I'd like to take a break from my summer vacation to talk to all of you about dogs:
When it comes to animals, none of man's biological engineering projects has been quite so successful or gone on for so long as the creation of the dog. Wikipedia told me that dogs first began to be domesticated from the grey wolf around 15, 000 years ago. It's apparently debated whether or not they naturally evolved towards coexistence with man, or if they were artificially selected from the beginning. Either way, at some point man took up the reigns of their genetic development and radically reshaped the species. We might think of dogs as more 'natural' or 'closer to nature' than humans, but to me this is a bit of a stretch. When you consider that their entire being has been tailored by humans, to coexist with humans, they don't seem quite so natural.
And what is the upshot of all this? The dog is one of the most successful and biologically diverse of all animal species. For 15, 000 years this thing has been reshaped by man into every imaginable variety. From the massive, imposing greyhound, designed for the racetrack, to the tiny, hideous chihuahua, designed for god knows what purpose. The entire progression of the species for fifteen centuries has depended on whether or not man can find another niche to engineer the dog genus into. And yes, in China and South Korea they apparently do eat dog, but that's ok because it's only a specific subspecies of dog specifically bred for the farm! Apparently your typically household pet dog would be considered inedible.
What I'm trying to get at is that there is a seldom considered moral ambiguity here. We have essentially taken a species, once entirely independent, and made it depend on humans for its own existence. Not only that, we have made it love humans unconditionally. They love us in a way that we could never possibly hope to return. I mean, I can hardly leave the house for an hour without my dogs going batshit crazy on my return. These things live for our pleasure and happiness, and desire nothing but a life of servitude. Doesn't something about that ring maniacal genius? Is there anything more evil than forcing something to love you?
And yet, there's common outcry among activists about the way we treat chickens, pigs, and other livestock: raising them to be fatter, and featherless and generally to be miserable. But, I would say, at least we let them fucking hate us for it. If we didn't dominate these species physically and intellectually they'd burst right out that farm door. And there's not a word for the dog that doesn't even know that it's a slave, while everywhere strays are being neutered and euthanized to keep them from returning to their wild, independent existence.
Don't get me wrong, I love my dogs, and I want nothing more than for them to live comfortable, happy lives. I just think it's weird that we look at a farm chicken, featherless: barely able to walk, made to manufacture meat, and think 'monstrosity'. And on the other hand, we see a dog: servile, dependent, made to manufacture love, and think 'man's best friend'.
Wednesday, 8 June 2011
Monday, 2 May 2011
Song Lyrics
As a little side project during the school year, I've used my newly acquired talent for playing basic chords on the guitar to write some songs. For the first one I used lyrics I'd already written a while back, maybe a year ago, when I was trying to write poetry. For the other three, I had to write new lyrics, so I've been thinking a lot lately about what I can write about, what inspires me, what make good lyrics, etc.
Music lyrics are a funny thing because they're the only real exposure to poetry that most people (myself included) ever get. And yet they seem to deviate so much from 'actual' poetry (that is, poetry that's written down in books, and not sung). Obviously lyrics are a kind of poetry, but they have a unique style to them, and good lyrics do not usually make good poetry when written down (and vice versa? I'm not sure. Something tells me, though, that the work of someone like e. e. cummings wouldn't quite translate into song form).
The reason for this is that lyrics, as opposed to poetry, are only a part and not the whole of the art form. The quality of a song depends not only on the words that are sung, but how they are sung, and also the quality of the music itself. So it's no surprise that many lyrics seem jumbled, or without order when looked at on a page, since they're not meant to fit together alone, but have to fit in the context of the song. Much of the meaning in song lyrics is given in the way they are sung. In the same way as it's impossible to convey sarcasm while texting, compared to in a phone call, the emotion of song lyrics often just doesn't translate onto paper. I mean, a song's lyrical content can be entirely meaningless or ambiguous in a highly emotional song; just think of lyrics from Pavement or At The Drive-In (dancing on the corpses ashes...). Unfortunately, inflection isn't something that poets have the luxury of using, which isn't necessarily bad, it just means that lyrics and poetry are different.
But this brings me to a little bit of a crossroad with my own song writing. Now, when I sit down to write a song, I force myself to think 'I'm not writing poetry, I'm writing song lyrics.' Ideally this mentality would let me punch out lyrics at a rapid pace, since it should be easy to write words when you don't care about having profound meaning behind them. But the problem is that, at least for me, I can't write song lyrics unless they're about something. It could be anything, but I need a topic, if I try to write random words on a page I end up feeling like a phony. So I try to think of random things to write about. I wrote one song about a man who fell asleep in his apartment with his cigarette lit and started a fire that burnt the whole building down. Another song I wrote was about a man stranded in the middle of the ocean on a raft, with nothing but his guitar.
The problem is that even though these ideas are supposed to be arbitrary and random, just something to get me writing emotional sounding stuff, I inevitably care about having interesting meaning behind the song. The songs that I think have dumb meanings I never want to sing. For example, another song I wrote was about that classic hypothetical scenario where a man controls a train that is moving towards five people, but can change it to a different track, to kill one. Basically, I wrote it from the perspective of a person actually in that position. Now, to me, this seems like a really dumb song, so I just never play it. But this is so frustrating, because I'm only writing lyrics so I can play music. The whole purpose is defeated. And then I start trying to write lyrics that are meaningful, but dammit that's hard. I don't want to care, I just wish I could spit them out, and not even consider their quality.
