*
[CONCEITS and VANITIES]
Who in the ever-lovin' fuck wrote the words to this thing?!?
I don't remember the single release in 1964, but stumbled across it while studying a 1967 Ron Riley WLS aircheck. He played it as an "oldie."
The lyrics would be disturbing if they were delivered in a serious manner (they're not) and if they weren't so goddam over the top. I haven't been able to hunt down the composer, but the words seem very much in the spirit of postwar R&B "chick abuse" tunes by entertainers such as Louis Jordan and Bull Moose Jackson. (They're not literally about abusing women, but portray the era's Battle Of The Sexes through the eyes of pseudo-macho, beleaguered rascals.)
The musical setting seems like a classic teen, American-Bandstand-style presentation, which puts an offbeat finish on the disc.
Over You, Paul Revere & the Raiders (1964, Columbia 4-43114), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial commentary, critical discussion, and educational purposes.
Update: just noticed in the YouTube comments that the song is credited to Allen Toussaint and Allen Orange, which helps to explain the nature of the lyrics and the New Orleans flavor to the American-Bandstand-type chart. It says that Aaron Neville recorded it in 1960. Hilarious choice for the Raiders. Wouldn't be surprised if the responsible A&R man was fired over it.
Saturday, August 30, 2014
What I mean is this
*
[CONTEXT]
Pertaining to this post, I feel I got about a semester's worth of postmodern communication theory out of the epigraph at the beginning of John Brunner's Stand On Zanzibar (1968). It's a quote from The Gutenberg Galaxy, by Marshall McCluhan:
It may be easy for regular people to "get" the Innis Mode today because, really, it's a "killer app" for web technology. It just requires curation of material, as opposed to throwing everything into a box and shaking it up. But curation doesn't mean creating a point of view, which McLuhan says (above) "can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding." POV really is a dangerous luxury, and an irritating one too. Because everybody has one, but few of them are unique. Artificial POV is what I've disliked about my own writing, and it's what I despise about all the liberal blogs that I should, in theory, love and emulate.
So I'm copping the Innis Mode from McLuhan and stealing the format of "rubrics" from Brunner because these tools seem so useful to help a person get to the point in writing. Plus, it makes it easier to chill about this writing jazz.
[CONTEXT]
Pertaining to this post, I feel I got about a semester's worth of postmodern communication theory out of the epigraph at the beginning of John Brunner's Stand On Zanzibar (1968). It's a quote from The Gutenberg Galaxy, by Marshall McCluhan:
There is nothing wilful or arbitrary about the Innis mode of expression. Were it to be translated into perspective prose, it would not only require huge space, but the insight into the modes of interplay among forms of organisation would also be lost. Innis sacrificed point of view and prestige to his sense of the urgent need for insight. A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding. As Innis got more insight he abandoned any mere point of view in his presentation of knowledge. When he interrelates the development of the steam press with 'the consolidation of the vernaculars' and the rise of nationalism and revolution he is not reporting anybody's point of view, least of all his own. He is setting up a mosaic configuration or galaxy for insight . . . Innis makes no effort to 'spell out' the interrelations between the components in his galaxy. He offers no consumer packages in his later work, but only do-it-yourself kits..."Innis" is Harold Innis, McLuhan's mentor. McLuhan's book (1962) is constructed in a so-called mosaic style that aims at synthesis of diverse ideas and events instead of composing the facade of a point of view. Brunner's book applies the mosaic approach to a (sub)genre of storytelling that I'd call social science fiction. The structure was radical back then, and is unusual even today. But it surprised me how accessible the book was after only a minor mental adjustment.
It may be easy for regular people to "get" the Innis Mode today because, really, it's a "killer app" for web technology. It just requires curation of material, as opposed to throwing everything into a box and shaking it up. But curation doesn't mean creating a point of view, which McLuhan says (above) "can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding." POV really is a dangerous luxury, and an irritating one too. Because everybody has one, but few of them are unique. Artificial POV is what I've disliked about my own writing, and it's what I despise about all the liberal blogs that I should, in theory, love and emulate.
