“Everything by Rage Against the Machine”

was the title of an essay I never wrote about Clear Channel’s banned songs list after 9/11/2001. That phrase appeared in a list of songs that were not to be played on Clear Channel stations. Rage was the only band to be completely banned. Though I imagine there wasn’t a lot of Jefferson Airplane or Led Zeppelin on the air in those early weeks either.

I don’t quite remember the premise of the essay (beyond the usual decrying of Clear Channel’s control over public discourse in the U.S.) but it was probably something about the fantasies that media institutions held regarding their own affective power in that particular moment. The “new seriousness” that lasted for all of — what — two weeks? I was thrilled when that was over.

“Everything by Rage Against the Machine” was also the title of a bittorrent file I downloaded last night after posting that I liked them better than Audioslave.

One reminds me of the other. Wicked bass sound on the Ghost of Tome Jode, though.

A Few Words on Apple and Fiction

Blogsurfing led me to a post by “HCI User Advocate” about his private hell in switching from Windows to Mac. Then today I learned that you can finally buy microphone attachments for 5th generation iPods. Time for an entry about Apple. When the battery died on my old 3rd generation model, I went ahead and bought a new one because Apple promised decent-quality recording, which would be great for interviewing people. Except that neither Apple nor any third party vendor produced a microphone attachment for 5th generation iPods that would allow you to voice record. Now, well over a year since the “new” video iPods have been out and advertised with recording capability, you can–I’m told–finally record on one.

After switching back and forth I am a dedicated Mac user, mostly for the pleasing interface and for the fact that Macs are less likely to get viruses. You don’t need a lot of tools to be a professor, but a computer is one you can’t live without. But I’ve also been repeatedly burned by the company, and a quick scan of Apple’s own user fora reveals that there are plenty of users who have had similar experiences. Most scandalous is when Apple clearly knows about a defect but officially denies its existence. If that weren’t enough, a recent Greenpeace report ranked Apple pretty low on the scale of environmental performance for computer companies. Granted, the survey was pretty limited, but still.

All this is to say it’s important not to confuse a series of slick advertising campaigns, clever lifestyle marketing and oceans of white plastic with terms like “clean” or “ethical.”

Satisfaction

–A good seminar. I taught a formalist text, old school humanities style. Lots of student participation and good conversation.

–Drink with students after class at Thomson House. I love Thomson House. It’s so much cooler than the faculty club.

–Burrito Nite ][. We tend to make a big batch of something on Sunday so it can be reheated during the week. This week: burrito fixings, and some mole sauce we found in the freezer from July. Instant tastiness.

–Sitting and watching football with two cats sitting on me.

—

The new TV season is coming out and I’m paying attention. A little free time and I might even blog about it.

Carrie noticed in the Sunday NYTimes that there was a new Audioslave album out and always being on the lookout for new opportunities to rock, expressed interest. So I downloaded it. Bland. Very bland. I liked Soundgarden. I liked Rage Against the Machine. Audioslave? I’m bored.

My Soundbite

I’ve already had two calls from reporters today asking about the impact of cellphones, blogging, wikis, etc. on the shooting and the events surrounding it. After supplying the real answer, which elicits a “yeah but” from the reporter, I supply what I imagine are the usual answers for someone in my position, with whatever critical spin is possible. My real answer goes something like this:

The most important technology to consider in assessing what happened yesterday was the gun. Everything else pales in comparison.

More Thoughts on Violence

This is just an addendum. When I said “Americans,” I should have said “white Americans” and middle class white Americans to boot. I think it was Jerry G. Watts who, in an edited collection on the riots following the Rodney King verdict, wrote about the considerably more precarious experience of being poor and black in the U.S. and the degree to which a certain level of threat of violence is a part of daily life.

—

As if to fulfill my own prophesy, or verify my own critique, I (along with Carrie and Hajime) went along with our original movie nite schedule as planned. We dined at the new (to us) taqueria and then headed down St. Catherine to the AMC theater to catch a film. On the way, we passed this sign. . .

. . . which offers a little trace of the kind of terror and anxiety people closer to the shooting (and people closer to the people closer to the shooting) were feeling at the time.

When we arrived at the Forum, the AMC theaters looked like this:

Closed. Dead closed, you might say. I can only imagine that when the whole thing went down initially, police closed down the whole area. Which makes sense since nobody knew what was going on. I hear that the metro wasn’t running to the Atwater station, either. Violence shatters the everydayness of everyday life, and here we were, along with a few other confused couples. Foolishly–obliviously–expecting that it would already be put back together.