𧨠welcome back to LOCKDOWNTIME season 3 đ§¨
some housekeeping: first, iâve finally finished building my new blog! __underscore replaces my old blog, PLAYTIME, but i cba to change the name of this newsletter. a new feature i added is that you can sign up to receive email alerts of new posts - you can do this here.
second, i have been informed that iâm going back to work on 1st june (which is ridiculous⌠iâd put money on a second peak), which means that this will be the last season of LOCKDOWNTIME. however, this wonât be the end of my recs - iâll just continue doing them over at my aforementioned blog. if you sign up for email updates there, it will effectively be the same as this newsletter, just a bit less frequent. this newsletter has definitely impacted the way i approach writing, and will be continued, in a different form, over at the blog.
on to the recs //
today is a âone recâ day, but itâs an essential one, i promise â this interview with self-professed âmedia producerâ and dj Terre Thaemlitz, a.k.a. DJ Sprinkles. this is a long read, split into four parts, but itâs absolutely, absolutely worth it. it covers topics such as clubland ideology, faith, the importance of negativity, queer identity, and drag.
the draw here, though, is not so much the discussion topics themselves as thaemlitzâs ice-cold materialist demystification of them. much like minima moralia, which we spoke about in #19, thaemlitz is refreshing because they refuse any kind of mandatory optimism, and instead take the starting point of any critical production to be a negation, a negativity, through which one then works.
if adornoâs field of critique was post-war modernity, however, thaemlitzâs is the similarly asinine landscapes of nightclubs and the contemporary culture industries. itâs honestly amazing to hear a dj speak so frankly about the limits of the dancefloor or clubs as transformative spaces, and to explicitly name those limits rather than succumb to them out of fear of not pleasing the crowd. they state:
⌠my own expectations for communicating explicit ideas on the dancefloor are low, which I guess is ironic in that most people wish to associate clubs with a freedom of expression, and of expressive possibilities. But the possibilities are few. And this is why that familiar metaphor of the club as church takes on negative meanings for me, because I think any social space that declares itself âopenâ and âall acceptingâ is instantly suspect, and engaging in ideological production.
see also their comments on âpoliticalâ art:
I am never comfortable with this kind of portrayal of audio production in and of itself as protest. [âŚ] Like, a song or painting or whatever is considered to embody active protest, when at best it is simply offering a theme for discussion. And usually not even that, because the artists prefer to âlet the piece speak for itselfâ â that is part of our conditioning as âmute producersâ that led me to include large texts with my projects, because this whole pressure to âlet things speak for themselvesâ is precisely what keeps us from developing our ideas. For example, itâs socially acceptable to simply present a theme or key word â like, âoh, she does work about the body.â What the fuck about the body? Itâs ridiculous how people in music or art refuse to clarify their positions, and simply presume everything has a kind of Leftist or critical potential. The Vatican does a lot of work about the body, too, by restricting education on birth control and safer sex. How do I know youâre not some extreme rightist? The refusal to develop more precise language of analysis and organisation is exactly why most music and media is vapid and worthless bullshit.
itâs worth noting that thaemlitzâs cold materialism is not the same as some hipsterâs ironic detachment to everything around them. we might characterise this as a distinction between Cold and Cool, which on the surface appear very similar. the Cool hipster employs snark and irony to distance themselves from the latest trends, but this distancing is purely negative - the hipster knows more what it doesnât like than what it does. and this fact ultimately undermines the hipster: only knowing how to say ânoâ, they rely on superior Hipstersâ worshipped Opinions to tell them what to like, thereby revealing them to be the herded sheep of popular culture that they so publicly decry. (as a result of this inner tension, every hipster hates themselves.)
the Cold rationalist/materialist, meanwhile, embraces a positive rather than negative difference. the Cold names not a dualistic rejection, as in the case of the Cool, but a continual feedback loop of critique and reflection that leads to a higher stage of understanding and autonomy. the Cold puts the ânoâ to use, analyses it, until it is no longer simply a ânoâ but also, in a sense, an affirmation. this, naturally, leads to a systematised and coherent understanding of a world, something closer to a worked out programme, as is evident in thaemlitzâ eloquence.
donât get it twisted though: autonomy doesnât mean finding your âselfâ, but realising its artificiality. as thaemlitz writes, contra dominant cultural industries ideology:
Ultimately, âtrust yourselfâ is the default message of heteronormative culture, which demands we internalize patriarchal gender and sexual binaries, and feel them to our cores. In contrast, I am about perpetual mistrust of self, and inner godlessness.
what better note to end on.
btw â thaemlitzâs (as dj sprinkles) â120 midtown bluesâ is a brilliant musical distillation of what iâve discussed above. itâs a great album; check it out on spotify here.
hope you enjoyed that folks - remember to check out my blog and keep sending recs. next delivery should be thursday morn.
jake x