Bit of a crazy time last night, due mainly to my stupidity.

Actually, due totally to my stupidity. Remember that I mentioned that I was planning on reinstalling the system software for my computer (see yesterday's post if you don't know what I'm talking about). I came back from sending my SSHRC application in the mail and dropping something off at McGill, and checked a few things and went about reinstalling the OS on my computer.

After all of that was done, I thought I would restore what I had backed up. So I copied my music over from the external hard drive where the data was. I then moved the pictures over. Then I moved my most important stuff over - my documents.

Or, actually I didn't move them over. Because I hadn't backed them up. No backup of my program of work (a.k.a. proposal) for FQRSC applications, no paper for Association for Canadian Studies conference at the end of October, no paper on Feist for possible publication, no recently completed and Ph.D.-earning dissertation.

Now, my dear readers, before yelling at me for being stupid or irresponsible (both of which I felt), I did have a backup somewhere - online, and ... um ... 38 days old.

And I had a paper backup of the most important stuff, that is, the program of work. But that was in the recycle bin. Shredded.

So my wife and I spent a while putting strips of paper back together with scotch tape. It's probably one of the first times that I was happy to have a cheap and ineffective strip shredder rather than a cross-cut shredder. If I was more worried about identity theft and privacy, I would not have been able to reconstruct this stuff from the confetti.

Anyway, as of now, I've found some other older documents that I lost, but I'm not sure if I have everything. I'm disappointed because (as my wife reminded me last night) I should know better. I lost a nice calendar for our trip to Disney that she worked hard trying to put together, and for that I am very sorry.

So I'm working on getting a proper backup system up and running. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know. The new mac OS that comes out next month will have automatic backups as part of the operating system. I WILL be using that.

I thank God - it could have been worse. And, I suppose, I thank God for the prosperity and provision that we have to be able to experience trouble like losing computer files that are products of higher education, instead of trying to find something to eat and safety for ourselves and our family.

The SSHRC application goes in today

So my first postdoctoral application for this year will be mailed out today by Canada Post Expresspost, and should arrive in Ottawa tomorrow. I hope this is the one. As for other exciting events in my life, there are none. I'm rushing to get a bunch of applications out before we leave the country for our little vacation south of the border.

There is a new Douglas Coupland book that I'm looking forward to. I've ordered a "deluxe" version on Amazon - not sure when I'll receive it.

A couple of days ago, I received a second collection of Firefly/Serenity essays called Serenity Found: More Unauthorized Essays from Joss Whedon's Firefly Universe. I have yet to take a serious look at it. I enjoyed the earlier collection (called Finding Serenity) and I suspect I will enjoy this collection as well. There is nothing like a sci-fi western television series (and movie) with asian elements to bring out intelligent analysis and writing. I'm serious.

It's raining today. I can't think of any more mundane things to say.

I mentioned to a friend yesterday that I should post scans of various political autographs that I have (all from the Canadian Liberal Party - as if I'm really overly political!). Maybe I'll do that. It's almost like a gallery of shame in the present context of Canadian politics.

Lots to do today, so I'm off to the post office.

P.S. I might have to reinstall the system software on my iMac. I installed Logic Studio yesterday (the new Apple Pro Audio Suite) and I deleted it because it looks very complicated (in other words, powerful, but I don't have the time to learn the ins and outs now). I might have made a bit of a mess with files in my system.

Guess who I met yesterday?

Yesterday, I was at McGill to pick up a reference letter for my post-doc applications. In one of the green spaces, there was a Young Liberals event with Justin Trudeau. There were a small number of people there, and I thought I would listen in. I then went in and picked up my letter, and returned to the event where even less people were now gathered (I suppose it was drawing to a close). Justin was talking to a few of the people standing around, answering questions and letting girls take his picture (no joke - they were all starry-eyed). Anyway, I'm a sucker for this kind of thing, so I asked for his autograph.



When I told my mother about this chance meeting, her response was, "He's a good looking boy." My further comment to her was that he certainly has the complete package: good looks; obvious intellect; a mastery of the official languages; and a pedigree of being the son of Canada's most prolific prime minister.

I was glad to meet him, and to hear him speak in such an intimate venue - on a lawn with a group of 20 of us or so.

Wanting a new desk

I wonder if the desire for a new desk stems from the fact that I bought a new computer, or that I think a new desk will make me work. It's funny that buying things makes one think that perhaps productivity will ensue. It's partially true, though. A new purchase seems to make the potential of work much more promising. And I think that I approach the computer in a different way than I did before. In one way, the new computer is a real workhorse, a prosumer machine for a person who likes to experiment with video work and would love to learn music production on a computer. I've read in multiple places problems with this computer's screen, and, although I recognize those symptoms in my computer, I don't feel justified in returning the product (unless, of course, the company recalls them). So, will this computer make me work harder? Not sure, but there's certainly a potential for it.

In some very recent discussions with someone very close to me, it came up that there is a possibility (though remote) that I might not be working in September of 2008. If that were to be the case, I suppose that a career change would have to be a distinct possibility. While I need not worry about such things right now, I worry if I will be needing to worry about them in the future.

This internet connection keeps going down on me (wrong choice of words, I know). I will have to correct this, I think. I've been waiting until I purchased a new computer to get a new wireless router, but I was hoping it could wait a bit. I suppose not. Now I have to cycle the power on the thing just to be able to post this message.

You know you've made it when ...

You know you're in the big leagues when a company like Apple uses your song and video in an iPod commercial, especially when the company is marketing its brand new iPod Nano (see the video above). Feist must be feeling that right about now. She's featured in the new iPod advertisement! If I say so myself, I think the marketing folks at Apple have made a fine choice (not sure about the colours, but I think I thought the same of the old ones, so we'll see).

We're back from a nice time in Hamilton to a new couch, a bit of a rearrangement of working and living areas in our apartment, and a trip to WDW in October. Might as well.

Back to the same old ...

I can't believe that I'm writing another fellowship application. It's as if the process is unending; I'm writing another proposal for postdoctoral work for September 2008, a full year from now. In some ways, it's still exciting, to think that I might be able to explore how one discusses the singing voice, what it communicates, and why one might choose to listen to a voice in popular music. In other ways, writing these proposals is very discouraging. Although I understand that the grant application continues when employed, the lack of success makes me sad.

Nevertheless, I'm writing my proposal from (almost) scratch, trying to make it a bit simpler, and fixing some of the problems that the FQRSC committee identified. I should have something properly written before going away next week to see my wife's family.

By the way, for all you Brown Coats who might not know, the new Serenity Collector's Edition DVD comes out today. If you know not of that of which I speak, go out to your local DVD retailer and pick up a copy (in Canada, I can pick it up today for $20 minus a penny, plus applicable taxes). Shiny!

100th post!!

Congratulations to me for making it to 100 posts. I started this blog on 25 September 2004, so it'll be 3 years in a month and a half or so (and maybe 101 posts at the rate I'm going).

My Canadian music paper is due tomorrow and will be done. I'm just finishing multiple proof reading and some tightening up of the text. It's not a bad paper (maybe it's a few pages short, but I don't need to ramble on - I'm sure there will be other papers that will be longer).

We're looking to go on vacation in October, if no jobs present themselves for me (which, right now, seems to be the case). It might be Disney, but we'll see. More updates soon.

"I'm sorry, two words I always think..."

Again I've been ignoring posts to this blog, and I apologize. I've been working on the paper I've mentioned many times on Feist and Canadian-ness, and that's due in a week and a half. I also wrote up a review of a book by Nick Stevenson on David Bowie, and that also has to go out very soon. So, I've been keeping busy (or trying to, anyway). Plus, I've been checking out some minor health things - I hadn't been feeing well, and I'm in the midst of checking that, although I'm feeling fine now.

That's a bit of an update. I'll try to post more interesting things more often.

Another thing. Check out this google ad that showed up on this very blog. Not sure what that's all about, but it made me chuckle.



That's not really the Feist news I was looking for (by the way, if you are tempted, don't click the ad here as the above is only a lowly screenshot).

Merlin Mann at Google

I haven't watched this, but it's Merlin Mann, a "productivity expert" who is involved with the TWiT netcast network, talking about taking care of email.

I'm Still Alive...

In case there are those that check my blog often, please forgive me for not posting lately. I've actually been trying to do work, and I've been neglecting this blog. Anyway, nothing so exciting over here. I'm about two thirds through my paper on Feist and "problematised Canadian-ness." If I continue to work hard on this thing, I might be done by Friday. Of course, I need to work hard for the next 2 days, which can be difficult for me to do. It seems that my brain can be shut down by my low intellectual self-esteem.

Here's a picture of my niece that should make everyone cry with an overdose of cuteness.



(it seems that the picture won't load upright, so you have to tilt your head to get the full cuteness - sorry)

Feist and Canadianness

I'm just thinking about a few things for the paper on Feist that I'm presently writing. It deals with her label as a Canadian musician, and how her position problematizes such a categorization. Part of what I want to discuss has to do with Feist's "maturity" (if that's a good word) and with her "jhai" style (if that can still be applied to her singing). This "maturity" is brought about by her damaging her voice, and is accompanied by a perceived authenticity (I've talked about this before ad nauseum). So, this "maturity" might align her to certain Eurpoean (and specifically French) styles of singing. It's another possible link to her being a chanteuse (did I spell that right? is that even a french word?).

