AMMDI is an open-notebook hypertext writing experiment, authored by Mike Travers aka mtraven. It's a work in progress and some parts are more polished than others. Comments welcome! More.
Liked the initial framing: yes this stuff is infected with colonialism, but still points to something deeper and more profound. "Primitives of an unknown culture"
Sacre du printemps vs. Les Baxter (high and low art approaches to similar theme)
Some discussion of how the hippies were just as much into cultural appropriation
Should say that I'm a bit diverged from the consensus on "cultural appropriation" as a bad thing. Exchanging bits of culture is just what humans do and we should do more of it, regardless of the evils of colonialism.
as their elders that they were rebelling against. True, but everybody knows that, ex-hippies included.
Also a bit light in discussion of the political mechanics behind exotica – the US colonial push into the Pacific and the Carribbean. I get it, anticolonialism is a bit trite in academia and they are going for something deeper – the psychic role of these imaginary Others and their imaginal worlds.
Hm, this is not in their show, but a thought occurs: we white guys can no longer seek the exotic in tropical paradises now that we are enlightened, or trying to be. Where does that desire go? I wonder if the rise in sexual queerness and such is a reflection of this energy seeking new outlets. That is, we desperately desire to fuck or possibly be something that is Not Us. If dusky island beauties aren't available, and there are no more unknown spaces on the globe (episode did touch on that point) then we have to go local.
Touched on I and Thou at the end. Hm – anticolonialism is the objects insisting they are not Its and nust be treated as subjects (Thou). It puts the well-intentioned white guys in a difficult position, because I-Thou is only reached through grace, guilt doesn't really help you get there.
Relisten to the end for course (57)
a spectacle of the real, blurring the boundary between the imaginal and the real...consuming the resultant hybrid as a kind of truth.
Jack Smith fascination with self-created movie queens.
Real camp vs shithead camp. Not making fun of cheesiness, but fully vibing with it. Corniness as the other side of marvelousness
(not sure I buy this but maybe that just says something bad about me)
Can't handle it with tongs and a hazmat suit
Isaiah stance – identifying with the other
Taboo – that which is forbidden – desire for union with sexualized other (while also holding self apart)
Beefheart, Orange Claw Hammer (an ethonographic recording from an imagined culture) (they should do Waits)
Les Baxter vs the more modern carefully cultivated otherness.
We can't banish this attraction, we are always attacted to otherness...
JFM on I and Thou: say Thou to a thing is granting it an existence independent of yourself. Um OK.