Guest Editorial

The Physics of Essentiality

We go through endless amounts of preparation, sacrifice, discipline, self-control, education, practice and glorious adventure for one reason and one reason only - the unique stimuli associated with the Essential. I will share a few lessons I have come to grips with over the years. Not only do they seem small, but they are rarely discussed at all. However, I am absolutely convinced that these little secrets are the most important elements in the Essential equation.

As I've said, I'm not the world's greatest critic by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm fortunate to have shared office supplies with the masters: Ned van Winkle, a distant nephew of H.L. Mencken; the legendary Tadpole Ernie, who was roommates with an ex-roommate of Richard Meltzer for a couple of semesters; all but one of the truck drivers who delivered the Berkeley Barb; and my dentist Dr. Unagi.

If we've followed my outline in part one [see Bananafish 13], we got the equipment we like, we got a good feel about what we got and about what we're doing. We have identified primary hotspots and potential deafspots. We have figured out how to read prevailing wind directions. Our mindset is geared for a clean critique, our psyche is ready to become one with the other. But we should strive to master more advanced techniques; we have to become stealthy, valuable contributors to modern critical discourse. Our prose should be quiet and unobtrusive and yet memorable to everyone who reads it.

Practice under real deadline conditions. Duplicate your regular writing position. Be sure you can function in that anticipated posture. But at the same time, do not over-equip yourself. It'll only lock you in to circumstances you might not be able to replicate. I keep repeating this but it's worth repeating: I know a gal who put down 5,000 words about a Hermann Nitsch boxset on the backside of old bus transfers using a knitting needle dipped in lemonade without a having to revise a single syllable. That anthology might as well have been dissected by the senior writers of Harpers, Spin and Raw Vision. Essential reviewing must be graceful, no matter how difficult it is to climb underneath that coffee table or prostate yourself on those chilly porcelain tiles of the bathroom floor. We must remain in control when composing. When I'm on the go, I feel at ease using Prospector's 60-page Gregg-ruled six-inch by nine-inch Steno notebooks, with Sub 16 / greentint stock, and writing with either Pilot's Precise Rolling Ball marker with a V5 tip (extra fine), or a Sanford Sharpie 37000 permanent marker (ultra fine point). But I'm always trying for grace no matter what. It makes a big difference when the moment of truth arrives.

Relax. But don't relax too much. Once the decision to review is made, follow through. If an editor happens to upgrade his constant phone calling from reminder to harangue status while you're reviewing, don't stop. If a disgruntled artist decides to put information about your home address to good use, don't panic. Keep listening and finish the sequence. Do not let the subject squash your psyche. It's happened to me many times.

Study career trajectories intensely for specific shot placement. Coming down hard on an already fading star will necessitate a harder hit if your voice is to be heard distinctly from the chorus of jackals. Do not push the already wounded. If the shots have been taken, relent but observe intently. Following the artist's departure from the public eye, wait. We strive for cleanliness of execution, but gaudy mercilessness is just ostentation for its own sake and can easily backfire. Artists go a long way on public sympathy for the underdog, making recovery very likely. Plan out the entire concept of what you are doing. Consider each detail before you actually remove your pencap. Details are important and require frequent evaluation and modification. I get excited just thinking about it. The Essential critique procedure is part of the game. It's an excellent way to distance yourself from all your buddies with their Shazam t-shirts.

Pursuit of "making a name for yourself" is a journey into soulless vacancy. You should be an invisible, well kept secret, all the better to contrast with your reviews. The best paragraph in the world will not produce action if it cannot be read unannounced. Virtual anonymity is crucial. We must avoid wasting time and energy reviewing music as a whole, a centuries old tradition, a continuum that defies the imagination. We must never review the entirety of a record, for if we do, we will drown in a swamp called context. We must only discuss and even pause to regard the vital. We must always hit the bullseye, never aim at the entire target. Submitting a record review for publication that is "accurate" or "insightful" is not good enough. If they're not Essential, your reviews are just the ham-fisted ex cathedra opinions of some guy with a typewriter. Those who write about entire works are the least completist among us. For me, the moment of truth, once recognized, plays over and over again in my mind like a pristine half-speed master, even when I'm obliged to slog through the mung of artless charlatans I'd rather see packed in a sausage casein than mentioned in one of my paragraphs in a nationally distributed magazine. I concentrate on a small, specific part of one track, a single note or beat even, for my intended critique. On these occasions, I know I am ready to set my greentint Steno book aside and let the word processor push the proper keys upwards toward the underside of my fingertips. But the important thing is, even when I find myself sitting in the bleachers rooting for the wrong team, I know what I have written is the Essential. It is truly a wonderful feeling. Power-typing at its finest.