There is another angle that I would like to take, but I'm not sure how to go about it. Feist presents herself as a singer that is opposed to a certain national image of singers. There are women who are known for their voices, usually in terms of loud and flashy singing, like Céline Dion and even Alanis Morrisette (loud, brash), Avril Lavigne, Nelly Furtado (although she seems overshadowed by her producer, not unlike Shania Twain). Feist, on the other hand, has a soft voice, almost a whisper (and she is not overshadowed by her producers, as she is one of the team that produces her music). Furthermore, her happy-go-lucky style might not fit in with "Canadian" musics like Barenaked Ladies or Tragically Hip, where certain hardships of Canadian life are expressed with humour (less so with the Hip, but certainly the case with BNL). In my mind, Canadian music does not evoke weakness, but rather strength in the face of adversity, a "grin-and-bear-it" kind of attitude. Feist turns this on its head by singing:

I'm sorry, two words
I always think after you're gone
When I realize I was acting all wrong
So selfish, two words that could describe
Old actions of mine when patience is in short supply

Of course, this is in the context of a love song, and it probably isn't a unique case in Canadian music, where a narrator in a song apologizes for something. But the fact that these are the first words on a much-anticipated recording make them that much more powerful. Feist is sorry, soft, weak, damaged.

These are preliminary thoughts, so I might be wrong on them all. Any comments you might have are welcome.

Not much to say...

Boy, it's hot here in Montreal.

For those who might be interested, Morrissey will be on the Late Show with David Letterman on Friday, June 29. Set those VCRs!

Organizing articles, and a To-Do list

I just got a book in the mail: Finding Serenity: Anti-heroes, Lost Shepherds and Space Hookers in Joss Whedon's _Firefly_, (edited by Jane Espenson). It looks very interesting, and I like it since I am a Firefly/Serenity fan.

I would love to pick up a pair of these and I think that I am officially going to start saving up for them:



I'm working on that article on Feist for possible publication, and I have a somewhat short time to get it done. I'm putting together a to-do list. I need to:

1) research some context regarding Leslie Feist's life details
2) research more context regarding Feist's performance with Juliette Greco on Canal Plus in 2004 (I think)
3) Integrate some details from an article by Sarah Hill on the Welsh singing voice (in Radical Musicology)
4) research some articles surrounding Canadianness and popularity, including artists Alanis Morrisette, Shania Twain, and even Celine Dion.

So, if anyone has some information that might help, or articles that might be interesting, let me know. I'll try to post the abstract of this paper in a further post.

It's been a bit

I thought I would chime in after a week not showing my face here on my blog. I'm still working away on various things. I've recently begun looking again at writing a more substantial chapter on Feist and her particular placement within Canadian popular music. I've been asked to develop a proposal I submitted previously for possible publication, so that's on the horizon.

The fan on this mac mini is SO spinning. I guess it's because I'm blogging, downloading something, converting 2 videos and listening to John Legend, all at the same time. Talk about power computing, all on a lowly G4 mini.

I think I might put the major post-dissertation revisions of chapter 3 (my chapter on music video) on a bit of a back-burner (as if these revisions weren't there already). I think I would thrive in an environment with a little bit of a structure. I'm lazy, and a structured environment would help me to get to work. So, if anyone has an academic "structured environment" that pays, feel free to contact me (preferably at a university in the area of communications, popular music studies, or musicology).

I need to write this somewhere, so why not here?

I was reading about something called "Structured Procrastination," where you put off doing something important, but you do something else instead. Eventually something will come along that will be more important than that thing that you didn't want to do, so you will put off doing that really important thing and then do what you originally put off. I'm not sure I buy that, since I'm really good at just putting everything off.

Anyway, here's what I need to write, so why not get it on here. If anyone has any comments whatsoever, please feel free to add them. Back to my doctoral dissertation material:

It is true that the underlying issues that are made clear through Morrissey's presentation of his star image--his ambiguity in terms of gender presentation, his performance of masculinity, his expression of an enigmatic persona (in other words, his music, lyrics, media presentation and so forth)--are caused by a hegemonic value system, which prompts those in charge of said hegemonic system to classify Morrissey as problematic or enigmatic, and thus oblige Morrissey to present himself according to these norms (what I think might be considered a "meta-identity").

That was a long sentence, but it gets to one of the ways that I can rethink some of my doctoral work to perhaps make it more attractive and, in fact, more effective. Now I need to flesh out what I mean with this and perhaps try to taylor some of my chapters with this in mind. It shifts the focus away from Morrissey and onto what makes Morrissey what he is. Instead of presenting Morrissey as an enigmatic genius (although I think he is this, to a point), it makes Morrissey into a more "passive" figure (no pun intended - but I don't want to use passive/active in any gender sense here) affected by the "norms" of society, or the hegemonic forces elsewhere.

Congratulations to the Anaheim Ducks

It's too bad about Ottawa's breakdown, but that's hockey. Last night's game was a sad way to end the season. I used to own a piece of this team (with my one share of Disney stock). In the past, I would have shared in the victory, but not now.

Congratulations to all Ducks fans out there.

Quick and simple review of the Feist concert.

In my opinion, Feist is the most compelling performer on the planet.

We're off to see Feist!

Tonight's the night that we see Leslie Feist in concert. I'm looking forward to it, although I'm not sure what to expect, with the concert being sold out and all. I'm not in the mood right now for a rowdy crowd (or to fight for a spot, either). It should be a highlight though. I'll try to come back with a review as soon as possible.

Really done now.

NOS GUBERNATORES RECTOR SOCII UNIVERSITATIS MCGILL AD MONTEM REGIUM IN CANADA SITAE OMNIBUS AD QUOS HAE LITTERAE PERVENERINT SALUTEM. NOS UNIVERSITATIS GUBERNATORES RECTRIX SOCII TESTAMUR NOS
NICHOLAS PASQUALE GRECO
CUM CURRICULUM STUDIORUM PRAESCRIPTUM CUM INDUSTRIA CONFECERIT ET OMNES EXERCITATIONES QUAE EI SINT INIUNCTAE RITE PEREGERIT, CREAVISSE
DOCTOREM PHILOSOPHIAE
ATQUE EI OMNES HONORES IURA BENEFICIA QUAE AD ILLUM GRADUM PERTINEANT CONCESSISSE. QUOD AD CONFIRMANDUM HAS LITTERAS SIGILLO UNIVERSITATIS CONSIGNANDAS ET NOMINA EORUM QUI RES ACADEMICAS ADMINISTRANT SUBSCRIBENDA CURAVIMUS. DATAE DIE XXXI MENSIS MAII ANNI DOMINI MMVII


DECANUS, SCRIBA MAXIMA, RECTOR HONORARIUS, RECTRIX



WE, THE GOVERNORS AND THE RECTOR, MEMBERS OF MCGILL UNIVERSITY, LOCATED IN MOUNT ROYAL, CANADA, TO ALL WHOM THESE WORDS COME, GREETINGS. WE, THE GOVERNORS AND THE RECTOR TESTIFY THAT NICHOLAS PASQUALE GRECO, HAVING PASSED ALL EXAMS WHICH ARE AJOINED TO THE REQUIREMENTS IN THE CURRICULUM OF STUDIES PRESCRIBED, AND HAVING COMPLETED WITH APPLICATION, HAS BEEN MADE DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY. AS WELL, ALL HONOURS AND BENEFITS WHICH LEGALLY BELONG TO THAT DEGREE ARE CONCEDED TO HIM. AS PROOF OF THIS, THESE SIGNATURES AND THE SEAL OF THE UNIVERSITY AND THE NAMES OF THOSE WHO ADMINISTER THE ACADEMIC MATTERS HAVE BEEN AFFIXED, DATED ON THIS DAY 31ST OF MAY, IN THE YEAR OF THE LORD, 2007.


DEAN, REGISTRAR, HONORARY RECTOR, RECTOR



[translation of latin into english by Mario Bilich, my father-in-law]

About wasting time

Facebook is a real time-sucker, although I'm starting to get over it. Today I only spent a fraction of the time I did yesterday. I think it won't be so bad once the novelty wears off.

Today I need to set up a schedule for the next little while, in terms of what I would like to accomplish. What were my goals earlier in this blog for things to do this month? Publish in 4 places or something? Well, I sent in 2 applications for jobs, and I sent in 2 proposals for chapters in books, and 1 article to a journal for consideration. So I suppose that it wasn't that bad, then. Now on to the future.

I'm convocating on Thursday morning at 10am. It should be "fun." I'll finally get my piece of paper that says I have a doctorate.

That's all.

Facebook

I just joined, and I have the potential to hook up with a whole bunch of friends that I never thought I would again. I'm quite happy about this.

It's also a huge time waster.

Still plugging away

I sent in two more applications for one-year posts at a couple of Ontario universities, starting this September. If one of them comes through, it'll be a bit of a hectic time here, as we have now signed the lease on our apartment for the next year, until June 30th, 2008.

