Son of Timatollah

Hrm. My little dinner menu of a week or so has gone bye-bye. Disappeared without a word. Hrm.

Labels: five songs, meta

For Jimmi:

• Todd Rundgren, "If 6 Was 9"


• Devo, "Are You Experienced"


• Phish, "Bold As Love"


• Kronos Quartet, "Purple Haze"


• Derek & the Dominos, "Little Wing"

The "Little Wing" cover may be the single greatest cover in the history of recorded music. (Your mileage may vary.)

Addendum: This all started when I heard a Robert Randolph and the Family Band cover of "Purple Haze" on the radio this afternoon. It was going to be that, Todd, Phish, Clapton, and Jan Hammer's cover of "Manic Depression." Couldn't find the Robert Randolph anywhere, and the Jan Hammer CD with him playing guitar parts on the synthesizer isn't available in a file format, so this is what you get.

Labels: five songs, hendrix, jimi

Need an antidote to that fabulous/noisome Keith Emerson droning of yesterday? Try this: Charles Ives's "Variations on 'America'" performed by Tom Trenny at Trinity Church, NYC. This via Jeff Shaumeyer's current Beard of the Week.Jeff:

I like the flashy and silly, too, and this is one of my guilty pleasures: Ives' 'Variations on "America" ' for Organ; that's "America", the tune that starts "My country tis of thee…". Ives wrote these variations in 1891, when he was 17. The piece is frequently heard in an arrangement for orchestra made by William Schuman, but I much prefer the piquancy of it performed on organ.

I read an essay about the variations that called them "cheeky". That's probably true, but I don't think they go as far as "mocking". Ives treats the theme seriously enough and does up a clever set of treatments, including a very flashy and noisy toccata for a finale — watch for the pedal fireworks.

When I was in college, our college organist played this once on a recital. He hated the piece so he chose the most outlandish registrations he could think of, and it really bought the piece to life. For the finale he literally pulled out all the stops including the Zimbelstern (a little mechanical, tinkly bell device), which he happily left on and tinkling away when he left the organ bench at the end. Brilliant!

More information about Charles Ives can be found on the internet.

Happy Fifth of July!!

Labels: america, charles, ives, my country tis of thee, organization, tom, trenny, variations

Five Songs is not dead: It just smells funny.

• Yes, "America" (apologies to Paul Simon)


• X, "Fourth of July" ("whatever happened, I apologize")


• The Nice (featuring Keith Emerson), "America" (apologies to Leonard Bernstein)


• Toby Keith, "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue" (no apologies)


• Wilco, "Ashes of American Flags" ("I know I would die if I could come back new")

Labels: five songs, fourth of july

I'm not one to put a lot of faith in the magical concept of the world. I think we're wired to do that, though, so it's only with the passage of time and the adoption of good habits—like, oh, scientific method and evidence-based reasoning—that one makes a partial break with the wiring one came into this world with. So, I'm very skeptical—skeptical, not formally dismissive—of frameworks where a human—or any other kind of entity in this universe, for that matter—says something and, poof, it happens.

In my framework, matter/energy happened for reasons I think likely never to be explained, forms of matter evolved, then forms of life, then what we think of as spirit, that ensemble of attributes of a living thing that smushes all one's attitudes, dynamism (or lack thereof), vitality, empathy, love of life, life's loves, personal history, etc., into a single dimension.

Some will object that using "spirit" in this sense is not appropriate to the issue of life on this planet (or in this plane, heh heh). That "spirit" as used in a religious sense means something that transcends the physical dimensions, that exists outside the material universe. In that framework, spirit happens first, followed by matter/energy, forms of matter, life, etc. The creation stories of Genesis and the Gospel According to John are explicit about such. The spiritual being wills the Universe into existence, in the case of John, via language.

I can't disprove such a framework. I'm skeptical that any experiment could be designed which could disprove such a framework. So, an alternative likely always remains that this world exists by force of will, and use of language, by a willful, creative, empathetic entity (or entities) that observe different physics than what you or I know.

