Matterzones

[imomus]

This might be an obvious point to make, but we matter differently in different zones. We give some zones the horn -- for those zones we are a gigantic Matterhorn -- while, for others, we don't matter at all. When I played my show in Sweden this weekend, for instance, I could see the matterzones quite clearly from the stage. There were a few people at the front for whom I and my songs mattered intensely. They sang along with the lyrics -- knew them better than I did, in fact -- they requested obscure songs, they shouted out "We love you!" Further back I could see "looming smilers" -- people who loomed and smiled, seeming quite glad to be there. Around the fringes were "semi-pros" -- photographers and recordists intent on getting good images and sounds, guestlist people, DJs and organisers and fellow musicians checking me out. Then over by the bar were "chatting drunks", completely indifferent to the show except as a noise source they had to compete with to be heard. In "Mistaken Memories of Medieval Manhattan" I always go jousting during the medieval sections, and on Friday night I jumped off the side of the stage and went jousting up and down the bar. I usually encounter grins when I joust, but this time it was if I were invisible, a creature in another dimension. The lighting was different in that zone, and the sound from the speakers was muffled. People were there for completely different reasons than the people in my crowd -- to get tanked on tankards of ale, basically, as students have done since the time of Beowulf. I was out of my matterzone.

I thought again about matterzones the following day, when I got to Copenhagen, a city I don't know and had thirty hours or so to discover. This time it wasn't me doing the mattering, but different zones of the city itself. I got very interested in the different ways different media reported particular zones. I had, basically, four sources of information: a copy of the Time Out Guide to Copenhagen which I browsed in a bookstore, the guide and listings section of an English-language newspaper called The Copenhagen Post, a Japanese magazine's Copenhagen special edition I spycammed in a sushi bar, and recommendations from Click Opera readers who knew me and knew Copenhagen.

A zone like the Norrebro district mattered differently to these different reporters. For Time Out, Norrebro was a neighbourhood on the turn, a place of riots and street robberies and ethnic tensions. This wasn't my impression at all while walking around it; although there were streets full of African hair salons and cheap international call centres and muslim groceries, they were right next to thoroughly bobo streets featuring sushi, trendy streetwear, organic delis and yuppie babyclothes. It all seemed pretty well integrated, just like it is in Kreuzberg. The Time Out guide was out of date, or exaggerating for effect, or aimed at nervous suburban types, or just being terribly British and class-conscious. Meanwhile, Click Opera readers who actually lived in the area gave me cycling and bar tips, and the Japanese magazine focused on charmingly traditional, high-quality crafts workshops and gourmet delis in the area.



It fascinates me that things can matter so differently. Cliches like beauty being in the eye of the beholder and one man's meat being another's poison and de gustibus non est disputandum go some way to explaining why matterzones matter as differently as they do. But, from my view up on this matterhorn, I just want to say that I love the co-existing diversity of matter-narratives. Just as the different ethnic communities in Norrebro with their different-yet-coexisting senses of what matters make the area exciting, so a room full of different matterzones is an interesting room. I think my nightmare world is one in which things are all assumed to matter the same way to everyone. And yet, isn't that precisely what I love about Japan, where "somebody says what we're already all thinking, and we laugh"?

Comments

[funazushi.livejournal.com]

This is why I enjoyed your piece on Hitotoki Hiban. You can enjoy a city through someone else's eyes on a very personal level. Guide books being what they are you tend to get the lowest common denominator in terms of experience. I remember having to rely on Lonely Planet guides during my travels and being very frustrated with them. I think that your request for things to do in Copenhagen was a great way around the "crowded planet" problem. When I travel I always try to find a food market to get a sense of the place. The path to a person's heart is through their stomach after all.

[(Anonymous)]

i like mr curry but i feel am not helping you
i wish we could be
but not stuff is to real
did you see mr child
i fear not
i hope we can laugh one day
i remember you friendly space
keep singing my friend
i love you dearly
x

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I missed Mr Childish and just had a quiet night in with some sushi and The Pythons autobiography, which was actually jolly nice. I don't really have a punk heart, but I do have a python.

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

Don't worry Momus, if you ever came up to me and pretended to joust, I would probably join you. Or just laugh hysterically until I start to cry. Or both!

Also, every time someone mentions "the Matterhorn" I almost always think of the Disneyland ride. I guess I can blame it on my parents for dragging me there almost twice a month every month growing up. Have you ever been to Disneyland, Momus?