For those that might not know, here in Montreal, the leases generally start July 1 and end June 30 (that's for ALL tenants, around 60% of Montrealers). Landlords require a 3 month notice if you are leaving, but this is only before July 1. In other words, you need to tell the landlord that you are leaving by March 31, and your lease ends June 30. Unlike Ontario, where after the first year your lease converts to month-by-month, the leases here continue to be full years. So, for us, if I do in fact get a job for August or September, we are stuck in the lease, paying the monthly rent until the apartment is rented. And, since the leases all begin on July 1, the chances are lower that someone will be looking for a place in August or September, unless someone is newly moving to the city.

I've been working on some proposals for book chapters, one for a collection on Canadian popular music, and another for a book on The Smiths. I've sent one article off for consideration for publication. It'll need a bit of work before it's in publication shape, but hopefully a seed of worthiness is there, and the editor will see that.

I'm a big fan now of a band called The Long Winters, whose lead singer John Roderick is featured on Merlin Mann's excellent video podcast, The Merlin Show (you can watch the episodes straight from The Merlin Show page). If you're at all interested in communications technology as well as how independent rock musicians engage with it, this is a great podcast to watch. There are a lot of complex issues presented here, although everything is expressed in a non-academic and humourous way. There are a few swear words, though, so if you can't edit those out in your own head, take caution.

If anyone wants to buy me something...

I want this. Plus a pair of Polk speakers and a brand new iPod. Done.

(see http://impamp.com)

Off to Quebec CIty

Today we're off for a little mini-break, for some rest and some general "get-away-from-here-and-everything"-ness. It should be nice. Last night we celebrated A.'s birthday by going to a Mexican place in Old Montreal. It was nice, though a bit pricey, but I got to hear her speak spanish, which she doesn't do very often. So that was a nice treat for me. And I think she liked the food.

When we got back home, one of our electrical sockets was sparking. Not good, especially if you don't want to burn down the building you're living in.

So, last night, after some checking and looking around, we removed the fuse serving that room (which also serves the whole apartment but the kitchen). This morning, I wanted to check my email, so we plugged everything back in, and there has been no sparking this morning.

We'll remove the fuse for the weekend, and upon our return, we'll replace the electrical socket. Obviously it's time to invest in a fire extinguisher.

Another day

This weekend was nice. We were able to celebrate my sister's birthday, Mother's Day, my mother's birthday (a few days early) and my parents' anniversary (it was a golden time had by all). I was very glad to have a nice talk with a colleague of mine, who was actually my professor from years ago. It was nice to be colleagues and he was able to give me words of encouragement.

I sent off a proposal for an article in a book about popular music in Canada. I hope that I get a chance to publish something in that collection. It promises to be a very worthwhile collection. This week will be a week of getting a couple of applications out of the way, the last ones for this year. I'm still waiting on a few responses (it is hard at this point because it is pretty late for those jobs that start July 1 - I probably didn't get those positions, but I'd at least like to hear something).

My iPod has terrible battery life, and it's only 3 years old (only!). Who would have thought that I would not have bought myself a new one by now?

I DO HAVE SELF CONTROL!!

A quick quote from Richard Middleton...

In a recent article on the Blues (in Popular Music 26:1), Richard Middleton states:

"Records, far from destroying what we have lost, are better seen (like photographs) as producing this loss itself--or rather, as contributing to a momentous reconfiguration of the inter-relations of loss, memory and presence." (p. 56)

This is not necessarily new, but I like the way that he puts it. As part of my dissertation work, I discuss how loss, memory and presence, and desire, are inter-related in video and music presentations. So, Middleton and I agree. Who would have thought?

I AM SMART!!

Post-Boston report

My paper was extremely well-received, I think. The conference was quite interesting, with some excellent papers being presented. I was able to reconnect with a few friends, and I was happy to attach faces to a few names. My wife and I also went to Cambridge and visited Harvard and a couple of bookstores.

I'll be sending out a few articles for publication within the next few weeks, perhaps 2 to some prominent online journals, 1 to a print journal, and perhaps another work to a collection (although none of this is certain). Of course, I need to do a bit of editing and expanding to be able to do this.

I would also like to clean up this office of mine. It's really really messy and not a happy place.

It's official

I didn't get it. Of 149, 29 received the grant (that's 20%). I was under the impression (mistakenly) that the success rate was closer to 50% for this postdoctoral fellowship competition. Now I wait until tomorrow to see if I was 1 of 116 that were recommended.

Just my luck I'll be one of the 33 that were not even recommended for funding at all.

We're off to Boston tomorrow for the conference. My work is all ready to go. Now all I have to do is pick out a shirt and tie for Friday afternoon and I'm set.

Not really a good day

While I'm getting ready to go to Boston to present a paper this coming weekend, I'm also waiting for results for a possible postdoctoral fellowship. While the official results aren't out until tomorrow, those who have received the funding for a postdoctoral fellowship have most probably already received a letter confirming the appointment of funds.

I haven't received anything, which probably means that I haven't received the fellowship.

This closes another door (considering the small number of doors to begin with, this is quite discouraging). As I mention above, the official list of winners doesn't get published until tomorrow, but it doesn't look good for me.

This is a "work" post, for the most part

This week has been not so exciting. I'm now having trouble wrapping up the paper that I've been yapping about for the last while, and this post will be a part of said paper, I think. This post will explore the source of the theory that runs through my current work, Barthes' The Pleasure of the Text.

The book has to do with how a reader produces meaning, and continues the assertion by Barthes that the "author" is "dead." That is, simply, intention of the author means nothing, and that the interpretation (or meaning) of the text takes place in absence of the author. [Note: I think this is right, but I might be wrong. I'm trying to recall what I was taught.]

So, as mentioned previously in this blog, the book is set up in short segments, with the subjects or themes of each segment arranged alphabetically, and basically randomly. Throughout this "random" structuration, Barthes does discuss the binary of plaisir (pleasure) and jouissance (bliss or ecstacy). These are not opposites, and is more open and fluid in its definition. The "pleasure" from the title of the book should be thought of as both the pleasure that a reader takes from reading a text, as well as the pleasure that is apparently inherent in the text itself.

Thos texts which do not overcome the "boundaries" of "traditional" literary norms are those texts which can be under the rubric of plaisir, while those texts which disrupt the expectations of what a text should do are texts, then, of ecstacy.

Of these texts, Barthes writes, "Texts of pleasure. Pleasure in pieces; language in pieces; culture in pieces. . . . nothing is reconstituted, nothing recuperated." (p. 51-52) Thus this kind of text upsets all expectations, therefore scattering one's subjectivity.

**********

This is difficult material. Can this kind of observation (or argument) concerning text be applied then to other artistic texts, such as music, or even to real-life situations, as I attempt to do? Perhaps because Barthes talks about real-life situations in the section I'm concerned with makes this okay.

Any comments are welcome.

Regarding the ads here

You might have noticed the ads at the top of the page, as well as the new ad for Firefox to the side. If your using a Windows-based computer, it is often recommended that you use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, due to security concerns. Why not give it a try, at least?

As for my other work, I'm putting together the presentation for my paper, a 2.5 minute video of Feist, covering her 2 stylistic periods. My paper is where it has been since a while ago, languishing in "almost-finished-land." It really is almost finished.

That's all for now.

Back to work

No news regarding September and my life, but I'm expecting word literally any minute now. As for the most pressing thing, the paper in Boston, things are coming together but I'm still not done. Mainly, this is due to the number of questions that I have posed that I need to somehow address. Also, on a less difficult note (in terms of academics, but not less difficult in terms of technical know-how), I have to somehow set up a little audio-visual presentation, with a couple of songs from our favourite songstress in order to illustrate the stylistic change that she has undergone, and the "border" or "boundary" that she has crossed (and perhaps been forced to cross).

My wife and I were to head over to the local Apple Store, but it's too far to go by public transportation during the week. Thus, we have postponed our trek to a week from this weekend. I guess that's next weekend, not this weekend, in case anyone is keeping track.

Finally, I did in fact go to high school with Mocky. While I do remember him, as Dominic Salole, I'm not sure how close of friends we were. He was in a band as were some people I was friends with (not "best," but more than aquaintances). Another band member I became friends with in university, funnily enough. So maybe I should try to contact him. If I remember him, maybe he remembers me.

Happy Easter to all

I hope everyone reading this has a wonderful Easter weekend, and takes a moment to remember Christ's sacrifice and his resurrection.

I think I might have gone to high school with recent Feist collaborator Mocky. I'll confirm once I scour my old yearbooks. Here's Mocky and Feist, "Fighting Away The Tears":

Questions being raised from Barthes

In The Pleasure of the Text, Barthes talks about how art is "compromised" due to the artists' efforts to destroy it. The destruction is inadequate, according to Barthes.

Question #1: Why does the artist do this?

Here's a statement (written by me, quoting Barthes) that needs major clarification:

"He concludes that 'there is a structural agreement between the contesting and the contested forms,' apart from a dialectic relationship between the art and its destruction for the production of a synthesis. Instead, there results the production of 'a third term, which is not, however, a synthesizing term but an eccentric, extraordinary term.'" (all Barthes quotes from p. 55)

Question #2: Does the inadequate destruction of the art always result in the production of an extraordinary term?

Question #3: So what are the effects of this extraordinary term? How does this affect the art and its consumption or expression?

Question #4: What if the artist inadvertently destroy their art, as might be the case with a figure like Feist?

Question #5: Is it possible to apply Barthes' thoughts about texts to other arts and their participants?

I'm smart! Yes I am!