So I'm copping the Innis Mode from McLuhan and stealing the format of "rubrics" from Brunner because these tools seem so useful to help a person get to the point in writing. Plus, it makes it easier to chill about this writing jazz.
Saturday, August 2, 2014
Demographic misnomer
*
[CONTEXT]
As it turns out, people of my generation should collectively be referred to as "Geezer Boomers."
[CONTEXT]
As it turns out, people of my generation should collectively be referred to as "Geezer Boomers."
Monday, July 28, 2014
A new word we might be able to use
*
[CONCEITS AND VANITIES]
HIPsight should be a word---a noun---that is shorthand for "something hidden in plain sight" or, alternately, "the quality of being hidden in plain sight". If there were such a word, I might categorize it as an acromanteau, meaning that it is a blending of two words, like a portmanteau, but with one of the words being an acronym or brevity code. As the word first entered limited usage (by HIPsters!), it would be capitalized as it is at the beginning of this paragraph. Mass communication being what it is, I'd expect the spelling to rapidly self-demote to all-lowercase letters, like any other common noun.
I hereby claim the words HIPsight and aromanteau as my personal, original coinages. Likewise, I hereby bequeath these words to humanity for all uses in conversation and other intellectual discourse, but not for trademarking or other commercial use by permission of myself, the creator.
Thank you for your attention in this matter.
[CONCEITS AND VANITIES]
HIPsight should be a word---a noun---that is shorthand for "something hidden in plain sight" or, alternately, "the quality of being hidden in plain sight". If there were such a word, I might categorize it as an acromanteau, meaning that it is a blending of two words, like a portmanteau, but with one of the words being an acronym or brevity code. As the word first entered limited usage (by HIPsters!), it would be capitalized as it is at the beginning of this paragraph. Mass communication being what it is, I'd expect the spelling to rapidly self-demote to all-lowercase letters, like any other common noun.
I hereby claim the words HIPsight and aromanteau as my personal, original coinages. Likewise, I hereby bequeath these words to humanity for all uses in conversation and other intellectual discourse, but not for trademarking or other commercial use by permission of myself, the creator.
Thank you for your attention in this matter.
Saturday, July 26, 2014
Saturday Evening Prayer Meeting
*
[CONCEPTUAL CONTINUITY]
If I posted this previously, then I beg a thousand pardons.
My memory of this song is tied up tight with a single summer day, its weather in particular. Dense overcast, thick air that was almost body temperature; every indication that heavy rain would be encroaching any moment. When Dex Card cued up the song on an otherwise-unmarked-in-my-memory July mid-afternoon, I was undoubtedly "grounded" for some random affront to my mother's authority, and so feeling trapped on the premises. Even though she was at work, the bluff kept me to within a line of sight on Highland Ave.
I'd surely heard the song before, but the vibe on that day seemed fraught with portent, like the impending storm. The string dissonances in the opening bars are probably not any more avant garde than "Chopsticks," but when the girls started singing, there was something pinched-up about the sound that smelled like trouble to my little shell-like ears. They sounded upset, smoldering in rage even. About to make with the tears just like the sky. I don't remember if it actually rained that afternoon.
Today the weather seemed identical, and so I put on my "7th" iPod playlist while puttering in the weeds and dirt, wondering if the experience might replicate. It did. Mist began condensing out of the clouds about an hour ago. But this time the sky let loose for real while I was composing the previous paragraph. And there's no more sunlight than if it were 8:45 pm (instead of 5:15).
I'm not offering any particular point except that multisensory memory can transport a person out of his current skin, and that in turn can be stimulated by technology with the aim of excavating a stratum of past experience. Why not? Did you do anything more profound than that this afternoon?
Sweet Talkin' Guy, The Chiffons (1966), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial commentary, critical discussion, and educational purposes.
[CONCEPTUAL CONTINUITY]
If I posted this previously, then I beg a thousand pardons.
My memory of this song is tied up tight with a single summer day, its weather in particular. Dense overcast, thick air that was almost body temperature; every indication that heavy rain would be encroaching any moment. When Dex Card cued up the song on an otherwise-unmarked-in-my-memory July mid-afternoon, I was undoubtedly "grounded" for some random affront to my mother's authority, and so feeling trapped on the premises. Even though she was at work, the bluff kept me to within a line of sight on Highland Ave.
