Epistemic Ingemination

National Geographic likes to make puzzles out of its amazing photographs. You’ve been warned…

Enjoy.

Here you go. The 50 best cult books.

The 2008 James Beard award nominees are in.

Okay, so this isn’t going to be so much a general interest topic. As a matter of fact, it may well be dangerous to the sanity of the average normal human being. But if you’re a blog reader and a political junkie, it’s highly amusing, wonderfully snarky and quite informative.

The Official Village Voice Election-Season Guide to the Right-Wing Blogosphere.

Warning: your I.Q. drops ten points for every hour you spend reading these people, unless you take precautions. If you find yourself beginning to feel anger at the injustices forced upon the Rich White People, take a break.

John Wheeler passed away this weekend.

I had the pleasure of meeting him, once, in 1976. We struck up a conversation at a booth at Flapjack Canyon on South Lamar, and talked about Physics for hours, until about three in the morning; it was one of the more memorable experiences of my life. I didn’t figure out who he was until much later.

A kind and brilliant man. The kind of guy who’d talk to a kid he met in a coffeehouse for hours without mentioning that he was the head of a major physics department — and had taught several Nobel laureate students. Rest in peace, neat guy.

…that a new online magazine with which I am associated went live tonight.

Go check out The Blunderbuss and see if you like it, okay?

I kind of have an ambivalent view of Moby. Great synthesizer guy, and I am genuinely simpatico with anyone who can turn knobs and make electrons dance their way into art. But I’m not a big fan of industrial thump dance music; it’s the definition of redundancy; it got’s no funk to it.

This, though, is very cool. Moby created a website and wrote 70 pieces of music expressedly for independent filmmakers to use for free. If a big-studio commercial entity wants to use them they can, but the royalties have to go to the Humane Society.

A really neat thing to do. New respect.

Sorry for the quietness. I’ve been busy with a, um, project.

I’ll have a pretty neat announcement about it right here, before the end of the month. Stay tuned.

I’m not a big sports fan as a rule, but that having been said, sports are a huge part of our common culture. So kudos to Sports Illustrated; they’ve just put everything that’s ever appeared in the magazine online — 54 years worth — free.

That’s a neat enough thing to do that I think it falls in the category of “Public Service.”

Good for them.

Lyrics, sorted by the word, alphabetically. See if you can guess ‘em. I got about 75%.

Really kind of fascinating in an off-beat way; you can definitely get the feel of the song in question. Kind of makes the geek in me want to do a historiographical map of the frequency of words in popular song lyrics. Or sumpin’.

(Some are gimmes; not many songs that have the word “colitas” in ‘em out there, after all…)

Anyway. Enjoy.

“And Great Lyrics Quiz Rock Roll The” by Matthew Baldwin - The Morning News

Join The ACLU

Just saying.

And Hilarious. 763 SXSW MP3s, reviewed in six words only.

Behold the genius. I have tears running down my face, and I’m not even halfway through it.

WASHINGTON – With the size of U.S. terrorist watch lists growing to absurd proportions – now in excess of 900,000 names – the American Civil Liberties Union today unveiled a new “ACLU Watch List Counter” intended to make vivid just how bloated and dysfunctional those lists have become. “At the current rate of growth, the U.S. watch lists will contain a million records by July.

If there were a million terrorists in this country, our cities would be in ruins” said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Program. “The absurd bloating of the terrorist watch lists is yet another example of how incompetence by our security apparatus threatens our rights without offering any real security.”

Link is here…

Good luck with that there presidential campaign thingy.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Chicken Little post, but there seems to be a fine amalgamation of doomsday reports appearing this week. Just thought I’d pass along a couple that I’ve noted over the last few days. These things seem to come in bunches. Let’s see here…

From the London Telegraph: The Federal Reserve’s rescue has failed. The Port Authority of New York is having to pay 20% on short-term loans. Home values are dropping all over the civilized world and some folks are beginning to worry about the unity of the Euro. Looks like a global depression awaits unless something drastically goes in the opposite direction soon.

From the Guardian: The guy who discovered Global Warming in the 70’s says that we’re past the tipping point. James Lovelock figures that we have about 20 years until everything goes haywire for everybody everywhere. The money quote: “But he fears we won’t invent the necessary technologies in time, and
expects “about 80%” of the world’s population to be wiped out by 2100.”