Every paragraph can be a lesson, if we take it to the limit of human capabilities. When you listen to jazz, hear the blood vessels crackling in the horn-player's jowls. When you listen to country and western, hear the hometown of the singer's accent. If you listen to rhythm and blues (or its bastard children, what Tom Lehrer used to call "rock'n'roll and other children's music"), hear the semen running down the singer's pantleg. Discipline yourself to write reviews in your head as you're shopping in the supermarket, walking across the hotel lobby, or sitting next to someone on the bus wearing a Walkman - any place where music is a nothing more than an audio parasite looking for a host. Force yourself to assimilate music that exists on the furthest periphery of your consciousness. Challenge yourself to notice the insignificant blips we all habitually tune out, and determine where they belong in the context of musical history. Sense the insensible. You will love what it does for your writing. Then, when you're ready to slag a limited edition lathe-cut eight-inch or praise a shoddily packaged reissue of the minor works of some obscure composer, pick out the pimple on the sideman's forehead and let 'er rip, smooth and graceful-like.

Here's a quick little technique that oughta help keep you focused on what I like to call the Fallacy of a Job Well Done: randomly substitute different artists and titles for the ones that appear in your reviews. You should be able to determine quickly and effectively whether you believe an Essential imperative exists where in fact none does.

The more one reviews, the stronger the desire to review more and more becomes. The black hole of gluttony is not selective about whom it catches and devours. Adding to the pyramid of reviewables eventually becomes more the point than the opinion-forming. What does one do with formed opinions but express them? And what is expression but a false desire, a compulsive indulgence triggered only by the promise that opportunity for more will follow? It is not enough for one to speak gibberish; one must truly have nothing to say. If you expect to survive a madness for which only you will be to blame, you must poison the soil before the tenacious seeds take root. It is inevitable that at some point we get stuck in a rut, feeling like we are machines that do nothing but churn out copy on deadline. In situations like this we gotta come up with new tricks, just for the hell of it. Get a good look at what other writers are saying, how they're doing their job, what the flavor of the month is, and just for the sake of exercise, mimic it. Try ideas several times, see if they prove out under different circumstances. Not every method works with regularity. But you'd be surprised how many notions and approaches that were too radical for one era and dismissed as either heretical or simply insane will find the warm embrace of cultural resonance in another time. Therefore, I recommend getting on your hands and knees at the most sad-sack looking bookshops and antiquarian dumping grounds to locate otherwise useless Writers Market Guides from decades past.

Go beyond the comfort zone. Get wet. Penetrate the hell where the artist feels a barrier of security - among his friends. You might fall flat on your face, nose deep in gladhand and yesman territory where outsiders are actively unwelcome, but it's worth the effort. Some of the most successful reviewers I know breach the slop-filled no-man's land known as backstage and review records with regularity. Sometimes this kind of adventure takes a lot of effort, subjecting one to extremely uncomfortable conditions that demand specialized abilities, such as constantly glossing over the hideous truth. Where artists seek extra isolation, naked boldness is usually a young man's attitude; it is here that experience and maturity will save you.

Further the challenge. Try writing the exact opposite of what you believe. Praise creative bankruptcy, condemn excellence, deliberately mislead the reader into accepting spurious propositions. Improvise beyond the limits of your own creativity. As your resume swells, and you're looking for artists you haven't already Essentialized, be prepared to try new and varying methods. Experiment with wild, untested rhetoric and points of view.

It all comes down to mastering the technique of fooling adversaries - though adversary is not an accurate term for artists, editors or readers. Nonetheless, we are after them. They are they prey and we are the predator. We may be brothers of the arts, but the game is played them versus us.

- Newt Ludwig

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