Sorry I haven’t written anything interesting lately. I’ve just been busy with other things. I am reading your blogs, though – just not commenting. If I owe you an email – sorry!
What have I been doing?
Going to yoga twice a week or so. The class I did on Saturday really kicked my arse. I’ve been having more trouble with my right hip (as I get older and less fit I find my minor niggles getting more niggley), so we did a lot of stuff to help the sartorius and whatsit get it together. We did a lot of standing poses, which I quite like, and lots of work on the sixty zillion muscles in our lower torsoes and around our hips. So today I am really sore and achey. My adductors (you can see a map of the adductor gang here) are talking to me. But at least I’m not getting grizzle from my Tensor fasciae whatsit – which is usually especially achey (it might not be called the Tf – I am crap with names). My lower back is achey, there’s some grumbling from various abs and my shoulders are aching – shoulders meaning everything across my back from my neck to the bottom of my shoulder blades. I also have achey ankles. These are all good aches, because it means that I’ve actually been using these buggers.
I <3 yoga, but yoga is not for babies.
Reading about blues music, the record industry and radio in the 1920s. I am working on a paper in a very loose way (I discussed the stuff I was reading here, ages ago), but mostly just reading where my interest takes me. I’m fascinated by the social, political, industrial and economic forces colliding in the blues music of that period. Blues music was incredibly, crazily popular in the 20s. Yet segregation was still seriously in place throughout the US, so black artists couldn’t work in the control booth with whites, were un- or underpaid by record labels, or dismissed as ‘low’.
‘Coon songs’ were also very popular – and very disturbing. A Coon song was basically a song performed by a white artist in black face, or otherwise ‘pretending’ to be black (and many of these were Jewish, which is weird stuff). They were pretty dang offensive. Minstrelsy generally was still very hip. But the blues music being sung and performed (often by women) was politically quite hardcore – the example I discuss in that earlier post (linked to above) is just one of a series of songs dealing explicitly with racist violence, domestic violence, poverty, sexuality and sex and so on. And it didn’t pull punches.
In addition, the Great Migration was happening – thousands of African Americans were moving north to escape lynching, Jim Crow laws and unemployment in the south. They ended up in cities like New York, LA and Chicago. So there were thousands of people from all sorts of different regions coming together and sharing music and dance in new, urban communities. Like Harlem. Race riots happened in most cities.
In terms of the music industry generally, radio turned up in the mid 20s, and within a six month period the phonograph industry was completely gutted. Prior to that moment it had been incredibly successful. But radio – with ‘free music’ – just killed it. So the race record labels (like Black Swan (NB I think the dates are wrong in that article) – labels run by African Americans and recording African American artists) were killed off. And their positive social work was cut off as well.
Then I’ve also been reading about the shift from blues to jazz in the late 20s, and the effect this might have had on black participation in the music industry. What was the impact of the formalisation and regulation of American radio on the independent black stations pushed off the dial by white business interests? What did it mean that radio stations wouldn’t record black artists in many cities? What’s significant about white artists pretending to be black (and vice versa) when they sang on the radio? When you keep in mind the fact that black artists and live music was very, very popular, what does it mean that white radio stations were ignoring black artists? And then, even more interesting, what is the import of each major regional centre/city having its own radio stations and radio legislation? And how does the American Federation of Musicians fit into all this – what with their recording bans in the 40s and racially segregated ranks during the 10s, 20s, 30s…? Surely there’s some sort of labour/union/race/class thing to be ferretted out there…
So I’ve been distracted by all that lovely stuff (who knows what was happening in Australia in the 1920s, music industry wise). But eventually I’ll get to the (interesting) point where I’m discussing how contemporary swing dancers – largely white, middle class urban youth – get into this type of music.
I’ve read a lot, but I need to stew it for a while before I can write cleverly about it.
Going to the Astor Cinema. To see the Fountain and Eragorn in a Friday night double. Nice date night action. The Fountain was dull, Eragorn was dumb (and if you’ve ever read any sf ever, 100% derivative… but not bad for a teenager). The Astor rocks, it’s nice to be able to go see a double feature on a Friday night for $13. The seats are uncomfortable, but they have nice cakes for the intermission. And it’s a nice art deco cinema (not as posh as the Westgarthe, but still lovely). We catch our tram down to the Domain interchange (about 30 minutes), then a tram down to the Dandenong Rd/Chapel St intersection (about 15 minutes). 45 minutes to get so far south is pretty good stuff, really. And they’ve extended the tram hours on Friday nights, so we can get home comfortably as well. All up it costs about $20 each for tram tickets, two films and snacks. Not bad at all for a nice date night. We have started eating dinner down there as well before the films, but have yet to find a cheap restaurant that’s not serving greaser food. Suggestions welcome.