Still, I'm extremely skeptical that humans are ever empowered to influence the physical world directly by language. No invocation of spells, no "hocus-pocus, alacazam" results in a sandwich appearing beside me at this desk without time and/or the intervention of myself or other creatures. Language, as available to humans, cannot rearrange matter, cannot direct energy, in a short term. And, as you might guess, I'm skeptical that it can direct that which might exist beyond the physics you and I know to influence what happens here, which makes those folks praying each night for their number to hit on the lottery really funny.

The closest set of circumstances on this world that we have where language invocation results in direct action is in these computers, where in the simplest senses I can type symbols and expressions and statements like "1 + 1" and have the machine return "2", but where one (not me!) can also hand the machine tens or hundreds or thousands of files of characters and configure silicon to direct rockets at the capital cities of any number of nations at once.

But... (And there are always "but"s in this kind of piece, no?)

But human language clearly matters in the longer term. Our language, as well as the non-verbal forms of communication we use, consciously or not, does influence others. It enable each of us to organize our own intentions in ways that incorporates objectives and considers alternatives in more formal, maybe better, ways than the alternatives of intuition and split-second judgments (Malcolm Gladwell be damned).

The U.S. Declaration of Independence remains a striking example of how language, shared language, by framing ideals, can influence human actions. Not just empowering the patriots of the American Revolution, the words of the Declaration, the words of the first two paragraphs, particularly when given an appropriate blind eye regarding the author's slave holding and a generous interpretation regarding gender, remain inspiring to freedom-loving people (freedom-loving sentient entities?).

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.—Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

(Thankfully, we have not only the selective interpretation of our language facility, but also our selective attention, so that we pay less attention to the list of indictments against George III and the government of Great Britain than we do to the aspirations and claims of those first two paragraphs.)

So language does matter: It does influence this physical world; it does invoke feelings in others. So each of us is responsible both in producing language and interpreting it: To choose our words carefully; to strive to understand what others mean. Perhaps a useful strategy would be to listen more, consider more, and speak less. Maybe just shutting up and listening to The Universe via one's own heart would be a better use of time than imploring God about that lottery ticket.

Constructing a social structure that maximizes freedom, incorporates majority rule, and protect minority rights is non trivial, but we've moved from a planet where brutal kleptocracy is the order of the day to one in which brutal regimes of whatever stripe are easily recognizable as outside some mainstream. Influencing change in the ones that remain is problematic, as events in Iran show. But clearly some goodly number of the people of Iran (and Myanmar and China and other locales) have aspirations of freedom and security that are more expansive, more humane, than those of their governments. (A tricky proposition: It also seems likely to me that we project our own view of what those aspirations ought to be rather than listening to what the people there see as their visions of freedom and security. Is there one vision of "humane"?)

Hopefully, with time, those dreams will be realized.

Maybe over the perspective of many years, a perspective likely unavailable to each of us, the impact of language is as instantaneous as the push of a button launching hundreds of missiles.

Labels: Declaration of Independence, fourth of july, hocus-pocus, Independence Day, language, magic

That wasn't intentional.

Labels: blog, naval-gazing

• Bow Wow Wow, "I Want Candy"


• Con Funk Shun, "Candy"


• The Cars, "Candy O"


• Bruce Springsteen, "Candy's Room"


• Iggy Pop, "Candy"

Five songs that tell a story (and aren't ballads, aren't by Springsteen, aren't by Cheryl Crow, etc.):

• Boz Scaggs, "Lido Shuffle"


• Electric Light Orchestra, "Rockaria"


• Genesis, "A Trick of the Tail"


• Pretenders, "Tattooed Love Boys"


• The Who, "Odorono"

Okay, the Genesis is from a time when they still told a lot of stories.

Labels: five songs, stories

Still reading Volume 1 of Abraham Lincoln: A Life by Michael Burlingame.

President Truman is reported to have said, "The only thing that's new is the history you don't know." And, of course, we only ever know a tiny fraction of what is or what's been, so there's always opportunity to learn more.

