This subtle anagram was mentioned in the crossword puzzle documentary Wordplay, and when Quentin, our graphics guy at the office, got a hold of a cache of several thousand corporate logo files, I had him make me this:
Category: Musings
Question
Does all anger come from fear?
I don’t mean angry yelps after stubbing your toe – I mean anger between people. And hatred. Give me examples of anger that does not arise from some kind of fear.
There Are Days
There are days, sometimes, when you’re driving home on a sunny day with a milkshake and some McNuggets, listening to the Best of New Order, when everything seems right with the world. Some combination of stimuli hits you at just the right moment and you can’t help but think, yes, Western Civilization is the place to be, for it has brought you these pleasures; this magical moment was brought to you by America and your life is better for it.
There are those who would say that driving your car means polluting the environment. There are those who would say that consuming a milkshake means supporting factory-farmed cattle. There are those who would say that eating McDonald’s means polluting your body with toxins. There are those who would say that New Order is complete crap compared to Joy Division.
To all these people I would say, well, maybe. But all things in moderation. The simple pleasures of life, regardless of their origins, are to be savored. We should not be made to feel guilty for enjoying our lives.
Yes there are injustices and we should do what we can to lessen the suffering of our fellow creatures, but we should avoid making our lives completely miserable in the process. If we let the intense evils of the world get us all down, the world would only become a more miserable place. The world is a better place than it has ever been – anyone who says the past was better is either blinded by nostalgia or wasn’t there. There are fewer wars than we’ve had in a long time. Crime is down across the US, and has been steadily decreasing over the last ten years. The news media would have you believe armageddon is at hand. And the fundamentalist whack jobs would love that to be true.
I’m not saying we should get complacent and rest easy; there will always be more work to do. Buy organic whenever possible, drive less, walk more, eat fast food rarely. And whatever you do, savor it. Even if it’s unhealthy. Especially if it’s unhealthy. Don’t believe those who tell you to be worried or guilty about enjoying your life. You only get one.
What’s the Matter with Kansas? (The Band)
I have a wide variety of musical interests, and I have a wide variety of friends. This leads to varying reactions about particular shows I go to see. If I tell people I’m going to see Kansas at Magic Springs, the reactions vary from excitement to derision. If I say I’m excited about seeing Mr. Lif from The Perceptionists, the reactions are the same but the camps are reversed. As someone who used to be a music snob, I suppose I can relate to each faction’s opinions about music, I just wish people would open up a little.
My outlook on music is summed up pretty well by Frank Zappa when he said:
“I think that if a person is making music — even if it’s the most crass, commercial kind of crud — that person should be doing that because there are people who want to consume crass, commercial crud. And they’re doing a necessary function for the audience that needs to be entertained. Just because I’m not the consumer of that stuff, it’s no reason for me to go on some big campaign against it. I don’t think it’s particularly aesthetic, but then again, if it’s providing enjoyment for somebody, then fine.”
Music is so much bigger than any one person’s narrow view of it. It’s more than notes on a page, it’s more than timbres, it’s more than the theatrical poses, and it’s a lot more than lyrics. In a way, it’s more than art. Art implies standards, but saying all music should be art is like saying all speech should be poetry.
Legendary rock critic Lester Bangs was a big believer in the idea that rock and roll is a form of expression that is gloriously and righteously dumb, and although he decried the attempts of progressive rock to legitimize the form, a band like Kansas was at least reaching beyond the restrictions of its genre. And the better hip-hop bands like Perceptionists are making compelling sounds that may or may not even be considered “music” per se. But if you like it, who cares?
I think people in general need to let go of their preconceptions of what is and is not right or cool or valuable, because I think these only get in the way of a wider view of music. Another reason for people to let go of their preconceptions is that all humans have a tendency to enjoy feeling superior to other segments of society. Dismissing what you don’t understand or can’t appreciate only makes you feel better about your own inadequacies and shortcomings. It’s much easier to deride or openly hate what other people enjoy rather than try to understand it, or them.
King Kong as Elaborate Metaphor for Black America
I was listening to a live version of Frank Zappa’s “King Kong” this morning and Frank introduced the tune by saying this:
The name of this song is “King Kong.” It’s a story of a very large gorilla who lived in the jungle, and he was doing OK until some Americans came by and thought that they would take him home with them. They took him to the United States and they made some money by using the gorilla. Then they killed him.”
