February 25, 2005
Robinsonades of the left
I was getting way down yesterday, thinking about New York as a labor camp, trying and failing to add up the anger and resentments against the ruling class and figure out how these could ever be victorious politically. I was sinking into darkness, and I needed help.
"What you have to think about," Molly said, "what you have to think about -- what helped me -- was this thing I was reading yesterday in this book on Marxism. If a capitalist trades money for labor for money, and gets back more money than he spent -- then where did this money come from? Labor is sold for less than it's value. And separately, if they compete with one another, workers will compete with each other, selling their labor for less and less, putting more labor on the market and driving down prices even further. The only way to get the best price for labor is to organize with each other. Does that help?"
It did. No resentment is necessary, anger is only secondary, mobilized as a reaction to the violence that capital unleashes once labor begins to organize. These forces, that for so much of the left, are the "true flames" of change, to be sheltered and fueled, are nothing compared to the mutual recognition of labor's value. This falls into what Marx calls the "Robinsonade" error, from Robinson Crusoe -- so Molly tells me from her reading -- in which the functioning of complex social systems is reduced to the multiplied action of single individuals, rather than considered as a whole.
Hardt and Negri's version of leftism, on the other hand, relies heavily on the "miracle" of collective labor, the superabundance which comes from our collaboration -- a mystification which, Molly informs me, was a specific target of Marx's scorn, and does not escape the Robinsonade quagmire, only layers mist over the marsh...
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01:45 PM
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February 24, 2005
Labor Camp
In his writing about the architecture of collective living, Karel Tiege has one enemy he places above all others: barracks housing. All other invectives, mostly directed against the traditions of bourgeois ornamentation and fantasies of "gracious living," are informed by the need to eliminate distractions in the all-out struggle with this enemy -- the architecture of the labor camp -- a form which he stresses is incompatable with socialist development.
This all came back to mind when I was describing the lot of many pushcart vendors to a friend. This kind of life, maximally deprived of social contact, is not even liveable as a permanent or isolated situation for many people.
Then we are confronted by the reality of the economy of New York City (or any other large city), where the lowest tier of labor is exactly this population, who survive by holding their breaths, working 8-10 months at a stint apart from their families, sending home small amounts of remittance money which, thanks to the unequal exchange rates, can offer substantial support to family members in their home countries.
What is the answer for these populations? Do complicated immagrant histories make them impossible to organize?
Clearly housing, which has become a huge proportion of the cost of living, is a big issue. Is this an effective way to forge connections in urban politics?
Posted by Sam on
08:01 AM
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February 23, 2005
year of the flan
"The election wet,
Americanation of Afganistan and winner of
a managing calm
Bush draws frothing, since
historicons
doesn't sound bad unless you is prepared
the United States is pretty don't need to learn
He's winner of a coin-toss and his shoes are shined
in between two pablems, Richard Nixon
Ohioans the size of footballs
Eagles rather than dour goals." Whatever Christmas tree survives
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09:39 AM
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February 21, 2005
HST RIP
We don't know shit yet about the suicide, but we are missing one of the greats. He occupied a high place in my pantheon. I thought the fucker would live forever. This is a terrible day.
Posted by Sam on
08:24 AM
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February 20, 2005
Ken Yeang on Subscrapers
"Groundscrapers and subscrapers are the antithesis of skyscrapers. These are the low and medium-rise buildings that devour the ground plane, spreading laterally outwards as a single large-sprawling built-form, or as clusters and mats of built-forms. In contrast to the skyscraper's morphology that extends vertically sky-wards, these extend horizontally and laterally across the ground plane and below.
Ken Yeang -- Groundscrapers and Subscrapers
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11:53 PM
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February 15, 2005
New Construction Photos
A pictorial run-down of just some of the construction going on.
The Avalon's exterior is nearly finished...
...ditto for the glasswork on Astor Place's "Sculpture for Living".
The Bowery Tower never looked as good in real life as it does in this picture.
Two construction projects are seen looking east on Delancey:
The two up close...
Broadway and Houston is the site of a new retail/showroom space.
A neat new residential with an overhanging penthouse in the East Village:
A pic of the climbing Hearst Tower from back in November:
And more ground is being broken for new projects (this one is the site of a future hotel on Grand St.)...
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06:06 AM
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February 14, 2005
Grime & Snobs
One of the things I've been doing to waste my time recently is visiting a bunch of mp3 blogs. It's the form music criticism has been waiting for -- descriptions of a song or album, coupled with something you can actually listen to, so you can find out if the author is just blowing smoke.
Some of my faves:
Music for Robots (my entry point into the form)
The Tofu Hut (voluminous linkage and mp3 blogger interviews)
boomselection (off-the-hook U.K. site featuring mashups and more)
MP3MIX.DE (a message board more than a blog, with lots of great downloadable mixtapes)
One of the windfalls of my tooling around is discovering "grime" music, as UK rap is now called. I'd heard two of the prominent artists, Dizzee Rascal and The Streets, who have tried to make a crossover into the US market in the past, and I wasn't impressed. What I found out, though is that beyond these two (who I'm still not fond of) there are a number of artists I really enjoy. I particularly like Lady Sovereign (Shh! is my favorite song, if you can find it).
For years, the UK music scene has been a bit of a puzzle to me. It is simultaneously hugely innovative and monstrously self-destroying. I could never figure out why genres were so mercilessly rejected only a few years after their invention. Try to talk to a UK music geek about Jungle, for instance, and watch out!
And then I heard this anecdote: Grime, for a number of years, was a genre without a name. There was a substratum of Garage music (even as it evolved into 2-step) which, although it shared influences, had an increasing antagonism with the culture of expensive clubs and elite DJs. A number of names were tried, from the idiotic ("Urban") to the bizzare ("Eskimo Beat"), but nothing really stuck. Then, in an offhand comment to an interviewer, on of the two top-paid DJs said that he didn't play "none of that grimey Garage." And the name was there.
And that's what I like about Grime. It opposes the snobbery of the British music scene. And there, too, is the answer to my puzzle. Why does it become neccessary to continually purge musical tastes to the extreme of generating a "new genre"? When the hoi poloi start to come on board -- abandon ship. Exodus to the new style. This is simultaneously a winnowing away of musical substance, and also a spur to innovation.
I must not underestimate the power of snobbery, or the wonderful violence of the reaction against it. Because this is also a spur to innovation -- smash the snobs! Grime kills them with sound.
for more on Grime: Chantelle Fiddy's World of Grime
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07:17 AM
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February 10, 2005
more police action
last weekend, finally warm again. i've been hitting-and-missing for a few weeks due to lousy weather, all thanks to a bit of technology i'll tell about later.
but this last one was nice. the people came back in droves, bigness cartside.
the police were also there. On saturday, for a good half hour to 45 minutes (about 3-3:30) they boxed in the crowd around the cart with two paddy wagons:
no real reason for it -- just harrassing us. I don't even think they were really trying to get us to quiet down.
a guy passed me an almost empty beer, offering me a tip if i threw it out for him. I would have done it anyway.
the cop spotted the hand-off, though. started questioning the guy. asked me. I said someone put it on the counter, I threw it out. "just doing my job, didn't see who." they pretty much left it at that. the guy thanked me later.
it didn't drive the people away, though. the lights were flashing -- I guess it was kinda our own disco.
this coming weeked is supposed to be colder again. I also have my first catering gig as the Red Chef -- a CD release party at the 169 Bar.
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06:39 AM
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