Anthony Dean-Harris

This week's post over at Nextbop is all about using Antonius Guillimus Amo's teachings on hermeneutics in listening to and analyzing jazz music . I've wanted to write about this for quite some time but the Holy Spirit finally stuck it in my head how to write it. To wit: Amo is heralding authorial intent and states it must be considered when analyzing a work (at least when using a biographical criticism), otherwise, the analysis is ultimately invalid. Cross apply this notion to jazz and its criticism. Right now, one of our biggest issues (upon which I rail habitually) is that of nomenclature. If authorial intent is to trump all according to Amo, if a musician believes his or her work is considered jazz, the audience or the critic theoretically has little basis to state otherwise. The author intended the work to fit under a certain category and the audience must oblige. Once we pass the issue of nomenclature, the issue on which our community should truly focus ...

I was having a talk this evening with a friend of mine about grammar.  Really the talk was about head injuries (Ever bang your head against a wall really hard? Geez!) and things sort of devolved into the proper use of lay vs. lie.  You see, while I graduated cum laude from Morehouse College with a degree in English, I can still never remember the difference between lay and lie.  I figure I'll get it one day when my brain can keep that information in check (telling me in the comments of this post still likely won't make much of an impact, trust me), but for right now it's just one of those things that I'll miss from time to time, especially in unedited, extemporaneous conversational English.  The thing with this friend of mine is that he's a bit of a grammar fanatic and will correct any mistake made in the middle of a conversation.  I've come to accept this and ignore him immediately afterwards because I find this behavior to be rather gauche.  I doubt I'm a...