over and over and over and over and over

i felt like there was something else to say about EMP, since i didn't really offer any general comments on my experience. like carl wilson, i didn't find it to be nearly as mind-blowing as
last year's conference, although it was plenty enjoyable.

of course, as my second exposure to this curious, ad-hoc community, there was less of a transcendant sense of new and unexplored possibilities. but there also just weren't as many papers or panels that stood out as really engaging and provocative (as, for instance, the girl-group panel and carl's own celine dion paper did last year.) somehow, there didn't seem to be many papers that addressed areas of directly relevant interest to me, though i don't understand how that's possible. i definitely felt like the expansion to four simultaneous panels diluted the energy and cohesion of the conference, and - although nobody else seemed to complain about this much - i found there to be strikingly little adherence to or concern with the con's decidedly vague "theme."

i guess this didn't bother folks because the theme is something of a red herring - the true theme is always simply "pop music," and the point is overwhelmingly to bring together the best and most prominent writers/thinkers on the music to share some of their work, rather than to enact a large-scale discussion around a set of more specific topics. which is certainly reasonable, given that this is really the only event of its kind. but it's also a shame, i'd say, since there are certainly a range of very potent and significant ideas to be explored even hewing quite close to this year's ostensible theme - the relationship between music, time, and place - which could have enhanced cross-resonances throughout the conference if more of an effort had been made to draw them out as the focus. it would have made it easier to come away with a sense that something particular had been discussed, considered, and, perhaps, in some small way, explained.

i don't mean to keep bringing this up - because i really don't want to complain about it -
but if my paper had been included (it was evidently not aided by the increase in accepted submissions - though it was, by-the-way, abso-bloomin-lutely on-theme) ... well, golly it would have been nice - i feel like i would have gotten a lot more out of the conference. not just for the obvious reasons, but simply because it would have given me more of an entree into the "hallway" conversations that form a lot of the substance of the conference. as it was, i didn't really end up talking to that many people. because i'm shy, but more because i didn't have anything particular or urgent to say to anybody there, even though obviously there are all kinds of things i could fruitfully discuss with most of them.

also, since i had friends to hang out with and things to do in the evenings, i didn't need to or attempt to join any of the myriad social activities that went on outside of but connected to the conference, such as what i'm sure was an awesome party at m. matos' house saturday night. i did end up going to lunch on sunday (after the big wrap-up discussion, which has been described/discused/dished on in detail elsewhere) with carl, ned raggett, tom kipp, and several others - most of that conversation was about the idea of creating something (a web forum? an online magazine? a print publication?) to carry forward the spirit and substance of emp throughout the rest of the year - an idea that despite some big talk has unsurprisingly not led to even subsequent e-mail dialogue (unless it has and i was weeded out.)

anyway, thanks to the lovely mr. kipp, who, like me, is what carl calls a "thinker without portfolio" (even though his 'folio does now include four popcon presentations, and mine stretches to fit some academic and some periodicalized pop writing.) at the end of the conference, he made some discouraging comments about the prospects of ever getting a paper accepted at there without some significant credentials. of course that's not entirely unexpected - but i'd previously have thought that the selection process would weight the quality and relevance of the proposal at least somewhat substantially against the "brief bio" and acknowledged insider status. kipp's doubtful about that, and he's probably in a position to know (himself standing as one of the few perennial exceptions, since "once you're in you're in.")

coming after the intense but inspiring final roundtable talk - on the fraught subject of "the future of thinking about music for a living," which left me musing optimistically about academia (as the academics were on the whole way more positive about said future than the journo-types) - that comment was a tiny buzzkill that brought me down to thinking about my future for living about music, period. which is to say, my position with respect to this group of people who inhabit emp-world. because, once more, i'm left feeling like these are my people, at least rightfully, but that i don't quite belong to/with them, at this point anyway. despite lots of rhetoric about inclusiveness and intermingling, i still end up on the outside. which is something i do to myself, more than anything. and i'm trying to figure out how not to.

one thing i want to do is to start focusing (on) my writing here; making an effort to create something more potentially accessible and reader-friendly. which means, mostly, to just write better. and also shorter, and maybe less erratically. we'll see. i've got a few several loose ends to tie up, as always, but i'm going to perhaps be playing around with format here in the coming weeks/months, to see if i can sculpt this blog into something more emphatic, deliberate...something with a stronger sense of itself. eh?