My esteemed colleague Miss Rubin, of course, has broached the oft unspoken question of Trash. She, on some levels, is very correct, and the response which hath sprung forth hath answered some of her questions, but far be it from me to remain silent on something near and dear to my QB-playing heart. I think in the largest sense, it is a matter of what people know. We discuss canon expansion in a way that if you don't write it, it will never get asked, but that said, many of us who have played trash know that, especially in a packet submission format, you often face some exceptionally discriminating critics in the community. If you write too hard, people don't score high and you can end up feeling like a failure, or worse yet, have people throwing stuff at you. So, we tend to mainstream our pop culture, at the expense of what may be interesting or relevant. It's not the best solution, but its the way it works and we must work within it. But the larger issue is quite simple. Academia has had decades or centuries to ingrain itself in the collective minds of the academic world, in spite of bunking and debunking and the like. Rock and roll, by most accounts is maybe fifty years old, three generations. But, musical tastes are all over the board, sometimes within our ownselves. But if we play the game to learn and play the game to have fun, there are things that we can do to make it better. As a community, we have done it before (if you have any doubt, look at a packet submission file from 1995 as opposed to today and look at how much more refined the writing is throughout the packet.) So I say this to you...take a chance, write at least one music question that forces you to go outside yourself. There's a wonderful music resource online at <a href=http://www.allmusic.com target=new>http://www.allmusic.com</a> which can help you narrow down your research. If we all take a chance, we can't blame each other. CDB _______________________________________________________ Craig Daniel Barker B.A.: U.S. History/Secondary Ed <cdbarker_at_...> University of Michigan-Ann Arbor "...Allow for the possibility that from time to time other people might be at least as smart as you are." --Natalie Hurley "Small Town" SportsNight (1998) Visit The Barker Home Office at: <a href=http://www.umich.edu/~cdbarker/ target=new>http://www.umich.edu/~cdbarker/</a> _______________________________________________________
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