1. One or two generations ago refined taste in music meant familiarity with a fairly limited (and stable, learnable) Western concert music repertoire. Today that refinement is reflected through a carefully cultivated, willfully eclectic cosmopolitanism. The déclassé listener likes or understands only one genre of music or a limited genre of music. Even apprentice aesthetes …
Continue reading “Incomplete Theses on Audio Aesthete-ism: Beginnings of a Rant”
I would like to offer a few words in praise of the sheer wondrous awesomeness of the windowed envelope. I have written many hundreds of letters of recommendation over my career. Although a sizeable number are now electronic, many are still in paper. For years I had an extra step in printing out recs in …
Continue reading “On a happier note, but still on recommendations”
Brazil was amazing, as expected. Rio is a very interesting and intense city, my hosts were wonderful, the experience was totally unforgettable and I hope to go back. My visa is good for 10 years. Yesterday I went to the radiation oncologist for followup. He pronounced me fine and said not to come back; and …
For those readers not accustomed to the ways of academic blogs (which is mostly academic only by virtue of its association with its author), there is a tradition called the “summer hiatus.” People spend less time on the internet reading blogs and writers take time away. I tend not to announce such things but since …
Continue reading “The New Normal, or Is That a Summer Hiatus Coming On?”
And now a post on workflow and email. Non-Mac users will be bored, so please feel free to skip this one. Like you don’t always feel free to skip posts. . . . McGill uses Microsoft’s Exchange Server protocol, which allows people to sync their email, contacts and calendar across platforms, computers, and so forth. …
Continue reading “Apple Mail (Snow Leopard), Entourage And Exchange: A Brief Review”
Thanks to his blog, I learned that Ted Striphas’ important, horrifying and inspiring piece on the politics of academic journal publishing–“Acknowleged Goods”–just appeared in the Journal of Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies. (And I agree with Jason Mittel, the first commenter, that he should just post the essay for people to read.) The same post also …
Continue reading “The Politics of Journal Publishing in Cultural Studies”
Last night I attended the book launch for Tara Rodgers’ Pink Noises: Women on Electronic Music and Sound (Duke University Press, 2010). The book consists of a theoretical introduction and interviews with 24 women in electronic music and sound. In many ways, it is a classic work of feminist recovery as the histories of these …
