This week, I decided to do a quick interview with our good friend Christopher Cocca. He wrote a guest blog here a few months back and he's beginning a Master’s of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at The New School. This week we talked about school, postmodernism, and technology. He's posting his side of the interview with me over on his blog sometime this week, too.
Be sure to check it out!
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Nathan Key:Thanks for agree to let me interview you, Chris. Now, from what I’ve read on your blog, you've recently decided to head back to school for an MFA? Can you tell us more about that and what prompted you back into education?
Christopher Cocca: There's no shortage of opinions on the utility of the MFA on the web and in general. For me, it's about being around other people who are trying to do the same thing I'm trying to do: push myself to producing the best possible texts. Doing this with other writers (students and teachers) appeals to me. If I had to do it over again, I wouldn't major in creative writing or English instead of political philosophy as an undergrad. And I'd still get the MDiv. I'd do it all the same as I did, including eventually going back and exploring/improving this part of what I do in a more formal, educational setting. I'm glad to be going back now, in my extremely late 20s, with a very clear focus.
NK:You know,sometimes I wish I could head back to high school and college with that clear focus you just mentioned- knowing then what I do now. Ah well… On your blog you've mentioned Postmodernism quite a bit, lately. One meme I've been exploring here on this site is the postmodern idea of "death of the author" and how media, art, and literature have been affected. As a guy who's writing a novel and working toward publishing your own ideas and stories, how is your role as a writer and storyteller changing?
CC: The death of the author is another way of saying everyone's an author. In the postmodern literary sense where reader-response sometimes is taken to trump everything, I get what some people mean, but on the other hand, with all of us social networking, tweeting, meme-ing, song-quoting, whatever...everyone is some kind of passer-on of content. Some people are creating, authoring. Some people are receiving and retransmitting. Many, actually. RT hashtag cliche. The interesting thing to me is that our references are so ubiquitous but people still think that repeating them makes them clever or interesting, that somehow repeating this line or lyric or saying this punch-line or snarky thing --- the punch-line everyone's expecting because you've heard it a million times --- makes us authors. I'm talking about general conversation here, not just the passive-aggressive what I had for lunch today Facebook status updates. And then you've got what's going on in Iran, which should really make all of us feel pretty shameful about most of the things we use social media and social networking for. Nothing in the world to say and all the freedom to say it.
Here I'm going to do it myself: we're like the Junkions from the original Transformers movie (the cartoon). Using catch phrases from television shows to navigate our lives and determine how we speak to one another. In art, this is interesting: it's open source, it's sampling, it's remixing. It's the good things about the death or redefinition or authorship.
In conversation, it's the worst. It's free time x cheap entertainment x laziness. I tend to feel this way about cliche in writing, too. So, as an author or a writer or a blogger or whatever, I try to edit all of those placeholders out. The challenge is finding new ways to say things, and I think this goes for speech and relationships, too. No one can ever play "In Your Eyes" for Ione Skye again. Think of all the tender little phrased you'd love to say to your wife if you weren't so embarrassed by them because people in movies said them first.
Maybe the problem is using other people’s art to express yourself in the first place. Sometimes it's amazing (the Grey Album, for example), or the open source art projects that are coming up. But in real life it's sort of cheesy. So I think we need to learn to make our own art for our own purposes, which is why people started making art in the first place.
NK: Speaking of Open Source- which makes me think of all sorts of free downloadable content- you've been posting some bits and pieces of your novel, Milton County Power & Light up on your blog lately. I've seen a few other authors post their books online, too- Monster Island is a great example- and I'm wondering if the future of authors is similar to the future of musicians- it doesn't really seem like musicians really need record labels, and it doesn't seem like writers need publishers. Where do you think we're heading with all this?
CC: This is something people are talking a lot about, especially with things like LuLu making publishing and delivery so easy. It seems very similar to the success we’ve seen among indie bands and unsigned artists through platforms and communities like MySpace, YouTube etc.
