What The EMP Pop Conference Taught Us
The most important thing we brought away from the EMP Pop Conference was the name Labi Siffre, along with a link to the English musician's blog, Into The Light. This was the fruit of a moving, well-researched presentation from Charles Aaron, music editor at Spin, and we can't wait to dive deeper into Siffre's poetry and musical catalog from the 70s and 80s. Aside from that presentation and a few from the "Liminal Soul" panel, we were underwhelmed by the Conference.
For the most part, the presenters were reading directly from their papers on topics they're currently researching and clicking along on a Powerpoint presentation (usually out of sync and with some difficulty). The technology generally hindered rather than enhanced, though we did see some cool Youtube videos. Of course, we could have simply watched Chocolate Rain or the Filipino prisoners doing "Thriller" on our laptop out in the beautiful sunshine, so neither the Youtube nor the uninspired commentary on Web 2.0 really justified the time we spent in the JBL Theater.
We did enjoy our lunchtime Quarter Pounder with Cheese from the McDonalds across the street, and it was a quick enough lunch that we caught most of the Blue Scholars performance in the Sky Church. It was hilariously censored ("Cut class, get your education on the Ave" doesn't really have the same power as the original version), but the Scholars seemed right at home in the colorful, psychadelic chamber and the music was a welcome break from the academic panels.
There's no way we could have predicted how much we loved Aaron's presentation, since his abstract sounded kind of silly and overwrought. He veered away from his planned emphases and spoke more about Siffre's humanity and contributions to the world as a man of unbending conscience than anything to do with Kanye West or hiphop's debate about black masculinity. What we learned was that these panels are crapshoots; next year we'll plan our panel attendance based on whom we want to hear ramble and not on the abstracts, paper topics, or panel categories. Live and learn!
We sat through Jody Rosen's rushed speech about Eva Tanguay during the same panel that Charles Aaron presented and only kind of enjoyed it, but Tanguay's weird kookiness shone through nevertheless. And we love to share. For your listening pleasure: Eva Tanguay's electric, endlessly amusing recording of "I Don't Care" from 1922, courtesy of Internet Archive.
