I am still heady from reading “Reality Hunger,” David Shield’s feisty literary “manifesto” built almost entirely of quotations from other writers and thinkers. His book can be taken as Exhibit A in what he calls “recombinant” or appropriation art.
And though publishing-house lawyers required him to include an appendix listing his sources (at least those he could remember) Mr. Shields asks the reader to honor the spirit of the book by taking a pair of scissors and giving it an appendectomy.
(Like his book, this article uses appropriated material. My personal ethic requires me to list the referenced works, at the end of the piece.)
His manifesto prompted the quick drawing of battle lines, coming at a time when tensions have probably never been higher between a growing culture of borrowing and appropriation on one side and, on the other, copyright advocates and those who fear a steady erosion of creative protections.
But Mr. Shields argues that blatant borrowing has been a foundation of culture since man first took up pen and paintbrush, long before Terence complained in the second century B.C. that “there’s nothing to say that hasn’t been said before.” (Mr. Shields’s point about borrowing has certainly been made many times before, a fact he readily acknowledges.) Appropriation has breathed life into music, art and theater, he argues, and he lines up a kind of murderers’ row of writers, including Sterne, Emerson, Eliot and Joyce (“I am quite content to go down to posterity as a scissors and paste man”) to make the case that it has been an important tradition in writing, too.
Read familiar? Of course pageantry is nothing if not appropriation: of itself and of just about every other artistic and design medium imaginable.
“Why can’t literature catch up with the other arts?” Shields asks. “Who owns the words?” Mr. Shields asks in a passage that is itself an unacknowledged reworking of remarks by the cyberpunk author William Gibson.
“Who owns the music and the rest of our culture? We do — all of us — though not all of us know it yet. Reality cannot be copyrighted.”
You could argue, of course, that Warhol’s use of a soup can or Danger Mouse’s use of the Beatles and Jay-Z on the Grey Album represent one thing, a re-contextualizing of cultural artifacts so well known they are a kind of shorthand. But does lifting from an obscure blogger — or even importing a description of a sunset by Steinbeck or a suburban tableau from Updike — accomplish the same thing?
“So much of the energy of great work to me is feeling the echo effect on every line, of not knowing where it came from,” he said, citing a quote — this one attributed — from Graham Greene that he uses as one of the book’s epigraphs: “When we are not sure we are alive.”
However impossible it is to think of “Jon & Kate Plus Eight” or “Jersey Shore” as art, reality shows have taken over wide swaths of television, and memoir writing has become a rite of passage for actors, politicians and celebrities of every ilk. At the same time our cultural landscape is brimming over with parodies, homages, variations, pastiches, collages and others forms of “appropriation art” — much of it facilitated by new technology that makes remixing, and cutting-and-pasting easy enough for a child.
It’s no longer just hip-hop sampling that rules in youth culture, but also jukebox musicals like “Jersey Boys” and “Rock of Ages,” and works like “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,” which features characters drawn from a host of classic adventures. Fan fiction and fan edits are thriving, as are karaoke contests, video games like Guitar Hero, and YouTube mash-ups of music and movie, television and visual images.
These recyclings and post-modern experiments run the gamut in quality. Some, like Zachary Mason’s “Lost Books of the Odyssey,” are beautifully rendered works of art in their own right. Some, like J. J. Abram’s 2009 “Star Trek” film and Amy Heckerling’s 1995 “Clueless” (based on Jane Austen’s “Emma”) are inspired reinventions of classics. Some fan-made videos are extremely clever and inventive, and some, like a 3-D video version of Picasso’s “Guernica” posted on YouTube, are intriguing works that raise important and unsettling questions about art and appropriation.
All too often, however, the recycling and cut-and-paste esthetic has resulted in tired imitations; cheap, lazy re-dos; or works of “appropriation” designed to generate controversy like Mr. Shields’s “Reality Hunger.” Lady Gaga is third-generation Madonna; many jukebox or tribute musicals like “Good Vibrations” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’ ” do an embarrassing disservice to the artists who inspired them; and the rote remaking of old television shows into films (from “The Brady Bunch” to “Charlie’s Angels” to “Get Smart”), not to mention the recycling of video games into movies (like “Tomb Raider” and “Resident Evil”) often seem as pointless as they are now predictable.