Watching lots of West Wing and other telly on DVD. WW rocks the world. Yesterday I got Commander in Chief‘s first four episodes out on DVD. Dumb. It simply can’t compete with the fabulousness of WW. It’s poorly acted, poorly written, scarily simplistic and politically naive (it’s a soap, really), and all this does no favours to the concept of a woman president. Maybe I’d have dug it if I’d never seen WW. But not now.
I’ve also been working my way through House, which is much better than I thought it would be (admittedly, I’d thought it’d be shit). I’m really interested in the way they deal with ‘ethics’. The assumption is that Dr House doesn’t pay attention to formal medical ethics – he ignores ‘DNR’ (do not revive) orders, he bosses patients around and is rude, he does as he likes. With this in mind, how does this sort of bloke handle relationships with women, and more importantly, how does an American soap deal with an ethically dodgy protagonist? Is he going to get ‘reformed’ (I have my suspicions), is it going to be normalised? In addition to House’s own dodginess, his best friend (whose name I can’t ever remember – they guy from Dead Poets’ Society) seems always on the brink of adultery; one of House’s ‘assistant’ doctors (residents?) worked to undermine House by spying on him for the temporary boss-of-hospitality, all in order to save his own job; House’s lady resident is smitten with him and has been signed as ‘damaged’ in some way. It’s all a bit suss. But that’s what makes it interesting. Not interesting in a WW way, but interesting in a ‘what will this pop TV do with these issues?’ way.
While I’m on this tack, I have to say I have some minor niggles with the way WW handles gender. CJ seems to get quite different treatment (narratively, as well as by other characters) than the men. I don’t know if this is the program being ‘realist’, or some ‘unnoticed’ sexism sneaking in. Either way, it’s interesting enough to keep me watching.
DJing a bit, dancing a bit. Nothing to report. It’s kind of boring, actually, and I’m much more interested in yoga at the moment. There are plenty of CDs I want, and books I want to buy and read. But not much to talk about, really.
Reading a stack of crime fiction. I’ve finally made my way through a massive stack of sf from the Mother, and have started hoeing through a stack of crime fiction from the Supes (she reviews crime novels for a newspaper so has lots and lots of good things to borrow). I’m selective with my crime reading – I don’t like true crime, and I don’t like those voyeuristic and scupulously detailed discusssions of brutal rapes and murders. But I do like figuring out who did it and why. Right now I’m reading a Michael Connolly called the Lincoln Lawyers, and I’ve just finished one called The Winter of Frankie Machine by Don Winslow, which is apparently going to be a film in 2008. I’d really like a nice slab of sf, though, as the crime is kind of coming to an end. I think I’ll pop into the book shop in the city (called swords and something or other, or to Rendezvous Romance – because they sell really cheap new novels) and burn a hole in The Squeeze’s credit card.
Author Archives: dogpossum
big women
I know, I know, another youtube post.
Hey, I’m doing some reading on blues music and women blues artists, and they reference a bunch of soundies – and the biggest collection of soundies is on youtube.
This one is fascinating. Louis Armstrong’s playing Swingin’ on Nothin’, and the track features Velma Middleton and George Washington on vocals. Middleton is the interesting part. Armstrong was loyal to her for years, and even though she wasn’t the best vocalist, he kept her in his band and on his recordings.
But the bit that interests me is the way she dances in the following clip. She’s a big woman – tall and carrying a lot of weight. But she’s down on the ground in hiiigh heels and a big flowy dress. It’s kind of an understatement to say she offers an interesting contrast to the dancing female bodies in this clip!
note to self
Check out rake’s progress regularly.
blackbottom
Just so’s you can see what happened when white media got ahold of black dance in the 20s:
(from here).
That’s pretty much the stuff we learnt in the second class on Saturday. I’m the little round kid in the white dress in the clip, but with less coordination.
lady dances the blues
So go here and check out some badass solo sister action. When I say ‘solo jazz’, that’s what I’m talking about. The splits stuff and the girl in white doing the tremors could be slotted into the ‘eccentric dance’ category – sort of ‘stunt dancing’.
Here’s the descriptor from the page:
Dancing outtake from Hollywood Rhythm Vol. 1: The Best of Jazz and Blues – Released 2001
Section: A Bundle of Blues (excerpt taken from approx. 7 min into the section to the end)
Stars: Duke Ellington, Ivie Anderson, Florence Hill, Bessie Dudley, Duke Ellington Orchestra
Plot Outline Duke Ellington and his orchestra play two jazz compositions plus ‘Stormy Weather’ (sung by Ivy Anderson).
