Critical Intimacy and Web 2.0 Authority

For those of you who don't frequent wayne&wax, check out this excellent post about critical distance/intimacy w/r/t the new cumbia. I don't know anyone else on the musiblogosphere who so virtuosically integrates his own creative work with web2.0. Even though I thought the meme died a few months ago, the topic of intimacy with ones work is still alive and well. [Just check out the comments section of my initial foray into this quagmire!]

And for a related thread, Ryan at amusicology opens a discussion on the authority (read "legitimacy") of using such unstable sources as youtube for research and academic work. It turns out that many of our colleagues are uncomfortable with how to cite such information in our work when we would ideally use CDs and DVDs and know all the facts surrounding the originary musical event? I applaud his call for a "millenial musicology." Seriously. I add the following for all the naysayers of "millenial (ethno)musicology": in this climate of musiblogging, is such a question appropriate when DVDs and CDs of many of the most exciting tracks and videos out there exist solely for a web2.0 context? More to the point, the very instability of youtube's records can in itself be a great source of discourse and debate – the very stuff that feeds so many of our heads.

Ah, but I am getting ahead of myself. I do have a wedding to be planning, you know...

Blogging Hiatus

I feel that I have to apologize in advance, but I won't be posting much if at all in the coming weeks. Not only is it crunch time for a certain second dissertation chapter (which I was supposed to complete 3 weeks ago), but it's also that time of the year when certain conference abstracts are due as well as the last round of fellowship applications. But more important than any of these things, my partner and I are having a commitment ceremony in 12 days out in the desert.

So while I may still be riding my bicycle (in increasingly larger quantities by the week) and thinking critically about musicology, I really can't spare the emotional energy to blog about it all.

I'll see you all on the other side.

Cross-posted on Rebellion on Two Wheels