I've also been wondering if you've ever tried gouda cheese. When you went to Holland you gave me a huge craving for gouda, and I've eaten about 2 pounds of it today after my dad bought some from the store.

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

MASTERY

Does that even exist?

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

The word ´Matterhorn´ just makes me think of Kevin´s hard-on :(

[youllstillbe.livejournal.com]

Nørrebro *is* looked upon as ethnically tense by most of Denmark too because, by Danish standards, it's a flashpan of races. But for people actually living there it's a lot more tame, and compared to a lot of other cities, quite unified. The only real problems in the area are between Faderhuset and homosexuals, Faderhuset and muslims, Faderhuset and abortion seekers.. oh and Faderhuset and punk kids.

[youllstillbe.livejournal.com]

p.s. I've no idea what a "flashpan of races" is either :-\

MZ's

[(Anonymous)]

Matter zones are reliant on receiving feedback. Be it visual, written or financial, artists and the like will only find out their matter zones when they see / read / hear what others think. Like you looking across a crowd, or reading comments on your blog. For those of us who receive no feedback, how do we find our matter zones? If it is reliant on being appreciated on your own level, then surely friends are our matter zones? If this is the case i may start referring to my compadres as MZ's.

wewillbecome.com

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

I'm still getting my head around "matterzones" :-\

Re: MZ's

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

" For those of us who receive no feedback, how do we find our matter zones?"

By pleasing yourself?

Re: MZ's

[(Anonymous)]

Surely a matter zone is when you matter to anything BUT yourself, so pleasing yourself isn't a matter zone?

Re: MZ's

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

I guess my point was that instead of trying to find "matterzones" in other people, find them in yourself. You know what you like, you know whether you feel comfortable or not. Rather than trying to second guess other people, get a straight answer from yourself.

I think the whole idea of "matterzones" is annoyingly fuzzy though. I just right-clicked that matterzone crater in the top-left corner and it's from a consultancy firm. No surprises there.

Re: MZ's

[(Anonymous)]

I don't believe in Matter zones. I was, in layman's terms:

"Taking the piss"

wewillbecome.com

[green-paint.livejournal.com]

I'm intrigued by your diagram. From where did it come?

Re: MZ's

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

You must be new to Momus' blog.

Momus: Today, I'd like to discuss with you all the binary of discrimination spirals within the cultural context of folk quilts.

Groupie: Yes, yes, fascinating, I remember your last entry on folk quilts where we contrasted Japanese super-legitimacy with Anglo-American individuality.

Momus: Yes, indeed. I've decided to visually interpret this counter-pluralism using a cat sitting upon a keyboard, floating through-out the cosmos. Here, I've created a diagram:



Groupie: You have so much to teach us.
-----------


Rinse and repeat.

[contentlove.livejournal.com]

in the matter zone
blow the matter horn
it does not matter much
not so much anymore

I am not anti-matter
somethings do matter more
as a matter of fact
I love the matador

it´s a classic

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

http://whatyouseewhenyoudie.ytmnd.com/

[(Anonymous)]

I thought that mountain looked familiar -- it's the one on the back of Goldfrapp's "Felt Mountain".

[inuitmonster.livejournal.com]

What is Faderhuset?

[youllstillbe.livejournal.com]

A Christian group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faderhuset) that sparked this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iupbxsHGlAA&feature=related

[(Anonymous)]

Well, Norrebro can be tense and dangerous - a girl was raped last night. We have had drug related shootings in the street between ethnic groups trying to control the marked.

momushorn

[petit-paradis.livejournal.com]

people wearing vibskov in berlin already!

http://stilinberlin.blogspot.com/

[imomus.livejournal.com]

They're both shots of the same Matterhorn shot through the same trees, but on different days, and from slightly different angles:

Re: MZ's

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

I'm just LOL'ing at the thought of Momus posting that image in response to someone. Or the thought of him posting a cat macro.

Re: it´s a classic

[anglerfish96.livejournal.com]

I think my synthesizer needs the cat hair blown out of it. :(

Re: MZ's

[gu88766.livejournal.com]

for a second i thought he was the creator of the infamous image.

matterzones

[(Anonymous)]

My sister was brought up in Nigeria and I was brought up in sunny Leicester, England. After 30 years apart, she came over to stay with me in London. One day I returned from work to find my one of my 'limited edition' Campbell's tomato soup cans (I obtained from Tate Modern Warhol exhibition when I worked there) open, empty and thrown in the bin.

My sister said "...But I was hungry"