Here are some stills to whet your appetite:
a crazy rambly sf post
Tigtog’s writing about the following list of SF here. These are apparently the
“Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years†.
Because I’m feeling exceptionally lazy, here are her follow-up comments (which make the whole thing far more interesting), cut and pasted:
The Bechdel-Wallace test/rule (originally applied to films – the rule’s origins are noted here), asks does the book have:
1. At least two female characters, who
2. talk to each other, about
3. something besides a man?
If the book/film passes the BW test, it has at least a glimmering of women as fully realised characters beyond being mere love interests competing for male attention. It may not have much more than that, but at least it has that much.
The BW test means that a book doesn’t get a pass for having a single strong, fascinating, female character who is an exceptionalist token, displaying her considerable strengths only in discussions with men (e.g. Eowen from LOTR or Trillian from HHGTTG). It should be easy for SF&F generally to hurdle this low bar, as there’s important quests/missions and esoterica regarding magic/technology for people to talk about with each other in a natural fashion. But how well does the listed SF&F actually do?
The idea is to mark the books you’ve read in bold, which I’ll do. I’ll also note how they score on the BWT (from memory, so please correct me if I’ve forgotten a crucial conversation that would allow the book to hurdle the bar).
I’ve just cut and pasted tigtog’s list with comments re the BWT criteria below. If it’s bold, I’ve read it. If it’s got no comments, tigtog didn’t read it. Even though I read a LOT of SF, I haven’t read all that many on this list (though I suspect I have and have just forgotten them – my ps have a massive, comprehensive collection and I read my way through it when I was young. Oh, how I miss getting out of bed in the middle of the night with a torch to go find something new to read from the shelves). These days I don’t read many male authors and re-read a lot of my favourites.
The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien Yes No No.
[I’m not a fan of Tolkein, because I DON’T like his gender politics. Lots of virgin/whore, evil/good dichotomy action.]
The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov Yes No No
Dune, Frank Herbert Yes Yes Yes
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein Yes, Yes, No
A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin Yes Yes Yes
[I think it’s important to note that Tehanu, the final book in the Earthsea series, while not listed as ‘the most important’ of these books, is actually my favourite and deals in detail with the effects of violence on children and women. The whole Earthsea trilogy has lots to say about childhood and creativity and violence and abuse, but these things get neglected. Which is why people like to list the first book, and not the later ones, as the ‘most important’.]
Neuromancer, William Gibson
[Tigtog didn’t read it. I did. Sure, there are ladies in this book, they talk to each other, and about things other than blokes, but there are some problems with the definition of ‘women’ in this context. I’m thinking of the ‘female’ AIs specifically. I’m actually not going to allow Neuromancer as an ok-for-sisters book. I think it’s actually way up there on the misogyny list, and cyberpunk generally is very much an adolescent boys wanking over chicks who beat the shit out of them.]
Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke Yes, No, No
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick Yes, No, No
The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley Yes, Yes, Yes
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury Yes, Yes, Yes
The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe Yes, No, No
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr. No No No
The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov Yes No No
Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
Cities in Flight, James Blish Yes, ?, ? (guessing no)
The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett Yes, Yes, Yes
Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison Yes, Yes, No
Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester Yes, Yes, No
Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
Dragonflight, Anne McCaffreyYes, Yes, Yes
[I’m actually a bit sceptical of Ms McCaffrey’s work. Sure, the chicks are happily saving worlds with their dragony/spaceship/pilot mates, but they also like to rush into the kitchen to make their men dinner and spend FAR TOO MUCH of their time wishing they had a man. McCaffrey often sports some scary arse gender politics. I give her a thumbs down on the good-for-sisters scale.]
Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card Yes, No, No
The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson Yes, Yes?, Yes?
The Forever War, Joe Haldeman Yes, ?, ?
Gateway, Frederik Pohl
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling Yes, Yes, Yes
[This stuff sucks arse. Give me The Worst Witch any day.]
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams No, No, No.
[Hm, Trillian is a lady, and she’s in this one, right? Adams isn’t good on the gender politics, though.]
I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin Yes, Yes, Yes
Little, Big, John Crowley
Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick Yes, ?, ?
Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon Can’t remember
The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
On the Beach, Nevil Shute Yes, Yes, ?
Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke Yes, No, No
Ringworld, Larry Niven Yes, No, No.
[Woah – Niven has some SCARY ARSE gender shit going on.]
Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien Yes, No, No
Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson Yes, Yes, Yes
Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner Can’t remember
The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein Yes, ?, No
Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks Gah! but Yes, Yes, Yes
Timescape, Gregory Benford Yes, ?, ?
To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer Yes, ?, ?
I’m not actually digging this list (which came from the news blog via tikistitch), and is actually a list of (note the dates):
The Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years, 1953-2002
produced by the The Science Fiction Book Club, and apparently some sort of promotional thingy. So we should be a bit sceptical.
Authors I’d add (if I was ignoring the dates problem and the number limit):
H.G. Wells. Of course. But fails the lady-test.
Iain M. Banks (yes yes yes to the lady-test… though he does weird stuff with gender (ie many of his characters can and do change gender at will, especially in the Culture books) and robots and things – you’d have to have a think about the way ‘gender neutral’ is gendered by these blokes).
Madelaine L’Engle (yes yes yes to the lady-test), probably for A Wrinkle in Time
Lois McMaster Bujold (yes yes yes to the lady-test – plus she writes good bloke characters). For any of her Miles Vorkosigan books.
C.J.Cherryh (for Cyteen) (yes yes yes to the lady-test – plus she writes good bloke characters)
Diana Wynn Jones (yes yes yes to the lady-test – plus she writes good bloke characters)
Tanya Huff (yes yes yes to the lady-test – plus she writes good bloke characters)… in fact, there aren’t enough lady sci-fant authors on this list – and scifant has a MASSIVE lady fandom.
something from Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover stuff. Probably Thendara House or perhaps one of the earlier ones… (yes yes yes to the lady-test – plus she writes good bloke characters)
Octavier Butler! Holy shit, how can she not be on this list?!
James Tiptree Junior! Because she totally fooled the entire universe – they all thought she was a bloke FOREVER! (yes yes yes to the lady-test – plus she writes good bloke characters)
C.S.Lewis (because he was important and influential)
Alan Dean Foster (for the Flinx books) (yes yes yes to the lady-test – plus he writes good bloke and young bloke characters)
Sherri S. Tepper (yes yes yes for the lady-test)
Margaret Attwood (for influential, but not as a ‘stayer’ in the sf world).
Joanna Russ’s Female Man would be a better hardcore feminist option, I think.
Kim Stanley Robinson (for the Red/Blue/Green Mars stuff) (yes yes yes to the lady-test – plus he writes good bloke characters)
Joan D. Vinge (yes yes yes to the lady-test – plus she writes good bloke characters)
Vonda McIntyre! (yes yes yes to the lady-test)
R.A. McAvoy (yes yes yes to the lady-test) – another good scifant lady author.
ANDRE NORTON!
Susanna Clarke should be there for the Mr Strange/Dr Norrel stuff, but that’s post 2002.
Other authors: Jack Vance, Spider Robinson,
…in fact, I’m surprised the Hugos aren’t better represented.
I think I want to add more young adult sf, but will have to settle for Wynn Jones and L’Engle (John Marsden, for example, while I don’t particularly like him, has been important in the young adult world).
I’d drop Rowling (what the fuck? She’s had an impact, but that is some shithouse sf).
I also have some problems with who might have put this list together and what their criteria were. There are quite a few of those cross-over genre bender pink book authors who should be on this list, simply because they contributed to the whole genre bending thing – bringing new readers and writers to sf. There are a zillion women reading those things and they sell like hot cakes. But I bet they don’t get counted because there’s all that talk about clothes and kissing. Girl germs.
I still hold by the thought that the newer sf really can’t cut it when compared with some of the bigger guns of the olden days.
Frankly, if you want influential, you have to add L. Ron Hubbard.
NB the SF ladies are talking about this list here
this is a great weekend
Right now I’m supposed to be midway through a day of workshops over in Prahran (or wherever they are). But a water main has burst and I am trying to get a plumber to come fix it. Why can’t I find a plumber willing to rip me off for a few hundred bucks on a Sunday? I could leave it, but then it wouldn’t get fixed. :(
This is the exact same problem we had before – the bung pipe in the veggie patch. The owner had his bullshit ‘plumber’ (ie some stooge who isn’t a qualified plumber) ‘fix’ it last time and, well… I thought someone was hosing down our house, went outside and discovered where Melbourne’s water was going. Up into the air, over some laundry, and all over the back yard.
The emergency plumber will cost a bomb, the landlord will try to make us pay it and I’ll get so angry I’ll try to kick the shit out of him write angry things on the internet and frighten The Squeeze with some shouting.