Maybe that’s (the) reason for the flurry of attention recently about a teenage German novelist, Helene Hegemann, whose book about Berlin’s club scene was named a finalist for a prestigious literary prize (that was awarded this month) in Leipzig. After a blogger and fellow novelist announced that Ms. Hegemann had blended sizeable chunks of his own writing into hers, Ms. Hegemann, instead of following the plagiarism-gotcha script of contrition and retraction so familiar in recent years, announced that appropriating the passages from that book and other sources was her plan all along.
A child of a media-saturated generation, she presented herself as a writer whose birthright is the remix, the use of anything at hand she feels suits her purposes, an idea of communal creativity that certainly wasn’t shared by those from whom she borrowed. In a line that might have been stolen from Sartre (it wasn’t) she added: “There’s no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity.”
Here then is Field&Floor’s 2010 Top 32 Color Guards: authentic, each one.
02/18/2012
Field&Floor's 2010 Top 32 Color Guards
Field&Floor's 2010 Sweet 16 Color Guards
Guilty pleasures.
Mine include:
"The Antonio Treatment"
Robin Givhan's fashion writing in The Washington Post
Bologna sandwiches
Dollar margaritas
The Daily Dish
Pamela and Wes McCoy on ShopNBC
Swing Out Sister
Joe Gage
boiled eggs
Maureen Dowd
Drum corps
Color guard
Yours include, apparently:
Field&Floor
The truth hurts, especially right now. I'm trying my best to support WGI's worthy scholarship program. I thought this one would be easy: put it out there -- Second Guess the Second Guesser -- with a dollar per entry going to the fund. Fun. Social. Viral.
Well, I'll do that ... plus another $91. Sheesh: REALLY? Nine entries? 9? Two friends, and last year's winner among them. That's all?
It doesn't compute; since Field&Floor's Top 32 were posted, the bandwidth here has been stretched to its limit: over 3000 visitors from -- get this -- 35 states and 8 countries -- have been guiltily pleasured (offended, delighted, disgusted, thrilled) by the list of guards that made my Floor season special this year.
But only 9 entrants? And not a winner among them. Close, oh so, but no winner. *shrug*
To the list: The 2010 Field&Floor Sweet 16 Color Guards: my guilty pleasures this season.
Field&Floor's 2010 Elite 8 Color Guards
First off today, let's have the "Eliminate 8 Color Guard Pecadillos" (of mine) countdown.
8. Floor for floor’s sake
Both Center Grove High School and Pride of Cincinnati proved that using a floor covering remains a design choice, rather than a directive.
7. Autumn leaves
Those withered, dried up old earth-toned leaves have fallen. Give me the rake!
6. Focusing on the what, rather than the how good
A full-unit flag feature is only a highlight if it is designed, taught, and performed well.
5. eHarmony hook-ups
All you need is ... love?
4. Counting out loud
Unless your soundtrack is "100 Bottles of Beer," please stop.
3. Solo saber toss to open a show
They are not that wonderful.
2. Show designed “to the numbers”
When you know at every turn what is next ...
1. Gritted teeth face
Really: does this look convey every emotion other than happiness?
The 2010 Elite 8 Color Guards: the eight best reasons I know to celebrate the season!
Field&Floor's 2010 Best of the Rest
March Madness is apparently about to be INSANE!
From ESPN: “The NCAA appears to be on the verge of expanding the men's basketball tournament to 96 teams.” Where does that leave the Floor of 64: discarded like the billboards that become floor coverings?
“Insisting that nothing has been decided, NCAA vice president Greg Shaheen nonetheless outlined a detailed plan that included the logistics and timing of a 96-team tournament…. (it is) the best fit logistically and financially. It would be played during the same time frame as the current three-week tournament and include first-round byes for 32 teams.
“The 96-team tournament would likely envelop the 32-team NIT, though Shaheen said no decision has been made on what to do with the NCAA's other, independently operated season-ending tournament.”
What’s a rip-off artist to do? So … James Logan is pitted against Father Ryan (a performance match I’d love, actually.) Or … umm … serve up a love match with Fahrenheit World and Les Eclipses; two sides of the same coin. Just like the NCAA, couldn’t this “create some monumentally lopsided games (matches)?
"The regular season would mean something," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "There would still be bubble teams and all that, but we would reward those teams accordingly. And I would still like the conference tournament champions. I think it's a way of each conference celebrating their conference, which is a good thing."
I’m with Coach Mike: give the conferences/power regional results more bite than just performance time: qualify to compete at World Championships.