I'd surely heard the song before, but the vibe on that day seemed fraught with portent, like the impending storm. The string dissonances in the opening bars are probably not any more avant garde than "Chopsticks," but when the girls started singing, there was something pinched-up about the sound that smelled like trouble to my little shell-like ears. They sounded upset, smoldering in rage even. About to make with the tears just like the sky. I don't remember if it actually rained that afternoon.
Today the weather seemed identical, and so I put on my "7th" iPod playlist while puttering in the weeds and dirt, wondering if the experience might replicate. It did. Mist began condensing out of the clouds about an hour ago. But this time the sky let loose for real while I was composing the previous paragraph. And there's no more sunlight than if it were 8:45 pm (instead of 5:15).
I'm not offering any particular point except that multisensory memory can transport a person out of his current skin, and that in turn can be stimulated by technology with the aim of excavating a stratum of past experience. Why not? Did you do anything more profound than that this afternoon?
Sweet Talkin' Guy, The Chiffons (1966), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial commentary, critical discussion, and educational purposes.
I think I finally figured out something about blogging
*
[CONTEXT]
As I say, I think I finally figured out something about blogging.
[CONTEXT]
As I say, I think I finally figured out something about blogging.
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Totally impersonal special deliveries
*
59er: been the same place everyone else in North America has been---sheltering in my subterranean wallow like a Kronosian Ice Targ. My alternate email address imploded thanks to my ISP's customer service desk. I'll be posting a contact address on the page... sometime.
MAJ Bellows: I apologize for silence. Am very interested to hear about the hypgnosis experiment. This week DK is coming to the Land o' Lincoln and, less pleasantly for citizens of her town, the Land o' US Grant. Too bad there's not time for a side trip to Galena.
Rusty: please check Sluggo's pulse. There's been an unusual lull in the stream of HuffingtonPost links into my email box for a week or two.
Big Oafish: bench in east workshop completely constructed, including trim; awaits finish sanding and sealing. Will fill countersunk screw holes and gaps in trim as practice for rescuing crappy kitchen window casing done by idiot window installer. Bench is simple but quite hefty; weakest thing about it is the wall it's tied in to.
Gurlitzer: I've read that there's a rare, remastered version of Chicago II somewhere in the world. The remaster supposedly adds the fidelity and presence of the great engineering done for the CTA album. Wouldn't it be great to hear Danny Seraphine playing a drumkit instead of Amazon boxes and soup cans?
Marginalia: I'll visit your green and pleasant blog soon. Have wondered if you've been affected by the flooding; afraid I don't know your geography, other than its proximity to Swinging London.
59er: been the same place everyone else in North America has been---sheltering in my subterranean wallow like a Kronosian Ice Targ. My alternate email address imploded thanks to my ISP's customer service desk. I'll be posting a contact address on the page... sometime.
MAJ Bellows: I apologize for silence. Am very interested to hear about the hypgnosis experiment. This week DK is coming to the Land o' Lincoln and, less pleasantly for citizens of her town, the Land o' US Grant. Too bad there's not time for a side trip to Galena.
Rusty: please check Sluggo's pulse. There's been an unusual lull in the stream of HuffingtonPost links into my email box for a week or two.
Big Oafish: bench in east workshop completely constructed, including trim; awaits finish sanding and sealing. Will fill countersunk screw holes and gaps in trim as practice for rescuing crappy kitchen window casing done by idiot window installer. Bench is simple but quite hefty; weakest thing about it is the wall it's tied in to.
Gurlitzer: I've read that there's a rare, remastered version of Chicago II somewhere in the world. The remaster supposedly adds the fidelity and presence of the great engineering done for the CTA album. Wouldn't it be great to hear Danny Seraphine playing a drumkit instead of Amazon boxes and soup cans?
Marginalia: I'll visit your green and pleasant blog soon. Have wondered if you've been affected by the flooding; afraid I don't know your geography, other than its proximity to Swinging London.