Something I've learned I didn't know much about is the history of the N-word. Growing up in the US South during desegregation, I heard plenty of it, from family and from friends. But by then public usage by public figures was frowned on, even as they might've been using it in private. Instead of "nigger," it was "colored" and "Negro."

It was not always so. I don't know when the public usage by public figures or usages in the press became unacceptable, but in reading Burlingame, I've learned that it certainly wasn't in the 1850s. What follows are examples, all from the source above.

The Democratic press also denounced Frémont supporters as "nigger-worshippers." An account in the Joliet Signal of a Republican rally there on October 8 sarcastically observed that it "was a wonderful day for the niggers and nigger-worshippers of this county. Our city is literally filled with enthusiastic Fremonters." [pp. 432–433]

...in the New York Herald, which referred to Lincoln as Douglas's "nigger worshipping competitor" espousing the "most repulsive disunion nigger equality principles and doctrines." [pp. 471–472]

The Little Giant [Douglas] then went into graphic and extensive detail about the indignities of "nigger equality" and race-mixing—hordes of blacks invading the state, holding office, becoming judges, and—horror of horrors, marrying with whites. "We must preserve the purity of the race not only in our politics but in our domestic relations," he thundered. (The word "nigger" appears in the account published by the Indianapolis Indiana Star Sentinel, which supported Douglas, but not in the Chicago Times. This difference lends credence to the claim that Douglas regularly used the word "nigger" instead of "negro," though the Congressional Globe and his organ, the Chicago Times sanitized his language.) [p. 474]

Douglas may have said "nigger" instead of "Negro." The Quincy Whig sarcastically noted that the Little Giant's "elegant terms" included an accusation that Lincoln espoused "the doctrine that 'niggers were equal to white men.' " The Whig asked: "Isn't this beautiful language to come from a United States Senator?" A journalist who interviewed Robert R. Hitt, the shorthand journalist who covered the debates for the Chicago Press and Tribune, wrote that during the second debate, held at Freeport, Owen Lovejoy became "thoroughly aroused by Douglas' reference to 'the nigger'—Douglas said 'nigger' not 'negro' as the Times reported on that occasion." Throughout the debate, "Douglas said 'nigger,'" though his "organ printed it 'negro.'" At Hillsboro, Douglas gave a speech in which "he uttered scarcely a sentence which had not the word 'nigger' in it," according to the Chicago Press and Tribute. In the later Alton debate, a reporter had difficulty hearing the Little Giant, but could make out some "emphatic words" like "nigger equality" and the Declaration of Independence was not made for "niggers."[p. 489]

And so it goes, as Patti Smith once sang, "nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger."

This is where those of us now living in the USA have come, from 150 or so years ago. Slavery in the South and Negrophobia in the North. There are examples of just as ugly of usages from northern opponents of slavery, almost all of whom, like Lincoln, believed just as much in white superiority as did the slave-owning Southerners. White-ism is deeply entrenched in American culture: even if it retains a certain unholy vitality in the South to this day, it remains pervasive and unrepentant throughout the land.

Then comes the war, the Emancipation, the XIIIth, XIVth, and XVth amendments, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, de jure and de facto segregation, desegregation of the military by Truman's presidential order, Brown v. Board of Education, Little Rock, Selma, Birmingham, Rosa Parks, Ole Miss, Dr. King, Watts, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the XXIVth amendment, forced busing, redrawn legislative and House districts, etc., and finally, today, a mixed-race black President.

And there are still those who every time "the blacks" comes out of their mouths, you can still hear "those niggers," as if they were Steven Douglas trying to get re-elected to the Senate in 1858.

Labels: history, lincoln, n-word, nigger, race, relations, stephen douglas, usa

Five songs that name check other musicians:

• Weezer, "Buddy Holly"


• Sleater-Kinney, "I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone"


• Phish, "David Bowie"


• LCD Soundsystem, "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House"


• They Might Be Giants, "We're The Replacements"

Labels: five songs, musician, name check