Plus, this tactic has lead me to write some embarrassingly bad stuff. Like these lyrics I recently wrote, in a fit of frustration and writers block. To help myself out of the rut I tried to write a song based on the dumbest premise I could think of. This is what I came up with:
Music lyrics are a funny thing because they're the only real exposure to poetry that most people (myself included) ever get. And yet they seem to deviate so much from 'actual' poetry (that is, poetry that's written down in books, and not sung). Obviously lyrics are a kind of poetry, but they have a unique style to them, and good lyrics do not usually make good poetry when written down (and vice versa? I'm not sure. Something tells me, though, that the work of someone like e. e. cummings wouldn't quite translate into song form).
The reason for this is that lyrics, as opposed to poetry, are only a part and not the whole of the art form. The quality of a song depends not only on the words that are sung, but how they are sung, and also the quality of the music itself. So it's no surprise that many lyrics seem jumbled, or without order when looked at on a page, since they're not meant to fit together alone, but have to fit in the context of the song. Much of the meaning in song lyrics is given in the way they are sung. In the same way as it's impossible to convey sarcasm while texting, compared to in a phone call, the emotion of song lyrics often just doesn't translate onto paper. I mean, a song's lyrical content can be entirely meaningless or ambiguous in a highly emotional song; just think of lyrics from Pavement or At The Drive-In (dancing on the corpses ashes...). Unfortunately, inflection isn't something that poets have the luxury of using, which isn't necessarily bad, it just means that lyrics and poetry are different.
But this brings me to a little bit of a crossroad with my own song writing. Now, when I sit down to write a song, I force myself to think 'I'm not writing poetry, I'm writing song lyrics.' Ideally this mentality would let me punch out lyrics at a rapid pace, since it should be easy to write words when you don't care about having profound meaning behind them. But the problem is that, at least for me, I can't write song lyrics unless they're about something. It could be anything, but I need a topic, if I try to write random words on a page I end up feeling like a phony. So I try to think of random things to write about. I wrote one song about a man who fell asleep in his apartment with his cigarette lit and started a fire that burnt the whole building down. Another song I wrote was about a man stranded in the middle of the ocean on a raft, with nothing but his guitar.
The problem is that even though these ideas are supposed to be arbitrary and random, just something to get me writing emotional sounding stuff, I inevitably care about having interesting meaning behind the song. The songs that I think have dumb meanings I never want to sing. For example, another song I wrote was about that classic hypothetical scenario where a man controls a train that is moving towards five people, but can change it to a different track, to kill one. Basically, I wrote it from the perspective of a person actually in that position. Now, to me, this seems like a really dumb song, so I just never play it. But this is so frustrating, because I'm only writing lyrics so I can play music. The whole purpose is defeated. And then I start trying to write lyrics that are meaningful, but dammit that's hard. I don't want to care, I just wish I could spit them out, and not even consider their quality.
Plus, this tactic has lead me to write some embarrassingly bad stuff. Like these lyrics I recently wrote, in a fit of frustration and writers block. To help myself out of the rut I tried to write a song based on the dumbest premise I could think of. This is what I came up with:
a man is half conscious, operating a mech of some sort in a brutal war where he's killing many people. He's not sure who he is, or why he's doing the things he does. In a moment of clarity, he ponders if maybe he's on a crazy drug trip and none of this is actually happening, or maybe some government/organization is using mind control to make him do the things he does.And here's the poem that I wrote for it:
crying mouths crash earthwardPerhaps unsurprisingly, I decided against making this one into a song.
I push myself to move
but what pushes me to push myself
I don't know
I feel through thoughts for a time
when things were greener
my head's a mess of spinning heat
finding freedom
I grin because I'm
too confused
to have a sense of guilt
I laugh because
my mind's too strange
not to be insane
I might've done this to myself
body far away
somewhere sunny, with real friends
forgotten
maybe it's been done to me
revulsing in revolt
So, far away, in my past
was clarity
I grin because I'm
too confused
to have a sense of guilt
I laugh because
my mind's too strange
not to be insane
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
Sports
I've never been much of an athlete. I think the crowning achievement of all my experiences in organized sports would have to date back to when I was in, say, grade one or two. I remember it surprisingly distinctly; it was a practice game for my soccer team, one evening inside the gym of a local public school. I approached playing soccer with the same kind of mindlessness that I think most kids do. Just sort of get at the ball and kick it towards the net. Yet somehow this strategy lead me to a break-away; I vaguely remember dribbling the ball, though I still can't do this very effectively, and then kicking it past the goalie. Afterwards my coach gave the whole team a lecture on their overall inattentiveness on defense, and not on my skill as a player. Nevertheless, that moment has stuck out as probably the only time when I was really in the spotlight as a sports person. And that's probably because my mom promised to buy me a tamogotchi if I every scored a goal in a game (or practice game apparently).