I was telling A. yesterday that I sound really smart on my blog. She asked what I was posting about. So I told her that I was quoting from Wikipedia about Barthes and "writerly" texts and so on.

She said, "You're not smart if you quote from Wikipedia." And she laughed at me.

And you may wonder why I am often depressed.


Just kidding (still waiting for news from prospective post-secondary institutions, though).

Getting to know Barthes

Looking at the Wikipedia entry for Barthes, there is this description of The Pleasure of the Text:

"While Barthes had shared sympathies with Marxist thought in the past (or at least parallel criticisms), he felt that, despite its anti-ideological stance, Marxist theory was just as guilty of using violent language with assertive meanings, as was bourgeois literature. In this way they were both Doxa and both culturally assimilating. As a reaction to this he wrote The Pleasure of the Text (1975), a study that focused on a subject matter he felt was equally outside of the realm of both conservative society and militant leftist thinking: hedonism. By writing about a subject that was rejected by both social extremes of thought, Barthes felt he could avoid the dangers of the limiting language of the Doxa. The theory he developed out of this focus claimed that while reading for pleasure is a kind of social act, through which the reader exposes oneself to the ideas of the writer, the final cathartic climax of this pleasurable reading, which he termed the bliss in reading, is a point in which one becomes lost within the text. This loss of self within the text or immersion within the text, signifies a final impact of reading that is experienced outside of the social realm and free from the influence of culturally associative language and is thus neutral."

I certainly didn't catch "hedonism" in this book, but who am I to say (I didn't catch homosexuality in S/Z either, really). Wait, did I even read this whole book? Yes, I did (sorry, had to remind myself).

Wikipedia continues here, saying:

"The Pleasure of the Text is a short book published in 1973 by Roland Barthes. In the book, Barthes divides the effects of texts into two: pleasure and bliss.

The pleasure of the text corresponds to the readerly text, which does not challenge the reader's subject position.

The blissful text provides Jouissance (bliss, orgasm, explosion of codes) which allows the reader to break out of his/her subject position. This type of text corresponds to the 'writerly' text."

Finally, from my dissertation (p. 203), drawing from S/Z (p. 4):

"For Barthes, the 'classic text' is one which can be read but not written, as opposed to 'what can be written (rewritten) today'; he calls the 'classic text' a 'readerly text,' while the other is called a 'writerly text.' (p. 4)"

Maybe more on S/Z later on.

More Quicksilver musings...

I'm starting to use Quicksilver, although very slowly. I'm not sure if I understand fully how to use it, but right now I'm just launching applications with it. I don't really know how much quicker it is than pointing at things with a mouse, but anyway, I should give it a chance.

Speaking of computer mice, I bought a mouspad for my Apple Optical Mouse, and it's not really good. You might be wondering why I'm using a mousepad in this day and age, but I am. I guess because the Apple mouse is a bit big, there isn't enough room on the pad to move around right. Also (and more importantly), there is a wrist rest with this thing, and the rest is way too high. My poor wrist is already hurting.

I've seen that you are supposed to move a mouse with your arm rather than just your wrist, so the wrist rest isn't going to help me to learn how to properly move a mouse, and it'll probably put out my shoulder in the process.

BTW, you can get quicksilver from here.

Quicksilver

Does anyone out there use Quicksilver for the Macintosh? It's an app launcher, and does a whole slew of other things as well. I would love to learn how to use it but, considering all the other work that I have to do that I'm not doing, I really should get onto that work instead of pretending that I'm going to learn how to use Quicksilver.

I was reading about Barthes and The Pleasure of the Text and, instead of actually rereading the book (which I need to do), I discovered a bit about the way the book is put together: "Dependent on chance, this method [of sections arranged alphabetically, of which "Recuperation" is one] ensures that there is no “argument” which is pursued throughout the text: rather, each section or fragment muses on a problematic, an emotion, or a literary trope." (quote from here).

So that means that, for once, I can actually take something theoretical as it is, rather than considering a greater context, right? FINALLY!!


(or not?)

This will be a boring post (just so you know)

Here's a picture of something that is interesting to me today (search for "polk" at Futureshop.ca and you will find the photo).

So I don't really know what to write today. I read my paper (as it is) to my wife this morning and received positive feedback. It's not done yet, but it's pretty full. As a presentation at a conference, it is certainly shaping up as "part of a larger work." I'll probably use that dreaded term at some point in this paper.

I need to do a bit more research on this paper, especially since it is (dreadedly) "part of a larger work." I need to think a bit more about that larger work.

A little break from Barthes and Feist

I've really been talking alot about "jhai" lately, haven't I? Well, as I have said, the paper is almost done, and I can see how it might become a much longer paper than just a presentation at a conference.

I decided to bind my dissertation through lulu.com, and I received the book yesterday. While the binding and printing job is very good, the book was damaged in shipping (through UPS - see the photo). I should have known not to buy a hard cover book - I haven't had good experiences even through Amazon with hard covers.

Oh, and I ended up returning that iPod shuffle I bought a few weeks ago. There was a strange hum!

Finally, a proper definition of "jhai"

Here is the definition of "jhai" from publicity during the promotion of Let It Die:

"a detached manner of singing especially suited to very emotional material. The emotion is underplayed, never quite lets go and leaves room for the listener to crawl inside."

What is interesting is that, of course, Feist is not the only singer who does this. Our friend Steven Patrick Morrissey also employs similar techniques of vocal delivery.

("Jhai" definition found at the link above - just click on the title of this blog entry)

"Jhai" and Feist's "recuperation"

The reason that one might argue that Feist presents a case of a "third term," as per Barthes, is that she exhibits a moment of destruction in her career, in the form of personal injury. During her time with the punk band Placebo in the 1990s, she began to bleed from her throat due to the high volume and frequency of forced singing during a tour. This forced her to embark on a full year of therapy and recuperation (no pun intended).

It can be argued that this destruction and recuperation resulted in Feist no longer worrying about singing well, that is, with precision. This is part of her notion of "jhai," a label that should not be given too much weight, but one which was apparently marketed in relation to her album "Let it Die." "Jhai" also carries with it a suggestion of relaxed singing, without much worry or stress. More about "jhai" later.

A quick quote from Roland Barthes...

"Art seems compromised, historically, socially. Whence the effort on the part of the artist himself to destroy it." (The Pleasure of the Text, 1975, p. 54)

Barthes continues,

"Unfortunately, this destruction is always inadequate; either it occurs outside the art, but thereby becomes impertinent, or else it consents to remain within the practice of the art, but quickly exposes itself to recuperation (the avant-garde is that restive language which is going to be recuperated)." (p. 54)

Finally, he states,

"what is not directly concerned with destruction, evades the paradigm, and seeks some other term: a third term, which is not, however, a synthesizing term but an eccentric extraordinary term." (p. 55)

Perhaps (and I say this guardedly, since I might not know what I'm talking about) this "third term" in the world of Feist manifests itself in her self-proclaimed singing style "jhai" (pronounced like the letter "J"). More about this later.

Feist paper is coming together

So, in case you didn't know (and as if you cared), a paper I'm writing on Feist is on its way. It's coming together, and almost done. I'm presenting this paper in Boston, and I'm looking at Feist's voice through the lens of Barthes' notion of "recuperation" from his book The Pleasure of the Text. This is hard material, and I need to simplify things for both my own good and the good of the paper.

That's something I need to do: simplify and clarify. If I've learned anything from writing a very long paper (or a couple now, actually), it's that it is hard to do so and keep things clear and NOT complicated. I have trouble with linking paragraphs, especially with the large amount of information that I'm presenting. Also, I've been told that I sometimes present theory with a tenuous link to the object of study to which the theory is being applied.

I'll be back with some quotes from Barthes, to see if you people out there agree or disagree with some of the things he says.

I really need to post more often

I should make it a new year's resolution. Oh, is it March already?

So much for my resolutions. I always make them but I rarely keep them.

Right now I'm looking through some of my comic books that I transported from my parents' house in Ottawa to here in Montreal. I'm trying to decide if I want to keep most of these things that I spent so much money on when I was younger. And most of the books are not worth selling. I have no treasures in my comic book collection.

I remember fondly my time in a theology program in a Pentecostal college while I was reading the Grant Morrison comic "The Invisibles," when I would read the current issue and then discuss it with one of the theology profs there.

I sometimes wish that I was still there. It was hard but fun. Of course, I'm happy to be at the stage of life that I'm at right now, but it's also more difficult now than then. It was a "simpler" time then. (Cliché, I know)

I'll stop my ramblings there. And I should try to post every day.

Final revisions to Final submission (Finally)

I'm just getting around to finishing the final final final revisions to my dissertation. Everything has been accepted now (the minor revisions requested by the defense committee are done and fine) and I'm going through the whole thing checking for last minute spelling mistakes or little grammar things (I've found a few tense problems). Plus I'm checking the page numbers and exporting the whole thing to .pdf to be able to publish a book using Lulu.com. Interestingly, McGill does not give the student a bound copy of the doctoral dissertation. So I'll do it myself.

It's really cold today.

Orange shuffle

I bought myself an orange iPod shuffle yesterday. Despite a few quirks with iTunes, I love it. It's small and beautiful.

