[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUWpSDtD9no&]

“It is what it is” (1988) – Derrick May

Prompted by a recent comment by Lichanos, here is a post on quiddity (the what-isness of things), Susan Sontag’s essay “The Aesthetics of Silence” and Derrick May.

Derrick May’s “It is what it is” is a composition first published in 1988 on Detroit recording label Transmat. Derrick May was my hero in the early 1990s but after his collaborations with System 7 (if you’d care to track down this material, only go for the Derrick May/Steve Hillage collaborations) he basically stopped making music.

“The scene changes to an empty room.”

“The Aesthetics of Silence” is an essay by Susan Sontag first published in book form in Styles of Radical Will. She examines three 20th century intellectuals who – after having produced work in their younger years – stopped making anything as they grew older. Her case rests on Arthur Rimbaud, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Marcel Duchamp.

The analogies with Derrick May are obvious, but does he deserve to be mentioned in the row of illustrious predecessors?

Back to the title of this post. The oblique link is the title of this musical composition “It is what it is” = quiddity.