"Chinese Democracy" finally arrives....

Twenty years ago, Guns'n'Roses was the Most Important Rock Band in the World, and Axl Rose was the Biggest Rockstar on the Planet.

Seventeen years ago, when I was in the eighth grade and most of you were just learning to walk, they started work on their next album, Chinese Democracy. Within a few months, the band had split. Axl hunkered down in his studio and started mixing what they had recorded.

While you were learning to walk, he found new members and recorded some additional tracks.

While you were entering kindergarten, those guys left and were replaced by other people. Axl continued to mix.

You finished elementary school; Axl got ProTools and continued to mix.

You went to middle school, got acne, your voice changed. Axl showed up on the VMAs, fat and dreadlocked. He got so winded he could barely make it through "Welcome to the Jungle."

He promised us the album was coming; he scheduled tour dates. He didn't show up. People rioted. He went back to the studio and kept mixing.

You got your driver's license. Axl continued to mix.

You graduated. No album.

Now, it's here. And it is bad.

According to Jon Pareles

• "Chinese Democracy" is the Titanic of rock albums: the ship, not the movie, although like the film it’s a monumental studio production. It’s outsize, lavish, obsessive, technologically advanced and, all too clearly, the end of an era. It’s also a shipwreck, capsized by pretensions and top-heavy production. In its 14 songs there are glimpses of heartfelt ferocity and despair, along with bursts of remarkable musicianship. But they are overwhelmed by countless layers of studio diddling and a tone of curdled self-pity. The album concludes with five bombastic power ballads in a row.

Chuck Klosterman disagrees. Read his review too.

For Monday

Read Chapters 12-13 in Confederates in the Attic.

Submit your claim & criteria to T-Square.

In case you forgot...

The blog that's due for tomorrow is a continuation of the topic I assigned last week. Read here.

Follow-up: The South and the Election

The New York Times published a follow-up to an earlier article (which I posted) on the South, race, and the Presidential election. I'll be interested to hear your thoughts: read it here.

Wednesday's readings

I'd like you to read Victor Dover's evaluation of the Cotton District project in Starkville, MS. You might also find Brian Herman's essay insightful. For images of the Cotton District, click here and here.

Also, read this review of Google's new web browser, Chrome. The author is David Pogue, the New York Times' technology columnist. If you want to give Chrome a spin for yourself, it's free and a quick download.

**Addendum: The Cotton District falls under the rubric of the architectural movement known as New Urbanism, and I thought you might need a quick definition. From the Online NewsHour:

"New Urbanists promote a return to the traditional town planning that defines places like downtown Charleston, South Carolina; old town Alexandria, Va., historic San Francisco and Georgetown in Washington DC. These traditional neighborhoods feature walkable Main Street shopping districts, downtown parks, and grid streets."

The NewsHour's has a great resource on New Urbanism. Take a look.

Reading for Monday

Knock out Ch. 10 in Confederates in the Attic.

The Reopened USS Intrepid: a Review

The NY Times has a review of the reopened USS Intrepid--a retired aircraft carrier that has been refitted as a museum and permanently moored along the Hudson River....take a look for an interesting review of an attraction.

William Eggleston Retrospective

The Whitney Museum (in Manhattan) is holding a retrospective entitled “William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961-2008.” Eggleston's a native Mississippian, and the bulk of his work captures life in the rural South. The New York Times has posted this slideshow of his work, and I think you might find it interesting.

Post-election political discourse

My sister called me yesterday in some despair; as many of you know, she's about your age--a college student at the Univ. of South Carolina. In her dorm, in her group of friends, and among her Facebook networks, have descended into shouting and name-calling after this election--with both sides bearing guilt. Similarly, I saw a many disgruntled faces across this campus yesterday. And that's natural; losing sucks, in politics, sports, the workplace, whatever. However, partisan hollering provides little headway.

For those of you who were ardent Obamaniacs: take this victory with some humility, because the road ahead is going to be nigh impossible. And remember: a vote for McCain does not equal a vote for racism. That's just dumb.

And for those of you who identify as conservative or Republican: don't despair. Your nation has not abandoned you, and a new socialist moment does not await you. In fact, given your age, the coming years will be exciting to be a Young Republican. Why? Because, after a fairly significant defeat, the GOP will have to reinvent itself, and you will be at the helm of the ship. In fact, nothing yields profound ideas like being out-of-power.

I recommend that each of you, regardless of affiliation, pay close attention to the policies and ideas generated by the serious, subtle and nuanced conservative thinkers who will play important roles in this reinvention process. Read National Review; pay close attention to George F. Will (hardly a young guy, but nonetheless a worthy read) and Kathleen Parker, both of whom write for the Washington Post. Ross Douthat, of the Atlantic Monthly, is excellent, but my personal favorite is David Brooks of the New York Times. I'm including below a link to a Brooks column, The Conservative Revival, in which he argues that the British Conservative Party offers an example from which American conservatism should draw.

Drive-By Truckers from 11/1

SouthernShelter has posted an authorized bootleg from the Truckers' Saturday show at the Tabernacle. (Alas, they haven't put up the opening set from The Hold Steady).

I'm still having some residual ringing in my left ear....

Unit 3: Evaluatons

I will formalize the following during the week, but I wanted to give you a heads up now....

Our next unit will deal with EVALUATIONS. Of the various permutations of the genre, you are probably more familiar with them as reviews. And, of the many types of things that are reviewed, you are probably familiar with reviews of works of art (i.e., books, films, music) and places (i.e., attractions, restaurants, hotels, etc.).

For this final essay, you will compose a brief (4-5 page) review of a topic of your choosing. The parameters: you may choose to evaluate an album that loosely fits under the umbrella of southern music (Option A), or you may evaluate a place here in the metro Atlanta area. Topics might include: a building, a park, a development, a restaurant, a club, a farmer's market, etc.

Remember, a review is a type of argument: your essay should make a CLAIM about the topic and then support that claim with evidence.

As we work toward writing the essay, we will use the blog as a place to workshop ideas. This week, you will write a short evaluation of a song or album; next week, you will evaluate a PLACE--a building, a park, a development. You will choose one of these blogs and develop it into your essay.

Briefly...
Blog for this week: Select an artist that interests you, and then find a review. In your posting, you should examine how this particular review functions as an example of the genre. You will need to address most of the following questions:

• what is the claim?
• what evidence does the author provide to support the claim?
• what contextual evidence does s/he provide?
• how does s/he hold your attention?
• what sort of nontextual elements (illustrations, images, embedded songs) does the author employ?
  
• what are the standards that the author employs?
• does the author use any specialized language? If so, explain how understandable it is, what else you need to know, etc.

Feel free to review the review: if you disagree with the author's conclusions, say so!

Blogs will be a rich source of music criticism....you should have no trouble finding something to write about.


Next week's blog: evaluation of a place
Find a review of the general type of place you might write about (i.e., if you want to write a restaurant review, read a restaurant review; if you're evaluating a place, read an architectural review). Ask the same questions as last week:

• what is the claim?
• what evidence does the author provide to support the claim?
• what contextual evidence does s/he provide?
• how does s/he hold your attention?
• what sort of nontextual elements does the author employ?
• what are the standards that the author employs?
• does the author use any specialized language? If so, explain how understandable it is, what else you need to know, etc.

Schedule for the final paper:
Topic due: Friday, Nov. 14
First draft due: Friday, Nov. 21
Peer Review: Monday, Nov. 24
Final Draft: Wednesday, Nov. 26.