I miss him...
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Qualifying Exams Update
So about two weeks ago I submitted the second draft of my exam petition/proposal to my advisor for approval. Last time I had made the mistake of sending it to the whole committee before getting his approval and with the breach of protocol he chastened me and decided to wait a month before getting it back to me (beginning of September).
I was sitting on it for awhile in order to complete some reading and get a better sense of the aims and interconnections that might bubble up following said reading. A good friend in the program finally pressured me into revising and submitting another draft. So after a night of mixed drinks and much revising I sent in another version.
It appears that the biggest obstacle to approval is actually my advisor who I respect deeply and consider to be brilliant, but can be a little overly pedantic. The suggestions the other committee members made were minimal and rather rational.
As it stands, however, after my proposal is approved by my whole committee I need to wait at least 12 weeks (putting me at february) until I can take them, which is fine with me because I still have a shitload of reading to complete. That said I am feeling less in limbo and more confident about the process overall with some reading done I feel like I have some ground to stand on. Plus even though my advisor can be a little curmudgeonly he likes me and that also works to my advantage. In particular, he likes it when I make fun of him. One of my committee members, however, is pregnant and will be giving birth right before so I suspect that I will either have to find someone else or have her "skype" in.
Whatever the case I am ready for this process to start drawing to a close. I'm starting to feel ready for dissertation stage now.
I was sitting on it for awhile in order to complete some reading and get a better sense of the aims and interconnections that might bubble up following said reading. A good friend in the program finally pressured me into revising and submitting another draft. So after a night of mixed drinks and much revising I sent in another version.
It appears that the biggest obstacle to approval is actually my advisor who I respect deeply and consider to be brilliant, but can be a little overly pedantic. The suggestions the other committee members made were minimal and rather rational.
As it stands, however, after my proposal is approved by my whole committee I need to wait at least 12 weeks (putting me at february) until I can take them, which is fine with me because I still have a shitload of reading to complete. That said I am feeling less in limbo and more confident about the process overall with some reading done I feel like I have some ground to stand on. Plus even though my advisor can be a little curmudgeonly he likes me and that also works to my advantage. In particular, he likes it when I make fun of him. One of my committee members, however, is pregnant and will be giving birth right before so I suspect that I will either have to find someone else or have her "skype" in.
Whatever the case I am ready for this process to start drawing to a close. I'm starting to feel ready for dissertation stage now.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Pop Tautologies
So I've come to the conclusion that a significant amount of popular music orients its hooks around tautologies, which is to say phrases or expressions in which the same thing is said twice in different words. To speak formally tautologies represent circular logic. When we say things like "I am what I am" we are engaging in a tautological thinking, and a bad cliché.
Pop music often depends on tautologies to produce it's hooks, or perhaps to fill in lyrical lapses that are nonetheless demanded by the music. So for example the Journey track, "Anyway You Want It," the chorus proceeds as:
"Anyway you want it that's the way you need it. Anyway you want it"
(this isn't strictly a tautology because "need" and "want" are easily differentiated synonyms, that might have somewhat dissonant meanings, but the speakers seems to be equating them to some degree.)
Similarly Smashing Pumpkins have a lyric in their song "Disarm" where the chorus involves the lyric:
"What I choose is my choice."
(ostensibly, this statement is meant to indicate that the speaker's choice is one that is resolute or belongs only to him or is made in a context free of limitation or constraint).
So what's my point? I'm not really sure. I wonder to what degree pop music beyond depending on tautologies and clichés to make its products more consumable is somehow pointing to certain understandings of time, the eternal present of capitalist society as observed by Fredric James? Or , perhaps its just that pop depends on simple truths, never endeavors to do more than that? Or that the form of pop music demands certain kinds of concision that limits the degree of explication?
On a related note are certain ambiguous quasi-tautological statements present in pop music that tend to index something outside the circular logic, often because they depend on colloquialisms and clichés. So my favorite example is the chorus for the track "Mama Said" by the Shirelles.
"Mama said, 'There'll be days like this. There'll be days like this,' My Mama said."
Now instead of being a strict tautology this statement seems to be a repetition of the same statement with the "mama said" portion reversed. Nevertheless, it seems like the "days like this" portion seems to be simultaneously gesturing to two different forms of time: "days like this" are either today, recognizable as frustrating, disheartening, difficult, etc., and yet also an earlier instance when the mother gave the advice in the first place, perhaps instantiating the first "days like this" for the singer. But it is precisely the "days like this"'s ambiguity that makes it eternal somehow, that "days like this" are always extant, always repeated. In singing the statement twice the singer not only repeats its significance but repeats the two senses of time. In a way she seems to be not only talking about time, but also some sort of overall cultural recognition of forms of time and experience. "Days like this" are homogenous and instantly recognizable, named by their redundancy.
I have no idea what to make out of all of this, but I think about it too often so I thought it might be blog worthy. Thoughts?
Pop music often depends on tautologies to produce it's hooks, or perhaps to fill in lyrical lapses that are nonetheless demanded by the music. So for example the Journey track, "Anyway You Want It," the chorus proceeds as:
"Anyway you want it that's the way you need it. Anyway you want it"
(this isn't strictly a tautology because "need" and "want" are easily differentiated synonyms, that might have somewhat dissonant meanings, but the speakers seems to be equating them to some degree.)
Similarly Smashing Pumpkins have a lyric in their song "Disarm" where the chorus involves the lyric:
"What I choose is my choice."
(ostensibly, this statement is meant to indicate that the speaker's choice is one that is resolute or belongs only to him or is made in a context free of limitation or constraint).
So what's my point? I'm not really sure. I wonder to what degree pop music beyond depending on tautologies and clichés to make its products more consumable is somehow pointing to certain understandings of time, the eternal present of capitalist society as observed by Fredric James? Or , perhaps its just that pop depends on simple truths, never endeavors to do more than that? Or that the form of pop music demands certain kinds of concision that limits the degree of explication?
On a related note are certain ambiguous quasi-tautological statements present in pop music that tend to index something outside the circular logic, often because they depend on colloquialisms and clichés. So my favorite example is the chorus for the track "Mama Said" by the Shirelles.
"Mama said, 'There'll be days like this. There'll be days like this,' My Mama said."
Now instead of being a strict tautology this statement seems to be a repetition of the same statement with the "mama said" portion reversed. Nevertheless, it seems like the "days like this" portion seems to be simultaneously gesturing to two different forms of time: "days like this" are either today, recognizable as frustrating, disheartening, difficult, etc., and yet also an earlier instance when the mother gave the advice in the first place, perhaps instantiating the first "days like this" for the singer. But it is precisely the "days like this"'s ambiguity that makes it eternal somehow, that "days like this" are always extant, always repeated. In singing the statement twice the singer not only repeats its significance but repeats the two senses of time. In a way she seems to be not only talking about time, but also some sort of overall cultural recognition of forms of time and experience. "Days like this" are homogenous and instantly recognizable, named by their redundancy.
I have no idea what to make out of all of this, but I think about it too often so I thought it might be blog worthy. Thoughts?
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
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