Saturday, May 31, 2008
a beautiful mashup
"Cloudbusting" by Kate Bush vs. "Your Body's Calling" by R Kelly
By chance, I was listening to the song "Your Body's Calling" while reading a blog post about Kate Bush earlier. For a long time, I've thought about the two of them as being very similar: both of them, to me, are musical geniuses who also happen to be insane. So I decided to make a mashup, of course. I randomly picked "Cloudbusting" and was amazed at how pretty it sounds. After the Sparkle vs. Changing Faces mashup and now this one, I guess I make mashups that sound nice now.
I also just today got a fantastic comment on the original Mariah Carey / Leona Lewis mashup:
By chance, I was listening to the song "Your Body's Calling" while reading a blog post about Kate Bush earlier. For a long time, I've thought about the two of them as being very similar: both of them, to me, are musical geniuses who also happen to be insane. So I decided to make a mashup, of course. I randomly picked "Cloudbusting" and was amazed at how pretty it sounds. After the Sparkle vs. Changing Faces mashup and now this one, I guess I make mashups that sound nice now.
I also just today got a fantastic comment on the original Mariah Carey / Leona Lewis mashup:
Please STOP MAKING MASH UP VIDEOS!!! This is not your thing so give up please!!!
Youtube videos presented without comment
Chris Brown Feat. Britney Spears - Forever ("Official" Remix)
Akon Calls T-Pain
Fox And The Hound- T.Pain and Akon parody
T-Pain Loves Butternut Reduction
Akon Calls T-Pain
Fox And The Hound- T.Pain and Akon parody
T-Pain Loves Butternut Reduction
more mashups
I made these two mashups earlier this week. They both consist of songs I just discovered mashed up with a song they remind me of.
1 - "Click" by Ciara vs. "Glamorous" by Fergie
"Click" just leaked to the internet this week. I don't know for sure, but I think it was produced by Polow Da Don. I know (from Wikipedia) that Ciara has been working with him on her next album. It sounds a lot like Polow to me, particularly "Glamorous." It has the same hand-clap as "Glamorous" in parts, and it has the swirly, layered prettiness that "Glamorous" and other Polow songs, like "Forever," have. I think of "Click" as being something of a sequel to "Glamorous." It sounds like it and has somewhat similar subject matter. I think I might even like "Click" better, because I like Ciara so much more than Fergie, and instead of bringing in Ludacris or another male rapper for the rapped verse, Ciara just does it herself. The one thing about "Click" that reduces the pleasure I get out of it is that it's in the Sex and the City movie. In the mashup, "Click" stands out over "Glamorous" to me. I've already received a bunch of comments on the mashup, two of which say that "Click" is better. I'm interested in the idea of the "vs." in mashup songs being quite literal - it's a fight between the two songs to which is better.
2 - "Be Careful" by Sparkle vs. "G.H.E.T.T.O.U.T." by Changing Faces
Both of these songs are written and produced by R Kelly. He duets on "Be Careful," as well as a remix of "GHETTOUT" that I didn't use here. "GHETTOUT" is from 1997, "Be Careful" is from 1998. I really like R Kelly, and I really like both of these songs. I discovered "GHETTOUT" a few months ago and "Be Careful" earlier this week. I realized that, when I had been listening to "Be Careful," I got "GHETTOUT" stuck in my head, because of how similar the songs are. Even though they're kind of the same song, there is definitely room in my life for both of them. I like the mashup because it's actually pleasant to listen to.
When pulling up this video on youtube to post it here, I got distracted by the following:
GHETTOUT Chopped & Screwed
I don't know if it's common or not to chop & screw a slow jam, but I've never encountered it before. I think it's brilliant. The sidebar linked to this, which I also feel a need to link to:
Sensual Seduction Chopped & Screwed
1 - "Click" by Ciara vs. "Glamorous" by Fergie
"Click" just leaked to the internet this week. I don't know for sure, but I think it was produced by Polow Da Don. I know (from Wikipedia) that Ciara has been working with him on her next album. It sounds a lot like Polow to me, particularly "Glamorous." It has the same hand-clap as "Glamorous" in parts, and it has the swirly, layered prettiness that "Glamorous" and other Polow songs, like "Forever," have. I think of "Click" as being something of a sequel to "Glamorous." It sounds like it and has somewhat similar subject matter. I think I might even like "Click" better, because I like Ciara so much more than Fergie, and instead of bringing in Ludacris or another male rapper for the rapped verse, Ciara just does it herself. The one thing about "Click" that reduces the pleasure I get out of it is that it's in the Sex and the City movie. In the mashup, "Click" stands out over "Glamorous" to me. I've already received a bunch of comments on the mashup, two of which say that "Click" is better. I'm interested in the idea of the "vs." in mashup songs being quite literal - it's a fight between the two songs to which is better.
2 - "Be Careful" by Sparkle vs. "G.H.E.T.T.O.U.T." by Changing Faces
Both of these songs are written and produced by R Kelly. He duets on "Be Careful," as well as a remix of "GHETTOUT" that I didn't use here. "GHETTOUT" is from 1997, "Be Careful" is from 1998. I really like R Kelly, and I really like both of these songs. I discovered "GHETTOUT" a few months ago and "Be Careful" earlier this week. I realized that, when I had been listening to "Be Careful," I got "GHETTOUT" stuck in my head, because of how similar the songs are. Even though they're kind of the same song, there is definitely room in my life for both of them. I like the mashup because it's actually pleasant to listen to.
