Author Archives: ghw

jacques derrida (1930-2004)

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Sitting here at Coffee Girls, which has on-again-off-again wifi, I learn from Kathleen that Jacques Derrida has died. She links to a number of obits.

I can’t say that my work is heavily influenced by Derrida, or by deconstruction, but I’ve always liked his essay, “…That Dangerous Supplement….”

Update: See also…

seminar description: orality & literacy in the 18th-c

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Here’s the graduate seminar I’ll be teaching next semester:

Literary scholar Nicholas Hudson has recently repeated media theorist Marshall McLuhan’s assertion that “European intellectuals achieved a clear perception of ‘orality’ only after their own world had been engulfed in print.” In the middle of the eighteenth century, British actor and elocutionist Thomas Sheridan wrote with amazed respect about “the power which words acquire, even the words of fools and madmen, when forcibly uttered by the living voice.” For Sheridan, as for many of his contemporaries, the speech of preachers, politicians, actors, barristers, and even everyday people was a threatening and unruly force compared to the presumably ordered presentation of information through writing and print. The spoken word had been an essential part of human communication for thousands of years, yet the advent of the printed word and widespread literacy in eighteenth-century Britain dramatically reoriented attitudes towards speech. Students in this course will consider just how “clear” the perception of orality might have been among literate people in this period as they study developments in oral and literate practice in eighteenth-century Britain. We will learn what scholars have had to say about orality and literacy, and we will read the works of eighteenth-century poets, dramatists, rhetoricians, clergymen, and cultural commentators.

Course requirements will include class presentations, a take-home exam, an annotated bibliography, and a final research paper building upon the research completed for the annotated bibliography. This course will be rewarding to students interested in the eighteenth century, literary history, rhetoric, media studies, cultural studies, and critical literacy studies.

i read the news today, oh boy

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I’ve been busy, dear reader, trying to meet deadlines. Hitting some of them, missing others. For example, I recently submitted an application for summer research money from a federal source; if I get it, I’ll let you know, but if you don’t hear anything, well… More applications will be submitted in the coming months. You can’t hit the ball if you don’t take a swing. And I’m going to swing a lot this year. I’m very caffeinated lately, which usually results in panic attacks but which is working fine this semester, so keep those Americano’s comin’!

It’s raining in Kansas City today, which I like. I used to be more of a sunshine guy, but it was very dry for a long time when we first moved here in 2002, and I missed living in Maryland where we were a 25-minute drive away from the Chesapeake Bay. So when it finally started raining, it felt really good. Now I welcome the rainy days.

Can anyone loan me $50,000? Scott suggested a tuning, and I’ve been trying it out. If Chris had posted about three hours earlier, I’d be on a different tack right now. As a musician, I have a tendency to stay in my comfort zone, and I’d like to set up guidelines that push myself outside of that zone. DADGGD tuning is pretty cool, and I’ve been doodling around with different sounds in that tuning.

I’ve been daydreaming about buying an small, vintage tube amp. Compared to the modern, solid-state stuff, the tube amps are supposed to sound warmer and have more character. Hunting around on eBay, I’ve seen a number of tempting little guys, amps from as long ago as 50 years for under $300. I’m not seriously in the market, yet, but maybe in the next year or so.

There’s a nice profile of musicians Gillian Welch and David Rawlings in the New Yorker. Their music is hypnotic and haunting. In a different region of the alt.country nation, Son Volt is getting back in the studio to record another album, which is welcome news. But the only original member of the band participating is Jay Farrar, and boy, are people on the message boards mad! Starting October 12, you can watch via webcam as the recording sessions take place.

And this brings me to yet another alt.country observation. Last night I was listening to Van Lear Rose, the recent Loretta Lynn album, produced by Jack White of the White Stripes. It’s a pretty good album, but not great. Compared to your average Son Volt album, the arrangements are just not very interesting. Jay Farrar (or maybe the now-non-Son-Volt Boquist brothers) should be working with Loretta Lynn, not Jack White. But ever since Uncle Tupelo broke up (resulting in the creation of two new bands), Farrar’s career has been pretty haphazard, unfortunately. Son Volt just flamed out after three albums, while Wilco has experienced a slow burn to their current prominent place of respectable sales and critical acclaim. Ah, the uncertainties of an artistic career.

Finally, what kind of country do we live in where someone can be in prison, serving a “sentence for having sex while HIV positive“? I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: America has jumped the shark.

“I can’t stop thinking that it doesn’t have to be this way,” Jay Farrar

my so-called musical life

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Thanks to everyone for your input on the past two entries. My career as an amateur musician has memorable peaks:

  • Age 10: Playing banjo, solo, in front of the entire school at a talent show in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
  • Age 20: Playing guitar in a band in front of a crowd of drunken sailors from the sixth fleet inside an inactive volcano in Naples, Italy.
  • Age 23: Playing bass in a band in a small club in Nashville, Tennessee.

And now: ephemeraltoybox, which is another kettle of fish altogether.

helloooo…

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…pick a tuning, please.

And head over to Weez’s and offer your thoughts on her questions.

Let’s get this show on the road.

Don’t make me talk about eighteenth-century Methodist sermons…because you know as well as I do that I’m not afraid to do it…