Feb 19, 2018
American popular music, an introduction. Before this lecture, I was blissfully ignorant about the very beginnings of American popular music. I enjoyed several kinds of music and had a faint idea of the genres that influenced them, but that was it. I guess I was kind of like the Eloi at the buffet table in H.G. Wells’ 1895 novel, The Time Machine. I didn’t care where it came from, it was good. That all changed with this lecture.
Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s meant Looney Toons cartoons on occasion. Did kids of that era know who Al Jolson was? No. We’d see a guy in blackface on his knee singing “Mammy” behind Bugs Bunny and just ignore it. That may be a lighthearted observation, but there’s nothing lighthearted (or shallow, for that matter) about the phenomenon of minstrel singers and the practice of performing in blackface. It’s a puzzlement for me.
It’s safe to say learning about minstrel shows is a level of disturbing I’ve never experienced before. Blackface performing is a form of insanity, on the part of both the audiences and performers alike. All the explanations as to “why” that were given make sense from an intellectual standpoint. In practice, though, I keep asking myself, ‘What were they thinking?,” and “Who thought that was a good idea?”. I’m so grateful it went out of style. Or it sort of did. The value of this queasy lesson is the ability to see today’s pop culture through a different lens. Blackface never entirely went away, it just lost the burnt cork and greasepaint.
Learning about beats, specifically the 1-3 and 2-4 beats, explains why I was always getting out of step when marching all those years ago. Damn that John Philip Sousa.
Feb 21, 2018
An important take-away from the minstrel show lecture: pop culture vs. political culture. Pop culture is about mixing and integration. Political culture is about enforced segregation. An introduction to Ralph Ellison, a man working between the worlds of European classic music and southern US-based blues. As Miller said in this book, “Segregating Sound,” There’s often more diversity among those in a defined group than between those from different groups. The groups exist in large part because of the political culture that divides us.
Dirt vs. soil is sort of like noise vs. signal. Humans are organizing animals (after adolescence), and thinking is the act of “placing stuff.” Boundary transgressing animals (BTA) are an interesting concept. If we have no category for it, it’s either a demon or deity.
Ritualized inversions of normality. This may explain minstrel shows, but it’s still no excuse for them. They’re way beyond the reasonable threshold of queasiness.
“Dr. Plecker, 86, Rabid Racist, Killed by Auto” from the Richmond Afro-American newspaper. We should be thankful he never rose to a higher position of power than he did. His acts cannot be undone, but fortunately his policies have. Just as we remember and celebrate those who’ve advanced our society, so should we never forget those whose life’s work was to drag us down.