Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - constraint thread 2: the political recursion game

roachboy · 01-05-2008, 03:10 PM

wow...very interesting responses--the thread will take a little time to digest.

jorgeilto: i left this open-ended ultimately because i didn't have a particular form in mind...i was just curious about this relation and hadn't had a chance to either make a thread about it or read another like it until now.
========
note:
i'm not sure if it makes sense at some point to open this up for conversation---i am reluctant to because of the relatively intimate nature of the posts, but am also open to suggestion.
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something i was thinking about while waiting in an interminable line at a market nearby--i forgot to lay out any experiences, instead only outlined psychological-level patterns/maybe repetitions that i bump into while writing political stuff.

there are 3 main experiences.

coming into political awareness in the early 1970s meant coming into political awareness during the ugliest and most divisive period of the vietnam era--the invasion of cambodia, the bombing of laos...i'm not sure i understood why i was viscerally offended by the american involvement in vietnam, but i was.
the political and historical narratives i assembled later.

there is a link between my politics and the music i'm interested in, but i haven't figured it out quite. at some levels, the sound stuff is an expression of the way my mind works, now it structures things, how it makes structures. recordings are a curious kind of map to have to listen to and think about...

[[added later--when i read through this, i had no idea why i put it here except that i was talking with my clairaudient comrade while writing it...the music stuff ties to the politics in two ways---when i started playing as a kid, i could just do things--even though thinking back on it, they weren't that great, but at the time, they were the most exciting thing i had ever encountered---which is perhaps explained by growing up in new hampshire, where sense data is--uh---low intensity--but the experience that followed was one of going my own way, not buckling to my teachers or family and playing just "normal" things. later on in my life, returning to doing sound sutff seriously showed me an entire alternate world of possibilites, and that you can change yourself, very fundamentally, at any age. and that discipline and persistence matter. and that there is no reason--at all---to confuse what is for what is legitimate, for the range of what is legitimate. and there is a curious parallel between pursuing making new things and imagining that what i do in other areas is part of a larger project directed at undercutting the ideology that holds this sorry-ass system together in order to open up space for a new, hopefully better, way of thinking about the world.]]

meeting folk from socialisme ou barbarie had a huge impact on me. it's hard to explain. particularly the lunch during which one of the comrades turned to me and said "you have to be careful with revolutionary politics. you have to remember that you also have to live in this world."

01-05-2008, 03:10 PM	#8 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	wow...very interesting responses--the thread will take a little time to digest. jorgeilto: i left this open-ended ultimately because i didn't have a particular form in mind...i was just curious about this relation and hadn't had a chance to either make a thread about it or read another like it until now. ======== note: i'm not sure if it makes sense at some point to open this up for conversation---i am reluctant to because of the relatively intimate nature of the posts, but am also open to suggestion. ========== something i was thinking about while waiting in an interminable line at a market nearby--i forgot to lay out any experiences, instead only outlined psychological-level patterns/maybe repetitions that i bump into while writing political stuff. there are 3 main experiences. coming into political awareness in the early 1970s meant coming into political awareness during the ugliest and most divisive period of the vietnam era--the invasion of cambodia, the bombing of laos...i'm not sure i understood why i was viscerally offended by the american involvement in vietnam, but i was. the political and historical narratives i assembled later. there is a link between my politics and the music i'm interested in, but i haven't figured it out quite. at some levels, the sound stuff is an expression of the way my mind works, now it structures things, how it makes structures. recordings are a curious kind of map to have to listen to and think about... [[added later--when i read through this, i had no idea why i put it here except that i was talking with my clairaudient comrade while writing it...the music stuff ties to the politics in two ways---when i started playing as a kid, i could just do things--even though thinking back on it, they weren't that great, but at the time, they were the most exciting thing i had ever encountered---which is perhaps explained by growing up in new hampshire, where sense data is--uh---low intensity--but the experience that followed was one of going my own way, not buckling to my teachers or family and playing just "normal" things. later on in my life, returning to doing sound sutff seriously showed me an entire alternate world of possibilites, and that you can change yourself, very fundamentally, at any age. and that discipline and persistence matter. and that there is no reason--at all---to confuse what is for what is legitimate, for the range of what is legitimate. and there is a curious parallel between pursuing making new things and imagining that what i do in other areas is part of a larger project directed at undercutting the ideology that holds this sorry-ass system together in order to open up space for a new, hopefully better, way of thinking about the world.]] meeting folk from socialisme ou barbarie had a huge impact on me. it's hard to explain. particularly the lunch during which one of the comrades turned to me and said "you have to be careful with revolutionary politics. you have to remember that you also have to live in this world." __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 01-05-2008 at 04:23 PM..