Maybe the anchors on CNN should speculate
*
About this observation:
About this observation:
13 years after 9/11 and we're building a giant data center to store all of your sexts, but apparently tracking airplanes is unpossible.They'd probably speculate that Atrios hates America.
Finally
*
I changed some security settings on the machine several weeks ago, mainly insofar as being much less promiscuous about the cookies I let in. I could write posts but not publish them. Just figured it out a moment ago. So, goody!
I changed some security settings on the machine several weeks ago, mainly insofar as being much less promiscuous about the cookies I let in. I could write posts but not publish them. Just figured it out a moment ago. So, goody!
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Terrified plutocrats
*
Have you noticed this?Extreme inequality, it turns out, creates a class of people who are alarmingly detached from reality — and simultaneously gives these people great power.
The example many are buzzing about right now is the billionaire investor Tom Perkins, a founding member of the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. In a letter to the editor of The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Perkins lamented public criticism of the “one percent” — and compared such criticism to Nazi attacks on the Jews, suggesting that we are on the road to another Kristallnacht.
It's the kind of thing that leads a solid citizen like Mr. Perkins to suggest this:
"But what I really think is, it should be like a corporation. You pay a million dollars in taxes, you get a million votes. How's that?"
Personally, I think that's terrific, sir. Because it means that the worst among us are not happy. It means they're terrified to be alive. Considering the leverage they have to make life miserable for almost everybody in the world, I would hate to see them enjoying themselves too much.
But there's something even more exquisite about this situation than mere, mundane karma. It seems that there's a relatively new meme going around right-wing circles about Obama, the coming Socialist Revolution, and guillotines, such as this (Achtung---very scary site!):
- The use of guillotines for “governmental purposes” was lobbied for and passed in the U.S. Congress
- The information we received is that 15,000 are currently stored in Georgia and 15,000 in Montana
- Are the beheadings by muslims today meant to desensitize us against U.S. Government beheadings in the future?
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. – Revelations 20:4Interestingly to me, his sort of musing isn't confined to the outermost precincts. Take this for example:
If the Left ever gets the revolution it wants, the owners of multi-million-dollar downtown lofts surely will be among the first to the guillotine.
Perhaps they will be comforted by the words of Robespierre: “Terror is only justice: prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country.”Or maybe The Left will figure out that people who hold virtually all wealth and power on the globe are wetting themselves in Terror because they now have the world they've always dreamed of. And that they belong in Arkham Asylum.
More and more, I'm tickled by the idea of a Guillotine Lottery.
Constitution 2.0 beta
*
You've probably read about this Job Creator's unprecedented new idea for voting rights: a dollar paid in taxes equals one vote in elections.
I have a counter-proposal, stolen from a blog comments thread (can't remember where): every million dollars buys you a ticket in the guillotine lottery.
Exécution de Marie Antoinette le 16 Octobre 1793, artist unknown, via WikiMedia Commons.
You've probably read about this Job Creator's unprecedented new idea for voting rights: a dollar paid in taxes equals one vote in elections.
I have a counter-proposal, stolen from a blog comments thread (can't remember where): every million dollars buys you a ticket in the guillotine lottery.
Exécution de Marie Antoinette le 16 Octobre 1793, artist unknown, via WikiMedia Commons.
Saturday, February 8, 2014
One! Two! Three! FUCK!!!
*
The first "conspiracy theory" I remember: that Paulie was really hollering That Word on the fourth beat of his count.
I think today we all can accept the fact that the lads were just too polite to even be thinking that in the studio. But it was a debated point back in Mr. Phillips' 5th grade class at Woodland School. I always leaned toward the "FUCK!!!" theory, but mostly out of wishful thinking. Deep inside, I knew he really said "FAH!!!"
Below is an alternate version. In his dramatis personae, so to speak, John is voiced to sound like The Poor Man's Ape Named Ape, meaning a very pale echo of Ronald Colman.
These delightfully wretched cartoons, produced by Al Brodax, came along in 1965 as Saturday morning diversions. If I remember accurately, viewing these cartoons provided my first experience with cognitive dissonance.
I Saw Her Standing There, The Beatles (1963, multifarious video provenances too crazy to attempt documenting), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial commentary, critical discussion, and educational purposes. Consider yourselves educated. Please discuss and provide noncommercial commentary.
