tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63333672011-04-22T04:35:28.624+09:00Divergent descriptions on music, culture, politics, society, travel, philosophy, theoryWilliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comBlogger371100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1113784527662430002005-04-18T09:33:00.000+09:002005-04-18T09:35:27.666+09:00

An interesting piece from the Irish Times on the WMD claims regarding Iraq and al Qaeda...Scare stories about terrorist threat blown awayEvidence prosecution lawyers tried to link to Afghanistan and al-Qaedain trials of terrorist suspects has been shown to be false.by Duncan Campbell04/15/05 "The Irish Times" - - Colin Powell does not need morehumiliation over the manifold errors in his February

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1090212321208450862004-07-19T13:40:00.000+09:002004-07-19T13:45:21.206+09:00

Unfortunately, I won't be able update or add to this blog because the Korean government has shut down all access to Blogspot in the immediate term. Apparently, one blogger posted a link to the video showing the beheading of Kim Sun-il. Since Kim's tragic death, all IP addresses showing the video have been blocked by the Korean government. This goes as well for the Information Clearinghouse

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1081330943799358832004-04-07T18:41:00.000+09:002004-05-10T10:28:55.783+09:00

The disaster ruins everything, all the while leaving everything intact. It does not touch anyone in particular; “I” am not threatened by it, but spared, left aside. It is in this way that I am threatened; it is in this way that the disaster threatens in me that which is exterior to me—an other than I who passively become other—Maurice Blanchot Perhaps few other countries can magnify the

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1080048048585293792004-03-23T22:18:00.000+09:002004-03-23T22:24:14.653+09:00

I offer this glimpse of some of my intellectual history to the blog for extended and hopefully interested perusal.

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1080047912129350472004-03-23T22:16:00.000+09:002004-03-23T22:21:58.233+09:00

I wish to thank my committee for its diligence in helping me to complete this project. I owe Dr. Paul Trembath a great deal for his numerous discussions with me on aesthetics, politics and poststructuralism, particularly his frequent accessibility outside of class. I am grateful to Dr. SueEllen Campbell for perhaps unwittingly reawakening my interest in Georges Bataille in a course on the

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1080047795413034502004-03-23T22:15:00.000+09:002004-03-23T22:20:01.543+09:00

HETEROLOGICAL AESTHETICS: THE TRANSGRESSIVE CHOREOGRAPHY OF GEORGES BATAILLE This essay is an attempt to read the writings of George Bataille with and against such contemporaries as Pierre Klosssowski and Maurice Blanchot and significant poststructuralists, such as Gilles Deleuze, Julia Kristeva, and Michel Foucault. The applicability of Bataille's thought to recent cultural and literary

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1080047705813565392004-03-23T22:14:00.000+09:002004-03-23T22:18:31.966+09:00

For the sake of brevity and convenience, the frequently cited sources below have been abbreviated as follows. CC--Deleuze, Coldness and Cruelty CS--Hollier, ed. The College of Sociology E--Bataille, Erotism HL--Acker, Hannibal Lector, My Father IC--Blanchot, Infinite Conversation LE--Bataille, Literature and Evil MM--Bataille, My Mother MMD--Acker, My Mother: Demonology PT--Foucault, "Preface to

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1080047573248866062004-03-23T22:11:00.000+09:002004-03-23T22:16:19.436+09:00

One thinks a lot when afraid. And even more when one is afraid of being afraid. And even more when one is afraid of what one thinks. Afraid to think. Afraid of the thought--Denis Hollier The human spirit is dominated by a demand that makes bliss intolerable--Georges Bataille This essay has its origin in a photograph and an accompanying text, certain to puzzle the person reading or

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1080047447644770122004-03-23T22:09:00.000+09:002004-03-23T22:14:13.996+09:00

While they always relate to corporeal orifices as to so many landmarks parceling-constituting the body's territory, polluting objects fall, schematically, into two types: excremental and menstrual. Neither tears nor sperm, for instance, although they belong to borders of the body, have any polluting value--Julia Kristeva The act of exclusion has the same meaning as social or divine

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1080047303902944672004-03-23T22:06:00.000+09:002004-03-23T22:11:50.186+09:00

Between the normal man who confines the sadistic man to an impasse and the sadistic man who makes this impasse a way out, it is the latter who knows more about the truth and logic of his situation and whose knowledge of it is deeper, to the point of being able to help the normal man to understand himself, by helping him to change the conditions of all understanding--Maurice Blanchot If we

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1080047169154905432004-03-23T22:04:00.000+09:002004-03-23T22:09:35.420+09:00

With Sade...private vice constitutes an anticipatory chronicle of the public virtues of the totalitarian era. Not to have glossed over or suppressed but to have trumpeted far and wide the impossibility of deriving from reason any fundamental argument against murder ignited the hatred which progressives to this day direct against Sade and Nietzsche....Inasmuch as their merciless doctrines

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1080046997698412882004-03-23T22:00:00.000+09:002004-03-23T22:06:43.996+09:00

Acker, Kathy. Hannibal Lector, My Father. New York: Semiotext(e), 1991. Acker, Kathy. My Mother: Demonology. New York: Pantheon, 1993. Agamben, Giorgio. The Coming Community. Trans. Michael Hardt. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1993. Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Trans. Helene Iswolsky. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1968. Barthes, Roland. Critical Essays. Trans. Richard Howard.

