Version 7.0ish. Digital Humanities. Running. Pedagogy. Linux.

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On and off over the years I have heard rumors that John Joseph was in the process of writing a book about his life. When I have had the pleasure of talking to him in person, he has always sworn it was coming soon. Finally, last year it came out and I have to say it was one of the best books I read last year.

Joseph, the singer of the infamous New York City hardcore band the Cro-Mags, tells a tale of an awful, seriously heart breaking, childhood. By far this was the most compelling portion of the book; his stories of growing up bouncing from foster home to foster home and the abuse and alienation involved are both troubling and inspiring. I listened to Joseph’s audio book adaptation of this while running a lot last summer and it made me want to really push harder and harder and harder…

Many readers will want to skip ahead to his involvement with the eighties hardcore scene, and there is plenty of that. Stories about Bad Brains, trying to turn Ian Mackaye onto vegetarianism (people always forget Mackaye was pretty late on that…1985 I believe?), and hanging around people like Mackaye, Henry Rollins, and others are told well and offer some new insights plus a lot of material I already had heard before.

Joseph’s time in the Cro-Mags only takes up the end portion of the book. There have been so many conflicting stories/hearsay/etc about this band that it is hard to take anything without a large grain of salt. That said, I trust Joseph’s stories of being screwed over by managers, band members, and venues a lot more than, let’s say, other members of this band.

I listened to the audio version and according to others there is a lot more material in the printed version. Well worth your time.

I am saddened, even more than I figured I would be, by the passing of Majel Barrett-Roddenberry.  Star Trek was my first love as a kid and her involvement with it has always been such a cherished part of the franchise.  I have a love-hate relationship with her role as Deanna Troi’s mother, but her roles in the original series and as the computer voice in the newer series will never be forgotten.  Wil Wheaton has some brief thoughts and Metafilter has a nice tribute as well.  I’m sure my pal Sean will have something to say soon.

You might have noticed I redesigned this site a few days back. I am really happy with the changes I made and hope you are too. Blogging should return to normal as of today. Oh, I will be going through, little by little, and doing some tinkering with my tags to add tags for individual books, etc to more fully branch out this weblog.

• Two links on David Foster Wallace: One of my professors as an undergraduate, Scott Rettberg, reflects on, one of his professors, Wallace.  Rolling Stone has a piece on him as well.
• My friend Tony Rettman recently interviewed Joe Carducci, former SST Records employee and author of The Rock & Pop Narcotic and, more recently, Enter Naomi.
• More music: In These Times recently interviewed Ian Mackaye.  I missed his recent speaking date here in New Jersey; I believe my friends over at Double Cross are going to post video of it soon.
• The Quarterly Conversation discusses French surrealist artist Claude Cahun.

• Over at Grand Text Auto Scott Rettberg has put up some notes from the Remediating Literature Conference earlier this month in the Netherlands.

• I have always been a big fan of Glen E Friedman’s photography ever since I first purchased Fuck You Heroes as a teenager. Via Boing Boing comes word that he has a new book which focuses on photos of the band Fugazi. While I am not a huge Fugazi fan, Friedman’s work is as good as usual and worth looking into.

• The Little Professor links to a series of sites about mental illness and the Victorians. Right now I am doing some research and writing about the Victorian period for two papers I am working on. These links will be very useful.

The AV Club recently interviewed Ian Mackaye to promote the new Evens album. I still need to check that out. I really liked their first record, which I previously discussed on this blog.

One of the best podcasts I have heard lately is Dissonance out of Washington D.C.. Recently they interviewed Ian Mackaye of Dischord Records. The interview is really well done and Ian plays some great music also.

Barebones Hardcore just reposted an interview Ronny did with Ian Mackaye a few years ago. If all goes well I will be seeing Ian’s new band, which I have previously blogged about, this coming Thursday in Philadelphia.

NPR reported on Ian Mackaye’s new band, The Evens, last weekend. If you have not yet checked out their new LP on Dischord, please do. While it is a bit of a change from Ian’s previous work it is worth at last a listen or two at least. So far, I am pretty into it although I want to give it some more listens before truly giving a thumbs up. I am very interested in how they are playing different spaces and venues than Fugazi or any of Ian’s former bands have. It is important, and frankly rather essential, to expand the places in which music can be heard and performed.