I need to read some stuff from when rap was being attacked for sampling and defenses of the practice. the theory of dj-ing. The poetics of dj-ing. performative self referentiality. sponteneity. harmony with a perceived audience. the author or artist's feedback loop.
(the developing myth of the dj. W0lfman Jack in the movie "Am3rican Graffiti". romantic-to-the-radio-dj songs like "Pilot of the Airwaves" or whatever. the shift to the image of the hiphop dj and techno. i know nothing much about music so i don't think i have an accurate picture of this, but it seems like a 20th century developing thing and new art form)
since i am not a musician or dj or performer really I think of these things in terms of writing. but i have had moments of realizing performancy things. there was some reading i was at with rook where he was trying to talk to me about something and have his arm around me or something and I was finally just like "Dude. I can't listen to you or pay attention just now as I am only thinking of what I am going to read and what everyone else is reading and how the audience is reacting to it and the mood of the crowd. " And I hadn't known that until it came out of my mouth but it was true. I was trying to like, tune into the moment and all the other people in the sort of way that Acrobat's brother talked to me about how he felt when he was being a DJ.
But abstracting from the actual performative moment of reading or reciting or declaiming or spoken-wording or whatever. If you're trying to WRITE that way. if you're trying to tune into something that is the people you imagine might be reading/listening later. Not in a sleazy marketing way but in a buddha like way of imagining one-ness of something and the moment that is not just a particular moment of sitting in a cafe and writing but is the whole moment of now and everything happening and everything in the world that it's possible to keep in mind while writing one poem. Ugh this sounds like crap but I've got something to say about that idea if I could just get it coherent. I am usually on some kind of mythical awareness trip or am being deeply aware of something dorky like the spanish armada or ancient batholiths and not anything that anyone else would connect to. I mean obviously some people would and do. But lately I want to write long epic poems to chow yun fat and the guy in "The Prisoner" and so I feel like I am perhaps moving into the correct century (though without abandoning all the other ones)
blah blah blah I'm not sure what that has to do with dj-ing.
I love this late afternoon coffee day...
Scratching is meditation. When you're in the zone you think of nothing but the fucking flow, it's like surfing the sound and being one with your spirit and mind and body all together at once at that exact moment. Conscious stops and all you are is that scratch. -- Q-Bert
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