When pulling up this video on youtube to post it here, I got distracted by the following:
GHETTOUT Chopped & Screwed
I don't know if it's common or not to chop & screw a slow jam, but I've never encountered it before. I think it's brilliant. The sidebar linked to this, which I also feel a need to link to:
Sensual Seduction Chopped & Screwed
Friday, May 30, 2008
Margaret Atwood is my hero
Margaret Atwood is, and has long been, my favorite author. (Fashioning the Body alums, and everyone else, should check out her novels Bodily Harm and The Edible Woman). Today, I found the following amazing quote from this article online:
An 800-word Harry Potter prequel is one of 13 card-sized works to be sold at a charity auction in the British capital. Waterstone's Booksellers Ltd. says the cream-colored A5 papers — each slightly bigger than a postcard — were distributed to 13 authors and illustrators, including the boy wizard's creator J.K. Rowling, Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing, novelist Margaret Atwood and playwright Tom Stoppard.What could be better than this?Rowling used both sides of her card to hand-write a prequel to her seven-book Harry Potter saga, while Lessing penned a story about the power of reading. Stoppard wrote a short mystery and Atwood was due to fill out her card remotely using a robotic arm controlled by computer linkup.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Thoughts on Jawbreaker
I'm not generally a huge fan of movies. I'd rather watch the same 5 movies over and over again than see something new. Last night, I watched two of those movies (Jawbreaker and Spice World) with a roommate. My two favorite mediums of pop culture are pop music (where I repeatedly listen to songs) and reality television (where I rarely repeat-watch an episode, but each episode repeats the same structure). Movies just don't have the level of repetition that I like in pop culture.
I've been thinking a lot about camp the past few months. I decided that, in my opinion, the two main elements of camp are excess and an overcommitment to the marginal. Watching Jawbreaker again reminded me of another element that is often, though not always, present in camp: failure. So many of the plot points and conversations in Jawbreaker simply don't make sense, and it adds to the general campy charm of the movie. Spice World is also very campy, but I don't think it's a failure on any level. I know that many people would disagree with me about that, which points out the important fact that failure is subjective. When something is campy (because it's excessive and features an overcommitment to the marginal), moments of failure (as perceived by the individual viewer) can add to the campiness (for that individual viewer).
Back to repetition: I would imagine that I have seen Jawbreaker about 20 times. I feel like I could watch it many more times, but it's difficult to sit through a movie so many times. I've listened to the song "Glamorous" over 200 times, but I listen to it while doing other things. I've watched over 100 episodes of America's Next Top Model (many twice), and while there's a lot of repetition (of episode structure, activities, themes, the word "fierce," and the judge comment "The camera loves you!") each episode is different. I want to watch Jawbreaker more, but since the same thing happens every time and movies demand that you not do other things while you watch them, it can become almost boring.
I'm considering trying to convert Jawbreaker into other forms. What I've come up with so far is to print off screen captures and put them up on the walls and to convert the audio to mp3 files, about the length of a pop song, and listen to them while doing other things.
I've been thinking a lot about camp the past few months. I decided that, in my opinion, the two main elements of camp are excess and an overcommitment to the marginal. Watching Jawbreaker again reminded me of another element that is often, though not always, present in camp: failure. So many of the plot points and conversations in Jawbreaker simply don't make sense, and it adds to the general campy charm of the movie. Spice World is also very campy, but I don't think it's a failure on any level. I know that many people would disagree with me about that, which points out the important fact that failure is subjective. When something is campy (because it's excessive and features an overcommitment to the marginal), moments of failure (as perceived by the individual viewer) can add to the campiness (for that individual viewer).
Back to repetition: I would imagine that I have seen Jawbreaker about 20 times. I feel like I could watch it many more times, but it's difficult to sit through a movie so many times. I've listened to the song "Glamorous" over 200 times, but I listen to it while doing other things. I've watched over 100 episodes of America's Next Top Model (many twice), and while there's a lot of repetition (of episode structure, activities, themes, the word "fierce," and the judge comment "The camera loves you!") each episode is different. I want to watch Jawbreaker more, but since the same thing happens every time and movies demand that you not do other things while you watch them, it can become almost boring.
I'm considering trying to convert Jawbreaker into other forms. What I've come up with so far is to print off screen captures and put them up on the walls and to convert the audio to mp3 files, about the length of a pop song, and listen to them while doing other things.
Producer as Artist?
Last quarter, I examined authorship in popular music. One things I was arguing against was the way the producer starts to be viewed as the true "author" of a song. In a 1993 scholarly article, Barbara Bradby wrote, " The new textual practices of bricolage, intertextuality and 'stealing' tend to be subsumed back into the old notion of authorship through the ideology of the creativity of 'the producer.'" This is still very true today, perhaps more so with producers like Timbaland becoming famous and subsequently recording their own music. In the course of my project, I developed a viewpoint in which the performer / vocalist was the main "author" of a song, if there can be said to be an author. I am not convinced that this is true to how I listen to music, however.
A few weeks ago, the song "Forever" by Chris Brown jumped into the Billboard Hot 100 top 10 songs. I didn't pay any attention because I'm not particularly a fan of his. However, today I heard that it was produced by Polow Da Don, and right away looked it up on youtube then downloaded it. I absolutely love the song.
I was only interested in the song because of the producer. Polow Da Don was the producer of what is possibly my favorite song, Glamorous by Fergie, as well as a bunch of other songs I love. All of those songs but one are by artists I already loved before they put out a song produced by Polow. However, through these songs, I now like Polow too, enough to check out a song he produced by an artist I don't particularly care for.
It still bothers me when a song is considered to belong more to its producer than its performer, but I should acknowledge that the producer is an important part of the song. Pop music is a collaborative medium. As with featured artists, when a performer collaborates with a producer I like, it makes the song that much more interesting.
On the subjects of producers, in addition to Polow, I am very fond of Danja, particularly the songs he produces by himself (i.e. not co-produced with Timbaland). He produced some of my favorite songs on "Blackout" (Britney's recent CD), as well as couple other favorite songs of mine.
A few weeks ago, the song "Forever" by Chris Brown jumped into the Billboard Hot 100 top 10 songs. I didn't pay any attention because I'm not particularly a fan of his. However, today I heard that it was produced by Polow Da Don, and right away looked it up on youtube then downloaded it. I absolutely love the song.
I was only interested in the song because of the producer. Polow Da Don was the producer of what is possibly my favorite song, Glamorous by Fergie, as well as a bunch of other songs I love. All of those songs but one are by artists I already loved before they put out a song produced by Polow. However, through these songs, I now like Polow too, enough to check out a song he produced by an artist I don't particularly care for.
It still bothers me when a song is considered to belong more to its producer than its performer, but I should acknowledge that the producer is an important part of the song. Pop music is a collaborative medium. As with featured artists, when a performer collaborates with a producer I like, it makes the song that much more interesting.