BNL last night

The Barenaked Ladies show was nice last night. We were sitting pretty high up, but when we arrived, we couldn't even get into the 300s. We asked the usher and he said that the higher levels were closed and he gave us tickets for the last rows of the reds. So I suppose they didn't get enough sales in the nosebleed sections to warrant them opening it. And I guess they had extra tickets where they put us. The seats were fine.

And the band was great. The sound in the Bell Centre wasn't so great, but it also wasn't too loud (unlike the Morrissey concert we saw in Toronto back in 2004 - I think my ears are still ringing). And an original band member, Andy Creegan, made an appearance, as did Kevin Hearn's dad. They do put on a great show.

As for Morrissey, he's announced a 40 date North American tour. Does this mean he'll visit us seal-clubbing Canadians? I hope so. There are no seals here. And I don't club.

Boy, am I sickly!

I'm sick again. A bad cold. I had one before the defense. Thankfully, the week of the defense, I was sick-free. But after defense, I was hit hard with a cold AGAIN. I mean, really!!

I'm getting a paper ready on our favourite friend Feist for the Boston IASPM conference at the end of April. I have most of that paper written already, although I haven't looked at it in a little while. I'm working on final final (really final) revisions now to my dissertation, which I should really just try to push through and finish up. But with this sickness and all (and Firefly episodes on DVD), I've been putting off.

In other news, I've been in contact with a school out west regarding a possible position - very preliminary. I didn't get a SSHRC grant for a postdoctoral fellowship. I'm waiting on FQRSC. My wife and I are going to see the Barenaked Ladies on Monday night (I'll post a review here), and I have yet to register myself a domain name (so that I can have a real-life website that's not hosted by Yahoo!).

That's all for now.

Done.

After a very difficult defense, it's official. Thanks to all for your thoughts and prayers.

"Please join Dr. Darin Barney, Chair of the Department of Art History and Communication Studies, in congratulating Dr. Nicholas Greco, and his thesis supervisor, Dr. William Straw, on the successful defense of Dr. Greco’s doctoral dissertation, entitled:


“…Only if you’re really interested”: celebrity, gender, desire and the world of Morrissey”


Well done, Nicholas!"

Just to make it official

Hot off the departmental email list:

Dear Graduate Students,

Nicholas Greco’s PhD oral defense will take place:

Date: Friday, February 2, 2007
Place: 853 Sherbrooke Street West
Arts Building , Room W220
Time: Pre-Defense: 14h00
Defense: 14h15

Title: “…Only if you’re really interested”: celebrity, gender, desire and the world of Morrissey

Your presence is welcomed.

Forgive my tardiness in posting...

I'm terribly sick - I have an aweful cold. I suppose this week is better than next (considering I have my doctoral defense next Friday). I'm working on my defense statement, a short presentation that I give at the start of the defense, and it's coming along. I'm not sure if it makes any sense, considering how cobweb-y (cobwebby?) my brain is.

So, I'm getting better, and I'm hoping to write a couple of pages today and finish up the presentation. God help me.

Dyson versus Miele

So we're thinking about getting a new vacuum, maybe not right away but sometime this year. From our research, we were all set to buy a somewhat expensive but effective Dyson DC 07 "All Floors." When we went to the local department store to check one out, the salesperson wanted to sell us an even more expensive Miele (not sure which model, but it was "mango red," a nice colour).

So which one is better? Or is there an even better alternative?

There are some interesting blogs and so forth out there that try to compare the two, but it's a bit like Microsoft versus Apple - people have views and hate the other guy.

So any comments are appreciated. And if some people click on the advertising links at the top of the page, then maybe I can make enough pennies to actually buy one of these vacuums!

Morrissey makes the front page at CNN.com

If you click on the title of this blog entry, you'll be whisked (sp?) off to cnn.com, where our beloved Moz is profiled by CNN as the one that might "cheer up Eurovision." It was nice to see the singer's face on the front page of CNN.com. It should be noted that Morrissey holds Eurovision in a special place in his heart. Early in his life, Morrissey fell in love with Italian singer Gigliola Cinquetti who, with her song Si, placed second at the 1974 Eurofestival. Morrissey seems to appreciate the somewhat kitschy and very uncool notion of the song contest. I write about Morrissey's relationship to song contests, and in particular Italian song contests from the 1970s, in the concluding remarks of my doctoral dissertation.

I did mention that my defense is on February 2nd?

Although I'm not a big fan of mobile phones, does anyone want to buy me a brand new Apple iPhone?



(photo courtesy of apple.com)

Defense date set...

For those waiting with baited breath, my doctoral defense date has been set. Mark Friday, February 2 on your calenders. I'll be defending at 2pm. So now my fate is sealed.

I've set up comment moderating on this blog, but I'm not used to it. So, if you comment but your comment doesn't show up right away, it's probably because I need to let it. So I'll try to do that (or I'll shut off message moderation altogether). EDIT: I've fixed this, so ignore this.

Does anyone out there have .mac? How is it?

Can anyone suggest a cheap domain registration company? Preferably Canadian?

Merry Christmas

Happy holidays and a blessed Christmas to all. Hopefully 2007 will be a peaceful and positive year (and I'll be a doctor by February, fingers crossed). Have a safe next couple of weeks and be back here in January for more thoughts and so forth here on my blog!

Update on the Disney DVDs

I finally got those Disney DVDs I was ranting about the other day. I actually called Amazon and requested a replacement, and the batch I got yesterday was the replacement. The first batch is being enjoyed by someone else, I guess. Thankfully, I received them finally, so I'm happy.

I must say that I really like the wildlife stories. Although I don't necessarily find animal stories fascinating, what is really great is how these things are put together. The music is absolutely fabulous, truly showing examples of "mickey mousing" (no pun intenden), a technique where the music is in sync with the action on the screen. It's great.

Today might be an application day, with the possibility of me completing 4 applications! Imagine me doing work!

Waiting on those DVDs

So Canada Post tracking suggests that the Disney DVDs I talked about last week have been delivered to my house.

The only problem is that they haven't.

Canada Post suggests that they were delivered yesterday, but I was home all day yesterday and there was no sign of them, no ring on the doorbell, no package at the door, nothing. So, where, may I ask, are my DVDs?

Sometimes there are strange little quirks with Amazon.ca and Canada Post, where the tracking will say something like, "details submitted electronically to depot," and that day the package will arrive. But never the other way, where they claim that the package has been delivered and it hasn't. So I give Canada Post another day and then I'm calling them. I'm not particularly impressed.

We've had a few problems with our regular mail as well, but nothing like this, where something is claimed to actually be "delivered" when it most certainly is not.

Ordered those Disney DVDs

Since I'm a total capitalist (it seems), I decided that I wanted to pick up the new Walt Disney Legacy Collection DVDs which feature a bunch of "True-Life Adventures," Disney nature shows. There are 4 full discs of these things, and I felt compelled to pick them up. I have enjoyed the Disney Treasures DVDs that have come out since 2001 or so, although I haven't actually watched all of them yet (there are 22 2-disc sets, as of this Christmas - that's 44 DVDs, around 88 hours probably). Point being, I ordered them. The future releases in the Legacy collection look fabulous, like a DVD of Oswald the rabbit, Mickey's predecessor, plus a Disneyland DVD, and also a DVD of the Salvador Dali-Disney collaboration, Destino. Anyway, Roy Disney, Walt's nephew, is the host on these DVDs.

Since I am a Disney shareholder, I guess I'm investing in a company that I own (1 share).

Same with Apple (2 shares).

That's all.

Two more applications out

A couple of applications sent out today, and so now four are gone with two more to go before Christmas. The excitement never ends.

One step closer to a defense date

My external examiner has passed my thesis, which is good news. Unfortunately, scheduling problems will probably make a pre-Christmas defense impossible. So I am looking forward to a defense in early January.

The job search continues...

Two more applications went out today for positions in a couple of Canadian universities. Both are for jobs in music departments, one without any research requirement (a teaching-only non-tenure track position which looks alright) and another for an enticing position as a post-1950s specialist, with an emphasis in popular music. Here's hoping something comes up. I have my sights on a few more positions that I will be applying for in the next month and a half or so.

I'm plugging away at that Feist paper I mentioned previously. It's coming together well, I think.

I've been listening recently to Mute Math, dredg and Earthsuit (many thanks to M. in Ottawa for the first couple of suggestions).

There are a lot of things going on at A.'s work, which, coupled with my insecurity and the unknown future that we face, is making things difficult. I'll leave it at that. Thankfully we have faith in Christ, which we are relying on.

Any Atheists or those of other religious persuasion who might be offended or bothered by the last comment, feel free to ignore it. I've found that it isn't really easy to believe something, "to have faith that things are going to work out." It really isn't a "crutch," as many used to tell me when I was younger. It's hard to trust in God, for instance. It's something that I struggle with constantly. But, I guess, I choose to struggle with it.

Okay, religious rant over.

First paper proposal on Feist is out!

I've sent an interesting proposal for a paper to a conference in April of 2007, on Leslie Feist and Roland Barthes. It's a very difficult text (Barthes), and it's funny that I'm becoming a Barthesian scholar, of sorts. Anyway, I'm sure the paper could be interesting, discussing Feist's change of style from punk (with the band Placebo - the less popular one) to a softer style. This change was apparently due to a vocal injury (yes, injury rears its ugly head again - if you don't know what I mean, take a look at my MA thesis on Bowie and body modification, or read a chapter in my upcoming dissertation). So, that's out and hopefully I'll be speaking at that conference.

