an eulogy

I'm sorry not to let this go quietly, but sometimes some things should not pass
without much comment. Without a stink, so to speak. Not be allowed a quiet death. Some things deserve a good Wake and a proper eulogy from someone who is not a family member. I'm referring of course to e/i magazine - champion of "quiet is the new loud" and "black-on-black as the replacement for orange (which was last years black)".

e/i magazine was good, real good. Very quiet and in the shadows, almost invisible. But gooder still was its potential for even greater goodness. It had that. I could smell it. An almost "good" kind of smell.

Things like the record label Merck and e/i magazine should not be allowed disintegrate from our ephemeral-and-tenuous-enough-as-it-is community without due remark. No ghost shall dissipate without leaving behind a whiff or a bottle containing their signature aroma. Let us all hold our noses together and know that their passing leaves us all poorer, with less things to buy and collect, and more in danger of apathy. Let us open the door and go into the grims. Ignore the grims and do not allow concern and rage and depair over the current state of the world with its widespread fashioneering and dystroaesthesia and Presto! you're apathetic - aesthetically dead - while still alive. A distressing state for the afflicted and unpleasant to be around for those of us who try to combat this disease by embracing the grims among other psychanaestheticogogic tricks. The treatment for that is to emphatically maintain sour, skeptical demeanor and a fond irreverence toward the deceased. This can take the form of jokes, the cleverest insults, or the form of heavy but non-serious drinking. After all, they're dead! What do they care what you say about them at their expense? What do they care about your state of sobriety when you say these things? What are they going to do? Come back and haunt you?

The bottom line is though, that the dead are not funny. They're just gone. That's hard to accept for awhile. I'm really sorry that e/i is gone. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It looked good and it felt good in the hand. It didn't smell that good, but ink never does. I persevered through that ink like a good skunk handler - wearing gloves and a mask. I read every single word in every single one - even the stuff no one usually reads like the articles, uh, I mean the ads. It always seemed like a lot had gone into it - which I appreciate - but I always assumed that there were some deep pockets behind it (like Paul Allen with his EMP or suchlike), so e/i would last forever. It was reassuring to have a lot of my thinking and research done for me and compiled into one nice-looking, but evil-smelling, package. It was opiate-like in its use - bitter but psychoactive!

Maybe in time, after the smell has worn off my hands, I can move on…

OK! Now that the grieving stage is finally over, lets move on to some life-affirming actions we can take!

Maybe someone can call EMP and ask them when they're going to publish Number 7 as though everyone thinks they've done all the others!

Institutions fall for that kind of trick all the time.

That can take some time though, because even lean and mean institutions like the EMP move slower than reading hour with George Bush.

Meanwhile, you can set it all up beautifully with the right marketing. Somebody said that 99% of success is just showing up. Being seen. If you believe in the merits of what you do, you will have no qualms about doing whatever it takes to make sure that a lot of people know who you are and what you're doing. Getting e/i seen is of the greatest importance! Thrust a copy into the hands of celebrities you've stalked and take a snapshot of them holding it. Send it to People magazine. Soon everybody will wonder about that magazine Brad Pitt is holding with his newest adopted baby. That'll light a fire under the EMP! They won't want Microsoft or Google to rush in and steal all the thunder right from under them!

Even if you aren't actually doing anything at the moment, do the things that make it seem as if you are. But what are those things?

A good T-shirt design is a plus. A design that can be printed on stickers with that permanent adhesive so they can only be partly removed. A design that can cover an entire Volkswagon. A design an architect might be proud to wear to his first Burning Man. A design that kids will have put on their snowboards and tattooed on their upperbutts. A design that screams: "e/i dares to advocate in a loud way quiet music that is not about irritation, chemical imbalance, or the instinct to procreate"

Maybe check into those "Free The Homeless" T-Shirts from Republican Designers that are so hot right now! And free! Everybody's talking about them:

--Ed Hoc wrote:
"yup, as your post mentioned, designers republic is in fact giving free
tshirts to homless IDM producers. please email
meatsock@thedesignersrepublic.com for more info.

-- Jeff wrote:
"yeah $60. it cost me lot to get it plus you can't get this one any
more, so it's rare :) don't like the price? make an offer!"
Jeff

--fwitcher wrote:
Someone say that DesignersRepublic! is making free shirts for the
homeless? I'd pay $60 for one of those, if I weren't homeless...
Free T-shirts are very rare!

--Jeff wrote:
"probably the bad designs they have left that haven't sold!"

--Fwitcher wrote:
"We homeless are BAD people. We LIKE BAD designs and leftovers. We are badly
designed. We don't really know what "LIKE" means but we do know what "FREE"
means. Its good! Especially if its bad.
Bring it!"

-- Ed Hoc" wrote:
"no jeff, that's a hoax, DR are giving away *any* of their shirts to
the public, duh. just check the internet, why dont you?"

Say outrageous things about sacred cows in posts like this and to local newspapers and stir up the anthill a little, prod the lawyers out of their cull-dee-sacks!

