Some of Us Are More Hardcore than Others

Or was it not minimal enough? Are you sure the deadline extension wasn't so that people could spend more preparation time doing nothing or very little?

Yes, my jokes are pretty minimal too. Which reminds me--have you seen the British comedy "Spaced"? I've started watching it, and it's got a lot of references to and mockery of experimental art. One of the secondary characters is an artist, and he does things like physically paint himself into a canvass in order to comment on the self-reflection of Rembrandt (or something like that), painting with his penis in order to avoid the "cliches" of using a brush, and so on. He takes a girl on a date to an exhibition of white paintings. He takes his friends to an impressively awful performance art show by his ex, a hilariously arrogant transgender who calls him/herself Vulva. All of that is just in the first 5 episodes or so. And in the DVD extras there are amusing biographies of the characters--one of the characters has a stand-up-comic father who decided to reduce The Joke down to its purest form by making it not funny. A critic reviewed him saying something like "if you take away the bread and the meat you have nothing to eat, and if you take away the setup and the punch line you have nothing to laugh at." No jokes about experimental music yet, but there is one character who shows up occasionally and hears Techno in everything. Anyway, recommended.

KG replies: Hey, suggest a paper on it, it'll liven up a panel.

Speaking of minimalism: is the text "Minimal music, maximal impact" on New Music Box no longer available online?

KG replies: When I first got your message NMBx wasn't working, but it still seems to be there now;

http://www.newmusicbox.org/page.nmbx?id=31tp00

It is indeed. Thanks.