Thursday, April 17, 2008

cross country collaborations

jared, i'm jolted by the last two posts, as i have been teaching a course on vietnam and the 1960's and the last two weeks have been entirely dedicated to music. we've been discusing music as outlet of protest, an obvious place to start considering the time period, but from there one of the assignments that i gave was for my students to bring in lists of the 10 songs they felt best described the current social climate. i played as many of the songs they chose that i could access from the classroom, and also offered up some of my own selections. note, i teach all teenage girls, so their taste in music is often drastically different from mine, but we are able to learn more about each other through sharing music in the classroom than through some of the conversations we've been ahving over the last several months. one of the girls had chosen an older metallica song, and that led me to talk about their original bassist cliff burton and we listened and free wrote to the last song he played, "orion." the haunted tongues came to life in my classroom, but until i read the post i didn't have the language to explain what it was like. although everyone in the room wrote something similar, like the message was lingering in the air and coming down through each individual pencil. mystic indeed. i love how we can go months without directly communicating and still be on the same wave length.

on a separate note, i wanted to link you to a site from a poet who recently moved to portland. one of the guys that i work for is friends with him and told me about his project a few months back, and i took a look at it again today when i realized that he's in your area. it's www.thepeterprinciple.org

2 comments:

akp said...

Tim,

Pretty amazing synchronicity, and to add to this chain letter, I checked out this Peter Principle site and was blown away by similarities. First, I'll say, I had no prior knowledge of this, either in its original form or the new site, talking about Work and Writing. So, my "Moving Day", the italicized parts were erasures of Homer's The Iliad, and done entirely at work at the bookstore in Mass! And my new work is another series of erasures called "Welcome to the Working Week" (after the Elvis Costello song) using books found (mis)placed around the store by customers! Pretty crazy, huh!?

Also, re: your assignment, and given the appropriateness of the artist, here's an all Elvis C. list of songs for the current climate from me:

1. Welcome to the Working Week
2. Opportunity
3. Oliver's Army
4. Radio, Radio
5. Watching the Detectives
6. Accidents will Happen
7. What's So Funny Bout Peace, Love and Understanding
8. Goon Squad

Much love, peace, and understanding
to y'all. Have a good weekend!

XOXXOXX,
Andy

timarmentrout said...

love the idea of picking up lines while picking up books andy, and glad you dug the site.

love the elvis costello list too man.i don't have any of his music and you remind me that is something i need to remedy.

songs that immediately jump to mind for my own list:

1. hail social "modern love and death"
2. idlewild "the modern way of letting go"
3. xavier rudd "little chief"
4. ani difranco "millineum theatre"
5. the roots "why"
6. radiohead "stop whispering"
7. damian marley "confrontation"
8. modest mouse "parting of the sensory"
9. tool "right in two"
10. bloc party "like eating glass"