A response to Rhian Samuel.(Critical Essay)

RHIAN SAMUEL'S REVIEW of Audible Traces: gender, identity, and music, edited by Lydia Hamessley and me, has many inaccuracies. (See Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 40, no. 1, pages 235-40.) Far more objectionable is Ms. Samuel's negligence: namely, or apparently, Ms. Samuel neither read the book attentively nor, as she has in fact indicated (238), did she listen with care to the CD (music / consciousness /gender by Benjamin Boretz). As early as the second sentence of the review, Ms. Samuel's non-reading became painfully evident: "An analogy is drawn between book and bedcover by editor (/photographer) Lydia Hamessley..." (235). But on page xx in Intro 2 of the book (Introductions, not "preface" (240)), Lydia wrote: "After quilting for three years, I found the courage to enter one of my quilts, "Gazing to Africa," in a quilt show. (See Figure 1.)" (page xxi). Neither "bedcover" nor "photographer"; unmistakable, off-putting, dead-giveaway. Had that been all, you wouldn't be reading this response. Reviewers are r arely disinterested or unbiased, but since Ms. Samuel has treated several of our contributors contemptuously or dismissively, it is difficult for me to remain quiet.

On the plus side, Ms. Samuel's reviews of articles by Peter J. Rabinowitz, Su Zheng, and Judy Lochhead (238-40) are respectful, as are her brief comments on texts by Marianne Kielian-Gilbert, Ellie M. Hisama, Renee T. Coulombe, Martha Mockus, Suzanne G. Cusick, and myself. But: Ms. Samuel's uncertainty with what she calls "authorial self-awareness" (236) blocks her entry into several texts as in: "And if self-consciousness should become self-indulgence... the reader might even say 'Who cares?"' (236). As, in fact, Ms. Samuel says about Mitchell Morris and Susan C. Cook, in whose texts autobiography is intrinsic to what and how they are saying and writing about: The Weather Girls' performance of "It's Raining Men," and dancers Irene and Vernon Castle, respectively. Ms. Samuel identifies Susan C. Cook's "interweaving of a Grimm's fairy tale ['The Twelve Dancing Princesses'] into her commentary [as] more decorative than intrinsic" (238). However, the parallelism of the Castles' and the Princesses' tales is obvi ous: each explores the magical effect of music & dance on--and pleasure (often kept-in-secret) given to--the body. In Ms. Samuel's review of Mitchell Morris's article--a case of "pure self-indulgence" according to Ms. Samuel (237)--Morris is said to be "using its topic ['Gay Subjectivity, and the Erotics of Insatiability'] as a vehicle for the promotion of the author's own sexual stance" (237). I am far too appalled and offended to comment! Evidently Ms. Samuel prefers her stories straight.

Clearly, Ms. Samuel did not really listen to Benjamin Boretz's music / consciousness / gender CD. She writes: "It is 79 minutes long--too long for one session, at least for me" (All quotes from 238). Perhaps Ms. Samuel read the transcript-score, but if so, then carelessly. Anyone reading Ms. Samuel's review would not know: that much original music by Boretz is on the CD ("prepared piano" ...