The first "conspiracy theory" I remember: that Paulie was really hollering That Word on the fourth beat of his count.
I think today we all can accept the fact that the lads were just too polite to even be thinking that in the studio. But it was a debated point back in Mr. Phillips' 5th grade class at Woodland School. I always leaned toward the "FUCK!!!" theory, but mostly out of wishful thinking. Deep inside, I knew he really said "FAH!!!"
Below is an alternate version. In his dramatis personae, so to speak, John is voiced to sound like The Poor Man's Ape Named Ape, meaning a very pale echo of Ronald Colman.
These delightfully wretched cartoons, produced by Al Brodax, came along in 1965 as Saturday morning diversions. If I remember accurately, viewing these cartoons provided my first experience with cognitive dissonance.
I Saw Her Standing There, The Beatles (1963, multifarious video provenances too crazy to attempt documenting), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial commentary, critical discussion, and educational purposes. Consider yourselves educated. Please discuss and provide noncommercial commentary.
Friday, December 6, 2013
Fish Fry Prayer Meeting
*
I don't know enough about Nelson Mandela to write anything. I will someday read a history of his life and South Africa. Meanwhile, there is one thing I know: Mr. Mandela inspired the jazz composer Abdullah Ibrahim (known as Dollar Brand during the '60s and '70s) to record a really cool song.
I had never heard this song until earlier this evening, at the end of Fresh Air on NPR. What an unexpectedly jaunty salute to a giant! One of the few world leaders of this era who will be remembered by history for something other than emptying the corporate spittoons on command. I hope Mr. Mandela had a chance to hear this recording and rollick to it, inside.
Mandela, Abdullah Ibrahim (2012, from the album "Water From An Ancient Well," Tip Toe [label catalog number not available at writing]), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial commentary, critical discussion, and educational purposes.
I don't know enough about Nelson Mandela to write anything. I will someday read a history of his life and South Africa. Meanwhile, there is one thing I know: Mr. Mandela inspired the jazz composer Abdullah Ibrahim (known as Dollar Brand during the '60s and '70s) to record a really cool song.
I had never heard this song until earlier this evening, at the end of Fresh Air on NPR. What an unexpectedly jaunty salute to a giant! One of the few world leaders of this era who will be remembered by history for something other than emptying the corporate spittoons on command. I hope Mr. Mandela had a chance to hear this recording and rollick to it, inside.
Mandela, Abdullah Ibrahim (2012, from the album "Water From An Ancient Well," Tip Toe [label catalog number not available at writing]), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial commentary, critical discussion, and educational purposes.
Balls, it's cold outside!
*
At the obsessively metered location I call Moronica International State Park, two of the three outdoor gauges indicate that it's 15 F (-9 C). In recognition of this condition, I have decided to replicate (or, perhaps, perform for the first time ever) The Brass Monkey Experiment. I will report the results on this blog when the experiment is concluded.
Seriously, this is nothing out of the ordinary for central Illinois, and only a mere discomfort to a simple country editor raised in the lake-effect snow zone of southern Chicagoland. (Still, people around here behave as if it's not unlike the 38 parallel circa 1951; pussies!)
The death of Nelson Mandela, through no fault of his own, has pretty much displaced news coverage of this ridiculously insane storm that has been tearing up the UK and points east with tidal surges and hurricane-force winds. My blogging friend from across the deep blue sea, Marginalia, has not yet posted about this weather event, which the BBC reports to be the most extreme since January 1953 (back in my fetal days). I hope he and his friends are safe, warm, and poly-nonsaturated. I also hope that the citizens of that green and pleasant land make it clear to their doltish ruling coalition that they expect more than free-market solutions to storm damage and suffering.
At the obsessively metered location I call Moronica International State Park, two of the three outdoor gauges indicate that it's 15 F (-9 C). In recognition of this condition, I have decided to replicate (or, perhaps, perform for the first time ever) The Brass Monkey Experiment. I will report the results on this blog when the experiment is concluded.
