Early spring 2022 tiny letter
Dave Black, R.I.P.
I grew up in Madison, left for college and post-college life in the Twin Cities for 10 years, then returned in 2001. I took a job on campus, and reconnected to downtown music and cultural scenes. Highlights included seeing Stars in a cramped, quirky café just a stone's throw from my office. Their music is harmonious, smooth, and nostalgic, but the gig was so cramped it almost felt like a mosh pit.
Also: playing my first and last open mic — three poorly rehearsed instrumentals — to indifferent undergrads, and being part of the resurrection of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's student radio station, WSUM 91.7FM.
Years prior, the University had a student radio station in one form or another, in recent years it had all but faded. As a graduate student in journalism, Dave Black, along with his colleagues, spearheaded a monumental, marathon effort to re-create the station. Dave believed in the power and value of radio, for music, for journalism, and for building community. He plugged away at this effort throughout the 1990s, getting University approval in 1995, a radio tower built in 2001, finally getting the station on the air in 2002.
I had the pleasure of meeting Dave a few months prior to the station's FM launch. I helped with the combination press conference/celebration, where a UW bigwig said a few words, and then flipped a giant “Frankenstein switch” I had tracked down from a local collector of antique electrical equipment. (It wasn’t actually wired to anything.) Later, I had my first experience of DJing a show where I got to play whatever I wanted. Every music nerd's dream—here's some Japanese death metal, and I found this acoustic Radiohead cover band that sings in French, and also you have to hear this New Orleans funk quartet…
Dave served as General Manager of the station from its first day until his retirement last fall. Before my stint at UW-Madison Communication Arts ended, I wrote an article highlighting his long support for the department and its undergrads and grad students.
I knew Dave to be perpetually overextended. As the only full-time employee of the radio station, he wore far too many hats, handling everything from operations to co-teaching radio production and journalism. At times it was hard to pin him down for a meeting. But Dave was always happy to see you, and he was constantly helping others with encouragement, mentorship, referrals across a very wide network, or just the right joke to make your day.
Dave Black passed away in February, just a few months after retiring. I know he dealt with some very serious health issues, but that only gives context to this loss, not justice. It's easy to lionize people who have passed, and ignore all the things you didn't like about them. I'm sure some people have their gripes with Dave, but the people I interviewed, and so many others, have spoken of him with great praise. He was just a really kind and helpful person, and his passing is a great loss for the community.
Thanks again, x-ray.fm!
It’s the radio station that keeps on giving. This is the third or fourth artist I've discovered while listening. To me it sounds a bit like a hybrid of styles — it has some of that jazz fusion sound I like, while not being too out there. The video is kind of pointless, just listen. I'm waiting for this album to be released.
Hitsville
1970s…and fresh…and lyric writing
I’m currently volunteer teaching a lyric writing course to a handful of Detroit-based high school students, remotely. Two observations:
I enjoy teaching, and I am especially curious what kind of material the students will come up with. Most of their musical references are likely tangential to mine.
Zoom class sucks! We should of course be thankful that remote learning is possible, and those of us with good equipment and fast Internet should be grateful for it. But it is no substitute for face-to-face learning. It's just the best alternative we have. (I recognize I am about two years late to this party…but I assure you I had sympathy for teachers all along…)
One of the first things we cover is song structure, rules and conventions—and I explain that it helps to know the rules before you break them. This track was featured at the end of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. It sounded incredibly fresh, but it's from 1975. Art for Art’s Sake has three verses and two bridges, not a usual song structure.
Paul and I have discussed dream careers, and I think that Music Supervisor fits that bill. The job, in large part, is to watch footage from a TV show or movie, and figure out what songs, or parts of songs, fit the mood of a particular scene. You might bring in anything from obscure indie rock to Debussy or Brahms. This could be one of the few jobs where having a broad musical sensibility and vocabulary could actually get you paid.
Brilliant, quotable memoir
Author Jami Attenberg describes what many of us would call an extended early adulthood. Long after most people have settled into families and conventional careers, she is still couch surfing, traveling, finding and quitting jobs, writing all the while. She sometimes questions her choices, but stays energized by the challenge and pleasures of writing. This is an excellent, vulnerable memoir, with quotable parts throughout. Just a few:
We receive so much from other writers when they show us how it's done. When they position a character's heart directly on the page for us, when they're inventive in form or structure, or emotionally true in a way that feels radical in its familiarity…all of this shows us how to do it ourselves, how it's possible, also it emboldens us, releases us from our fears about our own work.
On a trip to Italy, following a breakup:
The next day I walked down back streets in the Quarteri Spragnoli where the laundry hung in lines across the streets. I talked to no one. I was extremely in my head the whole time. I was exhilarated to be there, but I was in my head. I walked miles and miles, I could not stop moving. I was trying to walk him off, and also walk off the version of myself that couldn't let him go. That kind of me, the one that would be stuck on someone. I wanted the other version of me. The one who was always able to do this. Break up with someone and never look back. If I kept walking long enough I would leave that other person behind.
And…
Whenever my life turns into any kind of cliché, I am furious. Not me, I want to scream. Not me, I am special and unusual. But none of us are special and unusual. Our stories are all the same. It is just how you tell them that makes them worth hearing again.
I came all this way to meet you: writing myself home, by Jami Attenberg
Denialism: what is it, and how should scientists respond?
HIV does not cause AIDS. The world was created in 4004 BCE. Smoking does not cause cancer. And if climate change is happening, it is nothing to do with man-made CO2 emissions. Few, if any, of the readers of this journal will believe any of these statements. Yet each can be found easily in the mass media.
A few weeks ago, I ran into a local musician at the grocery store. This was before the mask mandate had been lifted, but I noticed he wasn't wearing one. I asked him about this, and he very quickly spun off into conspiracy theory territory. However, our discussion was respectful, and I credit him for that.
Intellectually, and academically, the idea of conspiracy theories, and people who follow them, is fascinating. And if we are talking about something relatively harmless, like the “faked” moon landing, it's even amusing. Unfortunately, the current crop of conspiracy theories around vaccination lead directly to suffering and loss of life.
The linked article outlines specific tactics that denialists use to advance their positions.
And here's an extra, I only learned of it recently, but you will notice it next time you suffer through someone’s nonsense. It's called the “Gish gallop,” a strategy named after someone named Gish. Essentially, you just keep throwing more and more information out, piling it on, and since no one can fact check these things in real time, it might lead you to the mistaken belief that this person is actually correct, or at least cause you to doubt your position. This also means that rebutting their points after requires an enormous amount of time and research. To quote the old meme, “ain't nobody got time for that.” In short, the strategy is to overwhelm with information, even if all of it is wrong. I believe this technique is often used by people who perceive themselves to be smart, or want to appear smart, but aren't actually smart—at least not in the domains they are addressing. Also, a favorite recent term: “YouTube epidemiologist.”
Denialism: what is it, and how should scientists respond?
Closing quotes
"I think the biggest thrill in life is to have a dream or imagine something and then get to see it be real. There's nothing like that."
- Francis Ford Coppola
Great source article here, but it's much better in print: GQ magazine.