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[META] Blogroll Changes
Apr. 5th, 2005 12:04 amI've added Timothy Gueguen's Some Ramblings from Mr. Gueguen to the SHWI segment of my blogroll, and deleted other inactive or rarely visited blogs.
Apr. 5th, 2005
[LINK] Zimbabwe's Future
Apr. 5th, 2005 12:11 amJonathan Edelstein isn't hopeful, given the depth of the MDC's failure.
[BRIEF NOTE] Past/Present Dis/Continuities
Apr. 5th, 2005 01:30 amThe conclusion of Alexei Pankin's interesting article for the Moscow Times, "How Stalin Saved Democratic Russia", from the issue of Tuesday the 5th of April, 2005, struck me when I read it.
A few things about this conclusion strike me as wrong. Most of them stem, in my uninformed opinion, from the assumption of Pankin that there can be no overlap between a Russia that's an heir of previous empires and a Russia that's a new democratic state that has broken from the past. Breaks with the past are never as clean as people would like them, particularly not in the case of a Russian Federation that owes its very existence to Lenin and his heirs. Most of the rest come from the profoundly flawed assumption that Stalinist methods are ever morally legitimate in decolonization, particularly when said decolonization includes an unwanted half-century-long colonization. (And Estonia and Latvia each lost territory, unlike Lithuania and Ukraine, but these are relatively minor points.)
If we consider ourselves the heirs of the Soviet and Russian empires, it follows that we ought to curse Stalin and his imperial ambitions for bleeding the country dry and leaving it to die. And if that's the case, how can we talk about putting up monuments to the man? World War II vets would be the first to destroy the remains of Stalin's legacy. By finally and unequivocally condemning Stalinist imperialism, we would make peace with all of its victims.
If we consider Russia a new, democratic state that has broken with its imperial and totalitarian past, however, we actually owe a debt of historical gratitude to Stalin for helping Russia get rid of colonies that it didn't really need. In this case, we have every reason if not to encourage, then at least not to hinder the erection of new monuments to Stalin. And to remind our neighbors, including Ukraine and the Baltic states, that they have Stalin to thank for increasing the size of their countries.
A few things about this conclusion strike me as wrong. Most of them stem, in my uninformed opinion, from the assumption of Pankin that there can be no overlap between a Russia that's an heir of previous empires and a Russia that's a new democratic state that has broken from the past. Breaks with the past are never as clean as people would like them, particularly not in the case of a Russian Federation that owes its very existence to Lenin and his heirs. Most of the rest come from the profoundly flawed assumption that Stalinist methods are ever morally legitimate in decolonization, particularly when said decolonization includes an unwanted half-century-long colonization. (And Estonia and Latvia each lost territory, unlike Lithuania and Ukraine, but these are relatively minor points.)
[BRIEF NOTE] On Revenge of the Sith
Apr. 5th, 2005 12:16 pmI haven't seen the movie yet, though I know that I will. (I've good reason not to have seen it, for I'm not best friends with George.) Eventually I will see it. Everyone will, I think, who's even vaguely interested in science fiction and grand mythologies and related domains of popular culture.
Even though I haven't I have seen the film, I have read the children's novelization, and the adult novelization, and seen the children's movie picture book, and scanned the impressive art book. I do think that I'm at least moderately qualified to speak about it.
And what do I think? There aren't any surprises. The movie will doubtless be grand on the big screen, and it will be dramatic, and it tied up every loose end that I could think, and without a doubt it'll be a smashing global success. Why, then, do I have the sinking feeling that it won't live up to much of its promise? Here's hoping it'll be as authentically good as The Empire Strikes Back.
Even though I haven't I have seen the film, I have read the children's novelization, and the adult novelization, and seen the children's movie picture book, and scanned the impressive art book. I do think that I'm at least moderately qualified to speak about it.
And what do I think? There aren't any surprises. The movie will doubtless be grand on the big screen, and it will be dramatic, and it tied up every loose end that I could think, and without a doubt it'll be a smashing global success. Why, then, do I have the sinking feeling that it won't live up to much of its promise? Here's hoping it'll be as authentically good as The Empire Strikes Back.
[MUSIC] Klaus Nomi, "Cold Song"
Apr. 5th, 2005 10:07 pmBack in October I wrote, in the preface to a personal response to Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart," that I had a history of writing in some detail on music that matters to me. Music is important to me, not only in my very recent and second-order role as a creator of said, but as an active and informed consumer. Popular music is both background and foreground for me, inspiration for future deeds and a commentary on past tasks, something I listen to for certain specific reasons and something I listen to simply for the purely hormonal rush that emanates from somewhere my brain stem when I play a track.