So it's easy to see why I might have grown indifferent or even dismissive of sports in general. I think that this happens with many people who are athletically challenged, but interested in academics or the arts. Sports are a particularly easy target to poke fun at because they seem so primitive and arbitrary. The great questions that outsiders to sports pose to those who participate in them are: "why are you doing that?" and "why should I care?". You won't often get a real response from a sports fan, who will just think you're an asshole for asking, but they are legitimate questions. Why are there only three bases in baseball, why should I care if 'my' team wins, since it really doesn't affect me at all, etc, etc....
But, leave these questions unanswered, since an answer isn't really necessary if you want to get involved in sports. Instead, just watch a game or two of your local team. Watch them fight to stay in the playoffs, listen to the announcers, as their careful non-partisan veil slips away in the excitement of the game. You will, without question, get drawn in. It's a simple matter of human psychology that once your mind chooses a side to root for, your emotions will be pulled along with that team's success or failure. And for anyone who argues that this is arbitrary and meaningless, I would say that it's just as meaningless as rooting for the main character in a movie. The fact is it doesn't matter why, since it inevitably happens anyways, and it's fun.
It's true, there's no real reason for any of it. But there isn't a reason for a lot of the things we as humans do. The beauty of sports is that it distills this raw competitive human nature into something relatively harmless and meaningless. It turns it into something that produces nothing but enjoyment and exhilaration. If only, I sometimes think, we could reduce all our competitive urges into something so harmless. If we could all agree as a world population to fight wars on the sports field, instead of the battlefield, we'd be living in a much more peaceful society. Looking at sports in this way, as an essential expression of our inner competitiveness, I don't see how we could do without it. The Olympics and the World Cup both serve to bring societies closer together, while still releasing the bountiful aggression that we as humans feel towards any outgroup. And I think that that's something we could, if anything, have more of.
So it's easy to see why I might have grown indifferent or even dismissive of sports in general. I think that this happens with many people who are athletically challenged, but interested in academics or the arts. Sports are a particularly easy target to poke fun at because they seem so primitive and arbitrary. The great questions that outsiders to sports pose to those who participate in them are: "why are you doing that?" and "why should I care?". You won't often get a real response from a sports fan, who will just think you're an asshole for asking, but they are legitimate questions. Why are there only three bases in baseball, why should I care if 'my' team wins, since it really doesn't affect me at all, etc, etc....
But, leave these questions unanswered, since an answer isn't really necessary if you want to get involved in sports. Instead, just watch a game or two of your local team. Watch them fight to stay in the playoffs, listen to the announcers, as their careful non-partisan veil slips away in the excitement of the game. You will, without question, get drawn in. It's a simple matter of human psychology that once your mind chooses a side to root for, your emotions will be pulled along with that team's success or failure. And for anyone who argues that this is arbitrary and meaningless, I would say that it's just as meaningless as rooting for the main character in a movie. The fact is it doesn't matter why, since it inevitably happens anyways, and it's fun.
It's true, there's no real reason for any of it. But there isn't a reason for a lot of the things we as humans do. The beauty of sports is that it distills this raw competitive human nature into something relatively harmless and meaningless. It turns it into something that produces nothing but enjoyment and exhilaration. If only, I sometimes think, we could reduce all our competitive urges into something so harmless. If we could all agree as a world population to fight wars on the sports field, instead of the battlefield, we'd be living in a much more peaceful society. Looking at sports in this way, as an essential expression of our inner competitiveness, I don't see how we could do without it. The Olympics and the World Cup both serve to bring societies closer together, while still releasing the bountiful aggression that we as humans feel towards any outgroup. And I think that that's something we could, if anything, have more of.
Thursday, 21 April 2011
Brokenhearted Badass
In most fiction the protagonist is likeable, endearing, and someone to who the audience is sympathetic. This can include a broad range of characters, but specifically, here, I want to explore the stereotypical steel-hearted male lead.
They're all more-or-less the same character: sometimes a smart ass, sometimes overcome with anger, always possessing an indomitable will in the face of danger, and, on occasion, brooding over their dark past. This character, simply put, is an amalgamation of all the qualities that most men wish they had (or secretly believe they do have). What I find interesting about this is that, yes, men truly envy these characters their tragic backgrounds.
Think of the role that this tragic background plays in developing the character. First, it allows them to be short and impatient with people and, in general an asshole, without the audience losing sympathy for them (Sympathy? check). Second, we, for whatever reason, are drawn to characters that are rude and sarcastic, especially towards women; this, however, requires the dark background to ultimately explain their behaviour (Likeability and endearment? check). Finally, it gives the character a very personal secret which the love interest will eventually tease out of him in a heart-felt moment (maybe right before the sex scene) in which he learns to trust again. It's the best when the main character dies right after, making his death all the more saddening (he was finally learning to live again).
And it's all as easy as saying "my parents were killed by robbers" or "I was the product of a horrible government experiment" or "I was wrongly imprisoned for 'x' amount of years". See if you can guess which characters I'm referring to.