It's funny but I do think that Barthes is an interesting scholar. I didn't really get S/Z the first time I read through it, but after spending time with it in my final dissertation chapter, I think he really paints a vivid picture of what is happening at every little moment in reading a text. The Pleasure of the Text is also a difficult read, with lots of big words, but I think there are interesting points in there for figuring out how we derive pleasure from certain texts. Um, or whatever.

(the photo of Feist above is from her appearance in New York in the summer of 2006, that originally appeared on the allthingsfeist.com website)

Happily waiting (sort of)

Waiting to hear about when my defence date will be. I'm hoping that a date will be set sooner than later, since a few things are now riding on having that date. It is difficult to have so many unknowns in the air at one time. And it's not like things are going to get really clear in a week or two. The first opportunity for clarity will be in February when SSHRC publishes the competition results.

Thankfully, there are still things I need to be working on, although it is hard to work on them when I am discouraged. I have to write some paper proposals (almost done) for two conferences in 2007, and I am putting together some applications for a few positions here and there in universities. Those applications will be much better the minute I have a defense date. And they'll be even better when I actually defend.

On a lighter note, my family was here over the weekend for my cousin's wedding. The wedding itself was nice, and the family visit was also very enjoyable. My mother told me that she was reading my dissertation, which is nice. That's all the news for now.

Saints and things

I've been tagged by T.O. by one of these meme thingies. It's the first I've done, and I'm going to have trouble with it, so here goes.

If you were invited to a Halloween/All Saints Day Costume Party, which saint would you dress up as and why? (The Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, is not an option.)

Although I don't really know many Saints (consider this a byproduct of my Evangelical Protestant upbringing), I might choose to be dressed as Saint Sebastian. Over at Wikipedia, Saint Sebastian is described as a martyr often depicted as tied to a post and shot through with arrows. On that same wikipedia page, there is a reference to a book by Chipp Kidd, in which a character is "expelled from Sunday Bible study for making a St. Sebastian toothpick holder in crafts." I would LOVE to have a Saint Sebastian toothpick holder.

Which saint or other person would accompany you to the party?

Maybe Robin Hood or someone with a quiver empty of arrows. Or maybe someone dressed as Oscar Wilde, since Seb is apparently considered the patron saint of homosexuals. There is speculation (according to wikipedia, anyway) that Sebastian himself was gay.

What famous quote would help others identify you?

Um . . . "I've been shot by arrows because I was nice to Christians being sent to their death for their beliefs, but I'm still alive and I'm going to be healed by another saint, but I'll be clubbed to death later on."

I'm really not good at this.

Describe your costume.

FULL OF ARROWS.

Which movie or film best depicts the life of this saint?

Apparently, V from the movie "V for Vendetta" has a painting of Saint Sebastian in the Shadow Gallery. Does that count?

What is your favorite book written about this saint or that he or she has written?

Dunno. Like I said, I'm not good at this, but I thought I would give it a go. Plus, someone near and dear to my heart was depicted in the same way as Saint Sebastian (see photo above).

Postdoctoral applications away

SSHRC and FQRSC applications are in the mail as of today, a few days before the deadlines. Now we wait and pray that everything goes well. SSHRC announces the fellowship winners in February, and FQRSC announces winners in April. I am looking forward to working at a university, so I hope these things come through. As some of you who read my blog might know, there seems to be a real difficulty for those in the discipline of music to get one of these grants in recent years. Hopefully this changes this time around.

The Stinky Pipe (and our stinky sink)

So we have the plumber here taking apart our sink and stuff, due to some problems with food and suds backing up into our sink, although we are very careful to not put anything in our drain. In looking for the blockage in the main pipe (which in turn causes ours to back up), the plumber noticed that the pipe leading to our sink was completely rusted, and needed to be replaced. I've posted a picture of our yuck-filled pipe. I'm sure he'll be here fixing it until well after 8pm.

My sister got a Mac mini today. It's much much faster than mine.

still working on my applications

It's interesting how when one is working on a short piece regarding future work it can be difficult to revise said piece. I received some very valuable feedback on my "program of work" (aka proposal) but I'm having trouble actually making changes. The good thing is that the changes are relatively minor (although when a piece is only a couple of pages, a minor change is major). So, in case you were wondering, I'm still working on it.

I did receive some great feedback regarding what I would do during my post-doc and who I would be working with. I'm terribly excited, although I'm not even done with the applications.

Has anyone heard about how Google can delete Adsense accounts immediately with little warning (and with questionable accusations of abuse) and thus take back the total monetary gain received through the life of the account (I suppose under the elusive $100 needed to actually receive the money) even if it was gained legally? If this happens for some reason (say that I inadvertantly reload my blog page too many times) and they delete an account, then Google and its advertisers have "rented" adspace on your page FOR FREE for months.

Just thought I would rant. Feel free to comment.

Also, I thought I would just put my 2 cents in. I haven't read the original academic presentation that the Pope gave at a German university last week, but I support him. I think that his apology for any inadvertant offense should be accepted. People offend others all the time, in areas of religion and culture, and our world would be a better place if all people accepted apologies and tried to live WITH others rather than AGAINST.

Sorry for the delay...

For those very few of you who actually read this little blog, I would like to apologize for my tardiness in getting another post out. I've been "working" on my proposal for the various postdoctoral funding agencies. And I'm not enjoying it. I guess I feel a bit of pressure when around $90,000 is riding on a 2 page single-spaced proposal on work that I haven't even started. Anyway, I have a couple of pages now and I'm just going to put in a paragraph regarding the university I'm wanting to attend for this, and then I'll send it off to my current supervisor to check over before I send it off to the professors in Ottawa to have a quick look-over.

Then I have to take a look at the applications again and start putting those together in earnest. And get in touch with the professors that might give me recommendations.

My sister and her husband are getting a mac mini (computer), much like my own, except a newer model. I'm actually jealous.

I've been listening to a lot of Mortal and Adam Again recently. A friend suggested that the music that we think is the best as we get older is the music we were listening to when we were 17. So, I was 17 in 1990-91. Well, his theory sort of holds up, but not quite. I like the music I was listening to just after this time. Although I was a huge Daniel Amos and Randy Stonehill fan in high school and that has stuck with me. There's nothing like Adam Again's Dig and Perfecta though.

the morning after

So now that things have settled down, I'm still a bit uneasy. Not because I lost anything in that .rar overwriting episode - I didn't lose anything - but just because it's over now. I'm not done though. I still have my post-doc stuff to do, and I'm quite worried about that.

I am proud of my work, though. I think that my dissertation is an important foray into the nature of celebrity and a certain kind of star image, able to elicit desire by using certain strategies. And it leads nicely to future work on the voice and how one might approach its study theoretically (rather than simply using adjectives to describe a voice).

I've backed up my work on CD now (and putting it in a fire safe), and I've put it onto my USB key. So does anyone have any suggestions for FREE online storage which accepts more that a 10mb upload at a time? My dissertation weighs in at ~20mbs in total.

I'm thinking of buying an external HD as well - we'll see if this is worth it.

post-submission thoughts

Now that the paper has been handed in, I feel a bit better. It seems the strange things that happened to some of the files (corrections that didn't stick) had to do with some "rar" files that I had lying around, as backups for the dissertation. When these files were expanded by accident, they overwrote the existing files. Luckily this happened very late in the process of printing, but unfortunately I only realized what happened now.

So a few spelling mistakes in my appendices got through to the committee. And hopefully, post-defense, I can take a look at one of the printed copies to make sure that my "masters" here are correct before submitting a final copy to the school.

No big deal, really. But I guess I shouldn't have had those rar files hanging around, and for sure, the program shouldn't have overwritten the old files. That's just stupid.

So, really, it's the program's fault.

Anyway, everything's fine now.

Did I mention I'm done?

Done

I'm submitting today. Everything is ready to go and I just have to sign some forms with my advisor, and hand in my 7 copies this afternoon.

Then I have to go to the dentist.

As for the printing process, it was smoother than I expected. Unfortunately, we had some page numbering problems (changes we made that didn't seem to stick - weird), and other corrections that didn't register. This morning, when I printed out a copy for myself, one of the photos didn't show up, so I had to fix that. When the final document is cleared post-defense, I'll have to go through it pretty completely to make sure that everything is right.

Anyway, now I wait for the defense, which should happen some time before Christmas.

Would anyone like to write a couple of post-doctoral fellowship applications for me?

I'm handing in another draft today

Well, I'm off to school to hand in a draft of the complete dissertation for my professor to take a look at. I'm hoping this is the last major revision, but I'm a bit worried with the additional pages that I've included. I think that 20 pages for a chapter might seem a bit short in the context of the other chapters, but, then again, I've stuck it in the middle of the dissertation, so it shouldn't stand out. The shorter chapter (essentially dealing with the celebrity in a non-mediated context - live performance - although some might argue that a concert is still mediated because the singer is singing through a microphone - whatever) follows, and is followed by, a strong chapter, so things should be okay.

I'm scared, though.

Too much on my plate right now. I HAVE to get going on my post-doc applications. Getting going is difficult when you have no idea how you're going to write the proposals for said applications.

