Posts Tagged ‘Miles Davis’

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I Can Read With Music

Conversational Reading recently posed the question, can you read with music playing? The article they link to says no, but Scott disagrees:

For one thing, I’ve found that Philip Glass’s Music in 12 Parts makes almost perfect “white noise” for shutting out the sound of virtually anything: ambient sound, crying children, loud-talking neighbors, jackhammering, aircraft landing directly overhead (just make sure to have a good pair of headphones).

But for those times that I’ve actually listened to the music as accompaniment, I’ve also found classical pieces rewarding. Usually this is serendipitous, as in the right stretch of Mahler will just happen to coincide with a perfect moment from Dostoevsky, but certain periods of composition definitely do go with certain periods of literature. I especially like listening to the serialists while enjoying a good modernist novel.

I agree with Scott on this issue. As I noted in my comment, I listen to a lot of jazz while reading in the evening. Whether it is Miles Davis or Albert Ayler or Billie Holiday, my reading and listening flows in whatever direction it sees fit. I don’t try to “sync” the music to the words, I have tried that in the past but just found it distracting. In high school I did that a lot with science fiction and fantasy novels. Maybe I’ll write more about that sometime. Generally, whatever I am listening to in the background serves to accentuate my reading experience.

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Weekly Reader

This week’s video is from a CBS appearance Davis did in 1958, the same year as his adaptation of Porgy & Bess.  He performs So What, from the Kind Of Blue album.  Jimmy Cobb is on drums and, oh yeah, some guy named John Coltrane is playing saxophone as well.

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My Submission To New Issue Of The Quarterly Conversation + New Issue Of Open Letters Monthly

My article for the new issue of The Quarterly Conversation is now available for reading. I reviewed N. Katherine Hayles’ Electronic Literature: New Horizons For The Literary and offered a brief introduction to many forms of electronic literature in general. It is such a privilege to contribute to The Quarterly Conversation.  I am very happy with how the article came out.

There are plenty of other articles and reviews to engage with in the new issue. While I do hope readers check out my work, I strongly suggest looking at everything else as well.

A new issue of Open Letters Monthly is also out. OLM have been nice enough to add me to their blogroll, so please take a look at what they have to offer too. I am very interested in the article about the fiftieth anniversary of Miles Davis’ Kind Of Blue album.

I would love to hear what you think of my article via email, a tweet, or in the comments below.

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The Audacity Of Hope

The Audacity Of Hope

Recently read: The Audacity Of Hope by Barack Obama.

Early this summer I picked up a cheap first edition and the audio book of Obama’s second book. He has such a nice speaking voice that I figured the audio version would be a pleasant experience.

The book itself is alright. Some parts are dull, inside baseball, stuff about life in Washington I could care less about. Parts where he discusses policy points were nice, even if I don’t agree with a lot of them.

Overall, I’m not impressed and did not vote for him (I voted for one of the real, not make believe, Socialists on my state’s ballot). So far, almost a month into his administration, I am even less impressed by it. There are plenty of other sites to do detailed analysis of that, however.

As an aside, I am growing tired of a lot of those. I’d rather talk about books. I don’t except much "change" or any of that hocus pocus stump speech crap anytime soon.

Nevertheless, it’s pretty cool to have a president who loves Miles Davis.

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Weekly Reader

My first post in WP 2.7…I love the new dashboard…

  • Two links for Jean-Philippe Toussaint from The Quarterly Conversation: a nice interview and a review of Monsieur from Scott Esposito.
  • Literary Kicks on Plato’s Republic.  Been thinking about Plato a lot lately because this is one of the audiobooks in my queue right now.
  • My Twitter pal Samhita over at Feministing wonders if a restraining order is ever enough.
  • The Guardian does a really cool interview with Herbie Hancock.  I need to check out his solo work; he played on my favorite Miles Davis record In A Silent Way.
  • Judith Butler on the November election.
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But To Me A Lot Of Today’s Hardcore Is Sort Of What Kenny G Is To Jazz. It’s Like Watching Kids Play With Dolls

Here are some recent music related links:

  • My friends in the band Mind Eraser now have a blog to keep people updated on what they are doing. There is a post with upcoming shows and another with downloads of some of their non-record recordings, live material and other errata.