Seriously, this is nothing out of the ordinary for central Illinois, and only a mere discomfort to a simple country editor raised in the lake-effect snow zone of southern Chicagoland. (Still, people around here behave as if it's not unlike the 38 parallel circa 1951; pussies!)
The death of Nelson Mandela, through no fault of his own, has pretty much displaced news coverage of this ridiculously insane storm that has been tearing up the UK and points east with tidal surges and hurricane-force winds. My blogging friend from across the deep blue sea, Marginalia, has not yet posted about this weather event, which the BBC reports to be the most extreme since January 1953 (back in my fetal days). I hope he and his friends are safe, warm, and poly-nonsaturated. I also hope that the citizens of that green and pleasant land make it clear to their doltish ruling coalition that they expect more than free-market solutions to storm damage and suffering.
Friday, November 15, 2013
Friday Night Fish Fry
*
The song is "The Fever." If you're expecting a cover version of Peggy Lee, you're too damn old. Myself, I'm on the cusp.
I chose this version because of the bonus lead-in comedy from SCTV, which is my favorite sketch comedy show ever. It's hilarious seeing Dave Thomas and Catherine O'Hara bickering with a definitive air of comedy menace. I don't recall ever seeing a bad episode.
Anyway, stick around for Southside Johnny (music begins about 1:05). I didn't know this was a Springsteen composition until long after I'd heard Southside's rendition---first live at The Quiet Knight in Chicago around 1975. When I listen to Springsteen recordings from this era, so much of it sounds pretentious and melodramatic to my adult ears. Not Southside, though. If I had to choose between seeing one of the two performing today, I'd take Southside in a second.
Too lazy to document the provenance of this clip tonight, but as always it's embedded from YouTube, embedded for noncommercial commentary, critical discussion, and educational purposes.
The song is "The Fever." If you're expecting a cover version of Peggy Lee, you're too damn old. Myself, I'm on the cusp.
I chose this version because of the bonus lead-in comedy from SCTV, which is my favorite sketch comedy show ever. It's hilarious seeing Dave Thomas and Catherine O'Hara bickering with a definitive air of comedy menace. I don't recall ever seeing a bad episode.
Anyway, stick around for Southside Johnny (music begins about 1:05). I didn't know this was a Springsteen composition until long after I'd heard Southside's rendition---first live at The Quiet Knight in Chicago around 1975. When I listen to Springsteen recordings from this era, so much of it sounds pretentious and melodramatic to my adult ears. Not Southside, though. If I had to choose between seeing one of the two performing today, I'd take Southside in a second.
Too lazy to document the provenance of this clip tonight, but as always it's embedded from YouTube, embedded for noncommercial commentary, critical discussion, and educational purposes.
Friday, October 18, 2013
Pigs yokking it up
*
The heading of this post obviously represents a slander of pork-based members of the animal kingdom, but it serves the purpose of providing a comparison that most people immediately understand.
The motive for this vandalism is impossible for me to understand. The motive for the perpetrators to record a video of it is simple for anyone to understand: stupidity, ignorance, profound disrespect for the planet, and probably a sense of immunity from accountability for transgressions that they "didn't really mean." If this clip actually shows what it seems to show, then perhaps these smirking clots of phlegm should spend about a year residing in a federal penitentiary to reminisce about the jolly time they had. Also, let's fine the motherfuckers about $250K apiece, which is the same amount of reparations that a person pays for, say, pirating a copyrighted movie.
The heading of this post obviously represents a slander of pork-based members of the animal kingdom, but it serves the purpose of providing a comparison that most people immediately understand.
The motive for this vandalism is impossible for me to understand. The motive for the perpetrators to record a video of it is simple for anyone to understand: stupidity, ignorance, profound disrespect for the planet, and probably a sense of immunity from accountability for transgressions that they "didn't really mean." If this clip actually shows what it seems to show, then perhaps these smirking clots of phlegm should spend about a year residing in a federal penitentiary to reminisce about the jolly time they had. Also, let's fine the motherfuckers about $250K apiece, which is the same amount of reparations that a person pays for, say, pirating a copyrighted movie.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Birthday Girl Fish Fry!
