Catching up

It's been nearly a year since my last post and a lot has happened. My thesis is long over, I graduated from college, and I've been living in New York for nearly five months now. Reading over my posts from the middle of thesis writing is kind of like looking back at myself in a tornado from a comfortable tornado-proof room a few miles down the road. Or maybe I should avoid using metaphors or similes because they aren't so much my strength. The point is, I was deep in the middle of total thesis insanity and most likely my fifth cup of coffee of the day when I last posted.

Now I sit in my small, but well-lit yellow apartment stuffed with books from college classes, paintings and jewelry from the countries I traveled to in Africa, an impressive selection of tea, and two talented and friendly roommates who (lucky for me) are also great at cooking. My thesis, beautifully bound into a small book, sits on the bookshelf between James Baldwin and Eula Biss. Though it's in good company, it's sort of gotten lost to my subconscious.

It's hard to imagine where I was one year ago. I felt so strongly that the writing and work I was doing had to have a major impact on the humanitarian industry, but when I go back and read the work I was posting it just seems repetitive. What was great about my thesis is that it afforded me the opportunity to delve into great writing about images, historical perceptions of Africa, and to explore current motifs and patterns in humanitarian campaigns, so ultimately, my thesis was incredibly important in formulating the core of my ideas about my line of work.

The last few months I've been focused on photography (http://jfirestonephotography.tumblr.com): shooting events for my congressman, photographing the lovely singer/songwriter Sara Lewis, and helping out a very talented young artist Ari Jessop to make her portfolio; music (still can't fit a drum set in this apartment so an egg shaker and a ukulele will have to do); and thinking a bunch about what I want to be when I grow up.

I'm going to use this space to "fluff out" my plans, frustrations, curiosities, and ideas about the world. I figure that's general enough to write basically anything. I don't expect too many people to read. If you do happen upon my blog and feel inclined to comment or send me an e-mail with questions, comments, job offers, to give or receive life advice, or you want to send me really good mix CDs, definitely don't hesitate to contact me.

Blog on, readers.

Julia

Pop culture and humanitarianism

The Onion investigates:


How Can We Let Darfur Know How Much We're Doing For Them?


Thanks to John Drabinski for the link to this video.


In related news, MTV is hosting a benefit telethon for Haiti. I recognize that for the most part, any attention is good attention, but I can't help but be critical of the use of pop culture for humanitarian issues. Maybe the larger problem is that so many signs around us point to pop culture being the pinnacle of "cool." Celebrities and pop stars are who we look up to and aspire to be like, and in order for catastrophes to be significant in our lives, it takes these role models to tell us that it's moral to stop thinking about shopping and focus on Haiti--except during the commercials.

For more on the history of benefit concerts, check out:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/jul/16/archive-missionary-zeal-1985

I think UR a contra, Vampire Weekend.

While reading Susan Sontag’s “On Photography,” I listened to the new Vampire Weekend CD, Contra. At the second song on the album, “White Sky,” I perked up noticing that the instruments are exact copies of West African rhythms, melodies, and sounds. The majority of the album, in fact, is almost entirely appropriated from different types of African music. I realize that all of rock and roll and therefore the genre’s that have come out of rock and roll are the results of appropriate African music, but this album unabashedly plays African styles of music. Granted, Vampire Weekend is honest about African music being a huge influence on the band’s songs, I just can’t help but thing Susan Sontag is talking about the music streaming into my ears rather than images when she writes,

“The limit of photographic knowledge of the world is that, while it can goad conscience, it can, finally, never be ethical or political knowledge. The knowledge gained through still photographs will always be some kind of sentimentalism, whether cynical or humanist. It will be a knowledge of bargain prices—a semblance of knowledge, a semblance of wisdom; as the act of taking pictures is a semblance of appropriation, a semblance of rape. …By furnishing this already crowded world with a duplicate one of images, photography makes us feel that the world is more available than it really is.” (24).

While the quote doesn’t fit exactly in describing the CD, it does address my immediate response to it: It’s great that Vampire Weekend like this music, but at what point does their appropriation become a mockery of African music? Like Paul Simon’s “Under African Skies,” which may be referenced in the title of the VW song “White Sky,” I wonder who is missing out on the benefits of this musical mélange.

In contrast, a musician like M.I.A. brought African musicians into her music and included names on tracks. In some cases, she was more of the “back up” in songs. Those musicians have gained greater recognition as a result for being good musicians. Interestingly, there’s actually a snippet from an M.I.A. song on the track “Diplomat’s Son” from the Vampire Weekend CD. The song also features Caribbean and West African piano parts, singing parts, and bass drum rhythms.

It is definitely an interesting reminder to me that Africa is not only represented to American through images but also (possibly subconsciously) through music. What differentiates it though is that while Africa is labeled numerous negative identities through images, the more positive (though still relatively sparse) identities espoused through music are often appropriated and therefore not even recognized as being African.

Anyways, I would rather be listening to West African musicians play this music…except maybe the song “Horchata”—that one’s kind of catchy.

You can listen to some of the CD for yourself here.