Iain Cameron's Diary
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2005-04-30 - 10:23 a.m.

Gale and Louise with those push-up Gibson blonde arch-types!

Train journeys to Northampton and Leeds have been surprisingly tiring - although not without upside. The Coventry-Northampton line goes from New Red Sandstone through progressively younger Jurassic rock meeting up with a tributary of the Nene. The Birmingham to Leeds line follows the river Tame and then the Trent but branches up into the Derbyshire Peak District along a tributary of the Trent which I can�t name. The quality of the scenery is much worse north of Sheffield. The Leeds meeting was in a hotel - and well worth the journey. The Northampton meeting and the one this morning fitted together well. We think we have an outline of what to say on 10 May and also probably on 16 May although that will be down to me. It will be hard work but I can�t complain.

Still entranced by VFT Selected - so much so that I may be provoked into more prose. Keith-Mice etc is entranced by Love DVD and hunting one down on the net. Paul W entranced by memories of the young Attorney General. Keith says he will get theDVD of the Stones in the Park - a propos KC I said I was doing something on baroque for AK. I think its almost cooked.

Simon Reynolds on post-punk arrived today. I read about Cabaret Voltaire in Sheffield - the chapter before Joy Division and Manchester. Then its Throbbing Gristle in London. I have let it in the office so as not to distract me.

Its early evening and I am in a bar one block over from my flat - the HH recording of WaterMelon - Man is on. It warm and there is street and park life.

I am thinking of a polarity - at one end is the art world as explained by Danto and popularized by Collings where the community agree meaning and value (as they are supposed to). The quirky bit is how fast the criteria shift and the way this is felt communally - Collings is good on this esp in his account of NYC since Warhol. At the other pole we have Gracyk�s rock world - where the community is potentially global and just makes of it what it may. Think of any multi-million seller - say Thriller or Dido�s first. Does it mean in the same way in Hong Kong as in Minnesota? It sells and then it means but it is offered against the possibility of big sales - in the expectation of global multiple interpretation. In the art-world it means and then the price goes up. You can throw poetry at this polarity - the poor love is confused. It works like rock with smaller sales but lots of insiders hanker after the time when there was a poetry-world.

Paul and I are looking at Joni-world. You can join a list and get the feel of where a community has got to in negotiating meaning and value. it�s a bit like poetry-world might have been - except they are mostly Americans. Joni is repitching the value - away from rock-world by her re-issues strategy - reframing. And there is so much of it. Most people like Hejira - is it better than Blue? Opinions differ. But whats the meaning of Hejira in 1998 - just after the Tiger - compared with Hejira with Meths in 1979? Or what does it mean when her husband does the Jaco bits - or when he does the Jaco bits when he is her ex-husband.? What does the 1998 muted trumpet mean when we discover she courted Miles for decades and he also turned her down - and then we discover that Miles got her first producer - David Crosby - his first deal with CBS and how when she was doing her most popular work she was listening to the 2nd great 5tet?

Now their playing Cry Me River - Simon P and I used to do this when we had the same employer.

VFT keeps doing LW-stuff . Also a nice riff with cats - Schroedinger�s cat against Strawson�s cat against TSE�s Practical Cats. One way in is to think of how when you stroke a car with open fingers there is a sense in which you subdivide its fur - this subdivision is like Schroe�s quantum vision of his indeterminate cat. TSE�s cats are practical and therefore on the side of Strawson. Is stroking a kind of referring? Can you stroke something without a degree of intentional reference? This is the kind of trope that GEMA could do well - no wonder she was head girl. Could this ever be rock-world? I bet the Cats CD/LP has sold a fair few and how many millions in India and China learn quantum theory? So its not altogether out of the question - but maybe currently we have nod in the direction of art world.

Now its Mac the Knife with Ella - how nice to be in touch with Blonde on Blonde as I sip Cz beer on a spring evening. (Did she say Bobbie Daryn o Bobbie Dylan in that scat - where did that cat go - must be a quantum �s�)

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