[Tango-L] The ZVI MIGDAL group

[Jake Spatz]

Jay,

Unless the end of my post was cut off, I believe you'll see that I 
rather agree with you. And to repeat: I don't know the band or its 
music, and I don't know if they live up to the implicit gesture of that 
name.

That said...

Given Pablo's comments and quotations (not that I can place those lines 
in their songs, if they're from songs), I suspect that the gesture of 
his band name is intended to turn people's eyes on the tango in general, 
its poster-persona and its codes. Perhaps the implication is that "tango 
culture" is no better than the flesh trade (which his remark on the 
cabeceo certainly implies). Or that we ought to be aware of the words 
we're dancing to, and the world those words come from.

Whether such particular points come across in the band's art, or just in 
Pablo's post, is out of my reach. But I'll certainly forbear calling him 
a hot-topic bandwagoner until I know more. I'm only _explaining_ the 
semantics of usage here; perhaps he can _justify_ his appropriation of 
it himself.

JS
DC

Jay Rabe wrote:
>      If a band has a passionate issue they believe in, and they spend time/money resolving/promoting it, then there's a first-level validity for them to use a name that evokes the issue. But if they pick a name that, while they might recognize and agree in the inappropriateness of the group/issue from which they borrowed the name, if they do nothing else towards the issue, no other involvement, activism, etc., then they are just opportunists, picking a name with shock value just to be remembered and noticed. Every publicist and photo-op manipulator knows the advertising value of scandal. Calling their choice of a name a forget-me-not is a little... sorry Jake, don't have your vocabulary to pick the exact right word here, but it's like conveniently going along with the game, wink wink. 
>      In picking such a name, again without any other involvement or activism, the importance of the issue is unavoidably trivialized. Women being kidnapped or otherwise coerced/manipulated into slavery and prostitution is Still, Today, a Huge world-wide problem that hardly gets the press and visibility that it deserves, largely because it has been a part of certain cultures (think Bangkok) for so long that it's accepted, and it's so deeply ingrained in the power/economic structure that it's effectively impossible to eradicate it. 
>      In sum, I think they're just using the issue/name opportunistically, for their own notariety, and in the process they're minimizing the shock of it in the repetition, and are doing nothing to foster a continuing attitude of let's-not-forget-the-horror, quite the opposite in fact in the creation of an association of commonness. 
>  
>            J in Portland
>  
> Apologies for such an off-topic post.
>
>
>
>   
>> Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 13:52:24 -0500> From: spatz at tangoDC.com> To: tango-l at mit.edu> Subject: Re: [Tango-L] The ZVI MIGDAL group> > Okay, Lucia-- spoon by spoon:> > The documentary dealing with the Dixie Chicks and their singer's > political outspokenness is titled "Shut Up and Sing." This title is a > quote of THEIR OPPOSITION's attitude.> > There was a well-known punk band called The Dead Kennedys. The group's > name was a REMINDER, the gesture of that name an aggressive statement of > fact. An _unwillingness_, you might say, to let fact be forgotten, > elegized, paved over. The semantic gesture is rather like the image of > blood (or an unburied body) crying out for vengeance in the Bible.> > Towards the other end of the semantic spectrum, there also was a > well-known group named Nirvana, whose music was almost universally > recognized as the embodiment of angst. I've always taken the name to be > a Foil to the band's music: it hovers over everything like an ideal, > falsified or at least challenged by the reality of the music-- and the > music thereby comes to seem more legitimately "reality," due to the > contrast. This is much like Italian poet Giuseppe Ungaretti calling his > first book (dealing with metaphysical alienation, loss, WWI) > "L'allegria" ("Joy"). The point is that there is None in the book.> > The notion that a name, or the presentation of a subject, is ipso facto > _an endorsement_ belongs to facile theorists. There is power in the > presentation of a negative. The image of the crucifix is one rather > glaring example. Calling one's band Public Enemy is another.> > Now, I haven't heard Pablo's group, and I don't know Pablo. Judging from > the contents of his recent post, I'd say the name of his group is a > defiance along these very lines. He even comes down hard on the cabeceo > (or a certain way of doing it), linking it to sleaze. If my > understanding of his band's name is off, I'm sure he knows how to say so.> > Last spoon-- if you've eaten it this far: An explanation such as mine is > NOT an endorsement either. Do I like the band name? Eh... a bit obscure, > a bit heavy-handed. But again, I don't know the band. It could very well > be brilliant, but making it so is a tall order. It's certainly > provocative, but the question is what that provocation has to do with > the band's material and its stance within the larger musical context.> > How any of this concerns "acceptable and fun" is beyond me.> > JS> DC> > > Lucia wrote:> >> "Trini y Sean (PATangoS)" <patangos at yahoo.com> escribió:Their name is> >> > > thought-provoking and adds to the event.> > > > > Trini de Pittsburgh> > > > Trini,> > > > I can think of a few other thought-provoking names: The NSDAP Band (that's the Nazi party name), the Ku Klux Klan Band, then a name that will resonate with our British friends, The N9S or a name that will resonate with the Italians, the Mafia group. Or, why not the Nigger Boys and Girls Slave Running Band?> > > > Shall everything be acceptable and fun? Doesn't this attitude cheapen history and memory and makes the horrendous acceptable and more palatable?> > > > Lucia> > > > > >> >> > > > ---------------------------------> > Preguntá. Respondé. Descubrí.> > Todo lo que querías saber, y lo que ni imaginabas,> > está en Yahoo! Respuestas (Beta).> > Probalo ya! > > _______________________________________________> > Tango-L mailing list> > Tango-L at mit.edu> > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l> >> >> >> > > > _______________________________________________> Tango-L mailing list> Tango-L at mit.edu> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
>>     
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