Sagan on Intellectual Brilliance
Posted: March 3, 2010 Filed under: Deep | Tags: Carl Sagan, deep thoughts Leave a comment »
Intellectual brilliance is no guarantee against being dead wrong.
- Carl Sagan, Cosmos
If it Doesn’t Feel Real, the Game Falls Apart
Posted: February 20, 2010 Filed under: Deep | Tags: deep thoughts, Kids Leave a comment »Via @nybooks, a snippet from the March 11 New York Review of Books:
Gopnik speculates that early childhood prepares us for both the appreciation and creation of art: imaginary play among children hones the ability to entertain counterfactuals—the alternative worlds out of which art, and invention of any sort, are primarily made. It requires discipline to stay in the imaginary role one has assumed, to project psychologically what it means to be a mother, a firefighter, a soldier, a prisoner. If it doesn’t feel real, the game falls apart. Imaginary play is a rehearsal for understanding the minds and intentions of others, a basic survival skill.
The Simple Stuff
Posted: February 19, 2010 Filed under: Deep | Tags: deep thoughts Leave a comment »With the blog hopper all but empty this evening, I went and dug up something out my email archive. This was advice on bass playing that a friend gave me a few years ago, around the time I bought the Spector. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind me sharing.
If you ever want some intense bassline learnin’, go get some of the old Motown stuff that had James Jamerson on it (which is just about everything). Or Earth Wind and Fire. Some of the songs sound kinda [lame] by today’s standards, but the bass lines are immortal. It’s like a whole ‘nother song back there! Oh, and of course, listen to John Entwistle. That guy was playing light years ahead of everybody and still kept it simple (except on “My Generation” – that’s serious voodoo). And then round it out with some good old fashioned AC/DC to bring it on back home. The older I get, the more I love the simple stuff.
You’ve Been Posted!
Posted: February 12, 2010 Filed under: Artists, Concerts, Deep | Tags: Carl Sagan, deep thoughts, Genesis, Peter Gabriel, Trey Anastasio, Washington Post 2 Comments »I found plenty of bloggable stuff out there on the Internet today. Here are a couple of bits and pieces.
- Peter Gabriel. According to AP, he’s bailing on Genesis’s induction next month into the rock hall of fame, citing his upcoming European tour. Sort of harsh, no? Maybe they do some sort of video link.
- Carl Sagan. NPR quotes the scientist on the view of Earth from 4 billion miles away.
Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
When I was little, I watched “Cosmos” on public television – that show kind of blew my mind. I might have to Netflix that action.
- Click Track. The Washington Post music blog reviews half of the 2/9 Trey show at 930 club.
“As a bonus you’ve been probably bobbing your head all along and not just because you might have a contact high,” says Click Track.
Ha ha ha! Stoners getting high at the Trey show! Ha! Only I didn’t see or smell pot or any other drugs (besides booze) once when I was there. Maybe the blogger did, but he didn’t elaborate. Then, from hackneyed to casual racism: “The two forays into light-reggae were about as successful as you’d expect from a band of seven white folks led by a dude from Vermont.” Yeeeucthh.
Reminds me of this:
Happiness
Posted: December 9, 2009 Filed under: Deep | Tags: deep thoughts 1 Comment »We want you to be happy
Don’t live inside the gloom
We want you to be happy
Come step outside your room
We want you to be happy
Cause this is your song tooPhish
“Joy”
When I was in my mid-twenties, I was struck by an observation made by a family member, someone a bit older than my parents. As I recall, she said she had always assumed there would come a time in life when everything would get easier. Things would plateau out: the kids would be grown, careers would calm down, that kind of thing.
But, she said, that time never came. Some of life’s difficulties disappeared, and others took their place.
That remark might sound sort of despondent, but at the time, I took it as the candid wisdom of a 70 year old. And I still see the truth in it. Maybe a state of happiness arrives for some people, and more power to them, but I suspect that for most of us, life is a slog and always will be.
