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10.09.07 12 am x. 04.26.07 4 pm I played my first show in a long time last Friday night at the Power Plant art gallery in Toronto. It wasn't my show, it was a collective of musical artists put together by Hoah Mintz and Aniko called Process > Product, to put the emphasis on the process of music creation, rather than the polished result. Anyway, I went into it with the spirit of not planning or rehearsing what I was going to do. I met some really nice people. I only played for about 15 minutes but wow - it was fun. I'll have to find out if there are pictures or recordings. 04.04.07 10 am There was a great Frontline on PBS recently about the role of new media in the information business. They were discussing how a lot of the new media outlets are generating business by linking to online news being reported and written by traditional newspapers, which are themselves fighting to retain their journalistic identity in a world of corporate balance sheet mandates, and a public addicted to Anna Nicole Smith and Paris Hilton (what the hell happened to Larry King anyway -- it's embarrassing. He's interviewed Presidents and world leaders and these days it's mostly 'sensational' news... murders, deaths, controversies...) Anyway, someone being interviewed referred to modern news consumption as 'snacking'. It's true. All these portals that many (myself included) check to catch the pulse of what the current stories are, often do not consist of meaningingful discourse or investigation. News has become a source of distraction. And that got me thinking about the way we receive information. Everything is boiled down for us. We are being encouraged to consume and dispose of information the way we are encouraged (through advertising) to consume and dispose of (and re-consume) goods. Even on Myspace, as an example, it's overwhelming, the amount of content here. Every once in a while I get a really nice/interesting comment from someone who has really listened to my music. My music is part of my soul and it's strange to think that it is heard and judged quickly by strangers on the move through cyber content. However, I can understand why people sometimes don't really listen, as I personally don't have time to dedicate an eyes-shut 20-minute listen to every single artist who approaches me on here. No one does. What I am concerned about is the underlying falseness of the connectivity we feel we have sometimes with one another. And this is true in regards to news. Just because we read a snippet about the latest 20-person-dead bombing in Iraq does not make us more dimensionally aware of the human cost on the other side of that story, In fact, you could argue that it further desensitizes us to the situation by reinforcing a snippet-mentality. The news ticker at the bottom of the CNN screen is becoming the news itself. Why do we allow 'disposability' to wash over us. Why do we accept it? If we demanded more, then the media outlets would have to capitulate - they need us to watch, to generate advertising revenue. Sometimes I feel like our culture brings out the worst in human nature. We are coarse and unsympathetic, but we tell ourselves - and project to each other - that we are aware. We hear about other people's misfortunes and grimace sympathetically. But then there is no follow-up. What hole are we trying to fill with all this white noise? Is it fillable? The static of pop culture hisses and pops as we constantly troll through the dial, rarely stopping. What is becoming of thoughtfulness, of substantive digestion, listening, discussion. Maybe information is replacing junk food as the next meaningless compulsion that we satisfy without thinking............ :| |
