Well, I can see why this was rejected – far too lucid and readable, not nearly swathed enough in academic double-speak and jargon. Too much fresh air and real people! Get back in the library!
Srsly tho, a very entertaining read, and made me wonder if there's much of an overlap to be found with theatre practice vs theatre criticism. That sense of *being there* is so vital in the bubble of suspended disbelief that theatre depends on ... I've certainly met Drama PhDs who have adopted the 'anthropologist in the tree' perspective but most of them got into theatre through the magic of being there. The one supremely ironically detached one I'm thinking of got burned, and turned against the experiential necessity out of spite. I imagine there's a lot more extant writing on theatre than there is on punk ... it'd be interesting to hook the latter into the former, from an experienced perspective, and see what happens.
Absolutely! There is an incredible series of essays you might like by Susan Sontag called Against Interpretation, where she explains how a culture stops just experiencing its art and starts obsessively interpreting it. It's not a good look. And surely the psychological dynamic you describe here is super common: meta-analysis of a thing that people are doing is often motivated by exclusion from the thing. You're not included, and so a part of you seeks to level-up by searching for the real, genuine, hidden MEANING of it all, which remains hidden from the practitioners.
Excruciatingly overdue reply here, but thanks for the PDF -- fascinating and very enjoyable read, and explains a lot about my art curator ex-housemate (and why she found me so threatening). Thank you!
I'm glad I took the time to read this. I can see why they didn't accept it - and I'll bet you figured they wouldn't - but they had to read all about themselves in it, and that is pure punk.
As maybe the most qualified person in the world to talk on the subject, I'd love to hear similar academic thoughts on folk-punk, and how that intersection works. Does sticking an accordion in make it folk punk? I don't think so - there's a great band called Sinful Maggie that heartedly reject the folk-punk or irish-punk label (check out "we're not fuckin irish" if you've not already) that do just that.
For me there's something atavistic about folk-punk that makes me *feel* like something is folk-punk, but I've never been able to describe what or why.
Also, I think your description of what is punk goes some way to explain why nazi punk is so fucking bad.
I loved this; refreshingly unpretentious and down-to-earth compared to some academic philosophising I could name. My only comment would be that it somewhat blurs the two lines of criticism being discussed: definitional critique of punk as something that ignores the nonrepresentational and the lived experience, and moral critique of punk by PSM advocates. Not that those aren't related criticisms that both fit under the theme/title being discussed, but only one of them relates to the article's conclusion, and I found myself confused by mixing them together while reading.
Then again, I'm exactly the sort of academically-inclined, doesn't-go-to-enough-punk-shows, boring-ass nerd being critiqued here, so maybe I just need to get the stick out of my arse.
No, you're exactly right, two things were pissing me off and I tried to jam them together. However, I do think that moral criticism of the sort I'm attacking is usually "interpretive", and that instead of looking into the actual motives and lives of punks Perino *interprets* the violence as somehow problematic and the race/gender as a problem in a purely symbolic sense. There is no attempt to actually show that any of this is harmful, it's all just *read into* punk rock. But that is, admittedly, a thin string between the two topics. :D
Well, I can see why this was rejected – far too lucid and readable, not nearly swathed enough in academic double-speak and jargon. Too much fresh air and real people! Get back in the library!
Srsly tho, a very entertaining read, and made me wonder if there's much of an overlap to be found with theatre practice vs theatre criticism. That sense of *being there* is so vital in the bubble of suspended disbelief that theatre depends on ... I've certainly met Drama PhDs who have adopted the 'anthropologist in the tree' perspective but most of them got into theatre through the magic of being there. The one supremely ironically detached one I'm thinking of got burned, and turned against the experiential necessity out of spite. I imagine there's a lot more extant writing on theatre than there is on punk ... it'd be interesting to hook the latter into the former, from an experienced perspective, and see what happens.
Absolutely! There is an incredible series of essays you might like by Susan Sontag called Against Interpretation, where she explains how a culture stops just experiencing its art and starts obsessively interpreting it. It's not a good look. And surely the psychological dynamic you describe here is super common: meta-analysis of a thing that people are doing is often motivated by exclusion from the thing. You're not included, and so a part of you seeks to level-up by searching for the real, genuine, hidden MEANING of it all, which remains hidden from the practitioners.
https://sites.ualberta.ca/~dmiall/LiteraryReading/Readings/Sontag%20Against%20Interpretation.pdf
Excruciatingly overdue reply here, but thanks for the PDF -- fascinating and very enjoyable read, and explains a lot about my art curator ex-housemate (and why she found me so threatening). Thank you!
I'm glad I took the time to read this. I can see why they didn't accept it - and I'll bet you figured they wouldn't - but they had to read all about themselves in it, and that is pure punk.
Great read.
As maybe the most qualified person in the world to talk on the subject, I'd love to hear similar academic thoughts on folk-punk, and how that intersection works. Does sticking an accordion in make it folk punk? I don't think so - there's a great band called Sinful Maggie that heartedly reject the folk-punk or irish-punk label (check out "we're not fuckin irish" if you've not already) that do just that.
For me there's something atavistic about folk-punk that makes me *feel* like something is folk-punk, but I've never been able to describe what or why.
Also, I think your description of what is punk goes some way to explain why nazi punk is so fucking bad.
I loved this; refreshingly unpretentious and down-to-earth compared to some academic philosophising I could name. My only comment would be that it somewhat blurs the two lines of criticism being discussed: definitional critique of punk as something that ignores the nonrepresentational and the lived experience, and moral critique of punk by PSM advocates. Not that those aren't related criticisms that both fit under the theme/title being discussed, but only one of them relates to the article's conclusion, and I found myself confused by mixing them together while reading.
Then again, I'm exactly the sort of academically-inclined, doesn't-go-to-enough-punk-shows, boring-ass nerd being critiqued here, so maybe I just need to get the stick out of my arse.
No, you're exactly right, two things were pissing me off and I tried to jam them together. However, I do think that moral criticism of the sort I'm attacking is usually "interpretive", and that instead of looking into the actual motives and lives of punks Perino *interprets* the violence as somehow problematic and the race/gender as a problem in a purely symbolic sense. There is no attempt to actually show that any of this is harmful, it's all just *read into* punk rock. But that is, admittedly, a thin string between the two topics. :D