Almost done

Well, 18 full pages later, I'm almost done this new "chapter." It's going to end up being maybe 20 or so pages (perhaps 21), so it'll be shorter than the other chapters, but it's also in between the longer ones, so it won't be as noticeable. It'll bring my page count up, and more importantly, it'll look at particular characteristics of Morrissey's live performance which "colour" his star image.

Once this stuff is put together, I have to get on my work on a proposal for post-doctoral work, involving a new theoretical approach to the singing voice, using the Canadian songstress Feist as a case.

Stuck on something again

Okay, so some of you might know that Morrissey often whips his microphone cord around like a crazy person when he is performing, as if he was whipping even himself. This might just be dancing, but does anyone know if there is anything out there about flailing around? In case anyone is wondering, he doesn't look particularly effeminate when he is doing this, so I'm not sure if it's a "camp" gesture or not. I guess it being an exaggerated gesture would put it into camp territory, but I just don't know.

So I'm stuck. I should just leave a couple of blank lines and keep going on the next thing, but I don't want to.

AAARGH! (frustration - or a pirate - nope, just frustration)

[image from the morrissey-solo.com galleries]

"pushing" vibrato

So, I'm not sure if anyone notices, but sometimes when someone sings, and they push a lot of air through their voice, they can force their vibrato. Actually, I think it's more of a succession of glottal stops or something. Anyway, Morrissey does this in concert. It sounds like a flutter, but it isn't his normal vibrato. He turns his normal vibrato off and then does this "glottal stop" thing, perhaps pushing more air through.

Maybe I'm not making sense, but does anyone else do this kind of thing? Any musicologists out there run into articles about this kind of vocal gesture? I would think not, since such a thing would be completely against bel canto singing style.

I've started talking about it by using Robert Walser's idea of electric guitar distortion, where power is pushed through an amplifier, basically causing it to fail, and thus distort the sound. For Walser, this is not actually a sign of failure, but rather of power and expression. So maybe this is what is happening with Morrissey, except that his voice doesn't crack or anything - he seems to be doing this himself, taking control over his normal vibrato with the glottal work.

What do you think?

In case you were wondering...

If you would like to check out my website, you can. It's at:

http://ca.geocities.com/nicholas_greco/

I have to write another chapter for my dissertation. 212 pages isn't enough apparently. That's okay. I'm still planning to be done before September.

Back from my weekend away for Canada Day

I hope anyone who celebrated Canada Day had a nice one on Saturday. I was in front of the Parliament buildings when the Snowbirds (the Canadian Forces aerobatic team) did a fly-by. A tear literally came to my eye! It was great. I'm a sap for planes flying over my head in a display of patriotism!

I also had a very interesting conversation with some friends over the Pentecostal Church and its current views on moral issues and its current move toward inclusivity, favouring ministry to the community over perhaps "fire and brimstone"-type, or "call to holiness"-type preaching. We also discussed the lack of theological support at higher levels of the church, which probably leads to a lot of problems or incertainties when dealing with moral issues and so forth. I guess the Pentecostals aren't as "Biblically conservative" as I would have thought previously - and maybe I'm using the term incorrectly anyway.

So that was a bit of an eye-opener.

In other news, the dissertation revision is done and the draft has been delivered. Hopefully it is in good shape and there isn't much to do to it before submitting it to the department for reading.

Still working...

Well, after a fun weekend with a visit from my parents, sister and brother-in-law, plus little Giulietta, my beautiful niece, it's now time for me to do some work. I've been struggling over changes to my theory chapter on gender, spectacle and celebrity. Now I'm looking for stuff on crooning, since there are gender issues that are raised when a crooning singer is considered.

Anyone know anything about this?

Thanks again for all the comments from my visitors. I appreciate the input. Watch this space for more (although some of the religious comments that I've made in the last few days have been difficult for me, and just get me fired up).

By the way, although I am of Italian descent, I don't think I really appreciate the victory of the Italians over Australia yesterday in the World Cup. I've heard the various commentaries regarding the fairness of calling a penalty shot basically after extra time, but I still don't like it. Plus, in my neighbourhood, there was honking and carrying on for hours afterwards.

So, no, I'm not cheering for Italy. Just 'cuz. Go England!!

Wow, lots of visitors

Thank you for the wealth of response from my posting yesterday (and T.O.'s posting at her own site). I appreciate the insight that many provided in the comments section. I was afraid that things would get heated, but thankfully things were calm. Although, I feel that the debate has now moved to the similarities or differences between the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican/Episcopalian Church.

My concerns are the differences between the less conventional, yet still mainstream, Protestant churches, like the Baptists, Pentecostals and so forth. I am also quite interested in the Biblically "conservative" churches, of which the two denominations I mentioned are a part. I'm not sure that I would include the United Church, or even recent movements within the Anglican Church as part of that group.

I think that this "conservative" group, which is not without its own problems (which I might talk about in another post), would have a lot of trouble with the Roman Catholic Church, not only because of theological differences (as was mentioned in yesterday's post) but also because of the role played by, not only a hierarchical system, but Tradition (with a big 'T').

Interestingly, the Pentecostal Church has some tradition, but because of its relative newness (100 years this year as a defined church, marking its beginning with the revivals at the Asuza Street Mission in California), we don't like to call it that. Nevertheless, they (we?) accept the Bible, although its construction happened a long time ago (before the Reformation). I guess you have to have a standard somewhere, and perhaps these Protestants feel that the assembly of the Bible was early enough to be "unscathed" by the "big-T" Tradition that ultimately caused the Reformation.

Maybe that's what they think. Again, my history might be suspect. Feel free to comment and correct me. Just don't be mean.

One more thing: recently, I have decided to be more involved in the Mass that I attend each week by kneeling during the consecration, something which I didn't do previously. In one community I was attending, we would stand during consecration due to the lack of kneelers, and I had no trouble with standing. Kneeling, I somehow have (or had) trouble with. So I would just sit. Now I've decided to kneel. I feel that perhaps I can kneel as a sign, not necessarily as an acknowledgement of the priest's actions, but rather out of worship and respect for Christ and his sacrifice. I take that time, while the priest speaks and recites Jesus' words, to pray and thank God for sending his Son, and for the shed blood of Christ which is my salvation.

So, in a sense, I am being open to the presence of Christ.

Theological musings

While I don't often get into theological conversations on this blog (or any real substantial musings, for that matter), I read T.O.'s blog this morning at it got me thinking (you can get there by following the link to the right to LAMLand).

She recounts a recent experience where a group of Protestant Christians asked her if she would feel comfortable with receiving communion with them during a short prayer time before a mutual class. As a practising Catholic, she declined.

I often feel like I need to qualify the "practising" part of "Catholic." As a Protestant Christian of the Evangelical and Charismatic nature (read "Pentecostal," -shudder-), in my mind a Catholic that doesn't practice is nothing. There are no Pentecostals who are non-practising, probably because you would never subscribe to that community if you didn't "have to."

Anyway, back to the discussion of communion. I've been going through a similar situation every Sunday when I attend Catholic Mass. I don't partake of the Eucharist because I have differing beliefs on its function (as a sacrament) and its form (as the body and blood of Christ).

By the way, for those Christians out there that might find my vocabulary lacking or irreverent, please forgive me. I haven't formally discussed issues of theology since around 1995, when I left my year of theological study in 1995. And I've been doing a lot of other stuff since then. Plus, I'm relatively new to Catholic theology.

One of the comments left on that other blog cited John 6 as a foundation for Eucharist as the body and blood of Christ, and its power. Someone once asked me how Pentecostals interpret Jesus' words at the last supper ("This is my body . . . this is my blood"). How then can the Pentecostals, who are so apparently Biblically "Conservative," not believe in the bodily presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and look at communion only as symbolic?

I can't answer that. It's true that Jesus makes a pretty clear point regarding his "body" and "blood" in John 6, and during that presentation of the bread and wine before his betrayal at the last supper. I still feel that there is a problem with the Catholic sense of eucharist as sacrament, and this probably comes from my upbringing, without ANY sacraments, in the sense of "grace-giving" actions.

My point (and I don't think I'm doing a good job at expressing much here) is that, if Catholics want a unified Church, which we pray for at every Mass, I'm not sure that it would be in the form some of them might want it to be. After years of separation, with some beliefs being particularly different, dialogue would force a kind of synthesis (let's pretent that Protestantism is Catholicism's antithesis).

Will there ever be that kind of dialogue? I doubt it; not before both sides (and, in truth, there are more than just 2 sides) understand that there are other true believers in Christ.

That's all. Feel free to comment, but don't be mad at me. I'm having too much trouble with revisions to one of my chapters, and I would rather not be yelled at.

Stanley Cup Champions!

Congratulations to the Carolina Hurricanes on winning the Stanley Cup in seven games against a very impressive Edmonton Oilers. Too bad that the Cup couldn't come back to Canada where it belongs. Good game, though.

wet naps (or moist towelettes)

Those of you who know me know that I collect wet naps (or maybe you didn't know that - now you know). I found a great site that has a gallery of wet naps at moist-towelette.com. I think this person has many hundreds of wet naps, while I'm in possession of just over 100 unique examples (different numbers on the back of wet naps count for me). This one shown here is a recent addition and quite possibly one of my favourites.

If anyone happens to have interesting moist towelettes and they want to send them to me, throw a comment to me!