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1078276777589328102004-03-03T10:16:00.000+09:002004-03-03T10:22:35.623+09:00

Interesting article in today's Counterpunch providing a back drop to current Haitian crisis and some badly needed historical perspective. Heather Williams is the author, and her basic argument is that with the press not probing the US' undermining of Aristide, the Bush administration will now likely set its sights on Cuba.

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1077589671515681212004-02-24T10:51:00.000+09:002004-02-24T11:30:38.450+09:00

I was thumbing throught the August Wire last evening and read the Fela primer, which I had forgotten to read earlier. Found these choice sentences by the writer Peter Shapiro: "The sad fact is that, more than his music, Fela himself makes for the kind of pitch that magazine editors salivate over: a guy with 27 wives who wears nothing but underpants and smokes joints the size of your forearm

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1077510543543208282004-02-23T13:22:00.000+09:002004-02-23T13:31:49.310+09:00

Our musician friend Joe has passed on to me a couple of useful links about the CIA's involvement in the promotion of abstract art during the cold war. The first review by James Petras concerns the first of two books by Frances Stonor Saunders on this subject, and it's the one I like best. The second by Alan Johnson is also interesting.

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1076297779232120852004-02-09T12:33:00.000+09:002004-02-09T12:38:45.576+09:00

Cahal Milmo 09 February 2004 Global retailers, including British supermarkets are, systematically inflicting poor working conditions on millions of women workers to conduct price wars and feed ever-rising consumer expectations of cheap produce, Oxfam said yesterday. A study of employment conditions in 12 countries which supply items from jeans to gerberas to international brands

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1076295889019890482004-02-09T12:00:00.000+09:002004-02-09T12:07:15.623+09:00

Sex slaves "This is terrorism of the most base type."--Reydeluz D. Conferido Indeed.

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1076293505132540382004-02-09T11:07:00.000+09:002004-02-09T11:27:31.496+09:00

Gender Traitors

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1076292441316062922004-02-09T10:34:00.000+09:002004-02-09T11:09:47.856+09:00

By Jay Shaft Feb 6, 2004, 09:53 "Sometimes you have to weigh your duty to your government, and the duty to your fellow soldiers to protect them and keep them safe. I feel the duty to my fellow soldier out weighs any loyalty to my government. I do not see this as treason or betraying my command, especially in light of how badly the government has betrayed our troops at every level. I feel it

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1076290418963870992004-02-09T10:32:00.000+09:002004-02-09T10:36:05.200+09:00

Ulsan, South Korea By Eileen Meehan Perfect bodies - diamante-trimmed thongs - contortionist-like moves. This was the initial visual picture that my mind generated when I heard about the 7 Club in Korea - a Russian strip club. Strip clubs are very popular all over Korea due to the closeness of South Korea to other countries and the dream for Russian girls to make a year's salary in a

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1076204787634654842004-02-08T10:45:00.000+09:002004-02-08T10:48:52.373+09:00

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN Apparently to McNamara's mortification, Errol Morris, whose film The Fog of War I recently discussed here, passes over his subject's thirteen-year stint running the World Bank, whither he was dispatched by LBJ, Medal of Freedom in hand. McNamara brandishes his bank years as his moral

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1074989341008644552004-01-25T09:07:00.000+09:002004-01-25T09:19:34.530+09:00

Cockburn The Fog of Cop-Out Robert McNamara 10, Errol Morris 0 By ALEXANDER COCKBURN My dear friend and late Nation colleague Andrew Kopkind liked to tell how, skiing in Aspen at the height of the Vietnam War, he came round a bend and saw another skier, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, alone near

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1074919430046744522004-01-24T13:35:00.000+09:002004-01-24T13:45:54.263+09:00

Toward an Ethics of Curbing an Appetite The Girls Next Door By PETER LANDESMAN Published: January 25, 2004 The house at 1212 1/2 West Front Street in Plainfield, N.J., is a conventional midcentury home with slate-gray siding, white trim and Victorian lines. When I stood in front of it on a breezy day in October, I could hear the cries of children from the playground of an elementary

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1074911088143369802004-01-24T11:22:00.000+09:002004-01-24T11:26:52.450+09:00

Agamben's solidarity with those who are to be fingerprinted in the US

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1074728805229352302004-01-22T08:44:00.000+09:002004-01-22T08:48:46.326+09:00

The most apropos comment: "But the scene that unfolded next underscored the moral complexity of a world in which some girls are ambivalent about being rescued and not all brothel owners are monsters." ---------- Bargaining for Freedom By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF Published: January 21, 2004 POIPET, Cambodia — Srey Neth and Srey Mom were stunned when I proposed buying their freedom from their

