is fourth wave feminism actually a thing?

i don't see the fundamental differences between the third and the so-called fourth that existed between the third and second, and the second and first. the characteristics that the fourth wants to present as defining are just the same ideas that defined the third. this apparent dawn of a new wave of feminism is also happening a lot sooner than it did in the past.

it rather strikes me as a way for capital to profit off of generational politics. the previous waves occurred over several generations. what is being referred to as a fourth wave really doesn't strike me as any different than the mainstreaming of a third wave - it's the process of a third wave becoming the status quo.

technology does not generate new ideas, but rather reinforces existing ones. there's no evolution of thought here.

i would rather react negatively to the premise of generational politics and suggest that a long-lasting feminism should rather seek to abolish generational divisions as arbitrary constructs of capitalism that have no place in an egalitarian society. this is something that entered the public consciousness as a way to define a market for baby boomers. it's about selling clothes and soda to kids, it's not about social change. all ideas need  to evolve, but if you're trying to define a new feminism every twenty years to generate new markets, you've lost the plot - you're just buying into the divide and conquer of capitalist control and upholding the broader system of exploitation.

i think the deeper criticism of the idea is an observation that late capitalism has turned feminism into a product, and i guess you could write some essays about how feminism is being co-opted in the broader neo-liberal agenda. maybe that's what people mean when they take about "fourth waves". but, you should force them to be more specific, and resist the co-option of the language. there's no wave, here. there's just the continued encroachment of neo-liberalism.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

this is a full record of material documenting tracks written in 2001 that were in a more "serious" style and completed from 2001-2014.

the intent with the core of the material (1,3,6,7,8) was for it to be performed by live musicians one day. in early 2014, i came to the conclusion that this was not going to ever happen and was pleasantly surprised to learn that the technology had improved enough for a realistic presentation of the material using sequencers. these versions of (1,3,6) also include live guitars.

tracks 2 and 5 were salvaged from an aborted project meant to reinterpret classical guitar music as modern noise. the project was permanently aborted due to the loss of the sheet music that was necessary to finish it.

track 4 is an electric folk tune with heavy counterpoint that i was playing live as a party trick at the time.

the ordering is roughly chronological, based on the date the track took the form it exists in. tracks 1, 3 and 8 were written in 2001 and reinterpreted and completed in 2014. tracks 2 and 5 were interpreted and completed in 2001. track 4 was written in 2000 and reinterpreted and recorded in 2001. track 6 was written in 2001 and completed in 2006. track 7 was written in 1998, reinterpreted in 2001 and rendered in 2014. tracks 1-7 were sequenced on sept 9, 2014. final completion date is oct 3, 2014. refinalized as lp011 on oct 22, 2017. this is my fifth official record; as always, please use headphones.

credits

released December 1, 2001

j - electric piano, programming, classical & acoustic & electric guitars, ebow, digital & analog effects & treatments, organ, synthesizers, sound design, sampling, vocals, digital wave editing, loops, production, composition.

the various rendered electronic orchestras include acoustic bass, electric bass, synth bass, distorted electric guitar, clean electric guitar, steel string acoustic guitar, nylon guitar, trumpet, trombone, brass ensemble, orchestra hit, violin, cello, viola, contrabass, piano, synthesizers, mellotron, organ, bamboo flute, clarinet, flute, voice, music box, bells, clavinet, kalimba, drum kit, hand drums, drum machines and electronic drums.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard

finalizing inri051

i don't have an exact date for these files, so i'm picking november 11th. as others were, i was concerned about the president abolishing the magna carta after 9/11 and congress doing little more than helping him do it. however, this was meant to be a more encompassing project that combined harsh noise with political sampling that was pushing an anarchist agenda. the name of the project (ftaa) was chosen as a pun - it could either be the free trade agreement of the americas or about fueling true anarchy in the americas. i ended up dropping the sampling aspect and just focusing on the noise for the project's completion (which is the ftaa release in mid 2004: jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ftaa ), so i'm going to upload these two pilot tracks (with the sampling in tact) as an introductory single and place them in this more topical chronological space.

in hindsight, i think there's something profound about juxtaposing the fair trade movement with the 9/11 attacks as, looking back, it really sucked the life out of the movement.

created in the fall of 2001. resequenced and rereleased on sept 7, 2014. disc finalized on oct 22, 2017. as always, please use headphones.

these tracks appear without samples on my seventh record:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ftaa

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (2001, 2014, 2017). 

credits

released November 11, 2001

j - noise generators, cool edit, sequencers, guitars (electric, nylon, acoustic), mandolin, effects & processing, digital wave editing, sampling, production

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

this was a piece i wrote up in the fall of 2001. i can't remember exactly what the root of it was, but it had something to do with a voice-leading assignment for what was the equivalent of a course in music theory 101. the root of the piece may consequently come from what was presented to me. i can't recall exactly - but i believe the assignment was to build the different voices up.

my negative relationship with music theory is stated throughout this page and was well established well before the end of 2001. i had an interest in the music theory course for the purposes of deconstructing the theory - in the context of writing, specifically, and not performing. i actually have one of those classic stories - i failed this course. it is actually the _only_ course i have _ever_ legitimately received an _F_ in. hey, if einstein can fail math, i can fail music theory.

