Changing titles

Hey

How do I approve comments and how do I edit my old posts? It tells me I don’t have permission to do that…

I’d really appreciate it if someone could answer these questions:

So ACPB has $51,000 that come from student activities fees and funding directly from the administration. Voting No on the Spring Concert would only mean that ACPB does not receive the additional $10k-$30k from AAS that would be needed to put on the concert. ACPB would still have $51,000 lying around, which they are still presumably free to dispense with as they wish. Since the real objection to funding the Spring Concert is that it’s an extraordinary “waste of money” during an economic downturn, voting No on the current ballot isn’t really that meaningful because ACPB would still have $51,000, which is the bulk of the expense anyway. For a No vote to be meaningful, an additional vote would have to be taken to address the $51,000 ACPB already has. In order to divert this money to, let’s say, academic departments, students would have to vote for its reallocation. Or actually, it would be more like a forced (re)takeover of funds from a student group. Can this be done? Has this been done in the past? Would this set up a potentially unfortunate precedent whereby groups which sponsor activities deemed “unimportant” or generally unpopular are not merely denied future funding or discretionary funding but actually have their current funds taken away?

Basically, a No vote would give students an additional $10k-$30k to “help the school.” What would $10,000-$30,000 actually do to help the college’s financial situation? Are there any plans being discussed for how funds would be reallocated? Wouldn’t deciding this become a nightmare? If distributed evenly between academic departments, it would still be a drop in the bucket, no? If $10k-$30k is used for student activities, it would pretty much go to fund events that cost more in food than they raise in money. Or it would just sit there since we seem to have a surplus anyway. My biggest concern is that, if the No vote goes through, we’d just have all this money sitting there while we debate endlessly about how it would get spent. Basically, it doesn’t seem to me that the practical effect of a No vote would not go very far in achieving its goals. Anybody care to comment?

…. because it seems the universe is laughing at us.  Just in time for finals, articles about procrastination are dangled in front of the eyes of procrastinators so that we can procrastinate by reading about procrastination.

A couple weeks ago I went to the North American premiere of a documentary on Beijing’s rock n’ roll scene made by a couple amateur German filmmakers. By “North American premiere” I really just mean that Prof. Zamperini of the Asian Languages and Civilizations department somehow got a copy of it on DVD and screened it in Kirby for the whopping six students in attendance. But technically, it was the first screening on this continent…

Anyway, the film is called Beijing Bubbles, and it explores the vibrant (albeit still very much underground) punk and rock movement in China’s capital–a movement I hadn’t been very conscious of prior to seeing this documentary. If nothing else, the film introduced me to a whole new musical arena to wander around in, and for that I’m grateful because I’d almost lost hope in the possibility of good music coming out of my homeland.

Bubbles profiles several notable bands of a wide range of sounds (one group is influenced by American blues, one by Mongolian folk music, another reminds me of Weezer…), offering exuberant little snap shots of each and their respective takes on music, life, art, etc. The film, which is available at the library if you want to see it, doesn’t go particularly deeply into any one group or any one aspect of music, and I didn’t find much of a unifying message except that “real” rock music (and thus real artistic expression) is still highly marginalized in China (not so much by the government as it is by a society obsessed with consumption and shallow materialism). Despite this, I really enjoyed watching film because it’s just so fun. And interesting. And different. And interesting because different. And the filmmakers’ love for and fascination with rock n’ roll shines through brightly. Above all, it provides a good departure point for anyone interested in seeing (or rather, hearing) how non-Western countries are rocking out.

When you’re done watching that, here are some other things to check out:

1. One of the bands profiled, Joyside, has a full-length documentary devoted entirely to them called Wasted Orient.

2. You can find some of these bands on iTunes. There’s an interesting compilation album called Look Directly at the Sun: China Pop 2007, which was put together by drummer, producer, label owner Martin Atkins. It’s definitely not pop, and it definitely reflects a penchant for old-school punk rock. (If you’d like to, ahem, listen to it without having to buy it, email me.)
3. Carsick Cars has been opening for Sonic Youth in some European cities.

4. This blog hasn’t been updated in a while, but it’s still cool for newbies to look through.

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