This blog has lain dormant for over a month, an unfortunate demise due to living a full grad school life. Here's some of what I've been up to...
A video on Hungarian Dance that I shot and edited
An article on an ethnomusicology professor for the Indiana Daily Student
Some photography for IDS (my photo)
An article on honors for local Bloomington women
A short article on Earth Hour
And the return of Xiaoshi Wei and the Jagermeisters!
"Elenore" (The Turtles)
"Toxic / Womanizer" (the one & only B.S.)
"Don't You Want Me" (The Human League)
"How Bizarre" (OMC)
(coming soon)
29 March 2009
20 February 2009
on museums that live & breathe (or used to)
(I wrote this piece--a "museum feature"--for a journalism class, but in an effort to write for more than my professor and a grade, I thought it could also make good blog material. You have the right to be offended at this article. Your comments most welcome.)
----
One summer during college I lived in a tiny village on a small river in Papua New Guinea, just north of Australia. There was no running water or electricity, but there was a lot of life. Games and music, food and laughter abounded. I learned about the “garamut,” a huge wooden slit-log drum that sent its resounding beats over the river’s surface to far-off huts, sending messages through specific rhythms.
That experience was about four years ago, so I was excited when I learned that Indiana University’s art museum has a South Pacific gallery. I went eagerly, anticipating that the art would evoke memories long buried.
I was not disappointed. As soon as I walked in the exhibit (and after the guard scolded me for having a backpack and writing with a pen), my eyes spotted a huge garamut. “Papua New Guinea, Murik peoples,” its placard read. “Slit gong. Wood, traces of pigment.” I could imagine its huge low sound carry over the waters. But here in the museum, it was silent and looked sad, its wood cracked and voice gagged.
That instrument used to be alive, but now it is an object of curiosity for the majority of visitors.
Feigning ignorance, I asked the gallery guard if he knew anything about it. “It sounds good,” he said. How does he know that? “I caught a few people playing.” Caught them and scolded them. This is an object of curiosity, remember? It’s a museum piece, not an instrument to send messages.
As I continued on through the gallery, my feelings of discontinuity increased. Those pieces were made by villagers for daily use—for games and music, food and even sacred rituals. And there in the museum they were caged behind glass walls with no indication of how they lived and breathed in their original contexts. When you change the context, the meaning and value of a piece shifts radically. The articles become authoritative and stuck in time, as if those earrings were “the” jewelry in the Solomon Islands in the 19th century.
I came across a “figure for a sacred flute” from Papua New Guinea. When I was in the village, flutes were sacred instruments, only played by men, and usually taken out at night in the cover of darkness. Played in pairs of five or six, they had an ethereal sound that my western-trained musical ears never completely understood. They were mysterious and sacred. And there in the museum, bright lights exposed the mystery and cast away the sacredness. “Figure for a sacred flute,” visitors read as they pass by.
I also passed by, my heart getting heavier, and found a placard that read, “Alamblak people, Kariwari River.” Alamblak! Those are my friends! I still remember the Alamblak-language greetings. I lived on the Kariwari River. The “war and hunting spirit figure” looked familiar with its smooth carving and pointed features. A friend had given me a similar object when I left the village. There, those objects are actually used. And here in Indiana, they are behind glass.
I left the gallery with mixed emotions. I am glad that visitors can be exposed to other cultures and their objects. Yet when those pieces are behind glass panels with no contextual information to inform the visitor, they become “artifacts” and “objects” instead of necessary tools. They become secular and exposed instead of sacred and hidden. They become silenced instead of booming over the waters.
If you go to this exhibit, please learn about the culture at least a little first. Please take your time and imagine those artifacts in their place of origin. Close your eyes and listen for the garamut’s low beats pulsing across the river, sending messages that the “waitskins,” the anthropologists, were on their way to collect artifacts for the world to see.
----
One summer during college I lived in a tiny village on a small river in Papua New Guinea, just north of Australia. There was no running water or electricity, but there was a lot of life. Games and music, food and laughter abounded. I learned about the “garamut,” a huge wooden slit-log drum that sent its resounding beats over the river’s surface to far-off huts, sending messages through specific rhythms.