You already got the good subject matter and the good writing. But that isn't enough apparently. If a lot of people wanted to read smart people talking about things that matter, we wouldn't have People magazine or (amerikan-style) TV. You've got to tell them that you won't give them something they can't have in the simplest terms, or they won't know that they want it.

If you want more people to do something that they aren't doing enough of already, you've got to make them think that they can do more of what they are already trying to do more of. The thing has to feel cultish and reek of drugs and wiggle like sex. Its gotta be like Rush Limbaugh's Oxycontin teenage call-girl week long casting call, but smart and about music.

About that stinky ink... You ever hear about any research that links our strongest emotional responses to our sense of smell? Well its true! Things that smell bad make us want to put them down and go wash our hands. Things that smell good, make us want to linger with them, maybe eat them or put them down our pants. Imagine if word got around that a cult of artists was putting e/i magazine down their pants all the time! Imagine if a bunch of people realized that not only was Alan Lockett's writing insightful but also edible (if not nourishing)! Whole new venues might open up - imagine e/i mag in supermarkets in the snacks aisle and right next to checkout, e/i mag in new age stores in the aromatherapy section, e/i mag in sharper image stores right next to the stock and bond accumulator and the compact travel money launderer... !

A signature smell would be good. "Aah, there's that e/i smell!" people would say as they opened up their mailbox or stepped into the mall (e/i operatives would spray or operate scent dispensers at mall entrances - other sexually attractive operatives would hand out abbreviated free copies of e/i magazine) and soon people would associate e/i magazine with that good smell and that attractive man/woman and all the other pleasant things about the mall. Now you got them. Now they're receptive to all that smart talk about aesthetics and why some music is worthwhile and some is not and for what reasons. Now they'll read, now they'll care. And then, suddenly, WHAM! Unsuspecting, they'll KNOW what they ought to even if it goes against their baser instincts, miseducation and ignorance. Our side will carry the hour, the day and the age. Statues and parks and organisms will be named after e/i mag so that history remembers the moment!

And if they still don't seem to really care and they don't respond with the amount of dollars you want... well, the "gloves will have to come off" and e/i magazine can begin its FEAR campaign - using time-honored methods for acquiescense – techniques that have worked so well and tested true by the Nazis and the Halliburton administration! The FEAR approach is your ace in the hole. I will give you details about my ideas for it should it become necessary.

Yer humble servant
Henry of Hanging Swamp

-- Alan wrote:

"Thanks, Henry. I feel, however, that, rendered edible, my text would likely be a tad indigestible for the average para-grazer used to syntax-snacks; all that subordination and compound nominalisation would end in bloating. Powders would need taking. Darren B. and I are still collaborating albeit through non-inky unpapered odour-free channels. Won't be the same but it'll be something. Hypertext aether talk is better than being mute, I ultimately figured. Talking the other part of the shop, have you clapped ears on new CDs by Tim
Hecker, Chris Herbert, and Growing (not on Kranky but sounding like it should've been) yet?

Bestness,
Alan"

-- Alan wrote later (in response to something related):

"OK, I'll bite. I guess it's stating the obvious to point out that it bears more than a passing resemblance (esp. 'My Eye'). Any relation? Who was that Lone man? 'November dream tape' almost sounds like a parody of one of their titles. So now we get artists knowingly recontextualising artists of the 90s/00s, who are knowingly recontextualising the sounds of the 60s/70s etc etc How post-post-modern do we want to get before we implode? Is 'Autophagy' a word? I just coined it, if it isn't..."

I think Alan's onto something (or perhaps he's 'on' something, anyway) (And some have observed the cannibalistic overtones of some of his other statements: "OK, I'll bite," etc.) Yikes! Watch that man!

(Seeing cannibalism in your dream, symbolizes a destructive and forbidden desire or obsession. In a literal sense, cannibals consume people's lives, along with their energy. This dream may then denote an aspect of your life (career, relationship, children...) which is consistently draining your enthusiasm and vitality. Dreaming that you are a victim of cannibalism means that you feel that you are being "eating alive" by work, a relationship. or a situation in your waking life. {Dreaming that you are a cannibal on the other hand, is obviously the opposite or inverse of that.})

He suggested:

AUTOPHAGY
Pronunciation: ..Au*to ph"a*gy..,
Definition: [n] [Gr. ? self + ? to eat.] (Med.)
The feeding of the body upon itself, as in fasting; nutrition by consumption of one's own tissues.

To which we can append as an hypothetical explanation of symptoms (in a figurative sense):

ECHOLALIA
Pronunciation:`ekow'leylee-uh
Definition: [n] (psychiatry) mechanical and meaningless repetition of the words of another person (as in schizophrenia)

EPANODOS
Pronunciation: i'panu`dâs
Definition: [n] repetition or recapitulation in reverse order
O more exceeding love, or law more just? Just law,indeed, but more exceeding love!
--Milton.

EPISTROPHE
Pronunciation: i'pistrufee
Definition: [n] repetition of the ends of two or more successive sentences, verses, etc.
A figure in which successive clauses end with the same word or affirmation; e. g., ``Are they Hebrews? so am I. Are they Israelites? so am I.'' --2 Cor. xi. 22.