On the subjects of producers, in addition to Polow, I am very fond of Danja, particularly the songs he produces by himself (i.e. not co-produced with Timbaland). He produced some of my favorite songs on "Blackout" (Britney's recent CD), as well as couple other favorite songs of mine.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Eclectic?
The other day, my roommate had a friend over. A mix CD I made was playing. At one point, my roommate's friend said, "I like listening to other people's music taste sometimes." I asked why, and she said, "Because it makes me feel like my taste is music is less weird." I said that I didn't think my taste in music is weird (it's pretty mainstream), and she said, "Let's just say you're taste is eclectic."
I know that eclectic isn't an insult, but I was angry to hear it applied to my taste in music. I don't think it's eclectic at all. The songs she brought up to demonstrate that my taste is eclectic were "Murder on the Dancefloor" by Sophie Ellis-Bextor and "Pro Nails" by Kid Sister.
"Murder on the Dancefloor"
"Pro Nails"
I've thought about it a lot since this happened, trying to figure out why it bothered me. I understand that sonically the songs are very different. However, disco-y dance pop and poppy hip-hop made by a female rapper are both two genres that historically have a certain appeal for gay men. Both the lyrics and the videos of the two songs can be read as being very campy. It would have never occurred to me that these songs wouldn't go together. From the perspective of the straight woman who thinks my music taste is "eclectic," they don't fit together at all. Her inability to see that these songs go together is because she could not imagine a cohesive queer perspective towards music. Thus, my mix CD was only coherent to her under the rubric of "eclectic."
To help process this, I made a mashup:
I know that eclectic isn't an insult, but I was angry to hear it applied to my taste in music. I don't think it's eclectic at all. The songs she brought up to demonstrate that my taste is eclectic were "Murder on the Dancefloor" by Sophie Ellis-Bextor and "Pro Nails" by Kid Sister.
"Murder on the Dancefloor"
"Pro Nails"
I've thought about it a lot since this happened, trying to figure out why it bothered me. I understand that sonically the songs are very different. However, disco-y dance pop and poppy hip-hop made by a female rapper are both two genres that historically have a certain appeal for gay men. Both the lyrics and the videos of the two songs can be read as being very campy. It would have never occurred to me that these songs wouldn't go together. From the perspective of the straight woman who thinks my music taste is "eclectic," they don't fit together at all. Her inability to see that these songs go together is because she could not imagine a cohesive queer perspective towards music. Thus, my mix CD was only coherent to her under the rubric of "eclectic."
To help process this, I made a mashup:
Alice
A lot of my posts on this blog, particularly that involve mashups, have to do with taking things from culture and making something new out of them. Today, Videogum, a blog I recently started reading, posted this music video to a song made up of sounds from Alice in Wonderland.
I think this is an amazing and beautiful object made out of other cultural productions. Of course, this is in contrast to other things I've been making and collecting here, which are more about failure, which is why I wanted to post something that I find incredibly successful.
I think this is an amazing and beautiful object made out of other cultural productions. Of course, this is in contrast to other things I've been making and collecting here, which are more about failure, which is why I wanted to post something that I find incredibly successful.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Found Mashups
After reading the NYT article I linked to in my last post, I decided to look around on youtube at mashups made by other people. Here are some interesting videos I found:
The first is a mashup of "Call the Shots" by Girls Aloud and "Hole in the Head" by the Sugababes (not embeddable). This one is amazing to me because it's just like something I would make. The track is basically "Call the Shots" with the chorus of "Hole in the Head" layered over the chorus of "Call the Shots." I would have totally picked these two songs to stick together, too.
Abba vs 50 Cent - Queen of Da Club
I found this while specifically looking for something that would make 50 Cent sound really gay, but I never could have hoped to find something this good. Not only is "Dancing Queen" very feminine sounding and gay-ish in its associations, the implication is that 50 Cent himself, in the club, is a dancing queen. I love it.
Anticipating VS Runaway - Britney Spears & Avril Lavigne
I hate how this one sounds, but I love the video. Particularly, I love the interesting punctuation choices on the lyrics for "Anticipating." For example:
- I'll be "Anticipating!"
- You're feeling this right? Let's do this tonight?
With the latter, I never heard those as questions, it changes the meaning a lot. I have no idea what's going on in the former. Is she suddenly going to become the song "Anticipating," which she is currently singing? It's all very mysterious.
The same person also made this video: Lil' Kim vs. Nicole Scherzinger
I don't have much to say about it. I love Lil' Kim, and "Whatever You Like" by Nicole Scherzinger has one of my favorite beats, but somehow I'm underwhelmed. And there's no charming video!
Britney Spears' Gimme More/Madonna's Into the Groove Mashup
Okay, this is kind of amazing and also, to me, really difficult to watch. But it's a live mashup.
There's another one with Rihanna's "Please Don't Stop the Music" and J Lo's "Waiting for Tonight:"
And last, not exactly a mashup, but I can't help but post it:
The first is a mashup of "Call the Shots" by Girls Aloud and "Hole in the Head" by the Sugababes (not embeddable). This one is amazing to me because it's just like something I would make. The track is basically "Call the Shots" with the chorus of "Hole in the Head" layered over the chorus of "Call the Shots." I would have totally picked these two songs to stick together, too.
Abba vs 50 Cent - Queen of Da Club
I found this while specifically looking for something that would make 50 Cent sound really gay, but I never could have hoped to find something this good. Not only is "Dancing Queen" very feminine sounding and gay-ish in its associations, the implication is that 50 Cent himself, in the club, is a dancing queen. I love it.
Anticipating VS Runaway - Britney Spears & Avril Lavigne
I hate how this one sounds, but I love the video. Particularly, I love the interesting punctuation choices on the lyrics for "Anticipating." For example:
- I'll be "Anticipating!"
- You're feeling this right? Let's do this tonight?
With the latter, I never heard those as questions, it changes the meaning a lot. I have no idea what's going on in the former. Is she suddenly going to become the song "Anticipating," which she is currently singing? It's all very mysterious.
The same person also made this video: Lil' Kim vs. Nicole Scherzinger
I don't have much to say about it. I love Lil' Kim, and "Whatever You Like" by Nicole Scherzinger has one of my favorite beats, but somehow I'm underwhelmed. And there's no charming video!
