computers in addition to connecting to a new service (which is being shared by three people). If I disappear for a while, that's why.
Cyber-Marx
Well, I've finally gotten around to reading Cyber-Marx by Nick Dyer-Witheford. I'm still near the beginning, but I think this is going to be a very compelling read. Here is a quote in the first chapter that I very much agree with:
...Contrary to post-Marxist belief that different kinds of domination politely arrange themselves in a nohierarchical, pluralistic way the better not to offend anyone's sensibilities, capitalism is a domination that really dominates. That is not to say - as Marx and many later Marxists sometimes suggest - that the corporate power of commodification necessarily abolishes patriarchy or sexism (although it can sometimes work in that direction). Indeed, it is possible now to see much better than Marx in his day could how the capitalist international division of labor often incorporates, and largely depends on, discrimination by gender or ethnicity to establish its hierarchies.
Nevertheless, sexism and racism do not in and of themselves act as the main organizing principle for the worldwide production and distribution of goods. Patriarchal and racist logics are older than capital, mobilize fears and hatreds beyond its utilitarian economic understanding, and are virulently active today. But they are now compelled to manifest themselves within and mediated through capital's larger, overreaching structure of domination: as market-racism, commodity-sexism. Class - capital's classification of its human resources - does tend to assert itself as definitive of social power. It is "privileged" in all senses of the word - not because of any essential, ontological priority of economics over gender, ethnic, or ecological relations, but because of society's subordination to a system that compels key issues of sexuality, race, and nature to revolve around a hub of profit.
Looked at in this way, the conventional division between "old" class politics and "new" social movements seems profoundly mistaken....
...Contrary to post-Marxist belief that different kinds of domination politely arrange themselves in a nohierarchical, pluralistic way the better not to offend anyone's sensibilities, capitalism is a domination that really dominates. That is not to say - as Marx and many later Marxists sometimes suggest - that the corporate power of commodification necessarily abolishes patriarchy or sexism (although it can sometimes work in that direction). Indeed, it is possible now to see much better than Marx in his day could how the capitalist international division of labor often incorporates, and largely depends on, discrimination by gender or ethnicity to establish its hierarchies.
Nevertheless, sexism and racism do not in and of themselves act as the main organizing principle for the worldwide production and distribution of goods. Patriarchal and racist logics are older than capital, mobilize fears and hatreds beyond its utilitarian economic understanding, and are virulently active today. But they are now compelled to manifest themselves within and mediated through capital's larger, overreaching structure of domination: as market-racism, commodity-sexism. Class - capital's classification of its human resources - does tend to assert itself as definitive of social power. It is "privileged" in all senses of the word - not because of any essential, ontological priority of economics over gender, ethnic, or ecological relations, but because of society's subordination to a system that compels key issues of sexuality, race, and nature to revolve around a hub of profit.
Looked at in this way, the conventional division between "old" class politics and "new" social movements seems profoundly mistaken....