An interesting sub-genre of the tragic background, is the character who had his heart broken by a women in his past. In this case, either she died and he was seconds away from saving her, or she betrayed him and joined the enemy. The beauty of this is how well it justifies misogynistic character traits, allowing the character to generally hate women without losing the audience. And what's cooler, really, than a guy who is openly mean to the ladies. I should point out, though, how this character in real life would be seen as mentally unstable and in in dire need of therapy. In the movie world, the idea that "he found his true love and now she's gone, and he can never love again" makes sense, but think how ridiculous this actually is.
What message, as well, is this sending to kids who look at these characters as role models? I know that when I was a kid this always brought about a certain conflict in me. Obviously I would never actually want for something tragic to happen to my family, but how else would I ever go on an awesome quest for vengeance? Maybe, I would imagine, they'd just get kidnapped or something, and then I'd rescue them before anything really bad happened to them. But I mean, do you see how fucked up that is?
They're all more-or-less the same character: sometimes a smart ass, sometimes overcome with anger, always possessing an indomitable will in the face of danger, and, on occasion, brooding over their dark past. This character, simply put, is an amalgamation of all the qualities that most men wish they had (or secretly believe they do have). What I find interesting about this is that, yes, men truly envy these characters their tragic backgrounds.
Think of the role that this tragic background plays in developing the character. First, it allows them to be short and impatient with people and, in general an asshole, without the audience losing sympathy for them (Sympathy? check). Second, we, for whatever reason, are drawn to characters that are rude and sarcastic, especially towards women; this, however, requires the dark background to ultimately explain their behaviour (Likeability and endearment? check). Finally, it gives the character a very personal secret which the love interest will eventually tease out of him in a heart-felt moment (maybe right before the sex scene) in which he learns to trust again. It's the best when the main character dies right after, making his death all the more saddening (he was finally learning to live again).
And it's all as easy as saying "my parents were killed by robbers" or "I was the product of a horrible government experiment" or "I was wrongly imprisoned for 'x' amount of years". See if you can guess which characters I'm referring to.
An interesting sub-genre of the tragic background, is the character who had his heart broken by a women in his past. In this case, either she died and he was seconds away from saving her, or she betrayed him and joined the enemy. The beauty of this is how well it justifies misogynistic character traits, allowing the character to generally hate women without losing the audience. And what's cooler, really, than a guy who is openly mean to the ladies. I should point out, though, how this character in real life would be seen as mentally unstable and in in dire need of therapy. In the movie world, the idea that "he found his true love and now she's gone, and he can never love again" makes sense, but think how ridiculous this actually is.
What message, as well, is this sending to kids who look at these characters as role models? I know that when I was a kid this always brought about a certain conflict in me. Obviously I would never actually want for something tragic to happen to my family, but how else would I ever go on an awesome quest for vengeance? Maybe, I would imagine, they'd just get kidnapped or something, and then I'd rescue them before anything really bad happened to them. But I mean, do you see how fucked up that is?
Thursday, 14 April 2011
People who play/listen to metal aren't douchebags
Hey, I'm back! Here to talk to you about the common misconception that metalheads are douchebags:
I've heard many people sincerely make this claim, and it irritates me about as much as people who say "I like all music except for country". (First of all, you don't like all kinds of music. People say this when they don't really know anything about music, and then they tack on the whole except country bit just to add a little credibility to their statement. But think how ridiculous this is: do they really like celtic dance music, or trippy experimental music like Black Dice? Of course they don't; if you played Black Dice in front of them they'd probably permanently judge you as "weird" or "different". And second, have any of these people every actually listened to country music? Not, obviously, that awful shit that you hear on Country Music Television, you know, pop country, but say Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline or like half of the music by the Rolling Stones. Country is one of the biggest influences on modern music, and people who identify it as the only type of music that they don't like need to smarten up.)
But yeah, back to to the topic at hand. It's pretty clear that anyone who says this has never made a conscious effort to listen to metal. Which is not to say that they haven't heard it before, but metal, especially the harder stuff, is definitely an acquired taste. I should add as a disclaimer that I don't listen to metal, but I am familiar with it, and I think it's awesome. It's just not the first thing I think of when I'm in the mood to listen to music. I do however, know a lot of people who listen to metal, and I know they're not douchebags. That's why people who argue that they are really get to me. Here are some of the arguments that they use, and my take on them:
When they yell and grown they just sound stupid:
Admittedly, the sound of someone screaming or growling is initially a little jarring. It's definitely different than other types of singing. But what about it is stupid? It's extremely expressive and, when you get used to it, relaxing. If you listen to music for its therapeutic value, then I don't think you'll find better music than metal. Imagine putting on your headphones and having someone do all the yelling at screaming you wish you could do for you. Anger, I think, is a better weapon against stress than, say, sadness. Namely the kind of whiny music that most people listen to when they're in a bad mood.
Also, you could really level this "they sound dumb" claim against any singer; they're all making animalistic cries to vent their feelings. How else would you define singing? The only difference between metal singers and any other type is that most people don't find it palatable to listen to. If this is a valid reason to call someone a douchebag, then you might as well call everyone a douchebag since no one's voice is going to please everyone.
