Hauntology: 1969

It seems that as history progresses the world is moving ever closer to a reality predicted by Philip K. Dick. Here he gives us a foreshadowing of the emergence of the idea of hauntology:

But why hadn't the TV set reverted instead to formless metals and plastics? Those, after all, were its constituents; it had been constructed out of them, not out of an earlier radio. Perhaps this weirdly verified a discarded ancient philosophy, that of Plato's ideal objects, the universals which, in each class, were real. The form TV set had been a template imposed as a successor to other templates, like the procession of frames in a movie sequence. Prior forms, he reflected, must carry on an invisible, residual life in every object. The past is latent, is submerged, but still there, capable of rising to the surface once the later imprinting unfortunately — and against ordinary experience — vanished. The man contains — not the boy — but earlier men, he thought. History began a long time ago.

Philip K. Dick - Ubik, 1969.

Dreams of Faraway Vinyl

Flipping through the vinyl bin of the local Salvation Army store is not archaeology. The looters have already been here before me. This is not science. I am a Zabbal pawing through that which society has cast off. No, this is not science, but it is a slice of cultural and economic history. Not only does this exercise provide an insight into what people once bought, Herb Alpert and 101 Strings LPs in their hundreds and thousands, but a snapshot of what is valued today. If there's any demand for it nowadays it will most likely not be found in this bin. The gems are glaringly obvious by their absence. The rare exception to the rule, whenever actually found, is the jewel in the midden.

You could create a map of sonic culture this way, going from country to country, junk store to junk store, cataloging the offerings in the dollar, pound, or euro bins. Batches of Vaughn Meader turn into Heino or Rolf Harris as you move from country to country. And, at least in my imagination, as you reached the thrift stores of China (for such things do exist in the China of my mind) you would likely find bin after bin of propaganda-jacketed vinyl from decades past. 

On January 28, 1967, Billboard magazine reported:

Red China Chairman Mao Tze-tung has cut a record. "Red China's millions are being urged to Sing Along With Mao," reports Edward Keilan, a correspondent with Copley News Service. "Things being what they are in Red China," Keilan said, "the platter is bound to 'sell' more than a million."

Online auction lists show that during the 60s and 70s China produced a sizable number of discs, LPs of political speeches and EPs of screeching choirs of schoolchildren singing hymns to the State, often as embodied by Chairman Mao. Do these relics of a lost past now sit dust-covered in the record bins of Nanjing and Chengdu? Or are they suppressed, long ago relegated to the incinerator or landfill? Or have Western collectors simply snapped them up for their camp value?

Lachrimae Antiquae Stockhausen

Moodily, General Buckman opened the third drawer of the large desk and placed a tape-reel in the small transport he kept there. Dowland aires for four voices...he stood listening to one which he enjoyed very much, among all the songs in Dowland's lute books.

For now left and forlorn
I sit, I sigh, I weep, I faint, I die
In deadly pain and endless misery.




The first man, Buckman mused, to write a piece of abstract music. He removed the tape, put in the lute one, and stood listening to the Lachrimae Antiquae Pavan. From this, he said to himself, came, at last, the Beethoven final quartets. And everything else. Except for Wagner. He detested Wagner. Wagner and those like him, such as Berlioz, had set music back three centuries. Until Karlheinz Stockhausen in his Gesang der Jünglinge had once more brought music up to date.


Philip K. Dick - Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, 1974.

Slaves and Masters

Reel to reel tape duplicator, 1967.