*
Little Oscar, my favorite geezer lady, is having a birthday for a few more hours, so here's a treat for her from the days when "Doug Stephenson" roamed the earth and Columbia Record Club would send you five---FIVE!---free LPs as long as you'd buy one a month for the rest of your life or send it back within 7 days at your own expense.
Whatever Gary Lewis album this was on, we heard the damn thing about five times a day for the entire summer of 1965 in heavy rotation with Jay & The Americans and Jan & Dean. Probably no one is more responsible for me taking up leaded gasoline for recreational use than Little Oscar and Gary Lewis' goddam Playboys!
I embedded this particular version of the selected tune, however, for reasons that have much to do with me and nothing to do with Little Oscar. See if you can guess what they are. Unfortunately, LO did not have any hot friends like the ones tearing it up above, with the possible exception of Terri W. who I was still slightly too young to "appreciate." But she and her bra-stuffing girlfriends were all nice girls, with no vices other than Pepsi. They were never a pain to be around. And that's about the nicest thing any kid can be expected to say about his big sister.
Happy Birthday, Little Oscar!
Little Miss Go-Go, Gary Lewis & the Playboys (1965, Liberty 55778 [45 rpm single; can't track down the album catalog number]), via YouTube, embedded with a claim of fair use because it's Little Oscar's birthday!!!
Editor's note: I read in the liner notes of my CD greatest hits collection that this recording was Take 27! Can you imagine that? I think Brian Wilson must have put together "Good Vibrations" in fewer takes than that.
Little Oscar, my favorite geezer lady, is having a birthday for a few more hours, so here's a treat for her from the days when "Doug Stephenson" roamed the earth and Columbia Record Club would send you five---FIVE!---free LPs as long as you'd buy one a month for the rest of your life or send it back within 7 days at your own expense.
Whatever Gary Lewis album this was on, we heard the damn thing about five times a day for the entire summer of 1965 in heavy rotation with Jay & The Americans and Jan & Dean. Probably no one is more responsible for me taking up leaded gasoline for recreational use than Little Oscar and Gary Lewis' goddam Playboys!
I embedded this particular version of the selected tune, however, for reasons that have much to do with me and nothing to do with Little Oscar. See if you can guess what they are. Unfortunately, LO did not have any hot friends like the ones tearing it up above, with the possible exception of Terri W. who I was still slightly too young to "appreciate." But she and her bra-stuffing girlfriends were all nice girls, with no vices other than Pepsi. They were never a pain to be around. And that's about the nicest thing any kid can be expected to say about his big sister.
Happy Birthday, Little Oscar!
Little Miss Go-Go, Gary Lewis & the Playboys (1965, Liberty 55778 [45 rpm single; can't track down the album catalog number]), via YouTube, embedded with a claim of fair use because it's Little Oscar's birthday!!!
Editor's note: I read in the liner notes of my CD greatest hits collection that this recording was Take 27! Can you imagine that? I think Brian Wilson must have put together "Good Vibrations" in fewer takes than that.
Origins of the Opt Out movement
*
Apropos of this, my "product rollout" of the Opt Out movement is behind schedule. That is OK with me, and it also serves as a demonstration of opting out. In this case, I have opted out of rushing myself. Opting out of self-imposed, imaginary urgency generally has been my first major success with applying the concept. I believe the contagion of phony urgency is a blight on the life of most people; the quality of my own life has greatly improved in direct relation to my success of opting out of this unasked-for, nonconstructive stress.See? Opting out is easy. Here's how it works: you identify a condition imposed on your life that thwarts the authentic aims of human life---your own in particular---and opt out of it. Opting out is just a simple, elemental exercise of free will. It's one of the two acts of will an individual can exercise: the deliberate choice not to do something. (Since visitors to this blog are all in the fast reading group, they can infer the other way to exercise will.)
The origins of the Opt Out movement, for me, go back to an undated entry in an electronic notebook file midway through the Stupor Mundi phase of this blog during the Bush Junior administration. In thinking about Republican demolition of New Deal institutions and demonization of its ideals, I came upon the Wikipedia article about Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms:
My intent was to promulgate a set of post-Reagan freedoms that could be exercised beneath the radar of the surveillance state. (Let's ignore the unwarranted arrogance that would allow Stupor Mundi to express such a conceit.) My problem with the Four Freedoms (4F---just like FDR!) was that they're really not freedoms, and two of them are different than the other two.
