I am 22 today, and it is time to set things straight with a certain archive. 200 contributors, 730 days, yet collapsed into one long, shapeless stream. That is, I am waging a double war on WFMU's 'The 365 Days Project.'
The confusion of the project, which promises one 'cool and strange and often obscure' audio selection for each of the days of the years 2003 and 2007, is already evident from the 'about page'. What are 'cool,' 'strange,' and 'obscure' but a mess of overlapping aesthetic, epistemic, and formal categories? Moreover, of the two seperate years, the historical moment expressed in each of them is all jumbled up. We have selections that obviously exemplify 2007 placed in 2003, and -- what's worse -- november songs placed in february. It's shameful.
My task, then, is twofold. First, to clarify the tendencies expressed in 2003 and 2007 respectively. Second, to restore temporal coherence by placing each selection within its proper month and year. Order is at stake.
April 29
2003: Omo The Lobo - Omo The Hobo Song/Vitamin Juice Puts Lead In My Snoot
It is correct that this belongs to 2003 rather than 2007. Hobo music has the gesture of fall(ing down on one's luck & finding peace there). Thus, we might select of the numberered months of fall - say september - rather than april. However 'Lobo,' or 'wolf' in spanish, bolstered by the Snoot or Snout, points us elsewhere, namely to Janurary the month of the wolf. For this reason, I suggest splitting this selection into its two constituent songs. Omo the Hobo Song shall go in September, and Vitamin Juice Puts Lead In My Snoot is at home in January.
2007: Avon - Campaign 13: Your Special Sales Meeting Record
Modern, corporate, another clear 2007 example. Opens with suggestions for summer equipment, placing it in early summer at the latest. It is worth considering the alternative: are we in summer itself, or perhaps in late May, merely preparing for summer? The sun-bleached and sandy recording artifacts suggest the former.