But while I agree that musicians don't really need record labels anymore, and while writers might not need publishing houses, they still need editors. I think that's the disconnect in the analogy. A musician can throw up a demo or a crummy song on MySpace and when no one likes it they can take it down, make it better, whatever. But if you self-publish a novel before it's really ready, that's out there forever. I think we sort of understand music as more of a work in progress in the sense that demos and alternate cuts and completely unfinished songs are interesting. Boxsets and anthology albums are full of these things and people collect the bootlegs. It's not the same with writing.
That said, just like writers need editors, most musicians need producers. But then you've got this whole crop of one-man virtual bands that do it all in their bedroom on a Mac and it's amazing. Chad Van Gaalen is like that. I guess what I'm saying is that it depends on the maturity of your talent. I know that I'm not about to self-publish a novel because I know how much work I still have to do. If I wrote a perfect pop song, maybe, I'd know it. At present, my book isn't that.
So that's the practical side of it. But there's also another difference. Releasing your own album is almost a badge of honor. When your band gets big you can reminiscence about how you put out the first EP yourself and sold it out of your car and even for people who never make it past that, I think it's all very romantic. It's cool. Maybe I only think that because I haven't done it. But there's not the same kind of vibe when it comes to self-publishing. I think most writers aren't ready to say the self-publishing has the same kind of punk ethos. Even small presses who's mission is to publish new voices or avant guard stuff have editors and gatekeepers and for good reason. Someone has to go to bat for your work. Reading an experimental novel doesn't have the same built-in viral opportunities that listening to a 4 minute alt.country track does. It's just not a viral medium. This is probably why flash fiction is so popular on the web. Six-sentence stories or one-sentence stories can become memes. That's what tweets are, and people are using Twitter and Tumblr and Facebook for this kind of viral lit, mircostories, koans, whatever.
NK:Of course, none of those writing forums pay really well, either. I know from past experience that a band might be able to make money from live music shows or T-shirts. But writers don’t really have that sort of thing…
CC: As far as a paycheck, at the moment, I think it's more about building social and artistic capital than actual capital. But publishers will find a way to make more money than they currently are off of the kinds of things you're talking about. Writers will too and a few already are. Present company excluded.
NK: OK, last question. Who'd you bet on if Stephen King and John Grissom were up against each other in a cage match?
When Susan Boyle walked onto the set of Britain’s Got Talent, she was 47 years old.
And she looked it.
When she told the judges that she had dreams of being a professional singer, the cameras panned over to select faces in the audience that thought it was a joke. They did their best to suppress their laughter, but it was useless. It was obvious to them that what was about to happen would be an epic failure.
We can’t blame them of course- it's classic talent show stuff to couple a few wonderful acts with an awkward, fumbling fool with illusions of grandeur. And this frumpy old lady with her round face and dated hair captured the image of comic relief. Everyone was certain that they were about to witness a train wreck. They were certain that Susan Boyle’s fifteen minutes of fame would be achieved by butchering a song in front of millions of viewers.
So when she dazzled them instead, the room exploded in joyful shock.
I’ve never seen a standing ovation that began within seconds of a song’s beginning. But here it was, only four notes into the song and the grand cheers began erupting from the crowd and here and there the audience began to rise from their seats in surprise and pleasure until the majority of the room was standing in awe of her performance.
Lisa Schwarzbaum, from Entertainment Weekly is still watching the youtube clip over and over again- weeping for joy each time. In a recap article, she writes that “Ms. Boyle let me feel, for the duration of one blazing showstopping ballad, the meaning of human grace. She pierced my defenses. She reordered the measure of beauty. And I had no idea until tears sprang how desperately I need that corrective from time to time.”
In an age where we often judge people by their looks and their ability to persuade us by how well they present themselves to us, I think Susan Boyle is a much needed wake-up call to the reality that beauty is more than aesthetics.
Within every one of us is a song or an idea that’s unique and wonderful to behold.
