IDM Mailing Archive

"richard is dick extended" Shitcatapult Vulvaland Vulva - From the Cockpit Caustic Window's "Cunt" ... I don't know. Is it me? Is it because I'm a woman? Is it because I'm prudish (not) ??? or are all these just puerile? Yes "I am carnal" too - just like the rest of all human beings / biological creatures here on this planet, I have a full working set of genitals, but - {{shakes head}} I've just been away since the beginning of this week with the children on school holidays, lolling in hot springs, climbing up mountains, looking at rivers, not listening to music at all - and now coming back to download a few hundred list mails I'm confronted with a new label called "Shitcatapult" which has jarred with me, then the charming Richard Is Dick Extended Squarepusher/Richard Thomas collab rears its head (oh yes, it's VERY clever), then the other names pop to mind (lots more where those come from), and it all just strikes me as a bit smutty, y'know. Is there a point? Is there any correlation between the titles and the music? Yes, certainly so-called "cock rock" has always abounded with things like Wet Willy's "The Wetter The Better" and melifluous names like "Bless its Pointed Little Head" have left little doubt about which little head was being blessed. Most amusing list mail I've read in the current slew was the 10 points of what makes you a trainspotter - yes, I can relate :-) I *

quoted 4 lines ... I don't know. Is it me? Is it because I'm a woman? Is it

> > >... I don't know. Is it me? Is it because I'm a woman? Is it >because I'm prudish (not) ??? or are all these just puerile?

Not just a "girlie" complaint. The gratuitous vulgarity you reference is rather ... gratuitous? Just read an interview with a certain favorite and influential duo of noizemakers, with some interesting insights. Was about to forward said interview to several people, then decided against it for the liberal splattering of obscenities throughout. Surprises that individuals who are so meticulously precise in expressing themselves musically can be so unsubtle in verbal expression. Apparently it's considered unhip in certain circles to take offense at vulgarity. Is that progress? Time to rethink. Through being hip. The more one sensitizes to the beauty of sound, the more difficult to endure the constant assault of unconsidered sound - car alarms, sirens, motorpsychlists, raving street people threatening to kill, idiot beeps of reversing trucks, screeching sport (insert laugh track) utility (?) vehicles, nasal car horns, ugly unrequested music shared from generous windowsdown trunkopen speakersdistorting driversby. Similarly, the more one sensitizes to the (potential) beauty of language, the less endurable the reductionist vocabulary of vulgarity. Could any of our current crop of musical geniuses give a bit more thought before uttering such informative elucidations of the creative process: "Well, I take the sound and f**k with it. If that's still f**ked, I take it over here and f**k with it some more." Thank you and goodnight. Read some Rilke. Listen to something hi-fi once in a while, just for contrast. Perhaps one should simply respond: "Shaddup and play yer sampler!" (Expecting an obscene flaming mailbomb in response). Rudely and crudely, 3

On Fri, 1 Oct 1999, Irene McC wrote:

quoted 9 lines "richard is dick extended"

> "richard is dick extended" > Shitcatapult > Vulvaland > Vulva - From the Cockpit > Caustic Window's "Cunt" > > ... I don't know. Is it me? Is it because I'm a woman? Is it > because I'm prudish (not) ??? or are all these just puerile? >

No, puerile humor is par for the course. Like RDJ's milkman song, which is fertile ground for freudian analysis of infantile sexuality.

Ciao - Alright. Two deep breaths. Eddie Peel wrote:

quoted 5 lines If you're not secure enough in your own reasons for forwarding the material

> > >If you're not secure enough in your own reasons for forwarding the material >that you might let something like obscenity keep you from sending it you >have problems.

Well, we all have problems, I imagine. This comment hasn't really clarified mine, but perhaps this isn't the place for armchair psychoanalysis.

quoted 2 lines Lenny Bruce: Words aren't dirty, they are words. It is the meaning we

>Lenny Bruce: Words aren't dirty, they are words. It is the meaning we >attach to them that empowers them (paraphrase).

True. However, we do not arbitrarily assign that meaning. For us to communicate at all, there must be a certain level of shared meaning. I suspect that even those who freely use vulgarity know when and if that language may offend. Unless one that each of us creates our language in a vacuum.

quoted 3 lines what is vulgarity? you need to qualify that term in order to "talk shit"

> >what is vulgarity? you need to qualify that term in order to "talk shit" >about it.

See above. At most, one might claim it's a sliding scale within a culture, but there is some agreement.

quoted 9 lines Rewritten version:

> >Rewritten version: >The more one sensitizes to the beauty of sound, the more one can enjoy >unconsidered sound - car alarms, >sirens, motorpsychlists, raving street people threatening to kill, idiot >beeps of reversing trucks, screeching sport (insert laugh track) utility >(?) vehicles, nasal car horns, ugly unrequested music shared from generous >windowsdown trunkopen speakersdistorting driversby- as a new approach to >appreciating what it is that we consider music in the first place.

Yes, you're on a valid point there. Music becoming noise, noise becoming music. There is a capacity for redefinition certainly. The point I would like to consider: we have a choice what we redefine as valid expressions in our culture. What disturbs me about the most of the sounds I list above is that I associate them with violence and aggression, the desperate cry of the ego if you will. Perhaps one can reframe some of those. Difficult for me to recontextualize the words "I'll fucking kill you" as anything beyond the literal - if ungrammatical - intent.

quoted 3 lines Try (just a suggestion) a less dogmatic, less modernist approach to enjoying

> >Try (just a suggestion) a less dogmatic, less modernist approach to enjoying >art. Postmodern are the times, enjoy them for all of their signifigance.

I have tried, but am not convinced of the value of postmodernism. Perhaps as a destructive phase of something more constructive, but does not tenable in itself. Something like a Cartesian doubt. Suspect the culture goes mad if it doubts everything and eradicates all values. At any rate, we have not eradicated all values, so one might question which ones we do live by and whether we would like to continue to hold onto them. That is to say: The present is not necessari ly progress over the past. "Is" -/-> "Ought". As you have given me some advice which I will consider, I will politely return some, yours to take or discard: Step outside the present.

quoted 5 lines Go have some kids and perpetuate the dominant paradigm you hate breeder.

> > >Go have some kids and perpetuate the dominant paradigm you hate breeder. >"Look at them look at how 'bad they're being'." "Let's not be 'bad', let's >tell everyone how 'bad' it is to be 'bad'."

Not sure where all this hostility came from. I believe my views are hardly the "dominant paradigm"; we live in a culture of vulgarity after all. Hate I try to avoid; tends to consume the hater more than the hated at any rate. One tries to be civil, to give the benefit of the doubt, to approach constructively rather than escalate. My apologies if I've touched a raw nerve. This could be an interesting discussion, after all. A bit off-topic, but general questions of aesthetics as they correspond to music could be quite on-topic. Regards, 3 On now: Fuck Dub