Britney Spears' Gimme More/Madonna's Into the Groove Mashup
Okay, this is kind of amazing and also, to me, really difficult to watch. But it's a live mashup.
There's another one with Rihanna's "Please Don't Stop the Music" and J Lo's "Waiting for Tonight:"
And last, not exactly a mashup, but I can't help but post it:
NYT Article about youtube
Yesterday I came across this interesting New York Times article: Pixels at an Exhibition
It's gotten me to think a bit about youtube videos as an art form in their own right, rather than as a depository for other art (clips from TV, music videos, etc). My own mashups use slideshows in a way that I borrowed from common youtube practice, just as one example of youtube having its own forms. After reading this article, I spent a lot of time on youtube looking for mashups other people have made, and I got excited about the idea of youtube videos not being a way to view something else (a music video or a mashup) but being their own thing. I will work on a post about the videos I found this afternoon.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Irony?
I started reading a chapter of Working Like a Homosexual: Camp, Capital, Cinema by Matthew Tinkcom (which is one of the best scholarly titles I've encountered). I was particularly struck by this paragraph about irony:
I think that irony as a means of reading culture, as it is practiced now by a lot of people, is not about ambivalence, it's about entirely disliking or having disdain for a cultural product and consuming it ironically in order to play up or perform that dislike. It's almost a way to disavow any ambivalences towards the cultural product. This is why I find camp, with its ambivalences, much more interesting. Of course, as Tinkcom points out, "irony is a depleted term." His revisiting of the original meaning of irony is fascinating to me. It comes near the beginning of a chapter about John Waters. I'm excited to see how ideas about irony and its relation to camp play out in the rest of the chapter.
We discover, though, that irony is a depleted term for comprehending the variety of contemporary cultural practices encompassed in its name, and perhaps worth recalling is that the term carries with it its classical meaning, whereby irony was defined as a form of feigned ignorance. To be ironic in this sense is to maintain a pretense of not knowing in order to produce an alternative knowledge of a statement, object, text, or performance: insisting that one is not perceiving the conditions under which the ironic message is dispensed, not possessing its different registers of signification, not acknowledging that one is perhaps the perfect recipient of the statement that one claims only to be overhearing, irony captures a form of complicity between producer and recipient, one allowing for a form of textual camouflage that provides for a hidden, ambivalent interpretation to arise around the message. (156)
I think that irony as a means of reading culture, as it is practiced now by a lot of people, is not about ambivalence, it's about entirely disliking or having disdain for a cultural product and consuming it ironically in order to play up or perform that dislike. It's almost a way to disavow any ambivalences towards the cultural product. This is why I find camp, with its ambivalences, much more interesting. Of course, as Tinkcom points out, "irony is a depleted term." His revisiting of the original meaning of irony is fascinating to me. It comes near the beginning of a chapter about John Waters. I'm excited to see how ideas about irony and its relation to camp play out in the rest of the chapter.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Queer Mashups
I made a couple more "mashups" today. I wanted to make queer mashups / use mashups to "queer" pop songs. Here's what I came up with:
Kelis' "Bossy" with Shareefa's "I Need a Boss"
Cher's "Take Me Home" with Lisa Lisa's "I Wonder if I Take You Home"
The Cher and Lisa Lisa songs, like pop songs in general, are in second person, they address someone, a "you." This "you" is a man, but when the two songs are put together, they are addressing each other. Cher becomes the person trying to convince Lisa Lisa to take her (originally him) home.
As hip-hop-tinged R&B / pop songs, "Bossy" and "I Need a Boss" are not sung to another character, they are sung to the audience. So, while Cher and Lisa Lisa seem to be having a straightforward conversation with each other, Shareefa and Kelis seem more to be flirting when the songs are put together. Shareefa says, "I need a boss" and Kelis replies, "I'm bossy."
My original thought was that, with the mashups, the mode of reception is listening - you listen to the songs together. However, they're pretty much unlistenable. Since most of the queer meaning of putting these songs together is in the titles, anyway, I think that the mode of reception is thinking the songs together.
Finally, these mashups are both women / women mashups because I mostly listen to female vocalists. I would love to make some male / male mashups. Any ideas?
Kelis' "Bossy" with Shareefa's "I Need a Boss"
Cher's "Take Me Home" with Lisa Lisa's "I Wonder if I Take You Home"
The Cher and Lisa Lisa songs, like pop songs in general, are in second person, they address someone, a "you." This "you" is a man, but when the two songs are put together, they are addressing each other. Cher becomes the person trying to convince Lisa Lisa to take her (originally him) home.
As hip-hop-tinged R&B / pop songs, "Bossy" and "I Need a Boss" are not sung to another character, they are sung to the audience. So, while Cher and Lisa Lisa seem to be having a straightforward conversation with each other, Shareefa and Kelis seem more to be flirting when the songs are put together. Shareefa says, "I need a boss" and Kelis replies, "I'm bossy."
My original thought was that, with the mashups, the mode of reception is listening - you listen to the songs together. However, they're pretty much unlistenable. Since most of the queer meaning of putting these songs together is in the titles, anyway, I think that the mode of reception is thinking the songs together.
Finally, these mashups are both women / women mashups because I mostly listen to female vocalists. I would love to make some male / male mashups. Any ideas?
Queer Booklist
One goal I have for this quarter is to create reading lists for myself, so when I graduate I will have a list of academic books I'm excited about. With that in mind, I compiled a list of queer books I want to read as a start. First, I found this list of "the now canonical texts of queer theory within the U.S. academy" in Douglas Crimp's Melancholia and Moralism:
- Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble and Bodies that Matter.
- Edelman, Lee. Homographesis.
- Fuss, Diana. Inside / Outside.
- Halperin, David. 100 Years of Homosexuality and Saint Foucault.
- Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Epistemology of the Closet and Tendencies.
- Warner, Michael. Fear of a Queer Planet.
I've read Gender Trouble and Saint Foucault, though I read SF before I read any Foucault or any queer theory, so I could stand to read it again.
I sat down with Google Books and a bunch of names I've come across in my reading to find the following list of other books I'm interested in:
Butler, Judith. Undoing Gender.
