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PLEASED_TO_MEET_YOU

                                                          May 8, 2007     
                                                                          
                                                                         
  As I've probably said before:
                                        SEVEN_NOT_PLUS
       I found the soundtrack
       of the "Macross 7"
       anime series rough going.
                                              Cecil Taylor remarked:
       Are they serious?                      "I expect the audience
                                              to come prepared to listen."
       How did they mean
       this guitar cheese
       to be interpreted?
               
       These endless bouncey,        
       bouncey, major chord        
       "anthems"...                              Dangerbaby still can't
                                                 listen to this stuff.
       According to the logic                    It's all more Boston & Styx
       of the story -- to the                    to her ear.
       extent it exists -- this           
       music is supposed to                         "Bathe me in stardust/
       represent the Anima                           Mmm... baay-- bee"
       Spirita, the unique     
       quality of human beings.           
                                      
       Yes: "the power of song".           
                                       
       Spirit as a physical force.           
                                         


                                                 Sun Ra played disco records
                                                 for the archestra:

                                                 "Don't be so hip!"

                                                        HIP_REDUCTION
       The lyrics seem literally
       decadent, a series of                           Mick Jagger:
       familiar tropes and symbols                     "make every song your
       deployed to meet a certain                      favorite song."
       style, with barely any regard
       to content...                                       JAGGED_PHILOSOPHY
           
       "Looking up at the purple panorama    
        of the galaxy highway,           
        a shooting star pierces my heart"    
                                         
                                                            (June 10, 2007)
I've been studying the handful
of episodes that I have access
to fairly closely, and I've           I've got #25-28, on a used
slowly come to the conclusion         tape I bought for $4 years
that this is not a work of            ago.  Apparently, this is
cynicism.                             some sort of bootleg.
                                      There was some licensing 
Everything about the story is         hang-up on US distribution.
bound up in the idea of the
regenerative power of music.
All the disparate elements
that seem incoherent (when not
formulaic) are all remarkably
tightly integrated.

I believe that this work is
fundamentally sincere.             To use Susan Sontag's jargon,
                                   it may be "camp" but it isn't
                                   "camping".

                                           SUNDAY_CAMP


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