Metal lyrics are so cheesy
First off, I don't think it's a stretch to say that 80% of music out there has lyrics that are either meaningless, vapid or melodramatic. I don't really know enough about metal to safely claim that it's any different. However, I will say that, in general, metal strays away from the type of lyrics that dominate most other music forms. That is, it strays away from your typical love song. Not to say that there's anything wrong with the occasional ballad, but I mean, the whole thing is just a little boring at this point. "I miss you" and "I want you" and "I hate/love you" have been used as themes a million times, and not only that, are usually done in entirely unoriginal, non-engaging ways. Say what you will about metal lyrics, at least they're comparatively original, whether they're about viking conquest, or war, or the future.
Take, as an example, that popular Edward Sharpe song which I'm pretty sick of at this point. "home is wherever I am with you..." basically the entire meaning of this song is: We love each other very much. We love our parents a lot too, but not in the same way as we love each other. And then they add in a little "Holey, moley" and some "Chocolate candy, Jesus Christ" just to sound a little different. Compare this with Metallica's One: a song about a soldier who's been severely injured and put on life support. He's conscious, but can't communicate the agony he feels, and all he wants is to be left to die. I'm not going to say that Metallica writes beautiful poetry or anything, but I think it's easy to see that at least the subject matter they're writing about is far more compelling than the Edward Sharpe song.
Ok, last one:
People who listen to metal are all violent, angry assholes
First off, just because metal has a lot of yelling in it, doesn't mean it's angry. Second, just because people write angry songs, doesn't mean they're angry people. Most people I know who like metal are more subdued than your average person. Why this is, I'm not sure; maybe they're timid by nature, or maybe metal is just a great way to release excess anger.
If I had to characterize you're average metalhead in some way, it would be that they generally don't give a fuck. I think it's obvious why this might be; it's as if they took one glance at popular music and society and became nauseous. Then, pushing as far from this as they could, they set out to make music that would be entirely rejected by the majority of people. This is a very liberating thing; and it means that within the culture anything goes, just so long as it's interesting. I feel like at a metal concert you're just as likely to see, say, a guy wearing shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, as someone with a mullet and a wife-beater (though I don't have too much evidence for this).
And that's it, don't judge a book by it's cover, etc, etc.
I've heard many people sincerely make this claim, and it irritates me about as much as people who say "I like all music except for country". (First of all, you don't like all kinds of music. People say this when they don't really know anything about music, and then they tack on the whole except country bit just to add a little credibility to their statement. But think how ridiculous this is: do they really like celtic dance music, or trippy experimental music like Black Dice? Of course they don't; if you played Black Dice in front of them they'd probably permanently judge you as "weird" or "different". And second, have any of these people every actually listened to country music? Not, obviously, that awful shit that you hear on Country Music Television, you know, pop country, but say Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline or like half of the music by the Rolling Stones. Country is one of the biggest influences on modern music, and people who identify it as the only type of music that they don't like need to smarten up.)
But yeah, back to to the topic at hand. It's pretty clear that anyone who says this has never made a conscious effort to listen to metal. Which is not to say that they haven't heard it before, but metal, especially the harder stuff, is definitely an acquired taste. I should add as a disclaimer that I don't listen to metal, but I am familiar with it, and I think it's awesome. It's just not the first thing I think of when I'm in the mood to listen to music. I do however, know a lot of people who listen to metal, and I know they're not douchebags. That's why people who argue that they are really get to me. Here are some of the arguments that they use, and my take on them:
When they yell and grown they just sound stupid:
Admittedly, the sound of someone screaming or growling is initially a little jarring. It's definitely different than other types of singing. But what about it is stupid? It's extremely expressive and, when you get used to it, relaxing. If you listen to music for its therapeutic value, then I don't think you'll find better music than metal. Imagine putting on your headphones and having someone do all the yelling at screaming you wish you could do for you. Anger, I think, is a better weapon against stress than, say, sadness. Namely the kind of whiny music that most people listen to when they're in a bad mood.
Also, you could really level this "they sound dumb" claim against any singer; they're all making animalistic cries to vent their feelings. How else would you define singing? The only difference between metal singers and any other type is that most people don't find it palatable to listen to. If this is a valid reason to call someone a douchebag, then you might as well call everyone a douchebag since no one's voice is going to please everyone.
Metal lyrics are so cheesy
First off, I don't think it's a stretch to say that 80% of music out there has lyrics that are either meaningless, vapid or melodramatic. I don't really know enough about metal to safely claim that it's any different. However, I will say that, in general, metal strays away from the type of lyrics that dominate most other music forms. That is, it strays away from your typical love song. Not to say that there's anything wrong with the occasional ballad, but I mean, the whole thing is just a little boring at this point. "I miss you" and "I want you" and "I hate/love you" have been used as themes a million times, and not only that, are usually done in entirely unoriginal, non-engaging ways. Say what you will about metal lyrics, at least they're comparatively original, whether they're about viking conquest, or war, or the future.