  • Carrie Brownstein from the bands Sleater Kinney and Excuse 17 now has a blog up on the National Public Radio website.

  • Unite Web Zine has interviews posted with Gavin Van Vlack formerly of bands like Absolution, Burn, Side By Side, and Die 116. Gavin is one of the nicest guys I have met through hardcore. The Absolution demo tape is one of my favorite music recordings of any genre.

  • Unite also recently interviewed my good friend Tim McMahon, primarily about his time in the band Mouthpiece and growing up in Trenton.

  • Finally, over at The Guardian is a review of the new reissue box set of Miles Davis’ classic On The Corner album.

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William Patrick Wend (CV) is a lecturer in the liberal arts department at Burlington County College. You can contact him by email.

Publications

Book Review of Teaching Literature & Language Online. College English Association. January 2012.

Lessons Learned From 15 Years of Hardcore-Punk Shows About Hacking The Academic Conference Contribution to the Hacking The Academy project. June 2011.

“Virtual Macbeth: An Interview With Dr. Angela Thomas.” Word River (Winter 2010)

Shelley Jackson: The Writer Whose Medium Is Reality. Feature article for The Quarterly Conversation. March 2010.

A Threat To The Known: The Unknown Descendents Of Print Culture. MA Thesis, Monmouth University, West Long Branch, NJ. May 2009.

Intro To E-Lit: How Electronic Literature Makes Printed Literature Richer. Feature article for The Quarterly Conversation. March 2009.

War Prayers: Hypertext Novella. 2004.

Courses Taught

Fall 09: Eng101 Composition I
Fall 09: Eng102 Composition II
Spring 10: Eng101 Composition I (MWF)
Spring 10: ENG101 Composition I (TT)
Summer 10 (Session One): ENG101 Composition I
Summer 10 (Session Two): ENG101 Composition I
Fall 10: ENG101 Composition I (Three Sections)
Fall 10: ENGL091 Reading & Writing I
Spring 11: ENG101 Composition I
Spring 11: ENG102 Composition II
Spring 11: ENGL152 English II
Fall 11: LIT207 English Literature I
Fall 11: ENG102 Composition II
Fall 11: ENG101 Composition I

Scholarly/Conference Presentations

Working With Students Who Have Low Technology Skills (September 2011, Chemical Heritage)

Introduction To Classroom Wikis (April 2011, The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey)

The Gaping Garments of Electronic Literature (April 2011, Seton Hall University)

Virginia Woolf & The Role of Class & Gender Privilege In 1930s England (March 2011, Ocean County College)

Roundtable: Writing & Publishing (May 2009, Monmouth University)

New Horizons For The Literary: N. Katherine Hayles' Vision For The Future Of Literature (December 2008, Monmouth University)

What Is A Text? A Political History Of Texts From Gutenberg To Electronic Literature And Beyond (April 2008, Monmouth University)

Remixing The Canon: Electronic Literature & Distributed Narratives (November 2007, Monmouth University)

Contributor

Blogging Woolf: Writer for scholarly Virginia Woolf weblog, 2010.

Digital Humanities Now: Real time, crowd sourced, online publication which aggregates the pulse of the digital humanities community over a number of Internet tools, 2009.

New Media Projects

Hardcore Show Flyers: An archive of hardcore punk gig flyers from 1978-2008. 2007-Present

Quick Fix Magazine: Monthly column and photographs focusing on independent music and culture. 2007.

Signifying Nothing: Podcast covering independent music & online webzine focusing on independent music, culture and a final resting place for my self published fanzines from 1995-2002. 2005-2007, 2010.

Scholarly Guest Blogging

Prof Hacker:Stocking A Teaching Toolbox, 2011.

Prof Hacker: Academics and Social Media: #mla09 and Twitter, 2010.

Prof Hacker: Stocking A Teaching Tool Box.

Interviews + Media

Hardware Media & Radio: David Koenig interviewed me in 2006 about Signifying Nothing, the podcast and webzine I was doing at the time.
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