The first two are constitutional rights in the United States, and they're understood by all except the most reactionary to be universal human rights. By definition, a right is inalienable, but the freedom to exercise the right can be abridged by any actor that has coercive power.
The third and fourth are aspirational sentiments, one dealing with material sustenance and the other with psychological wellbeing. Whether they are rights is debatable. Whether they're universally achievable by the will of every human under the sky is not debatable: they aren't.
Beyond the general woolliness of FDR's Four Freedoms is that use of the term freedoms (versus rights) carries the unstated assumption that these laudable aspirations are something to be dispensed by governments instead of asserted by regular people. Stupor Mundi's Four Freedoms would have to be liberties that can be exercised without the permission of any government or corporate authority. As a personal historical footnote of trivial significance, I present an early draft of the SM 4F:
- Freedom to spend your discretionary income wherever you want to, or to save it.
- Freedom to change the TV or radio station, or to turn it off.
- Freedom to not answer your telephone, or not to own one.
- Freedom to vote for or against whomever you wish.
- People who call themselves liberal and moderate took nominal control of the executive and legislative branches and yet permitted a neo-Confederate federal nullification clique to push the nation further into authoritarianism than it was under Bush.
- The Occupy Movement scared the living cocoa wheats out of everyone from Glenn Beck to Hillary Rodham Clinton.
- I read Havel's Power of the Powerless, which introduced me to the concept of parallel structures.
- It finally dawned on me that the concept of opting out of various terms and conditions of web-based services was the only meaningful way to push back against forces that want to fully monetize every human transaction.
Opting out is inseparable from individual responsibility, and it implies the intentional acceptance of consequences. But so does opting in. In the world that has grown up around us, I think opting out has much more potential as a tool of self-actualization, mutual support, and greater personal tranquility.
Friday, October 11, 2013
Totally impersonal special deliveries
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Special deliveries of cryptic messages to persons known and unknown because I'm too damn busy to catch up with you individually right now:
Beer-D: upon reacquainting myself with a Shostakovich favorite this evening for the first time in over 40 years, I discovered that this composer was the father of Klingon opera.
Anna: I didn't recognize your voice in comments at first, but if you know of Fonzo Serbo then contact me through regular channels. I would be happy to hear from you.
Helm**6: started writing you a note, but thanks first for the one you sent. The story sounds fairly normal to me, actually.
Gurlitzer: I know the blog has sucked and been neglected for a long time, but I was getting concerned that you hadn't shown up in comments lately. Guess everything is OK and I just need to write something interesting once in a while.
Mr. Summers, Class of 1970: good to meet you last month. Somewhat startlingly, I can't find a single hit on Google or Duck with the name of our college and "ACME" or "hundt". Two decades of our alma mater seems destined to swirl down the memory hole.
Little Oscar: Happy birthday! "Take an Indian to lunch this week!" (It's not the precise Stan Freberg reference for the occasion, but it's an appropriate one.)
Special deliveries of cryptic messages to persons known and unknown because I'm too damn busy to catch up with you individually right now:
Beer-D: upon reacquainting myself with a Shostakovich favorite this evening for the first time in over 40 years, I discovered that this composer was the father of Klingon opera.
Anna: I didn't recognize your voice in comments at first, but if you know of Fonzo Serbo then contact me through regular channels. I would be happy to hear from you.
Helm**6: started writing you a note, but thanks first for the one you sent. The story sounds fairly normal to me, actually.
Gurlitzer: I know the blog has sucked and been neglected for a long time, but I was getting concerned that you hadn't shown up in comments lately. Guess everything is OK and I just need to write something interesting once in a while.
Mr. Summers, Class of 1970: good to meet you last month. Somewhat startlingly, I can't find a single hit on Google or Duck with the name of our college and "ACME" or "hundt". Two decades of our alma mater seems destined to swirl down the memory hole.
Little Oscar: Happy birthday! "Take an Indian to lunch this week!" (It's not the precise Stan Freberg reference for the occasion, but it's an appropriate one.)
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