And as in all things sports -- and art: men first. “The proposal is strictly for the men's tournament. Another NCAA committee is looking at whether to expand the women's tournament or keep it in the current format.”
Change. Is good. Is inevitable. Is … what it is. A Floor of 96 would amount to the top third of the color guards that compete in Dayton. Would that change, that inclusion, honor or diminish the process, even here?
As I ponder (weak and weary) those changes, enjoy my season’s Best of the Rest. Eighteen of them, which bring to 50, the number of guards recognized during this week’s post-championship play-in.
Onyx named Field&Floor's 2010 Color Guard of the Year
Forget gold, the color of the year is cryptocrystalline quartz black … Onyx: Field&Floor’s 2010 Color Guard of the Year. I had read the show title in January, had found and listened to the music, and had then overlaid both to the sensibilities of the 21-year-old organization. I felt that something wonderful was at hand.
There was something wonderful, sensible, enchanting and sensitive at hand in a diminutive 1992 show by the color guard Dimension. This “Send in the Clowns,” before its pageantry overuse verged on parody, played small -- nine members, if memory serves -- played precise, played misty nostalgic, and by finale, conjured magic (suspension of belief). It also cemented the leadership of (the now) O Foundation permanently in my mind for the taste, control, and charitable hand it has lent for two decades plus a championship season.
To “The Sleeping Giant:” a towering achievement by any measure, but apropos for Onyx, the august competitor, rising to its inevitable stature. The constantly rippling effect that contrasted expanse against density, all the while showcasing experimenting ensembles, led me to consider the development process as collaboratition. That is a neologism (a newly coined word) to describe a type of crowdsourcing used for problems that require a collaborative or cooperative effort to be successful, but use competition as a motivator for participation or performance.
Surely it was the collaboration of minds, design systems, and even performers that conceived the surfeit of contemporary milieus that played against the surprising languid, ambient, meter-less soundtrack. There had to be -- yes? -- tryouts, stagings and rehearsals during which a movement, a pose, an equipment manipulation emerged for consideration and addition to the set piece.
As just that, “The Sleeping Giant” whooshed and whirred, halted and punctuated, all the while layering ripple upon ripple, almost suggesting the succession of Onyx’s 21 years, and ending, each time, on point, with a period, as if to say: “We are wide awake and cognizant of our worth.”
The O Foundation’s worth in the pantheon of pageantry is forever cemented with its dual championships, at this mid-life stage. As Alice Longworth Roosevelt said, “First you’re young, then you’re middle-aged, then you’re wonderful.”
Runner-Up
Pride of Cincinnati
What is so likable ...? I think it is simply that it is so likable. So new, so fresh, and so unassuming, even in its pretensions. Exuberantly defiant; the production explodes into every nook and cranny ….
It has a surprising if perhaps unintentional charm, its high spirits are contagious, and its young zestfulness makes it difficult to resist. The most talented hippies you'll ever see... the only new concept in years and it's more fun than any other this season. There is no denying the sheer kinetic drive.... it thrums with vitality.
It also registers as an eloquent requiem not only for the idealism of one generation but also for the evanescence of youth itself. It’s a “tribal love-rock” celebration, but in suggesting the dawning age of Aquarius is already destined for nightfall, this production establishes the show as more than a vivacious period piece.
From the moment the ensemble members first swarm the stage, the production exists unconditionally in the present tense. The performers are both a confrontational pacifist army, daring the audience not to accept them, and a litter of puppies, huddling together for warmth and reassurance.
But for me, at least, the exhilaration was tempered by an exquisitely sad taste of the ephemeral in life. This revelatory production’s anthem turns out to be a haunting, but unsung here, ballad: “Where Do I Go?”
Its honesty and passion give it the quality of a true theatrical celebration – the joyous sound of a group of people telling the world exactly what they feel. While some people can't see past the appearance of chaos and randomness to the brilliant construction and sophisticated imagery underneath … it rejected every convention … and it was brilliant.
(I wrote not a single word of this review of Pride of Cincinnati; instead, it is a free approximation from reviews in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, ABC, NBC, Newsweek, London’s The Times, of both the original --1967 -- and revived -- 2008 -- productions of the musical “Hair.”)
Inertia insight change
American philosopher Elbert Hubbard: “The reason men oppose progress is not that they hate progress, but that they love inertia.”
Marketing consultant Tom Asacker has been “doing a lot of thinking about inertia—this desire to stay the course regardless of the impact on our lives.”