Take, as an example, that popular Edward Sharpe song which I'm pretty sick of at this point. "home is wherever I am with you..." basically the entire meaning of this song is: We love each other very much. We love our parents a lot too, but not in the same way as we love each other. And then they add in a little "Holey, moley" and some "Chocolate candy, Jesus Christ" just to sound a little different. Compare this with Metallica's One: a song about a soldier who's been severely injured and put on life support. He's conscious, but can't communicate the agony he feels, and all he wants is to be left to die. I'm not going to say that Metallica writes beautiful poetry or anything, but I think it's easy to see that at least the subject matter they're writing about is far more compelling than the Edward Sharpe song.
Ok, last one:
People who listen to metal are all violent, angry assholes
First off, just because metal has a lot of yelling in it, doesn't mean it's angry. Second, just because people write angry songs, doesn't mean they're angry people. Most people I know who like metal are more subdued than your average person. Why this is, I'm not sure; maybe they're timid by nature, or maybe metal is just a great way to release excess anger.
If I had to characterize you're average metalhead in some way, it would be that they generally don't give a fuck. I think it's obvious why this might be; it's as if they took one glance at popular music and society and became nauseous. Then, pushing as far from this as they could, they set out to make music that would be entirely rejected by the majority of people. This is a very liberating thing; and it means that within the culture anything goes, just so long as it's interesting. I feel like at a metal concert you're just as likely to see, say, a guy wearing shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, as someone with a mullet and a wife-beater (though I don't have too much evidence for this).
And that's it, don't judge a book by it's cover, etc, etc.
Saturday, 2 April 2011
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Lies
Everyone likes to talk about manipulation in marketing; how the big corporations are evil and morally bankrupt etc etc. I can get annoyed with these people sometimes because it seems to be another example of bandwagon hatred (the worst kind of bandwagon). People, it seems, love to shit on things as a community, especially when they know no one is going to come to that thing's defense. There's a certain pleasure in expressing righteous anger towards something, and then someone else feeding off that anger and reciprocating with even more anger. It goes something like this:
person 1: "I hate [thing], it's always doing [bad thing]"
person 2: "I know, fuck that [thing], and it also always does [other bad thing]"
person 1: "Yeah, [thing] is just fucking despicable; did I mention it does [bad thing]?"
person 2: "Ahhhh, I just hate [thing] so much!
person 1: "Ahhhhh I'm so angry!"
person 2: "Ahhhhhhhh me too!"
etc.
etc.
It's like one big circle-jerk of hatred, ending in a final cathartic release of anger. The whole thing's very therapeutic. But the outcome of this is that people build extremely negative views towards things based on very little evidence, and a whole lot of griping with their friends (mutual gripesturbation).
With that in mind, I like to try and play devil's advocate a lot of the time, arguing against people's fast held beliefs in things like morals and politics. I've mostly found that it's a good way to lose friends and piss people off, and ultimately little ground can be won. It's not easy to argue with someone when they automatically think you're an idiot for even defending the counter-argument (which is the case much of the time).
This post, though, is nothing of the sort. Marketing campaigns are manipulative and evil, it's an undeniable truth. I think, though, better than being mad at abstract entities, we should try to inform ourselves about these manipulations, and so make informed decisions as consumers. And so, here are three misconceptions perpetrated by advetisements:
1) You need to wash your hair with shampoo every day:
This is one is kind of a personal battle, as I've officially gone without shampooing my hair or putting any product in it whatsoever for a year now. Aside from it smelling like hair, and not some lemon-fresh wonder bouquet of sent, I've had no complaints, and it actually looks a lot healthier than before. Without doing any real research, this is what I believe to be the trap of shampoo: First, we're raised on shampoo, which periodically strips all the natural oils from the hair and scalp. Second, our body compensates for this by producing way more oils on the scalp than it would normally. Third, we notice that, if we don't shampoo our hair, it becomes oily. Fourth: we conclude that our hair needs shampoo to look clean, and not greasy.
I've discovered for myself that within a month of not using shampoo all these oils can balance out to a normal equilibrium, at which point I realized that the whole shampoo thing is a fucking scam. The only reason to buy it would be to fix a problem that the shampoo itself created. To me, it sounds not a lot different than chemical dependence on cigarettes.
2) Antioxidants are always good for you:
Since I can remember, antioxidants have been touted as vital to any healthy diet. Billion dollar industries have emerged from this idea; 50 cent was able to sell people bottles of sugared water for over four dollars because of this idea. And so I was pretty surprised to find out that there's hardly been any conclusive evidence of a real medical benefit to antioxidants alone (source). Virtually everyone I can think of was fooled into believing in them (even my mom, who made me take vitamins), and now look where we are. There are entire stores devoted to selling vitamin supplements, and you can look down any aisle in a supermarket to see foods proudly claiming of their antioxidant enrichment (I should note that vitamins and antioxidants aren't the same thing; whether we actually should take vitamin supplements is another story).
What seems to be the case is that foods which commonly have antioxidants in them (fruits, vegetables) have lots of good shit in them for your health. There was then a highly illogical leap made from this fact to the idea that antioxidants alone prevent disease and are good for you.
3) The alcohol sold in hardware stores (not meant for drinking) will kill you:
Yes, the final product that they sell there will kill you; but that's only because the manufacturers have intentionally added toxic chemicals so that you won't drink it. It seems that there's all sorts of bureaucratic hoops that a company must go through before it can sell something which could be used as a drug. It's much easier to just add a toxic chemical into the mix and avoid the whole issue (source). So ostensibly the ethanol in there is actually intact if you have the chemistry know-how to extract it.