Just food for thought. I expect that the truth is a little less drastic on both - but not much.

In his twisting of legal principles, the attorney general has succeeded in creating a perfect paradox. Under Mukasey’s Paradox, lawyers cannot commit crimes when they act under the orders of a president — and a president cannot commit a crime when he acts under advice of lawyers.

My Lord, I’ll be glad when these people are chased back into the rathole that they came from.

Ahh, the Folk Alliance Convention. Memphis, TN. It was a fine week. You old timers here might recall that I blogged about the Folk Alliance get-together here in town a couple of years ago. This one was equally satisfying.

I was responsible for the live broadcast mixes (XM Radio; WFMT in Chicago) and recorded interviews for folks such as The Art of Song and Folk Alley. (You can listen to some of the stuff that we did at their FA blog page.)

I ran into many old friends from around the country, and made a few new ones. Got to do what I enjoy most in this world: facilitate artistic genius.

The Austin contingent was strong; Sara Hickman, Jimmy LaFave, Eliza Gilkison, Kevin from the Gourds; Eddie Wilson brought out a whole collection of folks to promote the newly remodeled Threadgill’s, Austin music in general, and Texamericana. (And, BTW, the remodel of the north Threadgill’s place is amazing. It’s going to have one of the best dedicated music rooms in the city. Think the old Castle Creek, but with extraordinarily good sound. A real listening room, finally, in Our Fair City.)

Anyway. Folk Alliance president Louis Meyers and his people put on a fine convention. Louis should, of course: he was a founder of SXSW. He’s no longer associated with the SXSW music conference, and the difference between the two festivals is striking if you’re familiar with ‘em.

Oh yeah - speaking of SXSW, I think I’ll forgo my usual SXSW rant this year. Last year’s will suffice. If you’d like some unsolicited advice from an old war horse, save your money this March and go to a festival that cares about the artists next February. You’ll be entranced.

40 years ago today, my mom died.

She was a wonderful person, in the true sense of that word, and I am a very lucky guy to have had her influence for nine years and change. Lord only knows what kind of fool I might’ve been without her brief guidance. I’m still a fool, but I’m not a clueless fool. She was remains a great mother.

Rest well, beautiful spirit. I’ll be fifty this year. We’ll confer again soon enough, and I’ll continue to rely upon your wisdom even then, I am quite sure.

So I’m on a plane for Memphis at 5:40 AM. Going to see my buddy Louis and work the Folk Alliance Convention. I wrote about it a couple of years ago; it’s real.

I’ll try to post a blogpiece or two. This is what I came here to do.

Forward….

I was writing to someone close about someone else close, and realized that it was close to the heart…

[...] highly intelligent, profoundly curious, proudly liberal, highly social and socially forgiving, not petty, not a gossip, not a person to sweat the small stuff; morally proud, ethically fierce; a compassionate and fearless man.

JFTR: That’s what I want to be when I grow up.

1. Go to Wikipedia.

2. Click on the random article button.

3. Read for a while.

4. Goto #2.

I have this set up as my browser home page. Celebrate your Inner Nerd!

I’ve got the chicken browning in the oven; home-made andouille, shrimp, ham, crab and stock await the boilin’ pot, and I’m starting on the roux here in a bit. It’s gonna be a gumbo kind of day.

Happy Mardi Gras, friends. Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez!

It was about seventeen or eighteen years ago tonight that I was sitting in a diner in Hoboken, about this time of night, reading a book. Just right outside the Holland Tunnel, on the other side of The River; Bruce Hornsby came up on the jukebox, and I still remember.
Just sayin’.

Fill up an SUV’s fuel tank with ethanol and you have used enough maize to feed a person for a year.

In 2007, of 41,415 species assessed for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, 16,306 (39 percent) were categorized as threatened with extinction: one in three amphibians, one quarter of the world’s pines and other coniferous trees, one in eight birds and one in four mammals. Another study identified 595 “centers of imminent extinction” in tropical forests, on islands and in mountainous areas. Disturbingly, only one-third of the sites surveyed were legally protected, and most were surrounded by areas densely populated by humans. We may not be able to determine the cause of past extinction events, but this time we have, indisputably: We are our own asteroids.

