Academy Zappa: Proceedings of the First International Conference of Esemplastic Zappology (ICE-Z) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Yeah, I'm a big enough Zappa nerd to have purchased this book. And yeah, I read it cover to cover, the endnotes and appendix, even the index. And I highlighted parts, too. But over and over, the single word that kept popping into my head, as I read on seemingly endlessly of fellow Zappa fans' deepest love for his work and its relationship to everything else crucial in the world, was "wanking."

I mean, I love Frank Zappa's music and legacy as much as the next guy. No, I love it more than the next guy, but I also realize that there is a spot where his work and his music and all of his statements, no matter how profound and underappreciated, end. Verily, Frank Zappa was a lot more than an avant garde rocker, more than a neo-classical genius. He was an activist, seer, comic, satirist and even public spokesman for American dental health, but I confess readily there's a point at which meaningful application of Zappa's words and music stops. But the folks here refuse to surrender to this weakness.

It's like the Bible, the Bhagavad-Gita, or Proust's In Search of Lost Time; if you get deeply enough into it, you can have it mean absolutely anything you want. It doesn't matter if you are into Meso-American pottery sherds, Japanese pearl-diving or mixed-martial arts; if you're deep enough into the catalog of Frank Zappa, you can apply it to absolutely anything that flies your flag.

And that's what we've got here. It's a collection of 14 essays by Zappa-dedicated folks into a staggering array of art, culture, social science and sociology, cultural anthropology, etc., and they apply Zappa to every single thing that turns them on. It's a deep homage to Zappa, of course, but almost all of it is a stretch, with some of the offerings being ridiculously tenuous.

The essays originate from a one-day "conference" held at the Theatro Technis on Crowndale Road, Somers Town, London on 16 January 2004, a Zappa nerd-in with 70-odd attendees. They presented papers and blathered on to each other and themselves about what they love and how it relates to Zappa, and now it's preserved for all time in this book.

Putting it together as co-editor is Ben Watson, the self-proclaimed be-all/end-all of universal esoteric Zappa interpretation. I said it in my review of Frank Zappa: The Complete Guide to His Music that Watson comes across as the worst kind of über-fan, the guy who knows absolutely everything there is to know, and who savages anyone who differs from his points of view and interpretation. He's back to that here. The guy knows volumes, clearly, about Zappa and a zillion other things, but he can't be content with his knowledge and supremacy. He has to lash out at those who disagree with him, and does so as early as page 6 where he calls those who oppose him "anti-intellectuals." He again starts out referring to himself in the third person, but soon enough it's "I" and "me," with multiple retellings of his visit to FZ's home, his opportunity to read to FZ from his magnum opus, etc. There's even an endnote to the introduction where he notes that Gail Zappa has indulged in a hurtful "Stalinist rewrite of history," and another where he--as the Editor--says "F**k you" directly to an essayist for a minor critique of his (Watson's) work. The endnotes are packed with his pathological snobbery and condescension. This bombastic ego put a bitter taste in my mouth from the beginning, which remained for the duration of the book.

The book opens with Watson's ragingly pompous, overwrought essay justifying the "conference" and the book, constructing an entirely new field of study, "esemplastic Zappology," a discipline beyond fan worship, beyond music journalism, beyond consumption and commercialism, as a way of "understanding Zappa's scepto-materialist monism." This field of study, then, is just why Academy Zappa has been founded.

There are essays on identity thinking in "The Spider of Destiny," mental hygiene, a possible cryptic Peter Frampton homage to FZ, Zappa and Easy Rider, Trout Mask Replica, market-researched anaclitic-affect repertoires, the power of "random pitches," the secret meaning of "arf," the poverty of the individual spirit, etc. And yes, all of this in some way relates to Zappa. This book is packed with just about everything you can imagine, most of it dense post-doctoral, self-important intellectual yammering about Theodor Adorno and Thomas Mann, with macrostructure, Bob Dylan, Chinese feces, the poodle, Johnny "Guitar" Watson, Marcel Duchamp, Josef Dietzgen, Herbert Marcuse, commodity culture, the logic of symbolic domination, chemistry's implicit understanding of the uselessness of the nobility, Georg Lukacs, TV's The Prisoner, John Cage (of course), Loch Ness, Freud, Max Horkheimer, Rimbaud, the Matrix trilogy, Heinrich Böll, Nietzsche, Goethe, Nick Mason, Kaiser rolls, Kant, Poe, Alban Berg, Godzilla, Philip K. Dick, Hegel, Marx, Serbia, William Blake, Rabelais, Zen Buddhism, Mission To Mars, Mahler, Beethoven, Tim Allen, the Buzzcocks, James Joyce, and on and mind-numbingly on. And lots and lots of Zappa iconic and lyrical references, all of which are quite entertaining.

Bottom line: Wanking, after all, is harmless, fun, and easy to do. You set the conditions and you decide exactly how it goes. It's all about you and necessarily excludes others. And when you add a few friends, you've got a circle jerk. If you know FZ deeply, you'll get this book, even if it doesn't vibrate you head to toe. But if you want to learn about Frank Zappa the man, his music, how it was made and recorded, his life on the road, what his songs are really about, the years with the Mothers, etc., then this is not the book you're looking for. Choose Electric Don Quixote, Necessity Is...: The Early Years of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention or No Commercial Potential: The Saga Of Frank Zappa instead. If you're an overeducated, perpetual graduate student looking for something upon which to fixate your years of post-doctoral whatever, then this may get you moving in the right direction.