The fact that Boyle’s performance is one of the most-viewed videos up on Youtube (over 40 million views, at the time I’m writing this) is evidence that a story featuring something beautiful tucked into the most unlikely corner of this world is theme that resonates with all of us. It's why we also like Rudy, Cinderella, Princess Diana and every other narrative where the average person gets to be a hero. As we hear these stories, I think it causes us to reflect on our own, and we begin to understand that we have something worth sharing as well.
That's why Susan Boyle matters and that's why we want her to win.
What follows are not my “favorite” albums. Each one of these albums represent a different, and equally important, era of my life thus far. I wanna thank Chris and that silly 15 albums Facebook meme for getting me interested in this.
1. Music Machine I & II by Candle and Agape Force These (two) albums represent childhood for me. I can remember road trip after road trip with these tunes playing in the background. No, they’re not really well known, but they were well loved by me when I was young.
2. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme by Simon & Garfunkel Most of my friends were raised on the Beatles. Outside of classical music and the Gaithers, I was raised on folk music and this was the record that I put in the most. Love me some “Cloudy.”
3. Comin' on Strong by Carmen Yes, it’s true. I had a Carmen tape. And I listened to it OVER AND OVER again. I was young and evangelical. I have no remorse.
4. Go West Young Man by Michael W Smith I think this was the first tape I bought with my own money. Needless to say, I liked it quite a bit. “My Face in This World!”
5. Ten by Pearl Jam I’m so glad for this CD. Others were brought into the new music revolution by Nirvana’s “Nevermind” but the first time I heard something I identified with was when the opening chords of Once played. I may have been a hormone raging kid before this moment, but I became a teenager when I heard Eddie Vedder singing.
6. Let's Go by Rancid I heard Let’s Go for the first time when I got to Orlando and started High School. Punk wasn’t on the radio, yet, so I felt like I had a subculture all to myself. I loved that CD for my entire High School Career.
7. Dark Side Of The Moon by Pink Floyd I was finally introduced to Pink Floyd in my freshmen year of college. A friend from down the hall loaned me her CD and I listened to it almost every night as I wrote papers or studied. I actually like The Final Cut a lot better, but this says “college” to me.
8. Blue by Third Eye Blind I picked up Blue from the record store in 1999 and decided that it was what I wanted my band to sound like. There hasn’t been more than a month or two since then that this record hasn’t been on in the background. Every song is perfection.
9. Bleed American by Jimmy Eat World I loved this CD and modeled my band after it, basically because I wasn’t talented enough to replicate 3EB’s Blue. ‘Nuff Said.
10. Sonicpraise by Sonic Flood Ironically, it was my atheist friend who reintroduced me to Christian music when she gave me this CD (she obviously didn't want it). After years of thwarting anything "Christian Music" related, I ended up going to a college ministry and getting involved in a discipleship group because of this album. I say that honestly, because after listening to it one night I decided to head over to church instead of going to a NOFX concert. I truly believe that decision changed my life.
11. Our Love Is Loud by Passion artists Chris Tomlin, Charlie Hall, & David Crowder Sonic Praise opened up the door for me to actually listen to worship music, but Passion artists are the only thing that kept me from going crazy when my band broke up. I used to hang out with the kids at S. Orlando Baptist Church on Sunday and Wednesday evenings and we’d sing these songs at the top of our lungs.
12. Facedown by Matt Redman I listened to these songs for the year that Beth and I were dating. I remember singing them together and playing them for her when we were falling in love. This is probably either my all time favorite album or at least in the top five.
13. Self Titled by Mute Math I heard this CD playing and I knew that music was good again. It was different. It was fresh. And it also represents the first year of marriage because I’d listen to it on the way to the gym with my wife.
14. Viva La Vida by Coldplay Got this album in Seattle and it still reminds me of the year and a half we spent there. Other bands like Jeniferever "sound" more like Seattle- but I spent more time listening to this album than the others and it reminds me of driving downtown on the Alaskan Way Viaduct.
15. Self Titled by Vampire Weekend Almost every morning, my son and I have a little dance party with this album. I’m so glad that I am making memories of our morning play. This is fun music that you can dance to and sing to. Love it!
