Fractionals

I'm afraid it's a misfire, Ian. An essay in part about phenomenology whose author resists going all phenomenological is probably its most heartbreaking irony. Five paragraphs of exposition before we get to the first musical reference (Sgt Pepper).

Far more interesting would have been to have reexamined Soul Asylum and Sgt Pepper: what if anything do they mean to you now? You started to do this with Pepper, then inexplicably retreated.

Much love.

Fair enough - but if you thought five paragraphs before music was bad, do you have any idea how long it would have took if I'd tried to introduce more phenomenology to it?

I could have done a phenomenological account of my relationship with those two albums,yes, but I confess taking that slant never occurred to me - I wanted to make a broader point (which, yes, could have been done in that framework) in a different way. My intent wasn't to examine my own experience so much as give the reader a framework for re-thinking about their own - I'm trying to make a much, much broader point, for which I think this is the key line:

For the younger listener, the newer album is better in their experience in exactly the same way as the older fan experiences the older music as better, with exactly the same visceral, pre-intellectual, experiential force.

But maybe this will all make sense when I do my next essay, which this might wind up being just a prelude to, in retrospect.

Still, you raise a good point - sorry the essay didn't work for you, and I'm wondering now if I shouldn't try doing that sort of account for a future On Second Thought piece or something similar. What do you think?

Lastly, thanks for posting this here instead of to the article, but I wouldn't have minded if you'd done it there...

And not just because this is much more reasoned than the criticism I normally get. It will be noted and hopefully acted upon.

Actually, come to think of it, if you had posted this on Stylus it might be a sort of breach of etiquette (as you're also staff), so probably for the best that it's here. My point was more I don't mind this sort of thing being aired in "public", so to speak.

I don't like criticizing friends or colleagues before our audience; it's tacky and unprofessional.

To refine what I said: the thesis seemed lost. Somehow the context swallowed the subject, if that makes sense. I don't want to read about phenomenology; I want to read about how nostaglia affects Ian Mathers' listening -- if that's indeed what you wanted to write about.

Yeah, that first thing you mentioned is what occurred to me right after I responded the first time.

I think I get what you mean when you say the context swallowed the subject. I hope so, anyway.