One
\nof the most successful pieces of text-based political music is Paul De Marinis\u2019
\nCincinnati<\/i>. In this piece, a computerized voice
\nsummarizes facts about the meat industry.
\nIt speaks about the killing animals and the blood of those animals. It starts with the difficulties of
\nslaughterhouse mechanization of animal killing and goes on to the history of
\ndifferent cultures in regards to bleeding a carcass or keeping the blood within
\nit. The content is entirely
\nfactual and delivered in the emotionless voice of a computer. Near the start, it acknowledges a
\ndiscomfort. \u201cBlood
\nterrifies.\u201d However, it ends with
\nan emotionless set of observations \u201dThe death cries and the mechanical noises
\nare almost impossible to disentangle.
\nNeither can the eye take in what it sees. On the one side of the stickers are the living, on the other
\nside, the slaughtered . . . in 20 seconds on the average, the hog is supposed
\nto have bled to death. It happens
\nso quickly and is so smooth a part of the production process that emotion is
\nbarely stirred.\u201d<\/p>\n
What
\nmakes this piece so wonderful is the difficulty of understanding the
\ncomputerized voice. The listener
\nhas to listen closely and struggle for meaning and then when she deciphers it,
\nshe is horrified. The friendly
\nexperiencer then dances between willful misunderstanding and grasping for
\nmeaning. <\/p>\n
The
\nlack of emotional content makes this piece almost sinister. The de-humanized, yet non-mechanized
\nkilling of animals is reflected by the flat computer voice. The goal of this piece is not to
\noutrage or to make everyone become a vegetarian, but to cause people to
\ncontemplate the animal slaughter in which they indirectly participate. The blood terrifies, but the cold
\nsemi-mechanization perhaps is more terrifying.<\/p>\n
Adding
\nto the effectiveness of this piece is the track order on the album Music as
\na Second Language<\/i>. Immediately following Cincinnati<\/i> is another piece The Power of
\nSuggestion<\/i>, which uses
\nthe same computerized voice.
\nInstead of talking about animal death, the voice goes through a
\nhypnotist script. Placed over
\nrelatively fast dissonant melodies, the voice urges us to completely relax and
\nfeel all tension drain from us.
\nAfter hearing the same voice describe hanging animals upside down as
\ndeath takes hold and blood flows from them, my immediate response to hearing
\nthat voice telling me to relax is to do the opposite. I find all my muscles clenching up as the piece purportedly
\ntalks about relaxation but seems to actually be describing death. This may cause listeners to
\nempathetically relate to the experiences of animals in the slaughterhouse. Much science fiction, like The
\nMatrix,<\/i> exploits our
\ndiscomfort with the meat industry and our fear of being subjected to it as a
\nproduct and not a consumer.
\nMarinis seems to be tapping into this same meme in the Power of
\nSuggestion<\/i>.<\/p>\n
While One of the most successful pieces of text-based political music is Paul De Marinis\u2019 Cincinnati. In this piece, a computerized voice summarizes facts about the meat industry. It speaks about the killing animals and the blood of those animals. It starts with the difficulties of slaughterhouse mechanization of animal killing and goes on to … Continue reading Cincinnati<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1105"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3355,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105\/revisions\/3355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nthis combination of pieces will probably not cause anyone to foreswear
\ncheeseburgers, it does force people to contemplate the sources of their
\nfood. Awareness is the first step
\ntowards change.
\nThis post is not Creative Commons. It is Copyright 2005 Celeste Hutchins All Rights Reserved.
\nTag: Celesteh<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"