That experience was about four years ago, so I was excited when I learned that Indiana University’s art museum has a South Pacific gallery. I went eagerly, anticipating that the art would evoke memories long buried.
I was not disappointed. As soon as I walked in the exhibit (and after the guard scolded me for having a backpack and writing with a pen), my eyes spotted a huge garamut. “Papua New Guinea, Murik peoples,” its placard read. “Slit gong. Wood, traces of pigment.” I could imagine its huge low sound carry over the waters. But here in the museum, it was silent and looked sad, its wood cracked and voice gagged.
That instrument used to be alive, but now it is an object of curiosity for the majority of visitors.
Feigning ignorance, I asked the gallery guard if he knew anything about it. “It sounds good,” he said. How does he know that? “I caught a few people playing.” Caught them and scolded them. This is an object of curiosity, remember? It’s a museum piece, not an instrument to send messages.
As I continued on through the gallery, my feelings of discontinuity increased. Those pieces were made by villagers for daily use—for games and music, food and even sacred rituals. And there in the museum they were caged behind glass walls with no indication of how they lived and breathed in their original contexts. When you change the context, the meaning and value of a piece shifts radically. The articles become authoritative and stuck in time, as if those earrings were “the” jewelry in the Solomon Islands in the 19th century.
I came across a “figure for a sacred flute” from Papua New Guinea. When I was in the village, flutes were sacred instruments, only played by men, and usually taken out at night in the cover of darkness. Played in pairs of five or six, they had an ethereal sound that my western-trained musical ears never completely understood. They were mysterious and sacred. And there in the museum, bright lights exposed the mystery and cast away the sacredness. “Figure for a sacred flute,” visitors read as they pass by.
I also passed by, my heart getting heavier, and found a placard that read, “Alamblak people, Kariwari River.” Alamblak! Those are my friends! I still remember the Alamblak-language greetings. I lived on the Kariwari River. The “war and hunting spirit figure” looked familiar with its smooth carving and pointed features. A friend had given me a similar object when I left the village. There, those objects are actually used. And here in Indiana, they are behind glass.
I left the gallery with mixed emotions. I am glad that visitors can be exposed to other cultures and their objects. Yet when those pieces are behind glass panels with no contextual information to inform the visitor, they become “artifacts” and “objects” instead of necessary tools. They become secular and exposed instead of sacred and hidden. They become silenced instead of booming over the waters.
If you go to this exhibit, please learn about the culture at least a little first. Please take your time and imagine those artifacts in their place of origin. Close your eyes and listen for the garamut’s low beats pulsing across the river, sending messages that the “waitskins,” the anthropologists, were on their way to collect artifacts for the world to see.
28 January 2009
On lingo gibberish and plain English
Every discipline has its own lingo, its own private language. There is ethnomusicologish, folklorese, birdlish (just ask my sister), Christianese, and so on. It takes a certain insider’s knowledge to follow the conversation and contribute to it. I can talk about emic and etic, transcription of pentatonic scales, and the differences between “the public,” “a public” and “publics,” but not communicate anything at all to my sister. She, in the meantime, can talk about twitching her nemesis the BUOR and talk on while I'm completely lost. Likewise, Christians have their own catch phrases like being “sanctified by the blood of Christ” and “listening to the spirit to discern answers to prayer.” These lingos are gibberish to someone unfamiliar with the discipline or the faith.
In-grown lingos are not a bad thing. In fact, they are quite necessary and come in great use when, say, ethnomusicologists are talking to each at a conference or in class, or when birders meet together for a 24-hour birding survey. There’s a certain comradeship that comes in speaking a lingo learned through the hard work of reading disciplinary histories and theories and spending time with the people you enjoy being with.
However. There is also a danger involved in the insular nature of these lingos. The lingo can be a crutch for a concept that isn’t actually understood. When the time comes to talk to an Outsider about your passions, you’re left with unintelligible phrases and theories that you can’t distill into plain English.
