Why did Smog become (Smog) with Rain on Lens? Why put parentheses around a name? Out of discretion. The word, for Bill Callahan, is a word too many. The name is too imposing, too forceful. Isn’t this suspension – withholding, through parenthesis, the movement that would see this word take its place among other words – only a sleight of hand? Perhaps Bill Callahan is signalling to us that the name risks getting in the way – that Smog have become too imposing, that they are linked to a style. It is necessary to become minor again, to deviate, to rediscover a movement which has no coherence or identity in itself. And then to begin anew, as if from nothing. Remember the Japanese poets who, upon achieving fame in a particular place, would change their name and go elsewhere.
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hey! nice site!
check out my smog cover at http://www.patrioticdog.com/nothroughroad/covers.html
byes.
Posted by: matt | February 07, 2004 at 02:36 AM
Thanks Matt, I look forward to following up this link (the computer I'm using hasn't got sound, but I will find one which does).
Posted by: LI | February 08, 2004 at 11:57 AM