Simply put, music matters to me. I hereby declare that a new category of postings now exists on this blog.
* * *
I first heard of Klaus Nomi in the course of a USENET discussion, when he was mentioned as one of the first famous casualties of HIV/AIDS. His death, in August of 1983, was a very tragic thing, and it was indeed notable for being one of New York City's first celebrity AIDS deaths, but Nomi should be known for many other things, like the music and the image that made him so famous.
Nomi's biography is simple. Born Klaus Sperber in Bavaria in 1944, following the death of his soldier father in the last phase of Hitler's war he was raised in Berlin by his mother. He emigrated to New York City in 1972 to work as a pastry chef, finding employment at, among other restaurants, the Windows on the World restaurant at the World Trade Centre. Sperber also had a remarkably capable if untrained countertenor voice, a strong interest in opera, growing interest in New York City's New Wave scene, and a desire to bring everything together. Beginning in 1978, Sperber cultivated a fairly remarkable stage persona as Nomi (an anagram of Omni, his favourite magazine), a radically androgynous space alien with a spectacular voice and a very eclectic song list.
Nomi quickly attracted a lot of attention, working with such figures as Man Parrish, Kristian Hoffman, and Joey Arias, and recording his 1980 debut Klaus Nomi under contract to RCA. Klaus Nomi didn't sell very well in the United States, though he attracted significant attention in western Europe and Japan, with Hoffman's song "Total Eclipse," in particular, gaining renown. The reactions to 1982's Simple Man seem to have been more positive, but unfortunately by that time Nomi was already falling sick.
Nomi's death aborted a promising career. 1983's Encore and 1986's In Concert did introduce new live material to his fans, but after the initial reaction to his death his profile dropped quickly as a cursory search of USENET suggests. Even so, from the early 1990s on there was a haphazard revival. Rush Limbaugh, bizarrely enough, chose his "You Don't Nomi" as the themesong for his show's monthly anti-gay report. (Would that homophobia could also engineer its mockery so well.) A variety of compilation albums (1994's Klaus Nomi: The Collection, 1999's Eclipsed: The Best of Klaus Nomi, 2002's Klaus Nomi Essential) were also released over the decade, while the expansion of the World Wide Web created spaces for Nomi fan sites. Finally, starting at least in 2000, director Andrew Horn began work on the biographical documentary The Nomi Song, recently released to a flourish of mainstream recognition.
I'm not altogether sure that I can evaluate him as an artist, since I lack the specific knowledge of operatic conventions, of gay camp, and of the zeitgeist of 1980-era avant garde New York City that Nomi reacted to. Increasingly, I think that Tori Amos might work as a comparison. Both recording artists have unorthodox musical backgrounds, eclectic ideals as artists and (what I see as) a hit-or-miss record. When they hit, though, the effect's remarkable.
The Nomi song that has the strongest effect on me is his cover of "Cold Song," off of Simple Man. Written by Henry Purcell for his 1691 semi-opera King Arthur and barely four minutes in length, when I first heard it I stopped typing.
The lyrics are beautiful, and the arrangement appropriately stately. Nomi's voice takes the song to a new realm, rising from a tenor to a frail and delicate falsetto and back down again. It's a straightforward interpretation, lacking the energy of his remarkable reworking of "I Feel Love" or his manic "Just One Look." Nomi's voice gives "Cold Song" a haunting elegiac power that is quite new to this jaded popular-music fan, for his efforts at synthesis worked: He managed to revive pre-rock popular music for New Wave audiences.
Incidentally, towards the end of this February, while down at Sam the Record Man on Yonge Street and looking for something to buy, I'd found a copy of Encore on the popular music racks. It is sad that Nomi died at such a promising stage in his career, and I would have liked to have seen him in performance: What would have had done next? Still, at least he still has his fans. Hopefully he'll have more.
( Links and mp3s )
UPDATE (28 May 2005, 1:15 PM) : Via his blog, producer and musician Man Parrish advertises that he has a remix (mp3 format) of Klaus Nomi's "Total Eclipse" up. While it's nice to have new Nomi material up, it would have been nice to have had an undiscovered or lost track up. As someone who isn't a fan of Parrish's brand of techno, I'm not sure what I think about the remix, either.
Simply put, music matters to me. I hereby declare that a new category of postings now exists on this blog.