Say I’m doing a research project and want to ask a question that will address a complex theory. Do I understand ethnomusicologish well enough to ask it in plain English? The danger of lingos is that they can leave us (ok, at least this happens to me) stammering for another way to explain complex esoteric issues we don’t actually understand in the first place.
Then try explaining it to someone who’s just learning English. I was constantly confronted with this in Vietnam. If I used those big words that sound so impressive, all I’d get back would be stares and more questions. How do you explain something like “atonement”? I found that I didn’t actually understand it myself. Ouch.
If we don’t truly understand the language, it’s pretty easy to fake it within the in-group. When I talked with people in Vietnamese, I found I could keep a conversation up pretty well by just repeating the last few words of what someone told me.
Friend: “The market is just up the road to the right, after the light.”
To myself: “I didn’t understand a word of that.”
Out loud: “Oh ok, after the light.”
And, done.
But the trouble came when I was asked to explain something in my own words. In Vietnam, this came with questions.
Friend: “Do you know what’s to the right?”
To myself: “Uh-oh, that sounds like a question that needs a response.”
Out loud: “No, but I’d like to know where the market is.”
And then a look of confusion.
To myself: “Oh crap, wrong answer.”
Out loud: “I mean, yes, I know, thanks for your help.”
I’m drawn to journalism (and fieldwork) because it challenges me to write (and, therefore, to think) in plain English. It forces me to write articles and reviews in ways that avoids the in-grown language of my disciplines. To do that, I cannot pretend like I understand. I actually have to get inside the theories well enough to explain them simply.
I could go off on a rant on the writing style of academics who don’t seem to know the difference between their lingo and "plain English," but I’m afraid I sometimes do the same myself. Like this blog post, which upon re-reading seems a bit academic itself. Did you, my dear reader, even make it this far?
In-grown lingos are not a bad thing. In fact, they are quite necessary and come in great use when, say, ethnomusicologists are talking to each at a conference or in class, or when birders meet together for a 24-hour birding survey. There’s a certain comradeship that comes in speaking a lingo learned through the hard work of reading disciplinary histories and theories and spending time with the people you enjoy being with.
However. There is also a danger involved in the insular nature of these lingos. The lingo can be a crutch for a concept that isn’t actually understood. When the time comes to talk to an Outsider about your passions, you’re left with unintelligible phrases and theories that you can’t distill into plain English.
Say I’m doing a research project and want to ask a question that will address a complex theory. Do I understand ethnomusicologish well enough to ask it in plain English? The danger of lingos is that they can leave us (ok, at least this happens to me) stammering for another way to explain complex esoteric issues we don’t actually understand in the first place.
Then try explaining it to someone who’s just learning English. I was constantly confronted with this in Vietnam. If I used those big words that sound so impressive, all I’d get back would be stares and more questions. How do you explain something like “atonement”? I found that I didn’t actually understand it myself. Ouch.
If we don’t truly understand the language, it’s pretty easy to fake it within the in-group. When I talked with people in Vietnamese, I found I could keep a conversation up pretty well by just repeating the last few words of what someone told me.
Friend: “The market is just up the road to the right, after the light.”
To myself: “I didn’t understand a word of that.”
Out loud: “Oh ok, after the light.”
And, done.
But the trouble came when I was asked to explain something in my own words. In Vietnam, this came with questions.
Friend: “Do you know what’s to the right?”
To myself: “Uh-oh, that sounds like a question that needs a response.”
Out loud: “No, but I’d like to know where the market is.”
And then a look of confusion.
To myself: “Oh crap, wrong answer.”
Out loud: “I mean, yes, I know, thanks for your help.”
I’m drawn to journalism (and fieldwork) because it challenges me to write (and, therefore, to think) in plain English. It forces me to write articles and reviews in ways that avoids the in-grown language of my disciplines. To do that, I cannot pretend like I understand. I actually have to get inside the theories well enough to explain them simply.
