Hm… That’s a good question. Maybe? Or maybe the practice of politics have become a place that have some ritual meaning in a secularized society? There is certainly a struggle over the use of popular music in the political and economic realm. Whenever something like this comes up, there is a bristling from some quarters. This song, or the use of Revolution for Nikes (didn’t Burroughs also show up in the video)? New sites of rituals have grown up, with some places/songs/performances being seen as more sacred than others?
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Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars. Interesting companion piece to The Martian, which I finally got around to watching yesterday.
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I need to say first that I respect how many professional hours you’ve devoted to studying these issues which interest me lots. It’s gracious of you to discuss work you do professionally with a nonprofessional.
I’d forgotten about the Nike ad and didn’t even realize Burroughs may have appeared in it.
As you mention struggle, I’m reminded that the tension between, say, authenticity and commodification does seem ritualized. There’s the performance at CBGB’s, then the album, the solo act, then that album, the tv commercial … and drug dependency along the way. And irony.
The ritual is present and repeated with Iggy Pop and the Beatles even before the television commercials. Punks (and fans) generally seem to feel almost immediately angsty about signifying insincerity, like a poser.
The ritual can maybe be more autonomous than the medieval versions — which could maybe mean more political?
In another thread, @funruly shared that Billy Bragg had covered Wood Guthrie’s Fascists Bound to Lose which I did not know.
Covering that song, esp. after Occupy suggests potential for politicized rituals different from me (as a punk and/or poser) worrying — with more or less social consciousness — about multiple similar iterations of not-quite-authentic consumer purchases.
Off to start the day … thx for sharing thoughts about the Benjamin essay.
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These Last Policemen books kinda blew my mind. Strongly recommend if you like end of the world stories, or noir police procedurals during the end of the world. Never read anything quite like it.
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Yes, maybe the tension between commodification and authenticity is what is ritualized. We all know that buying an album, going to a show, buying the shirt, even for an avowedly independent band that we consider authentic is still part of the thing you do. I’m struggling with the question of authenticity myself… I’m not sure it’s even a thing, really, with regards to the consumption of popular music.
There is a book on my shelf, which I haven’t read yet, called “The Secret History of Rock and Roll” which does posit that the consumption of rock is in fact an extension of older, ecstatic rituals in human history…
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Just finished Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves.
Highly recommended.
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Speaking of consumption of popular music, have you read Tramps Like Us: Music and Meaning Among Springsteen Fans? I had to read a good chunk of it for my american studies class. Interesting to see fandom studied and dissected like that.
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Thank you! Subculture: Meaning of Style is interesting too.
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What about the sequels?
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ha ha ha.
I love Stephenson but hated that book.
My review:
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The sequels to an end of the world book are a very sly joke, I thought.
Could have been one giant book, just broken into some book size chunks. I strongly recommend it!
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The first one has been recommended over and over so I’ll get to it eventually.
I’ve been trying to work my way through this depressing novel:
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I have not! I’ll add it to my (already incredibly long list) of books on pop music to read…
Did that come off as snarky, cause it wasn’t meant to be.
YES! Hebdige is awesome.
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Trying to read The Bonfire of the Vanities. Suspect I won’t get it done before the library wants input back, though.
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I don’t think we should be hard on ourselves when unable to want to finish Tom Wolfe novels.
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I’ve never read any of his novels before, only The Right Stuff and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
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Not The Kandy-Colored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby?
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Jees, another topic I’m missing. Just read the Greg Bear part, OK, following from now on. Maybe later on I have something to add.
I do read more than watching movies. (Or other, no television, or game computer, or some streaming thingie, really boring at that part. From the other side: how many hours in a day do other people have? Like making mony, taking care, baking bread, do some other fermenting, sewing kids clothing, making nice meals, my hours are done 
).
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We’re busy bees.* Sometimes it slows to half a page once a week before I fall asleep. After the (political) revolution, then more often. Maybe a book group too!
*Bees == debt servants.
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I read it ages ago, enjoyed it, and whipped through it to find out what happened next. When I tried to read it again last year, I started doing that thing of leaving it for longer and longer periods, losing it around the house, and eventually just letting it drop. I realised that I just didn’t give a damn about any of the characters; something I found later with every other Tom Wolfe novel I tried to read.
His reportage is great, though (and I think the best bits of the novels are the researched set pieces). The Right Stuff is a marvellous read.
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