Music

Best and Highest Purpose

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On my Direct TV there is a channel called “Palladium” which has music videos and concerts in high-definition and from time to time I’ll pass through and see something that catches my eye. They had a concert from the band “Buckcherry” that I recorded and watched because “Lit Up” is one of the best party songs ever recorded and they had some other good ones including “Crazy Bitch” which brought the band back to life (they were on hiatus without much of a future but that song immediately catapulted them back into the spotlight).

As for their front man, Josh Todd, when I see him it reminds me of philosophical discussions usually at late night bars of why people, generally girls, are making terrible choices or acting in a reckless manner. My answer usually is that “Plan B for them wasn’t to become a rocket scientist”, basically saying that they are reaching for the stars in their own manner.

As for this guy, is there ANY other higher purpose for him except to be a rock and roll singer? He is skinny, an ex-addict, and covered from head to toe with tattoos. He LIVES the rock and roll lifestyle, at least from the perspective of someone that just sees him up on stage.

The problem is that there are about 5 or so spots that can support a decent lifestyle and about 1 million people trying to attain one of those spots. I need to quote from my favorite source for actually-pretty-true-news, The Onion:

Alternate-Universe James Hetfield Named Taco Bell Employee Of The Month

You can’t really top that. According to Taleb (in a book review I need to write up someday) probably no one has gotten luckier than Hetfield; in a million other universes he ends up (at best) as employee of the month at Taco Bell; remember that this guy was an insane alcoholic for decades and only in the Rock and Roll business is that tolerated for so long.

Cross posted at LITGM

WikiLeaks: Counterpoint at the State Department?

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[ cross-posted from Zenpundit ]

[ note: all links are to youtube videos ]

The pianist Glenn Gould is celebrated for his ability to bring the different and at times positively oppositional voices in a fugue by Bach to our attention, so that we follow each one separately while hearing all at the same time as a single whole. What is less known is that he liked to sit at a table in a truck stop and listen to the different conversations at the other tables and booths, mentally braiding their pale or brightly colored threads of human together into an analogous tapestry — one voice harmonizing with or conflicting against another, here a new subject introduced, there an echo of an earlier idea heard in a fresh context, with the murmurings of waitresses punctuated by the kaching! of the cash register, the hydraulic hiss of a door closing — conversation as counterpoint.

Organizations and individual alike, we all have different and at times dissonant voices, and strive to bring them to some kind of resolution. The many stakeholders debating an issue in town halls, blogs or letters to the editor, the many drives within each one of us, idealistic, hopeful, defeated, paralytic, angry, evasive, sluggish, vengeful, curious, alert, defiant, all have voices, all constitute an experience of polyphony, a “music of many voices”, in point counter point.

One of my interests is to find a way to score these many fugues, these musics of meaning.

My DoubleQuotes, then, can be considered as two-part inventions, attempts to show the multiple tracking of the mind — whether of a single individual, as in this case, or of a group, a community, a world divided so that something of the music begins to be visible, and some of the dissonances can move towards necessary resolution.

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QUOwikileaks

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I believe there is unresolved irony between these two statements, made on the same day by Philip J Crowley, the US State Department’s Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Public Affairs but each has its reasons, and there are arguments to be made for both transparency and opacity, diplomacy and publicity, secrets and revelations.

Between them lies the possibility I think of as a virtual music of ideas.

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Bach published a series of two-part inventions, BWV 772801, and wrote of them that he intended to offer them as an honest method

by which the amateurs of the keyboard especially, however, those desirous of learning are shown a clear way not only (1) to learn to play cleanly in two parts, but also, after further progress, (2) to handle three obligate parts correctly and well; and along with this not only to obtain good inventions (ideas) but to develop the same well; above all, however, to achieve a cantabile style in playing and at the same time acquire a strong foretaste of composition…

Later comes the Art of Fugue.

Quote of the Day

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And I don’t want no pussyfooting. You can’t succeed in tech by playing it safe, by taking baby steps. If you could, Sony and Microsoft would rule digital music. But they don’t, because they were so worried about rights holders, they forgot about users. And it’s all about users.
 
The users used to be excited about music.
 
Now they’re thrilled with offers on Groupon.
 
Shopping has become exciting!
 
Music is boring.

–Bob Lefsetz

David Bowie, “The Man Who Sold the World” (Saturday Night Live, 1979, with Klaus Nomi and Joey Arias)

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David Bowie & Klaus Nomi РThe Man Who Sold The World from Andr̩ Goldvasser on Vimeo.

This was a great rock’n’roll moment. Bowie’s appearance on SNL, doing this song as well as “Boys Keep Swinging” and “TVC15” was unlike anything anyone had seen before. I clearly remember seeing this show when it was, in fact, live. It was completely mindblowing.

Bowie came to New York and sought out Klaus Nomi. Bowie brought in Arias for the SNL performance along with Nomi, because Arias and Nomi had a gig together dancing together in the window of Fiorucci. Bowie’s rigid suit was based on a similar get-up used by Dada poet Kurt Schwitters. Nomi, an eccentric and unique artist, sadly died from AIDS only a few years later. Jimmy Destri from Blondie is on the keyboards.

Bowie reignited his career with this appearance.

(If you go to this Bowie biography and search “Nomi” there are a few pages about this show which are available for free.)