"Beneath the cobblestones, the beach": Theory, Situationism and Cultural Resistance

Hans Magnus Enzensberger - Constituents of a Theory of the Media (1970)

Extra:
John Downing - Radical Media in Italy

How To Talk Like A Situationist

Guy Debord - Report on the Construction of Situations and on the International Situationist Tendency's Conditions of Organization and Action (1957)

If you are interested in reading more of the Situationist International's documents, manifestos and screeds (they are always fun, engaging and inspiring) you can find an excellent selection in the anthology edited by Tom McDonough and published by MIT Press titled Guy Debord and the Situationist International: Texts and Documents. Modern day situationists have made the book available here. Of course all of the Situationist documents are also available online at the Situationist Online Archive which is a true treasure trove of material. There are many other sources for Situationist materials freely available online, a direct result of the 'proto-free culture' approach the Situationist International always promoted.

More Net Neutrality Newz

An Anti-Consumer Agenda at the F.C.C.

Trump’s F.C.C. Pick Quickly Targets Net Neutrality Rules

U.S. telecommunications regulator closes 'sponsored data' probe

FCC to vote on advanced U.S. broadcast TV standards

New FCC chair vows to shrink industry regulations

FCC led by Trump pick starts to reverse Obama policies

Say Good-bye to the Last Pillar of the Free, Open Internet

Net Neutrality & Comcast: We (Almost) Own Everything...No, Really, We Do.

Four Infographics Reveal Why the Comcast Merger Is Bad for You

The Comcast-Time Warner Deal, by the Numbers

Netflix To Pay Comcast to Not Ruin Your Evenings

Why YouTube buffers: The secret deals that make—and break—online video

Comcast claims competition from Google Fiber, Netflix & Hulu are reasons to approve merger

Netflix Quality Sucks Because ISPs Won't Bother Fixing It

The Real Problem with the Comcast Merger

Cinematic Specificity: Language or Reality

On Montage:
Vsevolod Pudovkin, "On Editing" from Film Technique
Sergei Eisenstein, "Methods of Montage" from Film Form

On Realism:
André Bazin, What is Cinema, Vol. 1
(nb. please only read the essays at pg. 9 and pg. 41: "The Ontology of the Photographic Image" + "The Virtues and Limitations of Montage (aka Montage Interdit).

The In-Between Years (or The Empire Strikes Back)

The Folk Revival:

The Kingston Trio - Tom Dooley
Pete Seeger - Turn Turn Turn!
Joan Baez - Silver Dagger
Bob Dylan - Masters of War
Lyrics here.

Surf & Hot Rod Combos:

The Beach Boys - Surfin USA
Dick Dale & The Del-Tones - Miserlou
Link Wray & His Ray Men - Rumble (Outtake)
The Stingers (Jack Cole) - Mustang

Uptown R&B from Motown/All songs by Holland-Dozier-Holland:

Martha & The Vandellas - Nowhere To Run
The Four Tops - Reach Out I'll Be There
The Supremes - You Can't Hurry Love
Marvin Gaye - How Sweet It Is

Girl Groups/Phil Spector Wall of Sound/Songs by Weill & Mann:

The Ronettes - Be My Baby
The Crystals - Then He Kissed Me
The Crystals - Da Doo Ron Ron

Cynthia Weill & Barry Mann songs NOT produced by Phil Spector:

Lesley Gore - It's My Party

The Wall of Sound in full-effect:

Ike & Tina Turner - River Deep, Mountain High

The Righteous Brothers - You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling

Readings:
Keightley, "Reconsidering Rock"

nb. You will not be responsible for this reading for the midterm. We will discuss the issues and concepts raised in it after the exam. I do however urge you to read it as it offers a lot of points that would help your review of material that will actually be covered on the midterm.

In Garofalo you should read up to and including Chapter 6.

R'n'R or Transubstantiated R'n'B?

Elvis Presley - That's All Right, Mama + Blue Moon of Kentucky
Bill Haley & The Comets - Crazy Man Crazy
Fats Domino - Ain't That A Shame + Blueberry Hill
Little Richard - Tutti Frutti
Chuck Berry - Almost Grown + Little Queenie
Bo Diddley - Pretty Thing
The Chords - Sh-Boom
Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers - Why Do Fools Fall In Love

Enough to Make Strong Men Weep: HK Cinema and John Woo by Bordwell

David Bordwell on the Hong Kong Action Cinema and John Woo.
You'll find three chapters from Bordwell's Planet Hong Kong here. Chapters 1&2 look at HK cinema from an industry and mode of production perspective and provides a comparative discussion of HK with the CHC. The third section (Chapter 4a) is a specific analysis of John Woo's filmic style.
from David Bordwell, Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and The Art of Entertainment; 2nd Ed (Irvington Way Institute Press: Madison, WI, 2011) -- if you are interested and want to read more (and why wouldn't you) you can visit davidbordwell.net to purchase a pdf copy of the complete book. You'll also find other books by Bordwell at the same link.