I first heard of Klaus Nomi in the course of a USENET discussion, when he was mentioned as one of the first famous casualties of HIV/AIDS. His death, in August of 1983, was a very tragic thing, and it was indeed notable for being one of New York City's first celebrity AIDS deaths, but Nomi should be known for many other things, like the music and the image that made him so famous.
Nomi's biography is simple. Born Klaus Sperber in Bavaria in 1944, following the death of his soldier father in the last phase of Hitler's war he was raised in Berlin by his mother. He emigrated to New York City in 1972 to work as a pastry chef, finding employment at, among other restaurants, the Windows on the World restaurant at the World Trade Centre. Sperber also had a remarkably capable if untrained countertenor voice, a strong interest in opera, growing interest in New York City's New Wave scene, and a desire to bring everything together. Beginning in 1978, Sperber cultivated a fairly remarkable stage persona as Nomi (an anagram of Omni, his favourite magazine), a radically androgynous space alien with a spectacular voice and a very eclectic song list.
Nomi quickly attracted a lot of attention, working with such figures as Man Parrish, Kristian Hoffman, and Joey Arias, and recording his 1980 debut Klaus Nomi under contract to RCA. Klaus Nomi didn't sell very well in the United States, though he attracted significant attention in western Europe and Japan, with Hoffman's song "Total Eclipse," in particular, gaining renown. The reactions to 1982's Simple Man seem to have been more positive, but unfortunately by that time Nomi was already falling sick.
Nomi's death aborted a promising career. 1983's Encore and 1986's In Concert did introduce new live material to his fans, but after the initial reaction to his death his profile dropped quickly as a cursory search of USENET suggests. Even so, from the early 1990s on there was a haphazard revival. Rush Limbaugh, bizarrely enough, chose his "You Don't Nomi" as the themesong for his show's monthly anti-gay report. (Would that homophobia could also engineer its mockery so well.) A variety of compilation albums (1994's Klaus Nomi: The Collection, 1999's Eclipsed: The Best of Klaus Nomi, 2002's Klaus Nomi Essential) were also released over the decade, while the expansion of the World Wide Web created spaces for Nomi fan sites. Finally, starting at least in 2000, director Andrew Horn began work on the biographical documentary The Nomi Song, recently released to a flourish of mainstream recognition.
I'm not altogether sure that I can evaluate him as an artist, since I lack the specific knowledge of operatic conventions, of gay camp, and of the zeitgeist of 1980-era avant garde New York City that Nomi reacted to. Increasingly, I think that Tori Amos might work as a comparison. Both recording artists have unorthodox musical backgrounds, eclectic ideals as artists and (what I see as) a hit-or-miss record. When they hit, though, the effect's remarkable.
The Nomi song that has the strongest effect on me is his cover of "Cold Song," off of Simple Man. Written by Henry Purcell for his 1691 semi-opera King Arthur and barely four minutes in length, when I first heard it I stopped typing.
What power art thou
Who from below
Hast made me rise
Unwillingly and slow
From beds of everlasting snow.
See'st thou not how stiff
And wondrous old
Far unfit to bear the bitter cold.
I can scarcely move
Or draw my breath
Let me, let me
Freeze again
Let me, let me
Freeze again to death.
The lyrics are beautiful, and the arrangement appropriately stately. Nomi's voice takes the song to a new realm, rising from a tenor to a frail and delicate falsetto and back down again. It's a straightforward interpretation, lacking the energy of his remarkable reworking of "I Feel Love" or his manic "Just One Look." Nomi's voice gives "Cold Song" a haunting elegiac power that is quite new to this jaded popular-music fan, for his efforts at synthesis worked: He managed to revive pre-rock popular music for New Wave audiences.
Incidentally, towards the end of this February, while down at Sam the Record Man on Yonge Street and looking for something to buy, I'd found a copy of Encore on the popular music racks. It is sad that Nomi died at such a promising stage in his career, and I would have liked to have seen him in performance: What would have had done next? Still, at least he still has his fans. Hopefully he'll have more.
( Links and mp3s )
UPDATE (28 May 2005, 1:15 PM) : Via his blog, producer and musician Man Parrish advertises that he has a remix (mp3 format) of Klaus Nomi's "Total Eclipse" up. While it's nice to have new Nomi material up, it would have been nice to have had an undiscovered or lost track up. As someone who isn't a fan of Parrish's brand of techno, I'm not sure what I think about the remix, either.