Hear this, in the context of our pageantry lives, if you will.
“And the truth is, change isn’t about learning ‘the new,’ Asacker suggests. “Change is about letting go of ‘the old’—saying goodbye to comfortable habits and ingrained beliefs.”
Do you remember when, as a child, you’d wake up to a pristine, snow covered landscape? You’d rush out the door on your way to school, zigging and zagging, pushing and dragging your feet to create a one-of-a-kind path? And invariably, the next kid in the neighborhood would leave his home and follow your crooked path, kicking away more snow on his way. And then the next kid, and the next, until there was a well-worn, precisely defined route all the way to school.
"Well, that’s what happens with your mind as well. If you think the same thoughts, or perform the same task over and over again, you will develop a neural pathway in your brain. Like a dry path in wet snow, it becomes a comfortable route; a path of least resistance.
"To remove this habit or old way of thinking takes a focused effort. It requires that you step out of your rut and get your brain wet, cold and uncomfortable.
"The audience members typically nod, signaling their understanding. And then they leave and go right back into their subconscious ruts, rejecting new concepts and rationalizing familiar ones. Because men, and women, love inertia. They love the status quo—the silent killer of most businesses and, in some cases, entire industries.
"Inertia in business, both up and down the chain of decision-making, is no different than inertia in other aspects of one’s life; it has to do with protecting one’s identity, immediate self-interest, and interpersonal relationships.
"Newton’s First Law of Motion states that objects in motion tend to remain in motion at a constant velocity unless acted upon by an outside force; objects at rest tend to remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. So if you’re stuck, and you know it, it’s time to introduce an outside force and do something new. People who are more predisposed to change have had more experiences than those who are not. Their new experiences created new pathways, thus lessening the affect of existing ones.
"As the American psychiatrist Milton Erickson made clear, 'Change will lead to insight far more often than insight will lead to change.'
"Don’t let the silent killer smother your vision and passion. Change. Introduce an outside force. Do something daring and dramatic."
One by one: what you read on Field&Floor
I go into the back of this-here Field&Floor "building" several times a day; it's where I can spy on you ;-) When I look at the site through the back door, I can see who you ask into your home -- what you read -- and what you are looking to read. The stories, the links, the volume, cities where you reside, and the time spent here are all spread out in Excel format.
Clearly, FLOOR trumps FIELD, with anything about "color guard" dominating airtime. The marvelous search -- so LIJIT -- shows that what you're hunting for is YOUR NAME (Unit name, actually.) But what you read about on Field&Floor I can count on one hand ... or a top ten ... Top 32 ... Floor of 64 ... name the numbered list, and you spend most of your time here enumerating each one with me.
I have considered each (and every) click here; so I will calculate more assortments from both field and floor. In the coming days -- give me time, both lists are wonderful, but time-consuming to parse -- I will close out the 2010 FLOOR season once and for all with an elaboration of a phenomenon I experience every season, and then I will kick off the 2010 FIELD season with a list for all (my) drum corps time!
In the meantime, I have sorted out miles of lists for you to reconsider, from the back pages of Field&Floor over the years. CLICK AWAY!
Me versus "them" = us?
In reviewing a new biography of publisher Henry Luce -- he founded TIME and LIFE, New York Times editor Bill Keller found this gem:
"Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian of London, observed recently that the old world in which journalists were trusted to filter and prioritize the news is now in tension with “a world in which many (but not all) readers want to have the ability to make their own judgments; express their own priorities; create their own content; articulate their own views; learn from peers as much as from traditional sources of authority.” Among the more utopian partisans of this wisdom-of-the-crowd view, the reliance on professional journalists is seen as elitist and stifling.
"On the other side is a conviction that a significant population of serious people feel the need for someone with training, experience and standards — reporters and editors — to help them dig up and sort through the news, identify what’s important and make sense of it. That in no way precludes enlisting the audience as commentators, as contributors and as collaborators. (Witness the splendid hybrid of professional and amateur journalism that has kept alive the stream of news from Iran.) But in this view — which I share — the authority of professional journalists is both a valuable convenience for readers without the time or inclination to manage a tsunami of information on their own, and a civic good, in that a democracy needs a shared base of trustworthy information upon which to make its judgments."
