Dr. Frank's What's-it

KUSF -- New Music Top Plays (week ending 1/9/04)

9. Noam Chomsky "The Emerging Framework of World Power" (AK Press)

Damn -- can you dance to it?

JB-

The really danceable Chomsky are his technical works in linguistics...

"...chain coindexing holds of the links of an extended chain. 8. There is no accidental coindexing of I. 9. I-V coindexing is a form of head-head agreement; if it is restricted to aspectual verbs, then base-generated structures of the form (174) count as adjunction structures...it's electric! Boogie-woogie-woogie!"

...and so on...

Dr. Frank-

It looks like KUSF thinks you're going on at 1. Maybe you guys should work that out.

Thanks, Spacetoast. I'm checking on that now.

The word I'm getting is that Carolyn's show starts at 1, and I'm on at 2.

I'm sure you're super-busy right now promoting the new album, but/and it'd be interesting to know what goes into that process and the decisions that you and "they" have to make.

Or at least you might jot some notes that could, in slower times, get worked into post form.

listened intently, great funny stuff. thanks df!

It was cool, but not as trippy as the UC Davis show. I found myself hallucinating at one point -- did Dr. Frank actually stop in the middle of a song and try to figure out a chord?

Really the thing that made the Davis "exchange" worth listening to was the dude who wanted to know whether any MTX songs were based on Kurosawa films.

Yeah, Spacetoast, the Kurosawa guy was my favorite, too. Not sure if he actually made it worth listening though. IIRC, even an Incredible Mr. Limpet reference didn't phase him.

Yeah, Mr. Limpet was good, but I was kind of grossed out by your dirty pun on "Kant." Anyway, I'm sure I need to get out more, but I enjoyed it ...was good procrastination material at least. And, as a separate thing, the acoustic stuff was very good. I've heard you do the balladeering before, but at least several of those songs were, I guess, "newly interesting" to me in the stripped down form. You get a cleaner look at how elegantly structured the songs are just as brute songs, rather than as recorded and produced pieces of music...where you take that more for granted...anyway I do. Anyway, I liked that stuff very much.

Also, maybe you should google the tab for "Concept of the Soul" or something.

Oh, the "Kant" retort was perfect. College DJ name-dropping philosophers -- what else can one say?

Sorry to gross you out, Spacetoast. I can't resist a cheap joke, I'm the first to admit. Plus: one of several lasting effects of the experience of spending a good chunk of 1998 criss-crossing Europe in a van with the Groovie Ghoulies, my bandmates, a Belgian driver, and no reading material in English besides Xaviera Hollander's The Happy Hooker, is that to this day I am literally incapable of hearing anyone mention Kant without immediately saying "so to speak." You probably had to be there, as they say.

But that aside-- thanks very much for that swell compliment about the songs' structure (s).

That's interesting that the greatest systematic philosopher of all time primarily connotes Happy Hooker idiom for you. Good work. I'll bet, with help from that PoMo title generator, there's even a monograph in there somewhere.

Space, not only was he the greatest systematic philospher of all time, but he was also a real piss-ant who was very rarely stable.

This whole "subject" has made me think of something kind of interesting though: how tiny, temporary groups of people can develop inside jokes that last for years, and can get passed on to other, subsequent "communities." I guess that's culture for you. Applying the X.H. parole in incongruous situations has bled into my other worlds, long after the one that spawned it ceased to exist. That particular tour produced many such habits.

Further, I've noticed that my marriage has started to develop its own distinct accent.

People are funny.

Ah yes they are...in bad ways and good...

that's my favorite topic in sociological realms.

the interactionist theories...studying how
we can understand things better by paying attention to these seemingly trivial groups.

just me

Yes, but could he think you under the table?

"I've noticed my marriage has started to develop its own distinct accent."

I haven't been able to hear the recent radio appearances (I live in NJ), so help me out -- is this one of those American-in-England Madonna accents?

Wittgenstein, though purportedly into promiscuous sex with young "toughs" in semi-public places, was not a "beery swine," and, c'mon, Socrates prided himself on being able to drink all night without getting pissed, and in reality Kant's personal life makes Martin Luther look like Groucho. The names never get any interesting content in the MP song, true or false,...that's one reason "...Concept of the Soul" is a more satisfying delivery of its own conceit...although it suffers for lack of a mouth harp.

Nick-

I picture the Dr. and Mrs. Frank conjugal life more like a jetsetting Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers type deal, y'know?, full of champagne and murder, and some skeezy old Max-type to carry their luggage.

Spacetoast,

If I ever become a marriage counselor, I'm gonna crib your idea for an introductory question:

"Which buddy/caper show from the 70s or 80s does your marriage resemble most:

1) Hart to Hart
2) Remington Steele
3) Moonlighting
4) Tenspeed and Brownshoe
5) BJ and the Bear
6) Knight Rider"

Sorry for the incursion of the TWOP vibe, Frank. Anyone have other suggestions? And Frank, what would your answer be? My wife and I are probably a #2 or a #6.

I've known some with marriages like "Project Bluebook": Short-lived and a little hard to fathom.

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