I don’t think happiness is an illusion, however. I just think you just have to search for it and savor it when you can. That’s what music is about. That’s what this is about.
There is Only Now, and Moving Forward
Posted: November 29, 2009 Filed under: Deep | Tags: deep thoughts, See Emily Play 3 Comments »I’ve got not much in the hopper this evening, except for Emily’s thoughtful Thanksgiving post at See Emily Play. One line in particular jumped out at me:
I am skeptical of this notion of “getting back to normal,” or having my life revert to the way it “used to be.” Because for me, there is no such thing. That version of me, that life, does not exist any more. There is only now, and moving forward.
Emily’s observation comes in a particular context, which the post details. But I think that idea – there is only now, and moving forward – is one that everyone has to grapple with from time to time.
10/31 Ghost: Cold Shower Gets Warmer
Posted: November 3, 2009 Filed under: Concerts, Listening | Tags: deep thoughts, Festival 8, Ghost, phish Leave a comment »
I downloaded 10/31/09 of Phish’s Festival 8 run last night. The price was certainly right: four and half hours of music for 10 bucks.
Today, I listened to a couple of numbers from the three sets: “Backwards Down the Number Line,” “Fluffhead,” and “Ghost.” The guys sure are sounding crisp. I hope it holds up until December.
“Ghost” is an interesting song. Live, I guess the band tends to take it deep into jam territory. They certainly did this Halloween. Listening to the tune whilst riding along on the Metro this evening, I was reminded of something that a friend and I used to talk about in high school – a jam is a bit like taking a shower. Sometimes you feel the hot water start to run out, but you stay in the shower anyway, hoping that maybe it’ll get warmer.
At one point in the 10/31 Ghost jam, I felt the water start to get a little cold. But then the boys managed to heat things up again.
Metro Shuffle: Coldplay and Beardfish
Posted: August 31, 2009 Filed under: Deep, Listening | Tags: Beardfish, Coldplay, deep thoughts, Frank Zappa, Guyute, Steve Vai, Trey Anastasio 2 Comments »Couple of bits and pieces this evening.
- I got home from work this evening, and there was a full blown Michael Jackson dance party going on in my living room. I joined right in.
- As I noted here, I paid five bucks for the GarageBand lesson of Sting teaching “Message in Bottle.” The file for the lesson was 699 MB. I shudder to think what kind of file size would be required for Trey teaching a lesson on how to play “Guyute.” I’d probably pay about $10 for that action. Maybe $15!
- On the Metro home this evening, I first hit, quite deliberately, Coldplay’s Viva la Vida. That tune has to be one of the all time great songs for travel on public transport.
After that, I forwarded manically for another good tune and found one in Beardfish’s “The Hunter” off “Sleeping in Traffic.” No link for that one on Grooveshark, alas.
Now, the juxtaposition of Coldplay (mega pop humongous) and Beardfish (relatively obscure Swedish prog) prompted me to recall an overcaffeinated meta reflection I had this morning: the tension between community and individuality in music.
In one sense, the love of music is about communing with others, like the MJ dance party that took place a few hours ago, or this blog, or learning to play “Message in Bottle” – just like Sting! I also think of the community around Phish, one I’m getting more familiar with online these days. Or Metallica – half the fun of going to see those guys live is to commune with the other jonesers who love the band just as much as you do. You all bang your head together.
On the other hand, love of music is the search for originality, a chance to be unique or close to it. For example, I admit I get some satisfaction in knowing that probably less than 1 percent of my friends knows what the heck a Beardfish is. I’d also wager that a very low percentage of my friends would even like to listen to Beardfish, if given the chance. There’s satisfaction there too: being apart from all the others. Artistically, I guess Frank Zappa is a good example of the musician’s quest to be sui generis. Here, along those lines, is a clip of Steve Vai talking about auditioning for Frank:
