It's Déjà vu All Over Again

If I hadn't already used up my quota of "coincidence" titles, I'd employ one for this post. As you'll see, Explosions in the Sky have yet again caused a controversy over the thin connections between their band name and 9/11. Of course, my sentence construction is a bit off, since the band didn't actually do anything to incite this uproar.

The bigger story is that my edited collection, The Politics of Post-9/11 Music: Sound, Trauma, and the Music Industry in the Time of Terror, dismantles these connections via a conversation with Chris Hrasky, Explosions' drummer. The book will be out soon, I can assure you.

Good Vibrations

So I stole the title of the last "unit" in our class from the band Explosions in the Sky--specifically from their album The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place. Released in 2003, the same year that Sherman Alexie published "Do Not Go Gentle," the album suggests, to me at least, a certain amount of hope--life--in the post-9/11 era. And that's why I used their title as an organizing scheme for the last few of our classes--adding the question mark to encourage all of you to interrogate whether or not the final literary selections present us with a world that is not cold and dead.

Given our vibrator discussion today, I think it's appropriate that you all listen closely to the drumming (and opening guitars) on EITS's "First Breath After Coma," the lead track on Earth. After listening, use the comments section to do some wordplay, to stretch out our discussions from class, or to comment on my good taste in music.

"First Breath After Coma" (you can ignore the visuals)