I have read the following books written by or about Frank Zappa:

1. THE REAL FRANK ZAPPA BOOK by Frank Zappa and Peter Occhioigrosso

2. MOTHER! THE FRANK ZAPPA STORY by Michael Gray

3. FRANK ZAPPA: THE NEGATIVE DIALECTICS OF POODLE PLAY by Ben Watson

4. THE ACADEMY ZAPPA: PROCEEDINGS OF ESEMPLASTIC ZAPPA edited by Ben Watson and Esther Leslie

5. ELECTRIC DON QUIXOTE: THE DEFINITIVE STORY OF FRANK ZAPPA by Neil Slaven

6. NECESSITY IS... THE EARLY YEARS OF FRANK ZAPPA AND THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION by Billy James

7. COSMIK DEBRIS: THE COLLECTIVE HISTORY AND IMPROVISATIONS OF FRANK ZAPPA by Greg Russo

8. NO COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL: THE SAGA OF FRANK ZAPPA by David Walley

9. FRANK ZAPPA: THE COMPLETE CUIDE TO HIS MUSIC by Ben Watcon

10. MY BROTHER WAS A MOTHER: AZAAPA FAMILY ALBUM by Patrice "Candy" Zappa

11. THEM OR US by Frank Zappa

12. UNDER THE SAME MOON by Suzannah Thana Harris

13. BEING FRANK: MY TIME WITH FRANK ZAPPA by Nigery Lennon

These titles are ranked in terms my perception of quality. THE ACADEMY ZAPPA: PROCEEDINGS OF ESEMPLASTIC ZAPPA is a collection of quasi-scholarly manuscripts presented at a quasi-academic conference on January 16, 2004 at Somers Town, London. Seventy-two people and two dogs were in attendance. Ironically, only one of the fourteen contributors originates from Frank's home country. I can only assume that the attendees represent the same ratio. Well, perhaps, that isn't ironic.

I have been an admirer Frank Zappa's work since 1964 when FREAK OUT! was released. Through reading THE ACADEMY ZAPPA: PROCEEDINGS OF ESEMPLASTIC ZAPPA, I found myself scratching my head in wonderment. Scattered throughout the chapters is an anti-intellectual theme. Yet, the authors commonly cite philosophers and abstract concepts that are frankly beyond the scope of a reader without a strong academic background. From my mind's eye, this volume is a real paradox.

Essentially, this body of work is an analysis and/or assessment of the psychological and sociological implications of Zappa's international influence on a wide range of topics. The editors note that these proceedings "do not promise to list everything" that Zappa has influenced, but "what Zappa's evident difference from regular mass and avantgarde music really is." In addition, a secondary plot emerges. Critical human themes found through the centuries are found in the works of Zappa. As a result, the contents of this monograph are not something that would interest anyone except those who are PROFOUNDLY devoted to the work of Frank Zappa. In many ways, reading this material is reminiscent of the works I confronted as a doctoral student. Hmmm, strange, that's how I reacted to Ben Watson's masterpiece, FRANK ZAPPA: THE NEGATIVE DIALECTIC OF POODLE PLAY. It made me think, but none the less the volume was a real hoot.

If you are up to really something that refines strange, get this book.

This book is a series of essays on certain aspects of the Zappa genre. The papers are excruciatingly well researched and probing. Philosophically it is like reading about certain entrails that reverberate throughout the Zappa cannon of work and running them through a Marxist Dialectic with references to Consumerism.

What I found profoundly interesting is the use of the referants of Joyce's WAKE and Mann's DR FAUSTUS. Much like Ben Watson's POODLE PLAY; The fascination here is not about the questions delved into on Zappa's legacy; It is about the descriptions, inferences, and explications that can be arrived at by Zappa Philosophers. The Poodle essay is of great interest. But where was the discussion of "Titties And Beer?"

Although it can't be said that Zappa left little to build on(he left a whole lot); In a sense it can be compared to Plato's interpretation of Socrates. The big difference here is that we have no written works of Socrates to compare Plato's use of him as his mouthpiece. Nor can it be distingushed what ideas in the Platonic Dialogues are Platos and what are Socrates. Or what ideas of Socrates were actually from The Sophists?

Nevertheless straining the more recognisable motifs of Zappa's Project/Object through Marxian Dialectism; The early philosophical writings of Ardorno[that takes Capitalistic "Commercialism" and Aesthetics affects on the individual and society]; And Socio-political thought from the 1950- ? is fascinating.

While I really "dug" the polemics; If Ardorno is correct, Then can anyone who partakes in "Consumerism" and attempts to claim that their attacks on it are revolutionary and vulgar really be considered a Rebel no matter what artistic weapons they claim to possess? See Peter Gabriel's "Not One Of Us" and Zappa's famous retort to the union man after "Little House..." on BURNTY WEENY SANDWICH: "Everyone is wearing a uniform in this room and you know it."

Even if you start with the predicate and try to reach the subject its all in the same uni-culturalism; This is where the assertion that Zappa was using Sexuality and Music to somehow differentiate himself from the current political/social/consumer universe breaks down. And yes Ben the negation of this assertion were well within your essay on WAKE!

There is no "Outside." If Wake is so castigated by the literate intellectuals why is it still in print? And why do the masses still have access to it? And why is the complete Zappa catalogue in print if it is such a danger to convential ideas of Consumerism?

Reading these essays I was finally able to begin to grasp the post-WW II Capitalistic Consumer plan. Contrast this to the post WW II Communist Plan. Like in ZEN AND THE ART... Maybe the Sophists weren't that bad after all. I shudder to think what world society would be like if the NAZIs won WW II. If they had then there really would be an "Outside."

Former reader of T'MERSHI DUWEEN