''On April 5, 1913, the Bulletin published an article by Ernest J. Hopkins entitled "In Praise of 'Jazz,' a Futurist Word Which Has Just Joined the Language." The article, which used the spellings "jaz" and "jazz" interchangeably, discussed the term at length and included a positive definition: "Jazz" (We change the spelling each time so as not to offend either faction) can be defined, but it cannot be synonymized. If there were another word that exactly expressed the meaning of "jaz," "jazz" would never have been born. A new word, like a new muscle, only comes into being when it has long been needed...This remarkable and satisfactory-sounding word, however, means something like life, vigor, energy, effervescence of spirit, joy, pep, magnetism, verve, virility, ebulliency, courage, happiness – oh, what's the use? – Jazz.''

--Richard Sudhalterr, from Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contribution to Jazz

online etymology:

"The word “jazz” probably derives from the slang word “jasm,”which originally meant energy, vitality, spirit, pep. The Oxford English Dictionary, the most reliable and complete record of the English language, traces “jasm” back to at least 1860...   Some have suggested that it originated as a variant of “gism,” which has the same meaning and can be traced back a little further, to 1842. By the end of the 1800s, “gism” meant not only “vitality” but also “virility,” leading to the word being used as slang for “semen.”

cf. spunk having the double meaning of 'gumption, exuberance, nerve, get-up-and-go etc' and, well, spunk...

 Better an honest curmudgeon than a career generalist with Botox prose

poem made out of found text

School Culture and academic press must be aligned to operationalize the mission

5 pillars of a culture of achievement

Welcome
Do no harm
Choice words
It’s never too late to learn
Best school in the universe

Welcome - inclusive - feel welcome all the time - all needs met - blur line between us and them - staff and pupils , adults and kids - put you in charge of the campus environment

Do no harm
Meet Ethical standards not follow rules - develop own ethical compass
Understand impact of behavior on others
Develop plan to harm done
Actively involve others

Choice words
Choose words when interacting with others - words have impact -
Reflect daily on the words you choose

It’s never too late to learn
Grading based. Multiple opportunities to prove competency and demonstrate what you’ve learned
Chance to go for an A again if get a C
No grade 'gotchas'
Classroom climate in which errors and mistakes allowed and encouraged

Best School in Universe!
We will strive to be the best at all times
Not a competitive concept
Internal accountability not external comparison
Reflect daily on your academic commitment
Schools with a high level of student engagement have a much more positive environment


We aren’t freaks but we’re not normal

A very diverse campus - the pillars are the glue allows us to function with this diversity

On the cutting edge of grading reform
Behavior is not part of the grade
Encourage risk taking and revision
A lot of collaborative learning

Schoology - a data tracking system - regular use assists all stakeholders
It’s where students put their work
Training videos on how to use it

Welcome day - on Friday

Productive failure is something we believe in

JK Rowling on her epic failure - I was the biggest failure I knew - failure makes a stripping away of inessentials - set free - my greatest fear has been realized - rock bottom became a solid foundation - impossible to live without failures unless live so cautiously that never lived - need to be tested by adversity

This school is challenging

Be a gritty learner

the shock of the new and the shock of the impossible are mysterious phenomena - because, you would think, simply by your experiencing it, the Newness would almost instantly evaporate - it would by definition be no longer new, it would seem increasingly familiar - something you were used to and had assimilated

likewise, simply by dint of existing, the quality of impossibility would immediately cancel itself out, becoming part of the realm of the possible and thinkable

but in fact that doesn't happen

the shock of the new can sustain itself quite a long time, through slightly differently inflected iterations of that newness

and moreover, even more mysteriously, if you hear something from the past that was once shocking newly / inconceivable / impossible, it still has that effect on a listener (or viewer or reader or...) even though all kinds of things have subsequently intervened and surpassed it - even though the art in question has been domesticated and become middlebrow or institutionalized

there's something about the breaking through into the unknown that permanently adheres to that work, continues to inhere to it

