So why share "T.A.Z."? Well, it's a weird-ass artifact from the mid-90s. "T.A.Z." is a spoken word record, scored and arranged by Bill Laswell on his Axiom label (a sub-label of Island Records). Like Laswell's Material work, the music here is grounded in dub, but moves continually into Eno-esque ambience and drone. I don't love Laswell, but this remains interesting to me.
And that's because of the readings from Temporary Autonomous Zone that comprise the spoken word portions of the record. There's theory at play here that, in practice, can make life still worth living, especially as our national culture devolves into fascism. Bey once spoke about the energy having been spent out of American activism; creation of a separatist structure outside the boundaries of control can be a recharge to activism. By attaching a finite time limit to its existence, one can also avoid the depression of what is intended as a permanent autonomous zone being destroyed.
I dunno...that's what I'm thinking about right now. Maybe tomorrow I'll have some dick jokes and I'll write about some dumb punk rock record. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
3 comments:
For 20+ years I've taught this piece (paired with Bookchin's caustic critique) alongside Deleuze & Guattari's rhizomes riff to first year students as a way to (try to) get them to think outside of the arboreal models that constrict and control our world(s). It's kinda amazing. Anyway, I am abashed to say, I had missed the pedophilia problem, though I knew Jason What's-his-name and the _Anarchy: Journal of Desire Armed_ crowd were fans and used it justify some dicey stuff. Anyway, this year for the first time ever some students raised it--reasonably enough--and I won't be using it anymore. But it has been a thing (along with the rhizomes) and still get stuff from those students they run across or experience that makes them think of TAZ. It's a thing.
"Pedophilia problem"...?
This is very helpful; thanks. If I teach the TAZ stuff again, I'll probably assign this.
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