The Music In Us
Two news items struck me this morning: Etta James passed away, and President Obama began an appearance at a fundraiser at the Apollo Theater by singing the first line of…
November
Not to sound like a broken record (scratched CD? corrupted data file? what is the appropriate 21st century simile?), but the year is careening towards its finish and it seems…
October Happenings
It feels a little more like fall in Texas, not so much because of the calendar but more because we had two great days of rain and the land seemed…
July News
If you are reading this, then you are among the elite websurfers who actually clicked on my website rather than just hanging out all day on Facebook (not that there's…
News From The Alternate Universe #1
News From The Alternate Universe. (Inspired by The New Yorker, 6/8/11) Representative Anthony Weiner, the subject of controversy over his "underpants" pictures, held a press conference today in which he…
Springtime In Texas
They say that Central Texas does have four seasons: hot, cold, wet and dry. But as the many brushfires are attesting, this year it's mostly hot and dry. This spring might be a…
SXSW Wrapup
The tragedy in Japan took a lot of the SXSW-organized events by surprise, but many groups took some time out from the hooplah and swag dispersal to send out messages…
Manufactured Culture vs. Shared Culture
by Paul Klemperer One of my favorite topics is the idea of cultural renaissance, and one of my favorite rants is the problem of cultural hegemony. Now I know I'm…
Music As Fiction
by Paul Klemperer Philosophically speaking, all art is fiction. And if fiction can be broadly defined as a creation of the imagination, then art, in all of its forms, can…
Music and the New Year
'Scuse me if I get introspective in these last days of 2010. It has been a year full of changes for me and many of my friends, gains and losses,…