In this eloquent and passionate volume, Bob Ostertag explores the common ground and points of friction among music, creativity, politics, culture, and technology. In terrain ranging from the guerrilla underground in El Salvador's civil war to the drag queen underground in San Francisco and New York, these essays combine journalism and autobiography to explore fundamental questions of what art is and what role it can occupy in a violent and fragmented world, a world in which daily events compromise the universality toward which art strives.

Drawing on his intimate engagement with political conflict in Latin America and the Balkans, Ostertag identifies an art of "insurgent politics" that struggles to expand the parameters of the physical and social world. He also discusses his innovative collaborations with major modern performers, filmmakers, and artists around the world. Part memoir, part journalism, and part aesthetic manifesto, Creative Life is a dazzling set of writings from a musical artist who has worked on the cutting edge of new music for thirty years.

Bob Ostertag--composer, performer, historian, instrument builder, journalist, and activist--is a professor of technocultural studies and music at the University of California at Davis and the author of People's Movements, People's Press: The Journalism of Social Justice Movements.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS   xi
INTRODUCTION   1
Art and Politics after September 11   2
Early Years   15

1. CENTRAL AMERICA   25
El Salvador, 1988: Absolute Diabolical Terror   25
Sooner or Later   38
Nicaragua 1990: Power Outage   40
Creative Politics   54

2. THE BALKANS   69
The Balkans 2000: Tour Journal   69
Program Notes for Yugoslavia Suite   101

3. QUEERS   105
Desert Boy on a Stick   105
All the Rage, Spiral, and PantyChrist   115
Why I work with Drag Queens   130

4. MUSIC AND MACHINES   134
Between Science and Garbage   134
Living Cinema Manifesto   147
Human Bodies, Computer Music   149
Why Computer Music Is So Awful   159

CONCLUSION   163
The Professional Suicide of a Recording Musician   163

NOTES   173
BIOGRAPHY   177
SOURCES   187
CREDITS   190
INDEX   191