So now I’m sitting here TRYING to find a fucking plumber. The Squeeze is off doing stupid moomba shit and doesn’t have a mobile, and I’m seriously sleep deprived and dehydrated. The classes yesterday were in a really overcrowded, hot hot HOT room and I haven’t been able to drink enough to stop feeling thirsty since. We also had to suffer through two classes with a few bullshit American hot shot teachers and I’m more than a little shitty about being ripped off.
This is a great weekend.
crazy expensive
Now I really want Mosaic’s Classic Chu Berry Columbia and Victor Sessions (#236). Onlu $US119.00, which is only $AU153.66 plus postage. Not a problem.
I like it because… hey, haven’t I blogged this before?
Well, whatever. I’d still like it. But that’s crazy expensive for 7 CDs.
speculation
The neighbourhood kids are playing on the road, pulling some bmx bandits action. They’re all boys and about 10 years old. One of them just asked another: “Hey Costa, have you ever actually been in a real wrestling match?”
He’s not the only one who’d like to know.
Hullabaloo 2007
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it or not, but we’re going to Hullabaloo soon. Next month, I think it is.
This is the forth annual Hullabaloo – and Hullabaloo is kind of the Perth equivalent to MLX. It’s not an all-social exchange (there are only two of those in this country – MLX and Canberrang), mostly because it’s very difficult to make an all-social event sustainable, unless you live in a giant local scene (like us here in Melbourne), have quite a few years of successful events under your belt to serve as promotion (like us here in Melbourne), live in a very tourist-attracting city (like us here in Melbourne) or just couldn’t give a shit, and want to have a party (like the kids in Canberra).
So we go and just don’t do any workshops – we pretend it’s an all social event, and sleep in late every day, go to cafes, wander around like the cheery holidaying tourists we are. The very best bit of going to someone else’s exchange isn’t that you don’t have to run anything or work on anything (you always end up doing something at some point to help out – it’s an instinct you can’t fight when you’re used to running events), it’s that you’re on holiday with a hundred or so other people. And they all want to wander around like tourists, visit cafes and breweries, eat nice meals, talk a whole lot of shit and then dance like crazy fools all night.
Hullabaloo is The Squeeze’s favourite exchange. We get hosted by dear friends (who we host when they come to us), with dear friends (who we see regularly when we host an exchange – it’s a real exchange and it’s wonderful), we don’t do anything particularly difficult, The Squeeze is very popular with the Perth ladies (not just because he’s cute – also because he’s naughty and inclined to pranks, drinking games and stunts) and I like to dance like a fool. Unfortunately I haven’t been to an exchange yet where I haven’t gotten really ill. I think it’s because my body tends to think ‘ok, we’re on holiday, let’s relax’. So I have to spend far too much time sitting about being tired and pathetic. Which sucks arse because I love de late night dancing.
I love Hullabaloo because you can feel every step a Perth lead takes, they bounce and they play good music. They are a bit anal and weird about vintage costume, but The Squeeze sets a good example and just completely ignores any dress standards rubbish. He simply doesn’t bother reading that part of the events guide and doesn’t bother his pretty little head about it. And he never gets in trouble for it.
So yeah, we’re going there next month.
They’re also planning a lindy battle thing as well. Trev will no doubt chime in with a comment on that, seeing as how he’s organising it (Trev is a Perth person). My buddy Dan (who has a blog, but I can’t remember the url) has decided we’re goint to enter the battle. And I think it’s a good idea. So we’ve started hassling all our friends to put together a team, including people like Kara. I’m not going to read any rules, because these sorts of things are always much more fun if you don’t plan anything too seriously.
There’s been a flurry of emails this morning afternoon (I got up LATE – DJed the second set at CBD last night and didn’t get home til 1am. Now I’m really tired) with all sorts of exciting ideas for the team. Mostly involving tshirts and how cool we are. Not much talk of actual dancing. Trev, I hope you’re not reading this, because I want to talk about it… ok, well, this is the internet, so I won’t talk about it til later.
Anyway, I’ve also put my name in for DJing at Hullabaloo, which will be way fun, but also way pressure – I’ve DJed interstate before (SLX), but no DJing for a hardcore lindy hopping crowd out of my home town. I DJed at MLX, and I’ve DJed local big events, but it’s different when you travel to a new town. There’s new equipment to learn. The fear of forgetting essential cords. Not knowing what a local crowd will like/not like. And so on. I’m excited, but a bit scared. I don’t doubt I’ll do a decent job, but I will need to work on learning my music a bit better and do some serious practicing. But I have faith.
[all photos are by The Squeeze from Hullabaloo 2005]