Dancing about architecture

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (34 of them)

There was an NPR bit about this exact question, and I believe they attributed the quotation to Laurie Anderson, but she then turned around and attributed it to Steve Martin, I believe.

There's a website devoted to the question: http://home.pacifier.com/~ascott/they/tamildaa.htm

And here's the NPR snippet: http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/me/20000114.me.04.ram

― Jay, Saturday, 26 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Disregard last post . . . clearly I'm not awake yet.

― Jay, Saturday, 26 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Steve Martin = good call surely (it's his kind of a gag, where a musician saying it smacks of sour grapes). Zappa said that retarded thing abt rock critics which gets quoted somewhere in the world every other second. Costello *likes* some writers. Besides I first heard it said out loud by Bill Laswell when I interviewed him in 1985, and why would he be quoting Costello? It already sounded familiar, if that makes sense: ie i felt i was in the presence of a cliché... (this was some time before BL had transformed himself into the cliche, i might add)

― mark s, Saturday, 26 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

My understanding is that whoever said it, it pre-dates the seventies for sure. I vaguely recall seeing it as a kid, usually credited to Thelonious Monk.

― Kerry, Saturday, 26 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

FZ quote that mark s thinks is retarded: "Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk in order to provide articles for people who can't read."

Nothing about music and furnitures. I also seem to remember the quote being attributed to David Byrne at some point.

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Saturday, 26 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Althusser.

― Sterling Clover, Saturday, 26 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Aaagh. I wrote a thing about this (actually in response to something ILM's favourite journo Tom Cox (who I don't actually mind because he wrote the first fanzine I ever read, even if he does have pretty bad taste, but that's a tangent) wrote in the Guardian about bands not knowing their musical history) extolling the virtues of making music that sounded like buildings (or any other inanimate object really, just not like any other bands) which was based on this quote.

I don't know who said it, though, and I'd just like to point out that yes, I am experimenting with obscenely long sentences, thank you for asking I hope it doesn't irritate you as that would be awful.

― emil.y, Sunday, 27 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Oh, and the reason why I don't post it for the joy of all perusal is because I wrote it about four years ago and I don't think it was very good.

― emil.y, Sunday, 27 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

was reading a great piece in the guardian (flatmate's copy) this weekend about insomnia wherein the writer used all manner of parenthesis and commented wryly on her own lack of concentration and how her constant deployment of parenthesis was a typographical admission of her own state of constant digression.

― stevie, Monday, 28 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I'm pretty certain it was Costello who said this. Whether it's "true" is surely beside the point: it's an analogy and like all good analogies it holds good at some points and not others. I think it's main weakness is that it implies that writing about music is like using one art form to communicate truths about another; whereas writing language has a utilitarian function as well as an artistic one. A sentence like "The piece was scored for string quartet and had four movements" is not art but it does communicate information about music.

That said, Costello's comment contains a truth that resonates with a lot of people, so much so that it is part of the language of musicians outside the pop sphere who have never heard of Costello. It reminds us of how bad (and hubristic) most writing about music is.

Ironically one of the best single piece of music journalism I've read in recent years was by Costello himself, a short piece about Sinatra shortly after his death. Given his inability to make decent records these days maybe he should stick to dancing about architecture.

― ArfArf, Monday, 28 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Arf Arf,

I suspect that it has to pre-date Costello. I am going to check some sources later on.

― DeRayMi, Monday, 28 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

seven years pass...

do we know this yet

― lol (roxymuzak), Sunday, 15 February 2009 03:38 (fifteen years ago) link

Dunno! But I'd like to add Brian Eno to the long list of (mis)attributions.

― Blimey G. Blamegarten (unregistered), Sunday, 15 February 2009 03:49 (fifteen years ago) link

Honestly, the first person I heard it attributed to was Martin Mull.

― Hideous Lump, Sunday, 15 February 2009 06:04 (fifteen years ago) link

two months pass...

bump?

― NI, Tuesday, 21 April 2009 19:19 (fourteen years ago) link

When I went to the Cold War Modern exhibition at the V&A last year they had a film of Russian propaganda that involved lots of people waltzing inside a brand new towerblock while singing a song about how everyone could own their own kitchen. So that was dancing about architecture. It was awesome.

― Sickamous Mouthall (Scik Mouthy), Tuesday, 21 April 2009 21:11 (fourteen years ago) link

one year passes...

The answer is definitively Martin Mull. See OT: We Hear from Martin Mull.

― mattdm, Sunday, 18 July 2010 12:08 (thirteen years ago) link

Honestly, the first person I heard it attributed to was Martin Mull.

― Hideous Lump, Sunday, 15 February 2009 06:04 (1 year ago)

*Head swells, explodes*

― Hideous Lump, Sunday, 18 July 2010 21:58 (thirteen years ago) link

Damn, could have sworn it was Dr Johnson

― Dr X O'Skeleton, Monday, 19 July 2010 15:42 (thirteen years ago) link

dancing to architecture & morality

― 不合作的方式 (r1o natsume), Monday, 19 July 2010 16:32 (thirteen years ago) link

Crazy! And good to definitively know this :)

― Nate Carson, Monday, 19 July 2010 23:29 (thirteen years ago) link

don't know if it's been mentioned but lots of 60s "postmodern" dance was site-specific, thus often very much about architecture...sorry declan!

― iago g., Monday, 19 July 2010 23:34 (thirteen years ago) link

Damn, could have sworn it was Dr Johnson

hahaha

― could be a bad day for (Abbott), Monday, 19 July 2010 23:37 (thirteen years ago) link

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.