I could go off on a rant on the writing style of academics who don’t seem to know the difference between their lingo and "plain English," but I’m afraid I sometimes do the same myself. Like this blog post, which upon re-reading seems a bit academic itself. Did you, my dear reader, even make it this far?
10 January 2009
2008 in Review: A Year in Pictures
2008 was quite the year, full of new experiences, travel, challenges, goofy fun, and big transitions. I started it living in Hanoi and ended in Bloomington, but there was a whole lot of living in between. Enjoy this selection of pictures!
JANUARY
Working on a photography exhibition at Action for the City, the creative urban living organization I worked for in Hanoi.
After my knee finally healed, I couldn’t be happier to be back on my bike, even in crazy Hanoi traffic.FEBRUARY
Tết is the biggest holiday of the year and is like three American holidays put together. Here’s my wonderful host family (minus Em Thuy, who is driving me on a motorbike) on our way to an extended family gathering.
Tết is all about getting together with friends and family and, therefore, eating a lot. My good friend Cường invited me to his countryside home.MARCH
Taking lessons on the Vietnamese flute was challenging but really fun, especially when I got to play along with other superb musicians.
Naps after lunch are a wonderful, wonderful Vietnamese tradition. Here are my MCC (Mennonite Central Committee) mat buddies!APRIL
My mom and dad came to Viet Nam for a visit and braved the traffic on bikes! We visited the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, where his (real) body is on display.
Hanoi International Church had a women’s retreat in a beautiful town outside of Ha Noi. It was so good to play flute.
Laos was an amazing, beautiful country that I highly recommend for anyone traveling to SE Asia. Thank you MCC for sending us on a retreat there!
23rd birthday party with many dear friends at my host family’s home.
The beauty of Sa Pa, in northern Viet Nam, rendered me speechless. I traveled there for a few days with some dear friends.
My lovely host sisters at an aquarium in Nha Trang.
Back on Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire, where everything you need to know about life can be learned on a sailboat.
Friends old and new in Liverpool.
The Batcheller cousins with grandparents. Long Island, New York.
The Bloomington, IN move-in squad. Ready for grad school!
The first-year MA and PhD students in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology. The School of Journalism is much bigger, and it’s fun being a part of both groups.
Kneeling together in prayer at Bethel AME Church, where I’ve been going to services.
There’s a group that contradances every Wednesday night. “Swing your partner, allemande your neighbor, and do-si-do!"
The band Funkadesi performed at Bloomington’s Lotus World Music Festival. I helped work backstage.
I did a photojournalism project with a woman who teaches old-time square and line dancing in public schools in Indianapolis.
A fun reunion with Wheaton HNGR housemates in Portland, Orgeon for Thanksgiving.
This Christmas was quite different from my last one in Hanoi! Here, making gingerbread cookies with my niece Lily.
The whole family together for Christmas!
Hanoi International Church had a women’s retreat in a beautiful town outside of Ha Noi. It was so good to play flute.MAY
Laos was an amazing, beautiful country that I highly recommend for anyone traveling to SE Asia. Thank you MCC for sending us on a retreat there!
23rd birthday party with many dear friends at my host family’s home.JUNE
The beauty of Sa Pa, in northern Viet Nam, rendered me speechless. I traveled there for a few days with some dear friends.
My lovely host sisters at an aquarium in Nha Trang.JULY
Back on Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire, where everything you need to know about life can be learned on a sailboat.
Friends old and new in Liverpool.AUGUST
The Batcheller cousins with grandparents. Long Island, New York.
The Bloomington, IN move-in squad. Ready for grad school!SEPTEMBER
The first-year MA and PhD students in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology. The School of Journalism is much bigger, and it’s fun being a part of both groups.
Kneeling together in prayer at Bethel AME Church, where I’ve been going to services.OCTOBER
There’s a group that contradances every Wednesday night. “Swing your partner, allemande your neighbor, and do-si-do!"
The band Funkadesi performed at Bloomington’s Lotus World Music Festival. I helped work backstage.NOVEMBER
I did a photojournalism project with a woman who teaches old-time square and line dancing in public schools in Indianapolis.