Let’s just say that the industrial revolution is, oh, 150 years old. That’s about one thirty millionth of the age of the earth — a fraction of a blink of an eye in geological time. And yet we’ve managed to make extinct, oh, about a sixth of the life forms on this earth.

We are in the midst of the Sixth Great Extinction. It may seem like it’s taking a long time. It’s not.

I guess that we might as well enjoy the moment; it could take a couple of hundred thousand generations to get back what our great-grandparents had.

Sometimes it’s nice to recapitulate, to analyze where one has been. I’ve recently let go a piece of my life that defined a part (but by no means all) of my identity for the bulk of my life. I couldn’t have guessed where it all would lead, but the path turned out to be a rich, varied way to spend some of my threescore and ten.

Interestingly, it can be traced back to one single moment. In 1970, my older brother was demonstrating his new stereo system to me, and he played “Lucky Man” by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. The synthesizer solo at the end captivated me like nothing else, and I knew that I wanted to do that. Within four years, I was a bona fide synth expert. Within another few years, I was a recording engineer. Thanks, Rick.

I’ve always been comfortable at the interface between technology and the artist, and I’ve been comfortable with facilitating the resulting process of creating Art. Indeed, in both professional synthesis and professional audio engineering, once I mastered the techniques, I ultimately found art at the center, an utterly fascinating process of creation. It’s never grown old, because it is always new.

Especially sound reinforcement—live sound. It may seem odd to say that one can create art with a collection of knobs and faders and amplifiers and speaker cords, but it’s not, really. No more odd than saying that one can create art with a bunch of tuned wires strapped to a piece of lumber with a bunch of inductive pickups on it. A mixing console can be as much a vehicle for creativity as an electric guitar.

I can’t completely describe the joy of it when it’s working, any more than a guitar player can describe what they’re feeling in the middle of a soulful solo. It is a process of being in the instant; surfing on the cutting edge of reality of this moment, of creating something in and of the Now.

And perhaps the most beautiful aspect of the art of sound reinforcement, to me, is the ephemeral nature of it all. When a song is done, that instance of the art is gone forever. With the next song comes the possibility of creating a new work of art, but it’s never guaranteed. One must learn to be in the moment, and that is the Zen aspect of the whole thing that makes it so uniquely wonderful to me. It is always, in the end, a solitary personal journey.

All of the downside-oddities of the music business: the long hours, the interminable traveling, the shady characters, the hustlers, high-rollers, overzealous band managers, hangers-on, groupies—it is all worth it to get that moment of The Pure Joy Of Existence every once in awhile. I’ve experienced it elsewhere, and will again, but perhaps never with others, simultaneously, again.

I’ll miss the musicians’ joy and astonishment when it’s all done right for them. No one else around that process ever mattered. It was always about no more or less than the people on the stage and the unspoken communication between us. That moment when several artists, working together, could become a single process of Art.

I come away with many life-long friends who’ll always be a part of my songline. That said, along with some fine people and respected colleagues, this is the whole of what I’ll miss. No complaints; most people never get to experience it at all; I held the Grail, many times, if only for a moment at a time. I’m blessed.

This comes via Gary the sound guy. Something to do with your old album covers.

Perfect.

George McGovern speaks, finally. And it’s strong medicine.

Well, it’s 2008 and I get to fire up my lizard-brain based political subsystem to eleven now. I’ve spent most of ‘07 idly watching the Kabuki dance of the candidates and marveling at the manifest silliness of seeing people actively campaigning 18 months before the election. But the Iowa caucuses are done now and the race is suddenly interesting by just about any standard. Tuesday in NH will make it more so.

On the Republican side, it’s especially satisfying; the new frontrunner is an evangelical nutcase who’s thrown the entire party into a panic. Mr. 9/11 Giuliani is in complete freefall as the regular Joes of the party discover just how corrupt and shallow he is; Mr. Hollywood Thompson can’t even convince his own campaign that he deserves the nomination, and Mitt Romney’s paste-on million dollar smile is beginning to look more and more like a cheap piece of cosmetic surgery as the questions of character and substance continue to Not Go Away. Meanwhile, Libertarian Paul has dumptrucks full of money to steer the dialog and throw wrenches into the machinery. The entrenched party apparatus is going to have to default to McCain, who is so all over the map in the last fifteen years that he can claim to support or oppose just about any issue you care to name. It takes a special talent to be on the national political scene for a quarter century and still come out looking like a third rate Bronxville wardheeler. Anyway, look for a McCain/Lieberman ticket this fall, maybe after a brokered convention. To represent “bipartisanship and change.” There could be no finer image of the ossification of the Grand Ol’ Party. (Well, okay… a Delay/Gingrich ticket would be pretty interesting…)

But the real earthquakes happened on the Democratic side, and it’s genuinely interesting to watch. I especially like it because I think that there is a really strong slate of candidates; I can support just about any democrat running this year in the general campaign.

