tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1590276773297960446.post7368000807152747664..comments2024-01-27T06:40:07.056+00:00Comments on Zone Styx Travelcard: The minimal workshopUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1590276773297960446.post-3183409598134720712009-07-02T03:00:22.464+01:002009-07-02T03:00:22.464+01:00That saturation of influences is an interesting id...That saturation of influences is an interesting idea. I'll try to hunt the article down, thanks. I like to imagine that the ability to easily access so much varied music for free or cheaply, would put an end to homogeneity. But I'm not sure how much that is happening, and instead seems to be breeding hyper-nostalgia, as people almost flee from anything different or new, and leads to the re-emergence of Blur et al (cold shiver). I struggled enough to come to terms with Throbbing Gristle re-forming, and I loved them... Sorry, going off post-topic here.Mark R Hancockhttp://memecortex.net/blognoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1590276773297960446.post-9233168099878157242009-07-01T09:36:41.876+01:002009-07-01T09:36:41.876+01:00I'm sure it can, but I also think a lot of the...I'm sure it can, but I also think a lot of the best music comes out of a kind of isolation, a deliberate narrowmindedness if you like. Simon Reynolds wrote a good piece about the massive quantities of music available post-downloading, and the way the resulting saturation of influences on musicians sort of flattens out differences, with everything existing in the same cosmopolitan, hyper-informed haze. It was in The Wire, and probably also on Blissblog.Sam Davieshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03256521398930476465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1590276773297960446.post-12876521353666221192009-06-28T23:06:41.923+01:002009-06-28T23:06:41.923+01:00Glad I've found someone who has commented on t...Glad I've found someone who has commented on that article in New Yorker. I read it after attending a talk at Hay Lit festival where they discussed the Creative Writing programs, both here and in the States. Damningly, I forget the participants' names. One thing that stuck in my mind was when one speaker said that good writers couldn't be 'created' by the workshop system, but good ones could be improved. Personally, I sway between imagining that the workshop system is a good idea and a total bore (surrounded by all those people who 'have a story to tell' eugh!).<br />Do you reckon this idea of fine-tuning a good musician applies to musicians?Mark R Hancockhttp://memecortex.net/blognoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1590276773297960446.post-36481359139117189712009-06-20T00:45:34.046+01:002009-06-20T00:45:34.046+01:00Are you a programme graduate promqueen, just out o...Are you a programme graduate promqueen, just out of interest? <br /><br />The point about workshops fostering defensive practices isn't mine so much as Menand and McGurl's. Yes, Oates takes the opposite tack, but McGurl describes that too as a self-protective strategy I think.<br /><br />I was getting ready to take issue with your line about workshops as a process of self-definition, because it will always be skewed, a difference 'from the other writers in your workshop' rather than a wider context, but then you moved on to that problem in your last para.<br /><br />I know that I speak in a way that's different to my writing style, and I can feel my tone of voice adjusting when I write for print, and again when I write for this blog. I think McGurl is on to something: the prevalence of workshopping means works-in-progress are critiqued in progress, where before perhaps the author would have toiled alone towards completion and submission. Good or bad, that's a serious paradigm shift in literary creation: it programmes in a certain defensiveness, a kind of critical anticipation, to the work.Sam Davieshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03256521398930476465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1590276773297960446.post-12513725915029527062009-06-19T22:47:08.844+01:002009-06-19T22:47:08.844+01:00I think there's a slight backwardness to the b...I think there's a slight backwardness to the bit about writing workshops here, especially with the assumption that they promote some kind of restraint or retraction -- for instance, this idea that if workshops affected Carver's style, it was as a way of "evading" pedants or misreaders, or minimizing itself as a target.<br /><br />It needn't be negative like that, and the Menand article you're talking about follows the Carver example with another one (I think it was Oates) about <i>maximalism</i> coming from the same situations.<br /><br />In other words, it's not necessarily a matter of evasion or restraint -- it's more a matter of people developing a style that relates in a certain way to their position in a field ... usually by finding ways to foreground what's different about them, or put focus on the skills they're best with. If the thing that sets you apart from the other writers in your workshop is your unrestrained wild-man energy, there's a good chance you'll start grooming and cultivating your own image as the wild one; it's the obvious way to place yourself. Which is basically the same kind of self-construction we do in <i>any</i> kind of social group -- not much different from taking up a role among your buddies as the smart one or the fun one.<br /><br />When this becomes problematic is when the circle you're defining yourself in doesn't connect very well with the rest of the world -- e.g., if you're cultivating a sense of yourself as "the smart one" among a bunch of idiots. This isn't a huge issue with writing workshops, because the people in them are not that bad of a representation for the actual readership of literary fiction. With minimal it's a slightly different story...promqueennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1590276773297960446.post-83837346328237596122009-06-19T14:26:16.883+01:002009-06-19T14:26:16.883+01:00Thanks Bruce. The problem I have with the post on ...Thanks Bruce. The problem I have with the post on reflection is that of course the minimal dance milieu is hardly unique in being exposed to the hyper-exchange of ideas via blogs, filesharing, rolling news sites etc. And while you can detect that crippling fear/anxiety of not looking informed enough in other scenes, they don't necessarily end up producing music that's so obviously minimalist. <br /><br />The other thing I didn't make much of was McGurl's assertion that Carver's response was to do with insecurity about class. Wondering if the likes of k-punk or Owen at Sit Down Man have something to say about that...Sam Davieshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03256521398930476465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1590276773297960446.post-63864503813025305422009-06-17T16:21:58.053+01:002009-06-17T16:21:58.053+01:00Great post. You could extrapolate your observatio...Great post. You could extrapolate your observations on techno/house to independent music as well. With the wealth of recorded music available to musicians, critics and listeners via the web there seems to be a pressure on musicians to avoid embarrassment and emphasize their background knowledge. Everybody knows a little about a lot of forms of music and musicians appear to need to demonstrate how much they know about the "right" type of influences.Bruce Adamshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10294861447055075247noreply@blogger.com