Week, Jeffrey:
- Sexuality and Its Discontents
- Between the Acts
- Against Nature
- Invented Moralities
- Making Sexual History
- Same Sex Intimacies: Families of Choice and Other Life
Bersani, Leo. Homos.
Patton, Cindy.
- Inventing AIDs
- Sex and Germs: Politics of AIDs
- Globalizing AIDs
- Fatal Advice
Edelman, Lee.
- Homographesis
- No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive
Rubin, Gayle. Misguided, Dangerous, and Wrong.
D’Emilio, John.
- The World Turned
- Making Trouble
Delaney, Samuel. Time Square Red, Time Square Blue.
Duggan, Lisa.
- Our Monica, Ourselves.
- Sex Wars.
- The Invention of Heterosexuality.
Somerville, Siobhan. Queering the Color Line.
Shah, Nayan. Contagious Divides.
Boag, Peter. Same-Sex Affairs: Constructing and Controlling Homosexuality in the Pacific Northwest.
I'm not sure yet how to collect the citations for books I want to read. I want to be able to tag them. I found librarything.com, where you can create a catalog of books and tag them. I haven't used it enough yet to see if I like it. Another idea I had was to create a blog in blogger and make a post for each book I'm interested in, which would allow me to tag them as well as add information about why I'm interested in it.
Let me know if you have any reading suggestions!
- Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble and Bodies that Matter.
- Edelman, Lee. Homographesis.
- Fuss, Diana. Inside / Outside.
- Halperin, David. 100 Years of Homosexuality and Saint Foucault.
- Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Epistemology of the Closet and Tendencies.
- Warner, Michael. Fear of a Queer Planet.
I've read Gender Trouble and Saint Foucault, though I read SF before I read any Foucault or any queer theory, so I could stand to read it again.
I sat down with Google Books and a bunch of names I've come across in my reading to find the following list of other books I'm interested in:
Butler, Judith. Undoing Gender.
Week, Jeffrey:
- Sexuality and Its Discontents
- Between the Acts
- Against Nature
- Invented Moralities
- Making Sexual History
- Same Sex Intimacies: Families of Choice and Other Life
Bersani, Leo. Homos.
Patton, Cindy.
- Inventing AIDs
- Sex and Germs: Politics of AIDs
- Globalizing AIDs
- Fatal Advice
Edelman, Lee.
- Homographesis
- No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive
Rubin, Gayle. Misguided, Dangerous, and Wrong.
D’Emilio, John.
- The World Turned
- Making Trouble
Delaney, Samuel. Time Square Red, Time Square Blue.
Duggan, Lisa.
- Our Monica, Ourselves.
- Sex Wars.
- The Invention of Heterosexuality.
Somerville, Siobhan. Queering the Color Line.
Shah, Nayan. Contagious Divides.
Boag, Peter. Same-Sex Affairs: Constructing and Controlling Homosexuality in the Pacific Northwest.
I'm not sure yet how to collect the citations for books I want to read. I want to be able to tag them. I found librarything.com, where you can create a catalog of books and tag them. I haven't used it enough yet to see if I like it. Another idea I had was to create a blog in blogger and make a post for each book I'm interested in, which would allow me to tag them as well as add information about why I'm interested in it.
Let me know if you have any reading suggestions!
Monday, May 12, 2008
And the Band Played On
Recently, I have been reading a lot about the AIDS crisis, starting with Douglas Crimp’s Melancholia and Moralism, which is fantastic. In one of Crimp’s essays, “How to Have Promiscuity in an Epidemic,” he critiques Randy Shilts’ book As the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, a journalistic book about the crisis. Crimp writes that Shilts irresponsibly places blame for the crisis on gay men and promiscuity, particularly in his creation of “Patient Zero.” I wanted to read And the Band Played On because I’ve been reading so much critical writing about politics and art in the AIDS crisis, but I don’t know much of the history. I was also interested in reading the book to see if I agreed with Crimps’ critique.
I’m almost 200 pages in now, and I think Crimp was definitely right. It’s clear from Shilts’ focus on promiscuity as what is at fault. For example, he repeatedly refers to bathhouses as “the commercialization of promiscuity,” to the point where it almost becomes a euphemism. On a few occasions, he describes gay men who were promiscuous before anyone had even heard of AIDS as “playing on the freeway.” For example: “Perhaps the new virus was like some lurking jungle predator, striking the stragglers first. That would explain the extreme life-styles of the early cases; they were out dancing in the freeway, ensuring they would be the first to get run over.” (153). On page 157, Shilts writes, “Jim Curran passed up the opportunity to meet Gaetan, the Quebecois version of Typhoid Mary. Curran had heard about the flamboyant attendant and frankly found every story about his sexual braggadocio to be offensive. Stereotypical gays irritated Curran in much the same way that he was uncomfortable watching Amos n’ Andy movies.” (157) Here, gay men acting “stereotypical” is equated with blackface. Perhaps a more appropriate metaphor would be straight men acting a gay men and portraying these stereotypes, but that is not what is happening here. Curran is a straight doctor who is the head of AIDS research at the CDC. Shilts has created a story where a straight doctor is one of the heroes of the AIDS crisis, yet expresses such offensive sentiments. He wants to save gay men’s lives, but he doesn’t want to meet them if they act “stereotypical.”
What I actually like about And the Band Played On is how (unintentionally, I presume) campy the writing is. For example, Shilts writes, “The sun melted the morning fog to reveal a vista so clear, so crystalline that you worried it might break if you stared too hard.” (11). Or, a few pages later, “His body was superbly toned. He carried himself with increasing confidence, much like the body politic whose ideals he was articulating.” (14). Personally, I find this writing laughably bad. This amusement is helping me enjoy the book through the offensive sentiments.
