April 2022 Vinyl Spin Challenge - Intertextuality and You

April 4 – William Gibson, Johnny Mnemonic

I read the story today at lunch and was going to go with the whole Killing Floor angle, that was pretty good imagery. But I decided to go with this record based on the overall feel I got.
Also, I have to believe the author would be displeased with all the typos in this version.

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Day 3: “The Lost Performance of the High Priestess of the Temple of Horror”

Lady Gaga - The Fame Monster (Deluxe Edition)

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Reading through the story, Maxa’s performances reminded me of the time Gaga performed “Paparazzi” at the 2009 VMAs and had naïve 12-year-old me thinking she was bleeding for real. 🤣 Still my favourite performance throughout that show’s history!

 
April 4 – William Gibson, Johnny Mnemonic
  • "Transition to idiot-savant mode is always less abrupt than I expect it to be. The pirate broadcaster's front was a failing travel agency in a pastel cube that boasted a desk, three chairs, and a faded poster of a Swiss orbital spa. A pair of toy birds with blown-glass bodies and tin legs were sipping monotonously from a Styrofoarm cup of water on the ledge beside Molly's shoulder. As I phased into mode, they accelerated gradually until their DayGlo-feathered crowns became solid arcs of color. The LEDs that told seconds on the plastic wall clock had become meaningless pulsing grids, and Molly and the Mao-faced boy grew hazy, their arms blurring occasionally in insect-quick ghosts of gesture. And then it all faded to cool gray static and an endless tone poem in the artificial language."
Solid arcs of color, LEDs, pulsing grids, artificial language, all remind me of a live show I saw by Alt-J.

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Alt-J - This Is All Yours
 
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April 5: Amy Hempel, In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried
  • “On the morning she was moved to the cemetery, the one where Al Jolson is buried, I enrolled in a "Fear of Flying" class. "What is your worst fear?" the instructor asked, and I answered, "That I will finish this course and still be afraid."”
The first thing that popped into my head...




The Fearless Flyers - The Fearless Flyers II

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April 5: Amy Hempel, In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried
“On the morning she was moved to the cemetery, the one where Al Jolson is buried, I enrolled in a "Fear of Flying" class. "What is your worst fear?" the instructor asked, and I answered, "That I will finish this course and still be afraid."”

Al Jolson is a contradictory part of American history. Mostly remembered today for his minstrel shows performing in blackface, his work is often thought of in terms of the widespread racism of an American society that made a joke out of the traumas of Black Americans. But it's not so easy to write off Jolson as an ignorant racist. Being Jewish was not seen as being white then, and antisemitism was still explicit. At the beginning of his career he had more in common with Black entertainers than White ones because of his ethnicity and the barriers he faced. But once he got through those he brought many Black entertainers to a white audience and his work often resonated with black Americans who saw it differently than white Americans. Ultimately though, by the end of his career Jewish identity in America had begun to move into the category of White as sentiments from WWII played a role in humanizing a war effort that Americans were reluctant to join, and he could wash off the blackface and move as a White man in a way that Black entertainers could not. The album I picked for today came out after the Civil Rights movement and shamefully features Joni Mitchell wearing blackface on the cover at a time when she absolutely should have known better. The barriers to mainstream success have changed, and many Black entertainers have reached heights no entertainer could have imagined back then for anyone of any race, but the racisms persist, as being Black in America today still brings with it more fears than White Americans can often ever imagine.

Joni Mitchell - Don Juan's Reckless Daughter
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Al Jolson: A Megastar Long Buried Under a Layer of Blackface - Scholarly Essays - Jim Crow Museum

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Catching up- Human moments in the war

Anti-flag immediately popped into my head. 20/20 Vision is their newest offering. They have similar themes across their albums. They are anti-war and anti-nationalism and I dig that sentiment.

Though I could quote most any song from this album but this is the one is really good:

I had a 20/20 vision
Of the last of the wrongs undone
No more hate, no division
No one is free until the war is won

Is there an answer to the question?
When will this come to its end?
Or do we keep on repeat
All the things that the loathsome did?

Carry on, carry on, carry on
Tell me, which side are you on?

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April 1 – Samuel R. Delany, Aye, and Gomorrah…
  • “"Yes." She looked down. I glanced to see the expression she was hiding. It was a smile. "You have your glorious, soaring life—and you have us." Her face came up. She glowed. "You spin in the sky, the world spins under you, and you step from land to land, while we . . ." She turned her head right, left, and her black hair curled and uncurled on the shoulder of her coat. "We have our dull, circled lives, bound in gravity, worshiping you!" She looked back at me. "Perverted, yes? In love with a bunch of corpses in free fall!" Suddenly she hunched her shoulders. "I don't like having a free-fall-sexual-displacement complex."”

Title: The Divine Comedy ~ Milla Jovovich

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Explanation: I had to wait to get the ok from the cover! What spoke to me was “perverted” and “gravity” to me the cover of this album was the imagery I got in my head as I read it. From knowing Milla from countless interviews and audio commentaries, she was the first person that popped into my head. Art is appreciating the body, but often times it’s seen a perverse. There’s also the song “Gentleman Who Fell”
 
April 2 – Don DeLillo, Human Moments in World War III
  • “It is not too early in the war to discern nostalgic references to earlier wars. All wars refer back. Ships, planes, entire operations are named after ancient battles, simpler weapons, what we perceive as conflicts of nobler intent. This recon-interceptor is called Tomahawk II. When I sit at the firing panel I look at a photograph of Vollmer’s granddad when he was a young man in sagging khakis and a shallow helmet, standing in a bare field, a rifle strapped to his shoulder. This is a human moment, and it reminds me that war, among other things, is a form of longing.”

The pick: U2 ~ The Best Of 1980-1990
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Explaination:

As I read, the image of this cover popped into my head and just the music of U2 in general. Not the biggest fan, but anything Bernie Grundman masters always perks my ears up.
 
Piratenovelist said:
is nudity allowed on covers to be posted or should I censor?
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Shouldn't be a problem unless something absolutely disgusting or gratuitous comes up and hopefully that would be obvious to the poster... but I don't think it's come up before and we never needed to censor any type of nudity on album covers in all of the time I participated in these.
 
April 5: Amy Hempel, In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried
  • “On the morning she was moved to the cemetery, the one where Al Jolson is buried, I enrolled in a "Fear of Flying" class. "What is your worst fear?" the instructor asked, and I answered, "That I will finish this course and still be afraid."”
Bryan Scary & The Shedding Tears "Flight Of The Knife" (2008 Black And Greene Records; 2020 reissue)

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April 5: Amy Hempel, In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried
  • “On the morning she was moved to the cemetery, the one where Al Jolson is buried, I enrolled in a "Fear of Flying" class. "What is your worst fear?" the instructor asked, and I answered, "That I will finish this course and still be afraid."”
Be afraid, be very afraid
But do it anyway
Do it anyway

Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit ~ Reunions

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