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PAUL db WATKINS

PAUL db WATKINS

  • TEACHING
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        • FILM 201: Film Studies (Genre)
        • ENGL 394 (S26N01): Twin Peaks: Its Influence & Quality TV
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        • FILM 101: Introduction to Film Studies
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        • FILM 201: Film Studies
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        • Film 101: Introduction to Film Studies
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        • FILM 220 (S23N01): “Pure Cinema,” Voyeurism, and Cinematic Influence
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      • 2018-2022
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          • ENGL 125 (S22W03) AT THE CROSSROADS: MUSIC, LITERATURE, & POPULAR CULTURE
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        • Fall 2021
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        • Fall 2020
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December 15, 2016January 27, 2018 pauldbwatkins Poetry

Now’s the Time [Basquiat inspired poem]

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Tagged Basquiat, Charlie Parker, Improvisation, jazz, MLK, music, poetry
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Published by pauldbwatkins

I am a Professor of English at Vancouver Island University. Read more at: pauldbwatkins.com View all posts by pauldbwatkins

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Hogan’s Alley Remixed: Learning through Wayde Compton’s Poetics
“The Gathering of Nations” Anthem

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20 years ago today, on October 3, 2006, Flying Lotus released his debut album, 𝟙𝟡𝟠𝟛. It’s a cosmic, underground hip-hop instrumental album that firmly announced Flying Lotus’s presence on the scene and signalled great things to come. This is the original pressing. Today’s spin is 𝕋𝕙𝕖 ℂ𝕠𝕝𝕝𝕖𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 (a 2005 greatest hits compilation) from Canadian icon Alanis Morissette. My wife (@megfyfewatkins) can absolutely crush a Morissette song at a karaoke open mic, especially “You Oughta Know,” which is both impressive and a fair warning not to mess up. 😆 “After what happened in the last hundred years, the simple fact that we are here today is a political statement. As First Nations peoples, everything we do is political” (Liner notes, Nation II Nation). Some albums are classics. Some are masterpieces. A select few are earthmovers that shake the foundation of music and distill truth and beauty into sound. Many would agree that Stevie Wonder’s 𝕊𝕠𝕟𝕘𝕤 𝕚𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕂𝕖𝕪 𝕠𝕗 𝕃𝕚𝕗𝕖, which turns 50 today, is one such album. The culmination of one of the best five-album runs in music history, it’s a culturally rich, sonically adventurous, and politically charged manifesto that affirms life. This original press includes a 24-page lyric booklet and bonus 7” record. Late last night, I had a chance to listen to Phoebe Bridgers’ new album, 𝕃𝕠𝕤𝕥 𝕎𝕖𝕖𝕜𝕖𝕟𝕕 (ROGUE PLANET edition), in the dark. Glow-in-the-dark records are a bit of a gimmick, and while the sound is slightly degraded in this format, it fit the overall vibe of the album, which is truly luminescent in its treatment of darker themes like loss and grief, but also the hope that shines through. Tom Waits’s 𝕊𝕞𝕒𝕝𝕝 ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕟𝕘𝕖 turns 50 today. It is, for me, the pinnacle of Waits as a jazz-lounge storyteller and signals the creative risks he would expand on as he continued to develop his style and persona. He was drinking heavily at the time, evident in a track like “The Piano Has Been Drinking,” which is full of Waits’s odd humour, and it remains one of my favourite songs by him. This book arrived at the right time to be having a conversation that is hardly new. It’s a luxury for an artist to assume art and politics are separate (ahem, Ed). Not taking a side is indeed a position. Like those who influenced his work before him, namely, but hardly only, Paul Robeson and Amiri Baraka, Saul Williams’s words come with a love for humanity, which is at the heart of all revolutionaries and which, in turn, always means taking a side. There are few albums that have had the same impact on my own music-making and love of sampling and remixing as DJ Shadow’s landmark album 𝔼𝕟𝕕𝕥𝕣𝕠𝕕𝕦𝕔𝕚𝕟𝕘....., which turns 30 today. Big props to @invisibooks for sending me a copy of Michael Rancic’s 𝔸 ℕ𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 𝕠𝕗 𝕋𝕚𝕟𝕜𝕖𝕣𝕖𝕣𝕤: 𝔸 ℍ𝕚𝕤𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕪 𝕠𝕗 𝔼𝕝𝕖𝕔𝕥𝕣𝕠𝕟𝕚𝕔 𝕄𝕦𝕤𝕚𝕔 𝕚𝕟 ℂ𝕒𝕟𝕒𝕕𝕒 𝕗𝕣𝕠𝕞 𝟙𝟡𝟜𝟝 𝕥𝕠 𝟙𝟡𝟠𝟝, which intersects with my interests and filled in gaps for me. This impeccably researched book covers a 40-year history of electronic music in parallel with the project of nation-building, both as collective creativity and as a push against the massive cultural hegemony of our neighbours to the South.

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