i really think it does and it's not an effect that relies on historical projection or mentally establishing the original context

it's a mysterious quality of the work itself

 as far as we know all thought is embodied – it doesn’t have existence outside our bodyminds, and it’s completely bound up with the functioning of our hormones, endocrine systems, neurology – our moods essentially. Yes there are a computers that can do fantastically complex calculations but can we really say there are thinking? So thought is always an emotion, always an expression of will – something has to motivate it, others it wouldn’t happen. And that applies even to the most purified and rigorous and seemingly transcendental thinking on the part of philosophers, mathematicians, astrophysicists etc etc.  Somewhere in there, motivating it at the deepest level, there is a drive to mastery, to knowledge and understanding and curiosity, to achievement, to status etc. So I don’t think there is any such thing as pure thought. Or at least the exercise of this pure kind of thinking still depends on energies and motives that are irrational or maybe better to say, pre-rational or outside reason.

And it’s impossible to be a moral being without emotion -  ideas of justice don’t have weight or traction without the idea of compassion or retribution. Compassion has the word passion in it, empathy has ‘path’ which  relates to the Greek word ‘pathos’, whose meanings include suffering, experience, emotion. All moral rules are based on ideas of value – and a value-judgement is emotional, it takes as its basis some kind of idea related to the value of other people, of human flourishing, kindness, protection etc.

 

with this one it feels incumbent to remind you of the blurb at the top of the blog: 

"thoughts quoted for the turn of thought / phrase rather than for truth value - quoted not necessarily because i agree with them or approve of them" - to which I might append at the end, ", or of the person uttering them"

"It’s the only romantic television show today. It’s not realistic. It’s not about the gutter, it’s not about the half-wit retarded children, and all the other kind of shows today. It’s about three attractive girls doing impossible things. And because they’re impossible, that what makes it interesting. It shows three young girls who are better than so-called 'real life'."

 - Ayn Rand, 1980, talking about Charlie's Angels. 

K-punk best albums of the 1990s

187 Lockdown – 187 Lockdown

Tricky – Pre Millennium Tension

Goldie – Saturnz Return

Massive Attack – Protection

Breakdown Presents: Drum & Bass Selection 3

Suburban Base and Moving Shadow Present The Joint LP

Various – Techsteppin’

The Dark Side: Hardcore Drum and Bass Style (React)

Marvellous Cain – Gun Talk

World of Twist – Quality Street

Tricky – Maxinquaye

Aphex Twin – Selected Ambient Works

Basement Jaxx – Remedy

MBV – Loveless (also here)

Barry Adamson – Soul Murder

Altern 8 – Full on Mask Hysteria

Renegade Soundwave – Soundclash

SR - 

that is so characteristically and endearingly Mark, to have the full-lengths by 187 Lockdown, Marvelous Cain, and Altern 8 in his Best British 90s list!

(Also Renegade Soundwave, an absolutely forgotten band but i wouldn't be surprised if an influence on Mark and friends's own group D-Generation)

Mind you, for all I know, the 187 Lockdown album is fantastic, an all-the-way through great listen. Seems pretty unlikely though.

my critique of Mark's way of approaching nuum (Kodwo too) is that they never really fully embrace the scenius concept - their default response is to auteurize, focus on the singular artist and these Grand Works

whereas nothing could be a less effective metric of the contribution of jungle than judging it by the number of great single-artist albums it produced

(rave actually probably produced more enjoyable single-artist albums - see this post in response to another bloggers post on Rave LPs http://energyflashbysimonreynolds.blogspot.com/2018/11/rave-lps.html)

Tricky - with trip hop, the scenius (such as it is) is the shitstuff, trip hop is really only redeemed as a genre - as a Concept - by Maxinquaye and the first album (maybe bits of the second too) by Massive

Auteurism works there, in part because its audience isn't really a scene i don't think - i guess there must have been trip hop or downtempo clubs - but trip hop pirates?

the trip hop artists would tour, do concerts like rock bands - or rap artists