Klarinet Archive - Posting 000447.txt from 2003/11

From: Mark Gresham <mgresham@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Music Museum
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 23:13:34 -0500

Mark Charette wrote:
> And remember - this email list (along with many music-related websites,
> including http://www.woodwind.org), originates in the "industrial wasteland"
> of the Upper Midwest (yes, Detroit, Michigan considers itself "Midwest").
> BTW - "industrial wasteland" is a hell of a way to describe anything.

Sometimes accurate, however, on occasion, as in the experience of
suddenly going from non-stop cornfields into the outskirts of Gary, IN.
That was certainly an experience of "wasteland" for me.

> Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona would normally be considered the
> Southwest. I recently spent nearly 2 years in Austin, and any Austinite I
> know of would be horrified to think they were considered part of the
> "Midwest".

My cousin Marshall (who works for Peavy) has been a resident of Austin
for a number of years; one of my composers was with KFMA until about a
year ago. Austin belongs in "Great Plains" more than "Mex-America,"
just off of Lyndon Johnson country. Certainly a Texan is a Texan by
civic identity first; but Texas involves three geographically definable
cultural regions. "Breadbasket" or "Plains" might be more accurate for
the whole area than "Midwest," certainly, and Austin is really pushing
the blurred edges of the regions. The distinction between Dallas an Ft.
Worth are much more indicative of the sudden differences between
"Plains" and "South," and "cowboy" isn't a derogatory term in Austin.
(It is interesting that, regardless of whether you like his politics,
that detractors of George Bush the Younger try to use "cowboy" as a
searing indictment of a person from a region where being called a
"cowboy" an honorific term.) Detroit may be "midwest" by its own terms
but it is not the same cultural region you get as you head down I-70
west out of Indianapolis. Even Pittsburgh has been described as
"midwest" by persons farther east (according to a Pittsburgh native
sitting some 20 feet away from me right now), though it is culturally
part of the industrial "Foundry" region, same as Detroit, Cleveland, and
Toledo.

The main part of my point is that there are more than a handful of
broad, fairly geographically definable cultural regions north of Mexico,
but assumptions about places from where in the US "art and culture"
arise (or where they should be found) has been, historically, grossly
prejudicial in terms of believing that such things cannot happen outside
of (primarily) New York City, (secondarily) the eastern seaboard at
large, or (third) the industrial cities around the Great Lakes, with a
(fourth) nod grudgingly given to that distant land known as the West
Coast (admitting essentially to Los Angeles/Hollywood, but assuming that
is all an aberration of some kind based on film, pop culture, and Disney).

Even small midwestern towns places like Spillville, Iowa can play an
important role in music history and culture -- something very much worth
remembering.

--
--
Mark Gresham, composer
mgresham@-----.com/
Lux Nova Press http://www.luxnova.com/
LNP Retail Webstore http://www.luxnova.com/lnpwebstore/

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