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1074356432048973502004-01-18T01:13:00.000+09:002004-01-18T13:12:39.543+09:00

This just in from the NY Times editorial writer, Nicholas Kristof: Girls for Sale By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF POIPET, Cambodia One thinks of slavery as an evil confined to musty sepia photographs. But there are 21st-century versions of slaves as well, girls like Srey Neth. I met Srey Neth, a lovely, giggly wisp of a teenager, here in the wild smuggling town of Poipet in northwestern

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1074316597969693132004-01-17T14:13:00.000+09:002004-01-17T17:46:26.340+09:00

January 14, 2004 marked the fifth anniversary of the death of Bryn Jones, prolific ethno-electronic musician Muslimgauze. A tribute at WSIA, College of Staten Island, can be found here: http://transilvanianhunger.org/muslimgauze.ogg Information on converting ogg files can be found here: http://www.vorbis.com/

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1074228282899716482004-01-16T13:43:00.000+09:002004-01-16T13:46:36.280+09:00

Currently at WHRB, Harvard's radio station and online at http://www.whrb.org is a twenty two hour "orgy" of the Erstwhile catalogue. Great to hear this stuff here and supposedly will be archived.

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1074228005017865012004-01-16T13:38:00.000+09:002004-01-16T13:44:24.076+09:00

The following essay appeared in 2002 in the political theory journal Strategies. The issue dealt with the work of Gilles Deleuze: I. Preliminaries In the fields of cutting edge electronica, it has become quite fashionable to invoke the name of Gilles Deleuze. Displaced former philosophy students find a home spinning records and programming beats in underground night clubs, creating “sound

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1074225383826713362004-01-16T12:52:00.004+09:002004-01-16T13:37:13.576+09:00

Contemporary Music Review, 2003, VOL. 22, No. 3, 1–11 Contemporary Music Review ISSN 0749-4467 print/ISSN 1477-2256 online © 2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals The Pariahs of Sound: On the Post-Duchampian Aesthetics of Electro-acoustic Improv William L. Ashline In a recent reported conversation, Keith Rowe, renowned tabletop guitarist with the improvisational group AMM

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1074225117862490792004-01-16T12:48:00.000+09:002004-01-16T12:53:51.716+09:00

This is a brief essay accompanying the Amplify box released on Erstwhile records: What strikes one initially about the Amplify 2002 Festival at Star Pine’s Inn in Kichijoji, Tokyo, is the seemingly impossible incongruity between the title of the festival and its first program, the quartet of Otomo Yoshihide, Tetuzi Akiyama, Taku Sugimoto, and Toshimaru Nakamura, all on acoustic guitar. It is a

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1074220446031783962004-01-16T11:31:00.000+09:002004-01-16T11:37:29.076+09:00

Whitey on the Moon By GIL-SCOTT HERON A rat done bit my sister Nell with Whitey on the moon. Her face and arms began to swell and Whitey's on the moon. I can't pay no doctor bills but Whitey's on the moon. Ten years from now I'll be payin' still while Whitey's on the moon. The man just upped my rent last night cuz Whitey's on the moon. No hot

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1074202560965128962004-01-16T06:33:00.000+09:002004-01-16T06:37:53.873+09:00

Here's a link to an earlier article I wrote for Strategies. It's not available on the site, but I have a zillion offprints sitting around. If you are interested, write me (williamashline@yonsei.ac.kr) Strategies Essay

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1074201113078310422004-01-16T06:09:00.001+09:002004-01-19T23:06:15.793+09:00

Here's a brief essay I recently put together for Seoul National University's Literary Notebook: My initiation to “gook-ak” or Korean traditional music had come much earlier with New York producer Bill Laswell’s SXL project, a multinational contingent that matched Kim Duk-soo’s Samulnori with African percussionist Aiyb Dieng and Indian violinist Shankar, and which made several tours in Japan in

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1074154469347652802004-01-15T17:13:00.000+09:002004-01-15T19:12:14.513+09:00

Alex Cockburn's article on O'Neill's outing of Bush Cockburn

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1074154339850888532004-01-15T17:11:00.000+09:002004-01-15T17:14:12.390+09:00

New reports on the Independent today. One on the problem of kidnapping for ransome in Iraq: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=481314 The second is on police brutality in Germany: http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=481319

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333367.post-1074154075438958812004-01-15T17:02:00.000+09:002004-01-15T17:09:48.013+09:00

Here's my list of music favorites for 2003: 1. Various Artists, Amplify Box Set—Amplify 2002, Tokyo, Erstwhile The Nakamura/Muller recording tint on disc 2 was the best thing I heard all year. Also recommended: Seven Guitars, Cardew’s Treatise, pp. 82-84, disc 7 and the improv sets by Otomo Yoshihide/Gunter Muller, Cosmos, and the Keith Rowe/Marcus Schmickler/Thomas Lehn. 2. Oren Ambarchi/

Williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343499369008847805noreply@blogger.com