Dune, the book and movie

I don't know if any of you know of Frank Herbert's science-fiction book _Dune_, but anyway, I really like it. I ordered the DVD of the Lynch-directed movie from Amazon.ca and received it a few days ago. It seems that Universal used what are called DVD-18 for this title, which is a DVD that you have to flip over to see more movie or features. It's like sticking 2 dual-layer DVDs back to back. Well, it seems that this process is far from perfect. I sent mine back to Amazon after it was skipping in my player, and when I received the replacement this morning, it happens to skip as well. So it's going back. One more try and then I'll ask for my money back. It is a good movie, though, if not a bit weird (and ever so slightly dated).

As for my other work, I'm still trying to fix up one of my chapters for publication. Ugh!

Nelly Furtado's "Loose"

Well, it certainly is a departure from "Folklore" and I'm not sure if I appreciate the "urban" influence on this album. It's growing on me, though. Nelly (Furtado) is someone I always thought I would like to write about. She's the perfect studio performer. The times I've seen her perform live (on television), she's been terrible. But her studio work is fabulous.

My wife and I watched a clip of Morrissey from the Jools Holland show last night (he was on the show earlier this month) and he looks old, although not in a bad way. He is wearing a full suit, cufflinks and a bowtie, which is a new look for him. Interestingly, the music is very heavy, and Moz is extremely active, even in a tux.

Today I'm going to try to get one of my chapters in shape to send out to another journal for consideration. Hopefully something can be published. Here's to today!

Blogroll

Does anyone know how to do this? How do I put in links into my Blogger blog page? Why am I having so much trouble?

I think I'm a geek. I think I know a bit about computers and electronics. I enjoy this stuff. So why am I having trouble with Blogger? And something as simple as links and blogrolls?

By the way, those who might be interested in popular music, if you haven't heard of Leslie Feist (or just Feist), she's great. There's probably no way that you could escape from hearing the hit "Inside + Out" on the radio - that's her. I would like to do a postdoctoral fellowship on developing a theoretical framework to discuss the voice and its "allure." While many would look to Roland Barthes and his "grain of the voice," I would hope there would be a more elegant way of approaching the singing voice in particular, and what might be attractive about it. Or something.

Back from Congress and the Apple Store!

So I saw the new MacBooks and they are nice. Not sure if I'll pick one up (my accountant/wife has already severely limited my allowance).

As for Congress, it was probably one of the best conferences I have ever been to. I found out that SSHRC (the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada) doesn't give out that many Post-Doctoral Fellowships, but that, if I can get one, the University of Ottawa would be happy to have me, come September 2007 (or earlier). I'm happy about this.

What I'm not happy about is the apparent saturation of popular music studies in Canadian universities, where some departments are simply allowing history survey courses in popular music (the ones that attract many many students) and thus are hiring sessional people to teach these. As for the expansion of musicology departments to include upper level seminars in popular music, um, it's not happening.

So here I am.

Tomorrow I'm going with V. to eat hot dogs, and maybe we'll stop by Best Buy to see if the MacBooks are out. I wouldn't mind seeing the black ones again. Before I go, dear readers, should we go to Walt Disney World in the fall? We have a chance. We just have to decide.

Getting ready to go to Congress 2006

I'm just putting the finishing touches on my paper for the Canadian University Music Society conference at York University next week, part of the big and mysterious Congress 2006 put up by SSHRC. I'm presenting on Tuesday morning. My paper is about Morrissey and his enigmatic character, and the song "Don't Make Fun of Daddy's Voice." Right now the paper is a bit too long, but I'll cut it down tonight.

I'm hoping that, at some point, between the conference and visiting my family in Hamilton, we'll be able to go to the Apple Store in Toronto (Eaton Centre, I guess). We're planning to go, but when things get busy, you never know what plan might have to be scrapped. I've only visited one Apple store in my life, the New York SoHo location, and I enjoyed it. I even bought stuff - a wired Apple keyboard and mouse. I would like to see the replacement for the iBook, the Macbook. Best Buy here in Montreal doesn't have any of them yet.

We saw "The DaVinci Code" last night. I'm not sure what the Church is so afraid of with this thing. It's pretty much a snooze-fest. It's not the worst movie I've seen (I liked Audrey Tautou's character) but it's about as good as the book. The book was more exciting.

Got my headset, plus another joke

I picked up a CyberAcoustics AC-840 usb headset and it seems to work fine with Skype. I called my parents and Anto called hers, and they can hear us fine, so now it's time to cancel our long distance plan for now.

I have a quick joke for you, dear reader. I read it on some joke site for cancer victims, and it states that it is a bit distasteful, but I think it's funny.

A doctor calls his patient and says, "I have some bad news for you. You have terminal cancer." The patient replies, "Oh. That's terrible." The doctor says, "Well, you also have alzheimer's." The patient replies, "Well, at least I won't die of cancer."

Get it?

usb headset or microphone?

I'm looking to take advantage of Skype and free calls to land lines until the end of the year, but my mini has no audio input or microphone, so I have to find a usb microphone or headset. I notice that Best Buy sells inexpensive headsets for the PS2 that are USB, but I'm not sure if they would work with a Macintosh. They also sell cheap bluetooth headsets (the logitech express is the one I was looking at) but I'm not sure if that's any good either. Anyway, if you have any suggestions, leave me a message. Thanks.

Oh, and happy birthday to Antonella on the 17th, and Julia and Carrie around this time too. And Happy Victoria Day (or Jour des Dollards or whatever it's called in Quebec).

Macbooks are here!

So Apple released new MacBooks today, to replace the iBook. They look very nice except for the glossy screen, which I'm not sure I like. As some others have said, my failing eyes might not be able to take all the glare that might accompany a glossy screen. Otherwise, they're beautiful laptops and I wouldn't mind picking one up.

I'm working through my fifth and last chapter of my dissertation, but I need to go through the whole thing again, taking into account my supervisor's comments on the first three sections of the paper. I also need to revise my conclusions, and, since I'm presenting at a conference in 2 weeks, I need to write something new. If I want to include this new material, I might need to change the order of my chapters. This isn't that big of a deal, but I'm used to the order as it is and I'm afraid to change it.

I guess that's what happens, though. I wish someone would have told me that this process is difficult before I started.

No Macbooks and another joke ...

From Mr. Kotter:

My Uncle Herman used to always fight with my Aunt Eunice, and she used to tell people, "I'm going to be dancing on his grave when he goes! I'm going to be dancing on his grave!" When Uncle Herman heard about this, he said, "I'm going to be buried at sea. Let her dance."

ooo-hoo hoo ha ha. That Gabe Kotter really is funny.

As for MacBooks, the rumour sites say they'll come out next week. This kind of rumour could go on forever.

(Click on my links)

new macbooks tomorrow?

For those of you who might care, there are rumours that Apple will be releasing new iBooks tomorrow, rebranded as MacBooks. As a past iBook owner, these computers hold a special place in my heart. Let's hope they look nice.

As for me, I'm struggling with my work today. I haven't done very much, but I need to get on this stuff to try to submit in a timely manner. I'm talking about my PhD dissertation, for those of you coming in late.

I'll post again tomorrow with a bit more insight, instead of these boring posts. I might even find a funny joke from Welcome Back, Kotter.

A friend from the past...

I got an email from a friend today that I haven't heard from in a while. Actually, I've heard from a couple of people recently that I haven't heard from in a long time. This was a surprise, though, because he found me by my website. And he called me "quite a scholar"! Nice. Anyway, Kev, nice to hear from you.

As for all you other people who know me and pass by this blog, leave comments or take a look at my website (the address is in another post below) and CLICK ON THE AD ABOVE AND DO SOME CLICKING WHILE YOU'RE THERE. Then I'll make money (not really a lot of money, but I want to see how much I can make).

Adsense

So I've added one of these adsense things to this blog, so now there is advertising on here. I thought, "Maybe I can make money from this and buy a new computer!" I'm not sure that will happen. Well, if you're here, why don't you click on the ad, and make sure you click around a bit when you get there, and make me some money? Thanks in advance!

Another joke...

As if I'm such a funny guy that I should be posting jokes on my blog.

From "Welcome Back, Kotter":

My aunt and uncle got a letter from my cousine Gertrude. She wrote,

"Dear mom and dad,

I'm having a great time at school, except that I fell last week and hurt my leg. I would have told you sooner, except that my doctor said it wasn't a big deal. I should be up and walking within a year ot two. And anyway, I have a nice friend who has been helping me out. His name is Tony and he is kind to me. We'll be getting married in July; he wanted to wait a bit longer, but now we have to get married. He's looking for a job and hopefully he'll get one soon.

Anyway, don't worry too much about me.

Love,
Gertrude

P.S. None of the things I said in this letter are true. It's just that I got a D in History and I thought I would put it in its proper perspective."


Oooh, hoo, hoo, ha ha ha. Funny stuff, that Mr. Kotter.

Visit my new website at: http://ca.geocities.com/nicholas_greco/

Sorry for the absence . . .

Things have been crazy. My diss. is one big piece right now, and I'm working to make it ready for defense. It's very difficult, though. I'm speaking at the Canadian University Music Society conference in May at York, so if you're there, drop by and say hello.

I've been watching "Welcome Back, Kotter" on TV at lunchtime lately. It's a funny show.

That's all.