The Technology and the Society: A Critique of McLuhan

In order to be done with ol' Marshall (even though you're never done with him).
Raymond Williams, "The Technology and the Society" from Television: Technology and Cultural Form

Hot and Cold Media Is the Message in the Global Village of the Guttenberg Galaxy

Eisenstein Diagram

Here are the 'notes' re: the taxonomy of Hot and Cold media. Below is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's 'Conference' program from 1977 where McLuhan discusses and responds to audience questions on his main theoretical ideas. If we don't get to watch and discuss this in class please watch it on your own:

Whitey's Lindy Hoppers: Something Wild

This is the Lindy Hop, the Jitterbug, the Suzie-Q. The clip is an excerpt from H.C. Potter's Helzapoppin' (1941). The Lindy Hoppers doing "The Big Apple" in 1939 are here. Enjoy.
In this clip the dancing starts at the 2:15 mark.



from Jonathan Demme's Something Wild; The Feelies play David Bowies's "Fame" and Jeff Daniels dances with his eye on the 'Other' for cues.

Groovy Movie (1944): Instructional Video for the Lindy Hop

R'n'B is on the Indies

Big Joe Turner - Shake, Rattle and Roll
Big Mama Thornton - Hound Dog
Rufus Thomas - Bear Cat
Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup - That's All Right
Jackie Brenston & His Delta Kings (aka Ike Turner) - Rocket 88
Junior Parker - Mystery Train
Little Walter - Dead Presidents

Post-War Hillbillies: Western Swing, Honky Tonk and Bluegrass

Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys - Take Me Back To Tulsa

Hank Williams - Hey Goodlookin' + Lovesick Blues

Bill Monroe & The Bluegrass Boys - Muleskinner Blues + Blue Moon Of Kentucky

Teddy and Walt in The New Yorker

The Naysayers: Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno and the Critique of Pop Culture
by Alex Ross

Even the New Yorker catches up:

"One way or another, the Frankfurt School mode of criticism—its skeptical ardor, its relentless scouring of mundane surfaces—has spread far. When online recappers expend thousands of words debating the depiction of rape on “Game of Thrones,” or when writers publish histories of sneakers or of the office cubicle, they show intense awareness of mass culture’s ability to shape society. And in some cases the analysis takes a recognizably dialectical turn, as in Hua Hsu’s 2011 essay, for Grantland, on Kanye West and Jay-Z’s album “Watch the Throne.” A dispassionate hip-hop fan, Hua Hsu ponders the spectacle of two leading rappers making an “album against austerity,” in which they mark their ascension to a world of “MoMA and Rothko, Larry Gagosian, and luxury hotels across three continents,” and at the same time forfeit a hip-hop tradition of fantasy and protest. Citing the Kanye track “Power”—“Grab a camera, shoot a viral / Take the power in your own hands”—Hsu writes, “This version of power is entrancing—it explains an entire generation. But it also confuses ubiquity for importance, the familiarity of a celebrity’s face for true authority.” There is no telling how Adorno and Benjamin might have negotiated such contemporary labyrinths. Perhaps, on a peaceful day, they would have accepted the compromise devised by Fredric Jameson, who has written that the “cultural evolution of late capitalism” can be understood “dialectically, as catastrophe and progress all together.”

These implacable voices should stay active in our minds. Their dialectic of doubt prods us to pursue connections between what troubles us and what distracts us, to see the riven world behind the seamless screen. “There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism”: Benjamin’s great formula, as forceful as a Klieg light, should be fixed as steadily on pop culture, the ritual apparatus of American capitalism, as it has been on the art works of the European bourgeoisie. Adorno asked for only so much. Above all, these figures present a model for thinking differently, and not in the glib sense touted by Steve Jobs. As the homogenization of culture proceeds apace, as the technology of surveillance hovers at the borders of our brains, such spaces are becoming rarer and more confined. I am haunted by a sentence from Virginia Woolf’s “The Waves”: “One cannot live outside the machine for more perhaps than half an hour.”"

The Sound Begins: Popular Music Readings II

Rufus Thomas, DJ Extraordinaire

in Garofalo:

-Chapter 2: Blues and Country Music: Mass Media and the Construction of Race
-Chapter 3: “Good Rockin’ Tonight”: The Rise of Rhythm and Blues

Charlie Gillet from The Sound of the City, "The Sound Begins"
Nelson George from The Death of Rhythm and Blues, "Dark Voices in the Night"

Pre-War Specialties

Doc Boggs - Sugar Baby

Jimmie Rodgers - Mule Skinner Blues

The Carter Family - Wildwood Flower

Jimmie Rodgers & The Carter Family - Blue Yodel

Skip James - Devil Got My Woman

Robert Johnson - Love in Vain

Blind Willie Johnson, "Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground"
"The most transcendent piece in all American music" (Ry Cooder)