A fun reunion with Wheaton HNGR housemates in Portland, Orgeon for Thanksgiving.DECEMBER
This Christmas was quite different from my last one in Hanoi! Here, making gingerbread cookies with my niece Lily. 
The whole family together for Christmas!07 December 2008
ethno what?
When meeting new people, I often have a conversation something like this:
NP: Oh, you're a grad student! What are you studying?
AB: I'm doing a dual master's in journalism and ethnomusicology [always "journalism" first so people get through that before being tripped up].
NP: Ethno... what?
AB: Ethno.music.ology. It's like a combination of music and anthropology.
NP: Right, anthropolani.
AB: Um, like the study of music in culture.
NP: Oh, ok. And journalism. Well that's an... interesting... combination. What do you plan to do with that?
AB: Well [see previous blog post], I'll find out in three years...
It's a peculiar feeling to devote myself to a discipline (or idea) that most people have never heard of before. They can't say, "Right on, ethnomusicology. My great aunt Bertha was a ethnomusicologist. One day she..."
It's even more disconcerting when that discipline doesn't even know what to call itself. I just read an article titled, "Ethnomusicology, Alterity, and Disciplinary Identity; or, 'Do We Still Need an Ethno-?' 'Do We Still Need an -ology?'" Scholars say maybe we're actually all musicologists. Or maybe we truly belong in anthropology. Or maybe just "music scholars." I wrote in the margins, "And we take ourselves way too seriously." Some of this writing is so convoluted it's like reading words through the church potluck fruit Jell-O. If I ever wrote like that for a newspaper article, I think I'd be fired.
So who are we, anyway, these so-called (ethno)(music)(ologists)? Let me take a stab:
NP: Oh, you're a grad student! What are you studying?
AB: I'm doing a dual master's in journalism and ethnomusicology [always "journalism" first so people get through that before being tripped up].
NP: Ethno... what?
AB: Ethno.music.ology. It's like a combination of music and anthropology.
NP: Right, anthropolani.
AB: Um, like the study of music in culture.
NP: Oh, ok. And journalism. Well that's an... interesting... combination. What do you plan to do with that?
AB: Well [see previous blog post], I'll find out in three years...
It's a peculiar feeling to devote myself to a discipline (or idea) that most people have never heard of before. They can't say, "Right on, ethnomusicology. My great aunt Bertha was a ethnomusicologist. One day she..."
It's even more disconcerting when that discipline doesn't even know what to call itself. I just read an article titled, "Ethnomusicology, Alterity, and Disciplinary Identity; or, 'Do We Still Need an Ethno-?' 'Do We Still Need an -ology?'" Scholars say maybe we're actually all musicologists. Or maybe we truly belong in anthropology. Or maybe just "music scholars." I wrote in the margins, "And we take ourselves way too seriously." Some of this writing is so convoluted it's like reading words through the church potluck fruit Jell-O. If I ever wrote like that for a newspaper article, I think I'd be fired.
So who are we, anyway, these so-called (ethno)(music)(ologists)? Let me take a stab:
- We study how music is used in cultures.
- We do a lot of research--usually first-hand, primary information gathering--in places that we find interesting (sometimes a foreign country, sometimes home communities).
- We are not necessarily musicians. We can spew out a great deal of theory on musical practices, but don't ask us to actually perform them. That said, many do learn new instruments and styles in the process.
- An example: if you say you like folk music, an ethnomusicologists might ask, "Who (what?) are (is?) the 'folk'? What prompted the emergence of this music? Who practices it and why? What impact does folk music have on the way people think about politics or religion?" The questions could go on and on.
- I'm interested in two major areas: medical ethnomusicology (health and healing with music, especially in the HIV/AIDS crises) and applied ethnomusicology (working outside academia and using my knowledge and skills to help people, otherwise known as advocacy).
- I want to research in, I think, Uganda (where I lived in 2006).
- The journalism angle gives me practical skills in addition to the more theoretical and prepares me to, say, write for an arts column or create documentaries on musical practices.
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