After seeing Paris based Phoenix play SNL this past week, I checked out their website and discovered that they, too, are providing fans with a multitrack version of their latest single- 1901. Add another band to the list of artists who are humble enough to allow other people to make something new from their art.
Over the past year, I've enjoyed Radiohead's Stem versions of Nude and Reckoner, Ben Folds' Stems and Seeds disc, and Third Eye Blind's pre-release of a number of songs off their forthcoming album on indabamusic. Each of these bands/arstist have all inspired users to interact with their music in ways that weren't even possible 10 years ago and I'm eager to see what other bands begin jumping on this idea.
So, If you hear anything or find anything in this vein, send a note my way and I'll keep do some updates every now and then about this topic.
OH- And if anyone out there in the movie industry is reading or listening- I'd love to be able to splice up some films, too. Sell us some extended versions with a lot of your cut footage and allow us to edit it up and make fan-cuts in Final Cut or Windows Movie Maker. Trust me, there's a market full of people who would be willing to pay for the opportunity to play with your art!
I am so glad that I waited to purchase Ben Folds’ Way To Normal until the Stems and Seeds version was released.
Not only does Stems and Seeds provide the Stems for each song on the album, but it also features remastered versions of each song and B-sides that didn’t make the initial cut. In particular, I’ve really enjoyed listening to the B-sides because they remind me of the Ben Folds Five era.
Man, I loved Philosophy and Kate.
Hang on... let me explain Stems really quick for those of you who aren’t familiar with them. Stems are a new thing in the music world where an artist provides listeners with the source files of their songs- vocals, guitars, drums, etc.- split apart so that we can play with each track and create something different with it if we so choose.
In the past, I’ve blogged about Radiohead’s introduction of stems, comparing it with the ‘death of the author’ meme that’s been floating around the postmodern philosophy community. But now that Ben Folds is jumping on board, I'm suddenly filled with a new sense of excitement about the future of the music industry. This could very well be a pivotal point in music history- perhaps more important than the introduction of Rock & Roll and the advent of iTunes.
Stems are so incredibly important because they invite us to move beyond simply listening to music and push us toward interacting with it, too. When we play around with Stems, we get to create something new with songs that we couldn’t have created in the first place. In a sense, we get to “borrow” the musicianship of Ben Folds (or Radiohead or the other artists who are providing Stems) and combine it with our own ideas regarding what a song should sound like.
Besides redefining the role of listeners, there's also the ability to make a lot more money. I'm sure Radiohead and Folds are attracting listeners who might not be interested in their work aside from the fact that they can take it and make it into something they DO enjoy. There's a lot of creative people out there who are willing to drop some money into the coffers of artists who provide this sort of thing.
Third Eye Blind is capitalizing on this idea and using it as a promotional tool. On the social music side indabamusic.com, they've released Stems from a few songs off their new studio album (for free) and invited fans and friends to remix them. The best ones have been reviewed by the band and are possibly going to be featured on an extended release of the album.
In doing this, 3eb created momentum about their new album. Inbada users were able to hear tracks before they were “released” and get excited about it They were also given the chance to truly influence the direction that Stephan Jenkins and his band took the music.
Just as social networking is making music better, I’m really hoping that we can figure out a way to do integrate it into other mediums as well.
For instance, I’ve really enjoyed watching recuttrailers of movies. Is there a way for filmmakers to give viewers the chance to interact with their films and make our own “audience cuts?” I would think that big fans of certain films would be willing the pay extra for a DVD with source materials that they could re-edit in Final Cut, iMovie, or Windows Movie Maker (I’d LOVE to re-edit Donnie Darko or BladeRunner).
On a more personal level, I’m wondering if there is a way for me as a blogger/author to provide readers with more interactive texts? I think that the “comments” space is a good start, but I’d love to see it go even further without resorting to “choose your own adventure” type stuff.
I think it takes a bit of humility on the part of the artist to surrender his work to the public. But I don’t think it’s “giving up” the rights to releasing your music, films, prose, etc the way you want to. It’s a really amazing thing to present a piece of art and then see how other people interact with it and respond to it.