I’m almost 200 pages in now, and I think Crimp was definitely right. It’s clear from Shilts’ focus on promiscuity as what is at fault. For example, he repeatedly refers to bathhouses as “the commercialization of promiscuity,” to the point where it almost becomes a euphemism. On a few occasions, he describes gay men who were promiscuous before anyone had even heard of AIDS as “playing on the freeway.” For example: “Perhaps the new virus was like some lurking jungle predator, striking the stragglers first. That would explain the extreme life-styles of the early cases; they were out dancing in the freeway, ensuring they would be the first to get run over.” (153). On page 157, Shilts writes, “Jim Curran passed up the opportunity to meet Gaetan, the Quebecois version of Typhoid Mary. Curran had heard about the flamboyant attendant and frankly found every story about his sexual braggadocio to be offensive. Stereotypical gays irritated Curran in much the same way that he was uncomfortable watching Amos n’ Andy movies.” (157) Here, gay men acting “stereotypical” is equated with blackface. Perhaps a more appropriate metaphor would be straight men acting a gay men and portraying these stereotypes, but that is not what is happening here. Curran is a straight doctor who is the head of AIDS research at the CDC. Shilts has created a story where a straight doctor is one of the heroes of the AIDS crisis, yet expresses such offensive sentiments. He wants to save gay men’s lives, but he doesn’t want to meet them if they act “stereotypical.”
What I actually like about And the Band Played On is how (unintentionally, I presume) campy the writing is. For example, Shilts writes, “The sun melted the morning fog to reveal a vista so clear, so crystalline that you worried it might break if you stared too hard.” (11). Or, a few pages later, “His body was superbly toned. He carried himself with increasing confidence, much like the body politic whose ideals he was articulating.” (14). Personally, I find this writing laughably bad. This amusement is helping me enjoy the book through the offensive sentiments.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
On "Young Gay Rites"
A few weeks ago, the New York Times Sunday Magazine published an article about young gay men getting married called Young Gay Rites. Today, they published letters in response.
The first letter is my favorite:
When you’re gay, it can be difficult to explain to people why your views on gay marriage are negative or apathetic. I think this letter is very well articulated. I like that it expresses how a lack of marriage rights can be of benefit to queers without attacking the institution, which would cause a lot of people to close their minds to the sentiment.
The third letter I am not as fond of:
This is a typical example of the “gays should be able to get married because they’re just like straight people.” If this particular gay life style is “normal,” then something else isn’t normal – probably some more "hypergay" lifestyle. The use of the word “fabulous” seems particularly offensive to me, attacking certain non-assimilationist ways of being gay (i.e. faggy).
The last letter is very interesting. It’s about the images that ran with the story, campy 50s-style portraits of the young gay couples in the article. For example:
The letter states:
I think this letter misses the point, which is the campiness of the photos. It’s not an “uncomfortable nod” to the 50s, it’s a parodic nod. Pictures like these, send-ups of the 50s, are usually parodic these days even when they feature straight couples. The letter made me think of Gender Trouble by Judith Butler. Butler writes about gender parody as repeating gender norms with a difference – in this case, that the couples are both men. This is not “play acting,” it is a parody that reveals the “original” as being a copy all along (unfortunately, I don’t have Gender Trouble with me, and this is something of a paraphrase from memory). In this case, the photos point out the constructedness of straight marriage as an institution. In my view, the author of this later misread the photographs and was offended by what she read into them, something that she wouldn’t have seen if she had noted the photos’ camp effect.
The first letter is my favorite:
As a gay man of a certain age (I was 18 when Stonewall happened), I realize that much of what I have valued overall in my life — virtually all of it “out” — has been access to a much wider landscape of sexual and relationship possibilities than most of my straight confreres felt they had. In fact, being gay in this culture has required me to forge my own identity — cultivate it consciously — rather than have it handed down through societal institutions like marriage. I think there have been benefits to that.
That everybody has a right to get married surely is obvious. But how lovely to feel you don’t have to.
When you’re gay, it can be difficult to explain to people why your views on gay marriage are negative or apathetic. I think this letter is very well articulated. I like that it expresses how a lack of marriage rights can be of benefit to queers without attacking the institution, which would cause a lot of people to close their minds to the sentiment.
The third letter I am not as fond of:
I dunno . . . after reading the article, sounds to me like gays get married for good or dumb reasons, impulsively or after careful or neurotic consideration, exactly like straight couples.
But as a 42-year-old gay engaged man, still giddy to be on the receiving end of a marriage proposal from my Julian, I do shudder to think what the gay-marriage opponents would think of our hypergay lifestyle, which I’m hoping California will condone soon by granting real marriage rights.
Why, just the other night we went to Target with our straight friend Brian and then, to top off our gay evening, got some doughnuts. It’s just one fabulous day after another.
Or should I say fabulously normal.
This is a typical example of the “gays should be able to get married because they’re just like straight people.” If this particular gay life style is “normal,” then something else isn’t normal – probably some more "hypergay" lifestyle. The use of the word “fabulous” seems particularly offensive to me, attacking certain non-assimilationist ways of being gay (i.e. faggy).
The last letter is very interesting. It’s about the images that ran with the story, campy 50s-style portraits of the young gay couples in the article. For example:
The letter states:
I enjoyed Denizet-Lewis’s article. He created a lively and sympathetic read, chronicling the path to marriage and beyond, a path that is not so different for couples of any sexual orientation. But why the colorized, exaggerated photos, mimicking the most clichéd and self-conscious of coupled moments? Why pose Marc and Vassili in tuxedos when they specifically stated that they will sidestep all the trappings associated with “traditional” weddings? Besides the uncomfortable nod to the ’50s (an era that was not especially welcoming to gays and lesbians), it suggests that gay couples are somehow “play acting” at being married. As a civil celebrant, who has had the great joy to preside over many gay unions in New Jersey, I was offended by the way these couples were depicted, at least visually.
