To continue the thread about the increasing need for temperance
and lucidity today as opposed to the obliteration and highs of yesteryear I am
faced with balancing the needs must of function, achievement and not appearing to
much like a self-obsessed weirdo with the unnecessitous misdemeanours and temptations
of the don’t need, mustn’t activity of the mainstream prevalent attitude of
current party philosophy as experienced by me in this moment. 
All opinions
expressed may, or indeed must change tomorrow or whenever I can think of a
better way to justify my behaviour. Behavioural justification being of course the
mainstay or default reason for say, western narrative tradition in film. The
western storytelling tradition has canonised a distinctive set of narrative
values characterised by tight economy and closure. Ditto me with dance culture.
I need to get in there, do my bit, talk to who I need to talk to and get out
with a tight closure, a line drawn and a move to the next compartmentalisation scenario
that I can hang my latest anxiety on.
Write your own goddamn stories.
I like this quote from Graham Turner who wrote a book called
Film
as Social Practice...
“... the world ‘comes to us’ in the
shape of stories... story provides us with an easy, unconscious, and involving
way of constructing our world; narrative can be described as a means of ‘making
sense’ of our social world, and sharing that ‘sense’ with others.” (Turner
78-9)
You can’t get much more narratively simplistic that the
story of a party. Like western film we all favour narrative simplicity. Seeing complexity
in something that really is genuinely complex flux is not the story of a party
for most. Reduce multifaceted, multifarious human interaction down, make it
into a simple story and then tell it. Simplify deep social issues, emphasise the
emotional and the dramatic. Don’t mention messy, complicated social issues, don’t
grapple with important social issues, don’t resort to dogmatism or polemic. Now,
try writing a story or promoting a party taking that on board? Can’t be done?
It can be done.
Structuralist narrative approaches and the significance
of genre and point-of-view as forms of discourse can uncover real social
meaning within the narrative structures. Stock character types, binary
oppositions, a story arc which takes the chaos of life, structures it, and
ultimately gives it meaning. My wife got shot now I’m gonna kill the killer. I didn’t
know what I was doing, I was off my head. But wasn’t it funny. Tell me about it
again?
I haven’t been writing party reviews for a few weeks
because I’ve been somewhat disturbed by the reaction to some of the pieces
written; perceived slights to people’s characters, portraying them as if they
were stock character types, binary oppositions, part of a story arc which takes
the chaos of life, structures it, puts it through the lens of my mind and
ultimately gives it meaning; if only to me. I do reduce people down to cyphers
but it is all in the cause of narrative impurity; to tell a few lame jokes, to
tease but untimately because I love these people and want to write about their
lifes because no-one else is. What we do is important to us.
If I stick ‘to the narrative’, which goes some like
this – arrived at party, everyone was beautiful and witty, the sound system was
superb and the DJ’s perfect, had such a wonderful time, went home – the ‘reviews’
are loved and the compliments about the great writing flow thick. But, you
know, things are only sometimes like that.
I got one close friend in a lot of trouble because I
made a lame joke at his expense and said, and I paraphrase here, ‘this DJ had
this woman round his house and was “teaching her how to DJ”’. “What do mean
putting inverted commas around teaching her how to DJ? Said the said DJ’s
partner fully getting my ‘humorous’ intonation but not seeing the funny side of
it all. I had never got into as much trouble over two inverted commas. I removed
them from the blog and she was happy. 
The intonation is still there, the
intonation that my aging lothario DJ chum may have, in his mind, wanted (wink) ‘to
teach her to DJ’ but only in passing thought and only in his own, sad, sick
puppy, male mind. But we all know what men are like? Right?I wasn’t saying they had fucked or wanted to or wished to pry open his
partners insecurity about his commitment or loyalty to her if indeed there was any. In fact she was
just round playing a few tunes with him and there was no impropriety suggested
or took place. It was, admittedly, a fairly poor sexual backfire on my part and
I was obliged to apologise to all parties concerned and censor my text.
Now imagine that happening dozens of times?
Formalist Vladimir
Propp argued that all fairy tales were constructed of certain plot
elements, which he called functions, and that these elements consistently
occurred in a uniform sequence. As a firm Proppian I believe that a cohesive
story can be formed by connecting a series of any set of his thirty-one
functions in order. That’s why I can write 100 odd blog posts on tVC
playing down the Smack on a Saturday night and everyone of those stories will
be different every time. This piece could be seen as... 
HERO'S REACTION:
Hero reacts to actions of future donor (withstands/fails the test, frees
captive, reconciles disputants, performs service and uses adversary's powers
against him.
Of course by inserting
verbal considerations, considerations of tone, mood, character and all that baloney
that makes us human and different, which Propp ignores, and you can potentially
have a great yarn to tell.
So on to the
weekend; was great to see my old mate who begins with an S and ends in a toney
for his birthday on Saturday night. Surrounded by his close chums he basked the
warm blanket of friendship and the music he loves. He’s to another 48 years
mate!
Was also good to
spend time with my old mucker DP and new mucker Dantix down at The Jekyll and
Hyde in Ramsgate, not too bad a turn out for the third one as the pre free
party people gathered few a few drinks before heading out to the wilds of the Kent
countryside. For some reason we had no technics 1210’s there and we all Djed digital
for the first time without of favourite vinyl playing decks. Indeed 3 of the DJ’s
brought memory sticks down with tunes on and it was a swift matter of copying
them over onto my laptop (thanks for the free tunes guys) boshing them in a
folder with their names on and they were off.
The bad news of
the weekend was the death of our dear old chum from The Smack, Pugsly the dog, who
sadly had to be put down in the week; he was 19 years old and will be missed by
all who were the recipient of his gentle if somewhat drooling affection. Now, after me; "in yer basket!" RIP Pugsley 1992 - 2011.
Turner,
Graeme. Film as Social Practice. London: Routledge, 1999.
ha!
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