Often have I heard that the Godzilla movies were a subconscious metaphor for World War II and Pearl Harbor’s awakening of a “sleeping giant” in the minds of the Japanese. So I wonder if King Kong isn’t subconsciously a parable about Black America: we went into the jungle and brought people back to make money off of them and we mistreated and often killed them. Certainly we killed their sense of cultural and religious identity.
It may be a stretch, but it would be a better explanation for the incredibly iconic status of King Kong in American film history than just the film’s special effects. Why else would a story of a giant primate on the rampage, who runs off with a (white) girl be so fascinating to so many? Would the film have worked if Kong were any other animal but a lower primate, so close to us evolutionarily, and to many minds in the early/mid 20th century, a closer relative to blacks than whites? I’ve always been at a loss to explain the appeal of King Kong. I never saw the recent remake, because I knew the story and wasn’t very excited by it the first time. This larger allegory makes sense to me, at least.
Perpetual Adolescence?
I am realizing of late that my generation was the first to really get marketed to in a psychically deep way. Where in my father’s generation, something like the Red Rider BB Gun might have been the cool thing to have, my generation insisted I have every facet of the Star Wars/Transformers/G.I. Joe/He-Man/M.A.S.K/etc universe. So many toys. So many commercials and cartoons for toys. And then came the explosion in video games. Now, as the children of the 80’s are hitting their 30’s, I see that we have yet to put away childish things, many of us unrepentantly so[1]. Now, I’m personally proud to admit that I have not, nor will I ever “grow up” in a conventional sense, but more and more I wonder if my position wasn’t psychologically impressed upon me by the Toys R Us jingle, “I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Toys R Us kid.”
What if a significant portion of my personality was marketed to me by Hasbro®? Maybe we don’t want to give up on acquiring toys because we’ve been conditioned to continue enjoying them, so lodged in our subconscious is the allure of the fantasy world, so appealing is the packaging, or in the case of videos games, so gratifying is the accomplishment of the game? And this isn’t just a nerd thing…I just watched leading man Vince Vaughn play video games in his swank Chicago high-rise condo in The Break Up. Are we a generation who has had the the Peter Pan Syndrome psychologically transmitted to us by Madison Avenue?
It’s harmless of course; I’m still a mature 30 year old who has a career and a mortgage, and who doesn’t behave like a teenager. I do, however, prefer to dress in odd t-shirts and I still find trips to the toy department appealing, even if my purchases there are fewer and further between. A great lesson from Twilight Zone: The Movie that I took to heart was to grow old with a fresh young mind. I think that’s something good for everyone to do.
1.) Of course I’m not talking to you, Josh. What would make you think that? 😉
Turtle Doves: Nature’s Little Procrastinators
I’m endlessly amazed by the lackadaisical attitude of turtle doves. They appear to be smaller, less bright versions of pigeons, and yet they have a remarkable ability to get out of the way at the very last available second. On the one hand they appear to be too stupid to realize when danger is approaching, yet have the phsyical reflexes to preserve themselves.
On a completely unrelated note, the mystery jar is gone. For the last week or two, there has been a shopping cart in the parking lot next to my office. This shopping cart contains only one item: a jar. A jar of what I had no idea, until I decided to investigate Wednesday on my way out. It contained a thick red substance I could only presume to be barbecue sauce. I wasn’t about to open it just to satisfy my curiosity. That’s how cats across the world get killed. The lid of the jar said “Joe.” Well apparently Joe or perhaps one of his agents came for the jar because now it’s gone. We have an old guy who digs around the dumpster sometimes; maybe he took it, although I’m not sure why he waited so long. Perhaps out of respect for Joe, wherever and whomever he may be.
On a yet more unrelated note, Jamie (who has a new blog, by the way) posted this on myspace and I found it clever and “Magic 8 Ball” enough to present it for your amusement:
Rules: Turn on your media player of choice, turn on the SHUFFLE option. Answer these questions with the (RANDOM) song titles as they show up. I added the artists’ names because my collection is pretty obscure at times.
how does the world see me?
Glasses and Braces (The Semantics)
will i have a happy life?
Leave in Silence (Depeche Mode)
what do my friends really think of me?
Shh (Fleming and John)
do people secretly lust after me?
Okonkole Y Trompa (Jaco Pastorius)
how can i make myself happy?
Oh my Golly! (The Pixies)
what should i do with my life?
