Race and Technology: Okeh Records

Mamie Smith

I've just been poking through William Kenney's Recorded Music in American Life, and came upon a really amazing little tidbit.  Apparently Okeh records, which would go on to be early and vital popularizers of African-American music, were initially successful not because of their content - which at least in the early days Kenney characterizes as "uninspired" - but because of their technology.  The founder of the company pioneered a pressing process that allowed Okeh's records to be played on any turntable, whereas most companies at the time pressed in proprietary formats linked to phonographs that they also produced.  This was particularly important to the story of black music, because the Victor and Columbia companies, which held controlling intellectual property in the dominant lateral-cut pressing system, did not record black musicians due to supposed risks to the companies' respectability.

Okeh would go on, after the initial success bolstered by their technological leapfrogging of these barriers, to aggressively open markets in first Northern, then Southern black communities.  This began with Mamie Smith, but would culminate artistically with the recording of Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives and Sevens, which remain to this day one of the definitive statements of American musical culture.  This art might not exist today if not for the technological and structural paths of recorded sound development.

McLuhan would be delighted.

Actually Awesome Anarchism: Valve Software

Note: I now blog at Blownhorizonz.com.  It's much prettier to look at, and more focused on fun stuff like weird fiction, extreme music, and awesome art.  Also check out my Tumblr at blownhorizonz.tumblr.com.

In the semi-weekly discussion group run by the Tampa Anarchist Collective, we have several time broached the topic of examples of anarchistic ethics and practice that can be found in the world around us today - particularly those that don't explicitly declare themselves as such.  Many of these can be found in the world of software, particularly in the Open Source movement (file sharing communities are another one that has been thrown around, but I have some issues with that example as my views on copyright evolve).

Another sterling example has just come to my attention - Valve Software, probably the single most creative large video game studio in the world, is run on nonhierarchical syndicalist lines.  Projects are not assigned, but are created and spearheaded from the bottom up by self-constituted teams subject to flux.  There are even serious elements of communalism, as pay rates are at least in part based on a system of mutual value ratings.  You can read more about these practices at The Wall Street Journal and Develop Online.

The example does highlight a consistently emerging caveat - obviously, a software development company is generally staffed by people who are already highly trained, motivated, and disciplined.  And even within the company's own literature, there's an acknowledgment that when someone who doesn't fit that mold lands a job at the company, it can be disruptive and take some time to shake out.  Does this indicate that anarchism, for all its bottom-up rhetoric, works best at its highest level of institutional development when it's being used to organize the elite?  Regardless, it's yet another exciting sign that we're looking at the political philosophy of the 21st century.  Not only is it right - it works.

My New Yoga Culture Blog: Flexy Beast

For anyone potentially curious, I've started a series of posts on Yoga culture from a critical/cultural studies perspective, on a new blog tailored to the purpose.  As on this blog, a lot of the material there will amount to rough drafts of future essays/more polished work.  The first post on the series is about culture and personality in Yoga:


Yoga for Type-A Americans . . . and Type-A Indians?

Subverts Unite!

We've got a pretty great thing going here in Tampa, what with all the Free Skools, collective spaces, art warehouses, and various mishigas.  But somewhere beneath all that, there's something sinister . . . something bleak and desperate.  A perverse Dadaist conspiracy!  Evidence of it only surfaces in fits and starts, but here is the latest sign that something sinister is afoot, replete with mind-bending tone poems of Reichian Orgone Therapy, violent insurrection, and subconscious mental manipulation.

Subverts Unite!  Issue 2

Refreshed: The Best of Japanese Underground Hip Hop

I've re-upped the link for my moderately popular mix of Japanese underground hip hop.  You can get it here.


As noted, there's limited bandwidth on that link, so please save rather than streaming it.

Anarchism and Japan's Anti-Nuclear Movement: Part 2

Here's part 2 of my recent talk at All Power to the Imagination, about Tokyo's anarchists and the antinuclear movement.  Enjoy!

Video: Anarchism and Japan's Anti-Nuclear Movement

Here's the video of my recent presentation at New College of Florida's All Power to the Imagination conference in Sarasota, FL. It was a great experience, with a small but attentive audience of anarchist activists and (mostly) theorists.  It's an annual event, and I highly recommend that you make the trip next year if you're at all interested.