I think this letter misses the point, which is the campiness of the photos. It’s not an “uncomfortable nod” to the 50s, it’s a parodic nod. Pictures like these, send-ups of the 50s, are usually parodic these days even when they feature straight couples. The letter made me think of Gender Trouble by Judith Butler. Butler writes about gender parody as repeating gender norms with a difference – in this case, that the couples are both men. This is not “play acting,” it is a parody that reveals the “original” as being a copy all along (unfortunately, I don’t have Gender Trouble with me, and this is something of a paraphrase from memory). In this case, the photos point out the constructedness of straight marriage as an institution. In my view, the author of this later misread the photographs and was offended by what she read into them, something that she wouldn’t have seen if she had noted the photos’ camp effect.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Mashups
About a month ago, I became fascinated by the idea of mashups, when someone edits together the instrumental track of one song with the vocal track of another song. They were a big phenomenon about 5 or 6 years ago, and I was interested (if not surprised) to find out that people were still making them. I started thinking about the possibilities that came with collapsing two pop songs together, the ways that could change their meanings. I quickly ascertained that I did not have the technical skills or software to make my own mashups, but I figured out something I could make: fake mashups. Here's what I came up with (in the order I made them, the first three over a couple of days and the fourth a week later):
Mariah Carey's "Touch My Body" vs. Leona Lewis' "Bleeding Love"
Britney Spears' "Piece of Me" vs. Rihanna's "Don't Stop the Music"
Robyn's "With Every Heartbeat" vs. Girls Aloud's live acoustic cover of "With Every Heartbeat"
Lil' Wayne's "Lollipop" vs. Aqua's "Lollipop"
As you can probably tell, these are not mashups at all, but simply the two songs played over each other. My method is to import two songs into Garage Band, line them up, then cut off the longer song when the shorter song ends. Then they're finished.
When I figured out how to do this, I was excited by the idea of posting them to YouTube disguised as "real" mashups so people would watch them and leave comments. I wanted to see if I could trick people into thinking I genuinely thought I had made mashups. To this end, I was trying to make combinations that people would want to listen to (at least until they heard them). At the time, "Touch My Body" and "Bleeding Love" were the two most popular songs on the Billboard Hot 100. I made the "With Every Heartbeat" video to see if a more obscure song would get more views because it would have less competition in search results. The Mariah/Leona video has the most views, 463. Britney/Rihanna has 195, Robyn/Girls Aloud has 282, and Lil Wayne/Aqua has 184. Here are some of the comments I've gotten:
Mariah Carey's "Touch My Body" vs. Leona Lewis' "Bleeding Love"
Britney Spears' "Piece of Me" vs. Rihanna's "Don't Stop the Music"
Robyn's "With Every Heartbeat" vs. Girls Aloud's live acoustic cover of "With Every Heartbeat"
Lil' Wayne's "Lollipop" vs. Aqua's "Lollipop"
As you can probably tell, these are not mashups at all, but simply the two songs played over each other. My method is to import two songs into Garage Band, line them up, then cut off the longer song when the shorter song ends. Then they're finished.
When I figured out how to do this, I was excited by the idea of posting them to YouTube disguised as "real" mashups so people would watch them and leave comments. I wanted to see if I could trick people into thinking I genuinely thought I had made mashups. To this end, I was trying to make combinations that people would want to listen to (at least until they heard them). At the time, "Touch My Body" and "Bleeding Love" were the two most popular songs on the Billboard Hot 100. I made the "With Every Heartbeat" video to see if a more obscure song would get more views because it would have less competition in search results. The Mariah/Leona video has the most views, 463. Britney/Rihanna has 195, Robyn/Girls Aloud has 282, and Lil Wayne/Aqua has 184. Here are some of the comments I've gotten:
this is absolute fucking shitI've gotten a lot of joy out of these comments, but I think I could do more with these than just getting comments from people who think I'm trying to make real mashups. I've been thinking a lot about the possibilities of changing the meanings of songs by mashing them together. I have a few ideas for playing with this, so I might try making some new ones soon.this is so terrible, i love it. overlapping two songs whether they match in any way or not? excellent dj skillz!WTF??Do you really think this sounds good? It's nothing but gibberish! I have a headache!!!who did this? a 6 year old? I have to vomit now, excuse me.This is truly awful! lolits basically 2 song mashed 2gether with no editing. soz but thats basically what it isdoesnt really fitwow this is trashnot really a mashup- just the two songs playing over eachother.
this is one of the worst "mash-ups" i've ever heard. they don't even fit together
"Finding the Switch"
I stumbled on an article about the biological basis of homosexuality in the most recent (May/June 2008) issue of Psychology Today. It’s called “Finding the Switch,” by Robert Kunzig. The beginning of the article can be found here. The full article can be found on Proquest. The article is terrible. It starts:
Immediately, this article sets up evolution as the guide to whether or not something “makes sense.” Of course, evolution here is code for reproduction, as the second sentence makes clear. If homosexuality doesn’t aid reproduction, and thus doesn’t make sense, doesn’t that mean that any behavior that doesn’t aid reproduction doesn’t make sense, such as heterosexual sex with a condom (i.e. safe sex)? Kunzig would probably make the distinction between behavior and a biological identity. But his own question would be answered by an understanding of homosexuality not based on biology but on social construction (in other words, Kunzig needs to read The History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault).
Kunzig does mention Freud to argue that non-biological understandings of homosexuality are wrong:
Of course, there was more to psychiatric explanations of homosexuality than bad parenting, and more to constructionist views of homosexuality than psychiatry, so dismissing bad parenting by invoking sheep is not enough to prove that homosexuality is biological. I find it very interesting that Freud’s idea of homosexuality as gender inversion is not mentioned, since some of the “scientific” language used in the article is remarkably similar.
Gender inversion is the idea that sex and gender naturally lead to heterosexual desire, so homosexual desire must be an inversion of biological sex and gender. How have we moved past Freudian ideas of inversion if we use science to say that gay men’s brains are “insufficiently masculinized?”
Gay men = feminine, more like women than men. These genes are later referred to in the article as “feminizing genes.”
Oh, now it makes sense. Homosexuality is a side effect of a natural process that aids heterosexual reproduction. Here, as elsewhere in the article, heterosexuality is central, and needs no explanation. Homosexuality is what needs explanation. Only through a benefit to heterosexual reproduction can something “make sense.”
This is the only reference to lesbianism in the entire article. As usual, lesbians are invisible. The difference between men’s sexuality and women’s sexuality is attributed to some natural difference between the two, not because of a difference in how men and women can express non-normative sexuality in our culture. If lesbians are considered at all, it is assumed that results of studies done on gay men can just be reversed.
The two key terms here are “perturbations” and “side effects.” Homosexuality is a “perturbation,” a mistake. The article is structured to make homosexuality a problem that must be explained away, and it eventually it is explained because of how it “helps” heterosexual reproduction. I suspect that evolution is not a useful field of study for queers because of the centrality of (heterosexual) reproduction, but I would be interested in seeing a queer make use of evolutionary theory.
