living, thinking and writing
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| PRACTICE living, thinking and writing |
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Thursday, July 31, 2003 What did I read last night In the past issue (July 14 & 21) of The New Yorker, A Chinese Blogger in New York is introduced in "talk of town". Unfortunately, it is not me, no matter how much I wish my little blog could be paid attention to someday. Simon Song, a former journalist for XinHua New Agency, now is an intern in New York Daily News. He uses "off-kilter English" along with example of his photography to chronicle his encounter with the city "full of surprise and wonders", and he transform "our (New-Yorkers') more mundane comings and goings into exotic objects of anthropology". It is the first time I ever saw an article in The New Yorker featureing weblog, and I'm so glad its solo protagonist is a Chinese native, regardless the fact that I frowned a little bit when I read about sentence like "he was in Beijing during the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989" before mentioning his blog entry on "attending an anti-police rally at City Hall Park". Well, the touch of political spice makes me a little doubted about the motive for singling out this Chinese blogger. Another article in the same issue recounts a Pop conference titled “Skip a Beat: Rewriting the story of popular music” in Seattle. How do you like the scene with a herd of eggheads, from discipline like history, philosophy, anthropology etc, consult seriously about subject like “ Interrogating Bruce Springsteen’s butt (as seen on the cover of Born in the U.S.A)”, “lo-fi ideology of nineties indie rock”, “trailblazing transsexual punk of Wayne/Jayne country”, or “does Justin Timberlake really write Cry me a River by himself”? To me, it reveals a puzzle dom that is faced by social science: we are apt to making simple things complex, looking in vain for sanity in irrational things, and most of time cheers of significant findings are shrugged off with a snort of “who cares?” Nonetheless, there is one theory that catches my attention: MP3, a music consuming form “with no images attached-no videos, no TV appearances, not even album jackets”, rejuvenate the notion about a world of “purely musical”, that proposed by Eduar Hanslick, a 19th century Vinnese Critic. posted by lmeimei @12:47 PM| permanent link| | |
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