Admittedly, this isn't really a case of manipulative marketing. I just sort of tacked it on for interests sake. The article I linked to goes into more depth about the issue (it's not just alcohol that they do this with).
So there you have it, three reasons why, even if you don't participate in mass hatred orgies, it's generally a good idea to distrust anything advertised without doing a little independent research. I mean, everyone knows that ads lie, but I think real examples can drive the point home. At least it did for me.
person 1: "I hate [thing], it's always doing [bad thing]"
person 2: "I know, fuck that [thing], and it also always does [other bad thing]"
person 1: "Yeah, [thing] is just fucking despicable; did I mention it does [bad thing]?"
person 2: "Ahhhh, I just hate [thing] so much!
person 1: "Ahhhhh I'm so angry!"
person 2: "Ahhhhhhhh me too!"
etc.
etc.
It's like one big circle-jerk of hatred, ending in a final cathartic release of anger. The whole thing's very therapeutic. But the outcome of this is that people build extremely negative views towards things based on very little evidence, and a whole lot of griping with their friends (mutual gripesturbation).
With that in mind, I like to try and play devil's advocate a lot of the time, arguing against people's fast held beliefs in things like morals and politics. I've mostly found that it's a good way to lose friends and piss people off, and ultimately little ground can be won. It's not easy to argue with someone when they automatically think you're an idiot for even defending the counter-argument (which is the case much of the time).
This post, though, is nothing of the sort. Marketing campaigns are manipulative and evil, it's an undeniable truth. I think, though, better than being mad at abstract entities, we should try to inform ourselves about these manipulations, and so make informed decisions as consumers. And so, here are three misconceptions perpetrated by advetisements:
1) You need to wash your hair with shampoo every day:
This is one is kind of a personal battle, as I've officially gone without shampooing my hair or putting any product in it whatsoever for a year now. Aside from it smelling like hair, and not some lemon-fresh wonder bouquet of sent, I've had no complaints, and it actually looks a lot healthier than before. Without doing any real research, this is what I believe to be the trap of shampoo: First, we're raised on shampoo, which periodically strips all the natural oils from the hair and scalp. Second, our body compensates for this by producing way more oils on the scalp than it would normally. Third, we notice that, if we don't shampoo our hair, it becomes oily. Fourth: we conclude that our hair needs shampoo to look clean, and not greasy.
I've discovered for myself that within a month of not using shampoo all these oils can balance out to a normal equilibrium, at which point I realized that the whole shampoo thing is a fucking scam. The only reason to buy it would be to fix a problem that the shampoo itself created. To me, it sounds not a lot different than chemical dependence on cigarettes.
2) Antioxidants are always good for you:
Since I can remember, antioxidants have been touted as vital to any healthy diet. Billion dollar industries have emerged from this idea; 50 cent was able to sell people bottles of sugared water for over four dollars because of this idea. And so I was pretty surprised to find out that there's hardly been any conclusive evidence of a real medical benefit to antioxidants alone (source). Virtually everyone I can think of was fooled into believing in them (even my mom, who made me take vitamins), and now look where we are. There are entire stores devoted to selling vitamin supplements, and you can look down any aisle in a supermarket to see foods proudly claiming of their antioxidant enrichment (I should note that vitamins and antioxidants aren't the same thing; whether we actually should take vitamin supplements is another story).
What seems to be the case is that foods which commonly have antioxidants in them (fruits, vegetables) have lots of good shit in them for your health. There was then a highly illogical leap made from this fact to the idea that antioxidants alone prevent disease and are good for you.
3) The alcohol sold in hardware stores (not meant for drinking) will kill you:
Yes, the final product that they sell there will kill you; but that's only because the manufacturers have intentionally added toxic chemicals so that you won't drink it. It seems that there's all sorts of bureaucratic hoops that a company must go through before it can sell something which could be used as a drug. It's much easier to just add a toxic chemical into the mix and avoid the whole issue (source). So ostensibly the ethanol in there is actually intact if you have the chemistry know-how to extract it.
Admittedly, this isn't really a case of manipulative marketing. I just sort of tacked it on for interests sake. The article I linked to goes into more depth about the issue (it's not just alcohol that they do this with).
So there you have it, three reasons why, even if you don't participate in mass hatred orgies, it's generally a good idea to distrust anything advertised without doing a little independent research. I mean, everyone knows that ads lie, but I think real examples can drive the point home. At least it did for me.
Sunday, 27 March 2011
Hipsters Revisited
I don't want to belabour this topic too much. I realise that it's not as interesting to others as it is to me. It's mostly interesting to me because of my own vanity. I don't like the idea that the culture that I'm closest to (though don't identify with completely) is one that is mostly associated with negative qualities. I want to make clear though something that I might have been misleading about in my other hipster post: I have seen and acknowledge the existence of the kind of pretentious, douchey people that are generally called hipsters, and they really fucking annoy me.