the story actually revolves around sight-reading aspect of the course, and specifically it's vocal content. there were three aspects of the course (theory, vocal sight-reading and african drumming which i'm thinking was meant to be a rhythmic component but was really just a ridiculous waste of time). i really wish they would have let me sight read on a guitar, or even a piano, because i'm just simply not a talented singer; i've never had aspirations to become one, and i had a lot of problems controlling my vocals. even with that being said, the reality is that i had a very low level of _interest_ in this. i probably could have passed the course if i spent less time on abstract algebra and more time singing in the mirror, but i just couldn't be bothered...

i really disapprove of the way the course was designed. i was interested in learning about music theory, and needed the course as a pre-req for more advanced courses, which i never ended up taking. i still don't fully understand why i had to pass a singing exam to take further composition courses. the best answer i got was that the school didn't want graduates who couldn't pass a singing exam, but i was at no point enrolled in a b. music so it's a pretty weak response.

anyways, this was a voice-leading assignment that i perverted into something mildly atonal and then built up into something else. you can hear it if you listen, except that it's all "wrong". i'd have to sit down and analyse it to come to a more detailed exposition on it's "wrongness", and i'm not going to, but it's not hard to hear how "wrong" it is, either.

i was clearly listening to a lot of glass at the time, but this goes beyond his medievalism. i'm using so many "wrong" notes that it's ultimately just chromatic - although there's no tone rows or anything that's formally serialist about it. it's not meant to abolish the structure so much as it's meant to just flaunt the rules. that gives it an almost satanic feel, in the context of a vocal piece using "forbidden" intervals.

but, looking back, i think that what the piece really explores is existential anguish. i was in the second year of a math degree (after switching from physics after switching from software engineering) and really had little idea where i was going with it. i was considering switching into music and probably would have had i not failed the singing exam. the thing is i actually knew i was going to fail the course at that point, and was just feeling lost as a result of it. i ended up in math as this sort of default choice, vaguely thinking i might end up teaching somewhere but not having any real interest in it...

so much choice, so few options. i suppose that this is how i expressed what i was feeling about this reality at the time.

i can't remember the exact way this happened, but i believe the piece was initially written for voice (as a voice-leading assignment) and then expanded into further voices and then converted into a composition for nine instruments. i believe the primary reason i converted it from a vocal piece is that i ended up writing well outside a realistic vocal range, but i've kept the electronic choir parts as they are because i'm not really restricted to reality in this way. i've picked halloween as the date, but that's symbolic - it was around then, anyway. it would have been around december that it was put aside, because i don't remember working on it after i moved.

i've included the midi files of the original composition, if you'd like to mess with it on your own.

written in the fall of 2001. rendered, remastered and remixed in late september and early october, 2014. the string mix was corrected for clicks on june 1, 2015, but unfortunately left accidentally inverted. this was corrected on oct 21, 2017. the lead track was re-rendered with the clickless string mix on oct 21, 2017. as always, please use headphones.

the album version of the track (track 1) appears on my fifth record:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (2001, 2014, 2015, 2017). 

credits

released October 31, 2001

j - programming, effects, mixing, production, composition.

the various rendered electronic orchestras include voice, piano, bells, synthesizer, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, electric bass and guitar.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard

of course, the moment we change the calendar, jesus will show up like a vampire in a puff of smoke:

surprise! 

you, you're over there....you're over here...you just stay put. where are you going? i'm separating you. stay where you are. well, no, you'll just have to wait your turn.

and, we'll all have to look at our feet, like we're in shoegaze bands, as we mutter to ourselves, "oh, shit. shouldda listened to neils.".

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

so, when are we going to change the calendar?

i'm sick of dating things relative to jesus' birth date, which everybody knows is wrong, anyways. it's beyond trivial, at this point. it's offensive.

i've seen people float the idea of the moon landing as the new year zero, but i actually don't think that solves anything - two thousand years from now, nobody is going to believe that happened, either. it's at least the right idea.

we like enlightened jews, so why not pick einstein's birthday? sorry noam, but there's really no comparison in terms of importance. i think there's something more fundamentally meaningful about this, as well, as it's going to be einstein's theory that leads us into the universe. we don't even really completely understand it yet. we're going to need a relativistic nicea before we can even get there - and don't bullshit me with copenhagen, that's just a bunch of hand waving.

we, the pre-eminent german scientists, hereby declare that we cannot figure this shit out. therefore, nobody in the future of the history of the universe will ever figure this shit out. let it be written.

i don't think there's any question that we'll still be grappling with relativity in a thousand years. it'll be another 500 before we can even clearly articulate it. so, there's a potential for relevance deep into the future.

another thousand years from now, jesus is probably going to end up confused with gandhi and recast as a space alien sent here to save us from ourselves. we need to get this shit out of the calendar, before it's too late.

einstein was born on march 14th, so why don't we start the year at the spring equinox? that makes more sense anyways, right? we can have new years day & st. paddy's day a week apart, as we start a new year on the same schedule as the trees.

we can still have the winter solstice, but it shouldn't be the start of the year, it should be the last, darkest quadrant.

that would make it the year 138. or 139? i dunno, roll a die...

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.