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.