IF THERE is one thing that has always seemed obvious about homosexuality, it's that it just doesn't make sense. Evolution favors traits that aid reproduction, and being gay clearly doesn't do that. The existence of homosexuality amounts to a profound evolutionary mystery, since failing to pass on your genes means that your genetic fitness is a resounding zero. "Homosexuality is effectively like sterilization," says psychobiologist Qazi Rahman of Queen Mary College in London. "You'd think evolution would get rid of it." Yet as far as historians can tell, homosexuality has always been with us. So the question remains: If it's such a disadvantage in the evolutionary rat race, why was it not selected into oblivion millennia ago?
Immediately, this article sets up evolution as the guide to whether or not something “makes sense.” Of course, evolution here is code for reproduction, as the second sentence makes clear. If homosexuality doesn’t aid reproduction, and thus doesn’t make sense, doesn’t that mean that any behavior that doesn’t aid reproduction doesn’t make sense, such as heterosexual sex with a condom (i.e. safe sex)? Kunzig would probably make the distinction between behavior and a biological identity. But his own question would be answered by an understanding of homosexuality not based on biology but on social construction (in other words, Kunzig needs to read The History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault).
Kunzig does mention Freud to argue that non-biological understandings of homosexuality are wrong:
Twentieth-century psychiatry had an answer for this Darwinian paradox: Homosexuality was not a biological trait at all but a psychological defect. It was a mistake, one that was always being created anew, in each generation, by bad parenting. Freud considered homosexuality a form of arrested development stamped on a child by a distant father or an overprotective mother. Homosexuality was even listed by the American Psychiatric Association as a mental disorder, and the idea that gays could and should be "cured" was widely accepted. But modern scientific research has not been kind to that idea. It turns out that parents of gay men are no better or worse than those of heterosexuals. And homosexual behavior is common in the animal kingdom, as well-among sheep, for instance. It arises naturally and does not seem to be a matter of aloof rams or overbearing ewes.
Of course, there was more to psychiatric explanations of homosexuality than bad parenting, and more to constructionist views of homosexuality than psychiatry, so dismissing bad parenting by invoking sheep is not enough to prove that homosexuality is biological. I find it very interesting that Freud’s idea of homosexuality as gender inversion is not mentioned, since some of the “scientific” language used in the article is remarkably similar.
No one has yet identified a particular gay gene, but Brian Mustanski, a psychologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is examining a gene that helps time the release of testosterone from the testes of a male fetus. Testosterone masculinizes the fetal genitalia-and presumably also the brain. Without it, the fetus stays female. It may be that the brains of gay men don't feel the full effects of testosterone at the right time during fetal development, and so are insufficiently masculinized.
Gender inversion is the idea that sex and gender naturally lead to heterosexual desire, so homosexual desire must be an inversion of biological sex and gender. How have we moved past Freudian ideas of inversion if we use science to say that gay men’s brains are “insufficiently masculinized?”
But if that gene does prove to be a gay gene, it's unlikely to be the only one. ... Gay genes could be genes for hormones, enzymes that modify hormones, or receptors on the surface of brain cells that bind to those hormones. A mutation in any one of those genes might make a person gay. … More likely it will take mutations in more than one gene. And that, as Rahman and Wilson and other researchers have suggested, is one solution to the Darwinian paradox: Gay genes might survive because so long as a man doesn't have enough of them to make him gay, they increase the reproductive success of the woman he mates with. Biologists call it "sexually antagonistic selection," meaning a trait survives in one sex only because it is useful to the other. Nipples-useless to men, vital to women-are one example, and homosexuality maybe another. By interfering with the masculinization of the brain, gay genes might promote feminine behavior traits, making men who carry them kinder, gentler, more nurturing-"less aggressive and psychopathic than the typical male," as Rahman and Wilson put it. Such men may be more likely to help raise children rather than kill them-or each other-and as a result, women maybe more likely to choose them as mates.
Gay men = feminine, more like women than men. These genes are later referred to in the article as “feminizing genes.”
Perhaps, he suggests, the mothers of some homosexuals have a "man-loving" gene. In women, it would be adaptive, causing them to have more sex and more children. But in men, the "manloving" gene would be expressed differently, causing homosexuality. To the gay sons, that would be an evolutionary disadvantage-but one outweighed by the advantage to the mothers, who would have more than enough other children to compensate. And so gayness in men would persist in these families-as a side effect of a trait that is beneficial to the women.
Oh, now it makes sense. Homosexuality is a side effect of a natural process that aids heterosexual reproduction. Here, as elsewhere in the article, heterosexuality is central, and needs no explanation. Homosexuality is what needs explanation. Only through a benefit to heterosexual reproduction can something “make sense.”
The biggest gap in the science of homosexuality concerns lesbians: Much less research has been done on them than on men. That's because women's sexuality seems to be more complicated and fluid-women are much more likely to report fantasizing about both sexes, or to change how they report their sexual orientation over time-which makes it harder to study. "Maybe we're measuring sexual orientation totally wrong in women," says Mustanski. Rahman and Wilson suggest that lesbianism might result from "masculinizing" genes that, when not present to excess, make a woman a more aggressively protective and thus successful mother-just as feminizing genes might make a man a more caring father.
This is the only reference to lesbianism in the entire article. As usual, lesbians are invisible. The difference between men’s sexuality and women’s sexuality is attributed to some natural difference between the two, not because of a difference in how men and women can express non-normative sexuality in our culture. If lesbians are considered at all, it is assumed that results of studies done on gay men can just be reversed.
Homosexuality seems to arise as a result of various perturbations in the flow from genes to hormones to brains to behavior-as the common end point of multiple biological paths, all of which seem to survive as side effects of various traits that help heterosexuals pass along their genes.
The two key terms here are “perturbations” and “side effects.” Homosexuality is a “perturbation,” a mistake. The article is structured to make homosexuality a problem that must be explained away, and it eventually it is explained because of how it “helps” heterosexual reproduction. I suspect that evolution is not a useful field of study for queers because of the centrality of (heterosexual) reproduction, but I would be interested in seeing a queer make use of evolutionary theory.
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