Texas Funeral (Jon Wayne)
why must life be so full of pain?
The 2nd Law (Michael Hedges)
will i ever have children?
Je T’Embrasse (Jan Cyrka, translates as “I Kiss You”)
will i die happy?
Presto Vivace and Reprise (U.K.)
what is some good advice for me?
Wichita Lineman (Glen Campbell)
what is happiness?
My Blue Heaven (The Preservation Hall Jazz Band)
what’s my favorite fetish?
Castles Made of Sand (Jimi Hendrix)
how will i be remembered?
L.O.V.E. (the Soft.Lightes)
My favorite was “The 2nd Law” which is a great answer if one considers the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which is the law of entropy.
Retirement Dreams and Stranger Things
My dad has the best retirement gig around. He teaches at the community college in Harrison. He has taught Western Civilization, and I think another hstory class. Next fall he teaches a cinema class, “Great Films” or something like that. He’ll be busy all summer deciding what to show and what to say about each movie. And he’s not limited to older movies, either, nor is he restricted to some critical canon of motion pictures. Basically he’s free to teach whatever he wants (hello Young Farnkenstein). That would just be too much fun. We were debating options yesterday. I’ll let you know what he chooses.
I’ve always wanted to be a teacher. When I was in junior high, I asked my mom, a former 9th Grade English teacher, what she thought of that and she promptly replied, “Nooooo” with Sigourney Weaver-esque vigor[1] that I could almost hear her say “there is no Dana, only Zuul.” What a sad state of affairs the world is in when a teacher does not recommend her vocation to others. I knew it would be hard work – I’d seen the Ralph Macchio/Nick Nolte movie Teachers and I knew the job was somewhat akin to going to war against stupidity. I knew the battleground was the hell of other people. What better war to fight, I figure? Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for, supposedly.
Nevertheless I got in through a side door by teaching guitar for several years in Maumelle. That was fun. I miss hanging around kids and showing them how to be creative, and reminding them that adolescence is, for the most part, a cyclone of irrelevant social pressures, needless anxiety, and relentless psychological abuse/marketing. I like to think I helped some people.
If I won the lottery and didn’t have to worry about money, I’d start a pop music school, something like School of Rock but with more emphasis on different styles. I’ve actually thought about this quite a bit. The atmosphere would be more social, like Banjo Center on Saturdays where kids are having a musical community despite the commercial nature of the venue. We’d have a digital library where kids could listen to a massive selection of music, stacks of music books, tablature folios, and instruments to play. Maybe a few rehearsal rooms for jamming and lessons. Basically a larger version of my house, open to the public, with maybe a coffee bar/soda fountain or something suitably snacky. I’ve wondered about how it might financially sustain itself – subscriptions? donations? tips? Fortunately most of the “stock” I already have. I’d just need to pay rent, which would be considerable given the needs of the facility. Anyway, just another thing I think about before I go to bed.
1.) Or maybe Bill Cosby’s wife in that “YOUUUU GAVE THEM CHOCOLATE CAAAKE” voice.
Powers of Two, or What I Think About Before I Go to Bed
This is the sort of thing I wonder about at night before I go to sleep. Some nights these things actually prevent me from sleeping. Like this one: consider the fact that, in order for you to be born, you had to have two parents, who also had to have two parents, and so on. Given that my grandparents were born in the early part of the 20th century, let’s say that there are about three generations in a family per century. So, since the year 1, about 60 generations (3 generations times 20 centuries).
So the math goes like this: 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, 16 great-great-grandparents and so on to the 60th power.
2 to the 60th power = 1,152,921,504,606,846,976.
So 2,000 years ago I would have had about 1 quintillion great60 grandparents? That can’t be right. Somebody tell me why my math is faulty. My brain hurts.
Musical Paradox
Something I’ve noticed as I expore the keyboard is that I tend to have a lot more fun getting lost in the music I’m playing. I’ve been playing guitar so long, I have a hard time getting lost. But with the keyboard, once I find a groove I’ll get lost in it for a half hour. It’s a paradoxical struggle that instrumentalists have: on the one hand we want to be in complete control of our instruments, but on the other hand it seems like the best stuff comes from those times when you have no idea what you’re doing. Small wonder, then, that many Buddhists seek the ‘child mind’ and I think that plugs into what I was saying earlier about being 30 – I want to keep as much of a child mind as I can. When the world stops fascinating you every day, then you know you’re an adult.