Of course every "me" in the stands of both field and floor make our own judgments, express our own opinions, and articulate our views, if not by making our own content -- which I do here -- by going online and posting. And while I eavesdrop every now and again, post the occasional snippet here and there, or point folks to a piece here -- oh, and absolutely *howl* at the online adventures of one Mr. Sebastienne St. Jacque and his riotously entertaining Convalescence color guard -- the terse topics add nothing trenchant to any legitimate conversation.
At least there is attempt at conversation. Most folks choose a cyber veil, for fear of retribution of some competitive sort, at least. Or they just lurk in the shadows -- reading but saying nothing: "We were told NEVER to post online!"
Really? Are field and floor STILL that provincial, that close-mouthed, that fraternal? Is it still, like, 1945? "Heil", anyone? Please. But it's true: just right here, on this small, personal blog; in six years online, only 100 or so folks have posted a comment. I do require a valid e-mail address for postings to go through, that may be part of the reason. And the post-championship week contest to "Second Guess the Second Guesser," totaled exactly nine entrants. That number was belied by the heaviest-hitting week in Field&Floor history. If it's not all about the organizations, it just won't do. Still.
As my Mother often declares: "Pitiful and pathetic."
What a shame, too. During these times of more connectivity than the world has ever known, there could be robust conversations, discussions, debates, and support within the encompassing niche world of pageantry, both field and floor. There could be organizational public relations, citizen journalism, unit contributions, all the rest. But there is not.
When I am asked -- confronted mostly -- about Field&Floor, I tell this story: when I took the name online, I thought it would be a lark, a bon mot, a cherry-on-a-sundae short-term endeavor. Surely, I have said so many times it rattles in my head, young people will see this blog from "that old guy," and post "Field&Floor's" of every ilk. I thought I'd be shoved aside within less than a year. Alas, no.
To be clear, it's not that I don't love this, but like so much in pageantry: administration, judging, designing, teaching; the next generations to pick up the mantle have simply not stepped up. These are activities that serve young people -- women, mostly -- but that are run by aging white men. (It's not as bad as The Miss America organization, but it's still far from having parallel realities at play.)
What I am proposing, and what I know is bringing chortling laughter from every corner at the non-existent prospect, is that we take some walls down. There will always be "me," and there will always be "them," but if there could be any concessions made, there could also be the moving-us-all-forward-together "us."
Communication could be the start.
IO, IO ... what's the deal; we want to know!
Calculating Field&Floor's final FLOOR numbers totals a huge year for ... drum roll ... wait for it ... independent guards! (I thought the scales tipped towards scholastic units until I pulled out the adding machine.) Between the Floor of 64, Top 32, and Best of the Rest, the original brand of color guard made the lists 58 times to scholastic units' 56 times.
Independent World led the classifications by 1 over Scholastic World. The Open classes split 50-50, Independent A prevailed in that class. Parity. Just what pleases me when I run the numbers these couple of weeks later.
But noooooooooo ... there is the largest anomoly in the break-down in Field&Floor history; and it bears explanation/discussion. There were no Independent Open units on the Top 32: not one. *Ouch*
Okay, Field&Floor fellow, pony up a reason: NOW!
Amazingly, this is an easy answer, to a delicious dilemma: IO was, in a phrase, an embarrassment of beauty and riches. There was so such lush, fulsome color guard on display, when it came to choosing one over another -- here -- "no can do." I was stunned; just ask the folks near me during the championship event. "I have no idea what to do," I whined. "I have never seen such a level playing floor, and with so much loveliness across the finalist field."
Four of the class' units were among the Best of the Rest; the top number for any class on that list. And one of those units has reached a Field&Floor pinnacle: Croatan joins the ranks of Quintessential Color Guards here. I could not be more thrilled.
Unless it comes to this year's other Quintessential honoree: First Flight. Just reading the names brings chills and throws on the projector in my mind's eye, in retrospect of each unit's superb histories. Congratulations. My expectations for you both just sky-rocketed ;-)
I can't get you out of my head
Along the 2010 journey from mid-season to Floor of 64 and all the rest, I experienced, yet again, one of the kinds of shows that stays with me. I simply cannot get it out of my head.
This year's wonderful show that plays on rotation in my head-theater is Impact Independent (more on the show after the jump). And as it happens most years, once I have a current year show recurring, my mind returns to all of the shows, over the quarter century I have followed color guard, that are in that queue.
Here are 21 -- plus a completely personal pleasure -- that came (and stuck) to mind readily. Always have; always will. Would love to hear of your guilty pleasures, too! Send them my way.