I probably lean more towards John Edwards this year than anyone else; mostly because he is almost as rabidly anti-big-corporate as I am. I think that he is the best chance since our two Roosevelt presidents to reign in corporate influence on policy; maybe even to finally repeal corporate personhood.

Hillary? Sure, I could vote for her. A full-on policy wonk is probably a good idea after the train wreck of the last eight years. I’d love to see this country’s first woman president in my lifetime. And she is unquestionably prepared and qualified for the job; she knows how to work the machine very well. She gets high marks for doing the work and coming to terms with her political adversaries. But she also triangulates a bit much for my taste; you never really know how the policy is going to come out of the sausage grinder with her, and she has punched in some truly bad votes since she has been a candidate for president. And, in the end, I have problems with dynasties. I don’t like the idea of 28 consecutive years in our country’s history being owned by two families. That’s not what was intended at the outset.

Which brings us to this week’s big winner, and the panic of the DLC: Obama. I’ve had to really study the man to come to any opinion, but now I am completely comfortable with him. The pluses are many; good ideas on reform; the ability to articulate an idea clearly; an ability to turn ideas into policy; a lot less beholden to anyone than the other major candidates; and finally, his race. I would love to see the Old Conservative White Men who think that they own this country squirm as they try to criticize an Obama presidency without sounding like some mummified Jim Crow throwback. There is no more powerful image of change right now than this man, and change is what it’s all about in the 2008 election.

That’s Hillary’s problem, and there’s not a lot she can do about it. She has every big time endorsement in the book, and Obama is deftly turning them into a liability. Pure political poetry. New Hampshire is looking to be a Big Surprise; I don’t think we’ll be hearing any “comeback kid” speeches in NH this time around. This is going to be a fine, true primary battle that could go on for many moons. As it should be.

Who gets the prize in the end? Who knows? I’d call it at about 45-35-20 Hillary-Obama-Edwards this afternoon, but it’s anybody’s guess. I can support any of them. And even if Hillary misses this time, she has the perfect skill set of policy acumen and diplomatic chops to be one of the finest Secretaries of State that we’ve ever seen. This is far from her last rodeo.

This is going to be a fun one.

Thirty years ago and change, I started working as an audio engineer. Kind of happened by accident; I was a synthesizer aficionado who wasn’t afraid of knobs.

One thing led to another. Turned out that I had a talent for it. I ended up touring with big folks, doing a bunch of broadcast stuff, being the chief engineer at a profitable recording studio. Won an award or two along the way; saw my work at the Grammys & the Golden Globes. Created some really irritating music that won an Addy or two. Made some enduring friends. But it all started in earnest at the Armadillo World Headquarters, the precursor to Threadgill’s.

On Tuesday night, I parted ways with Threadgill’s. Time to retire from being a club engineer; time to retool; time to be a dad. I can’t ask Ryan to raise himself alone in the evenings for three or four days a week; he’s now a teenager, and we’ll need to be together to argue and play and live in our little ill-balanced testosterone-steeped home for the next few years.

It’s a perfect bookend; I leave essentially where I started. As I wrote to a valued friend earlier today, “I leave Threadgill’s with an enduring love for the organization, and the artists, and the Art, and a deep satisfaction that I walked out the door with the same enthusiasm and professionalism with which I walked in thirty years ago.”

I’ll still do audio, occasionally. I have my favored bands, of course. But my days as a studio engineer or house sound man ended this week. That career is now over. I couldn’t have ended it in a better place. The management and staff at Threadgill’s are the best possible; Dave Whitney, Danny Jones, Pauline, Marcus, Chris, Steven, Jason; everyone. The joy of being as old and seasoned as I am is that I’m privileged to have worked with the absolute best.

So, exit stage right and fade the lights.

And to Eddie: Thanks for the launch pad and the landing strip. It was a frickin’ great run.