But likewise I've met people who look like hipsters, enjoy their music, play in a band etc. but aren't pretentious elitist assholes, and in this lies the problem: Does not being a dickhead make you not a hipster? Or rather, is the enjoyment of the culture, style and sentiments of a certain demographic enough alone to make you a hipster?
It could be that you just can't be one without those negative attributes, but I don't think that's what it should be. If that's the case then the term hipster is nothing but a negative stereotype, designed to identify and mock a certain outgroup. It's not a particularly useful stereotype either, because, I would argue, you can take any group - for example jocks - and find within it as many ugly personalities as you would in a group of hipsters. You could find just as many people who take the creed of their specific group to extremes, and because of that become elitist, arrogant and generally annoying.
What would be a better use of the term, I think, would be a simple means of identifying certain tastes. It is not necessary that the term carry with it any appraisal of personality at all. If it were redefined in this way, then people like me wouldn't have to shy away from the label. Because really, if I were to identify with one culture, this is the one I would undoubtedly choose. But I can't, because to do so would be the same as calling myself a snob (or whatever else), and to say that I relate to the (annoying) extremes of this culture. Obviously I don't, and wouldn't want to, but because this negative stereotype of a hipster is the only one that exists, I know that from some perspectives I am equated with exactly that. And so, it is from vanity that I originally decided to take the title hipster upon myself. I thought that, by trying to associate the term with something less extreme, I might affect a small positive change in its meaning.
But likewise I've met people who look like hipsters, enjoy their music, play in a band etc. but aren't pretentious elitist assholes, and in this lies the problem: Does not being a dickhead make you not a hipster? Or rather, is the enjoyment of the culture, style and sentiments of a certain demographic enough alone to make you a hipster?
It could be that you just can't be one without those negative attributes, but I don't think that's what it should be. If that's the case then the term hipster is nothing but a negative stereotype, designed to identify and mock a certain outgroup. It's not a particularly useful stereotype either, because, I would argue, you can take any group - for example jocks - and find within it as many ugly personalities as you would in a group of hipsters. You could find just as many people who take the creed of their specific group to extremes, and because of that become elitist, arrogant and generally annoying.
What would be a better use of the term, I think, would be a simple means of identifying certain tastes. It is not necessary that the term carry with it any appraisal of personality at all. If it were redefined in this way, then people like me wouldn't have to shy away from the label. Because really, if I were to identify with one culture, this is the one I would undoubtedly choose. But I can't, because to do so would be the same as calling myself a snob (or whatever else), and to say that I relate to the (annoying) extremes of this culture. Obviously I don't, and wouldn't want to, but because this negative stereotype of a hipster is the only one that exists, I know that from some perspectives I am equated with exactly that. And so, it is from vanity that I originally decided to take the title hipster upon myself. I thought that, by trying to associate the term with something less extreme, I might affect a small positive change in its meaning.
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
Craigslist Scams
So my girlfriend and I are moving into a new place as of May 1st, and while we were looking around we were exposed to some of craiglists' finest fake apartment ads. We'd only apartment hunted once before, so initially we didn't know how to spot the obvious scams. If you look on the help page on the site it makes things pretty clear, but we didn't see that till after. Nevertheless the overall weirdness of these people, once they emailed us, was enough to turn us away, even though at the time we didn't know if they were scamming us or if they were just mentally challenged. Here's the first email we saw:
I was baffled by his strange grammar, and his use of phrases like "morose now" and "it is my gladness". Notice how he has supplied two reasons why he's not available to give us the keys in person. Being "now situated in London" wasn't convincing enough, so he added that he also happens to be in the middle of a "Crusade in West Africa" to give his story some credibility. And we're supposed to be further reassured because he "always stand[s] on his word". Regardless, I emailed him (or rather his "wife") back because of the incredibly low rent and the good location. This is what his wife sent back:
She went on to ask that fill out a "Rent Application Form" and send it to her. It was actually just 12 questions written in the email there was no attached document or place to sign, and the last question was "first and last month's deposit" , which isn't really a question at all. She ended with:
Now I understand why these two are husband and wife. They both have the same bizarre, convoluted and idiotic way of writing. I just don't understand this scam. Why is this person writing as if he/she is a five year old? Also, he could have at least tried to write in two distinct styles, or at least not in one so authentically weird style. I'm glad, though, that they're both so explicit about they're trust in me. Because of that I'm obviously going to ignore all the other suspicious stuff and go ahead and send them $1, 200.
I'd like to note that her name was Jessica Jackson, which is ridiculous when you realize that she made up the name. You'd think when making up a name you'd try and stay away from those that are basically a famous person's name (Jesse Jackson) changed around a little.
*edit* Also, what's even funnier than Jessica Jackson is the name of the husband, Gary Buck. It turns out that there is a real Gary Buck, and he's not a reverend but a Canadian country singer. This might be a coincidence, I'd never heard of the guy, so there's a chance that whoever emailed me hadn't either. But I like to think they chose the name as an homage to the late, great Gary Buck, CCMA hall of famer.
Thanks for your email and it is my gladness to hearing from you.I am Rev Gary Buck,the owner of the house you are making inquiring of.Actually I resided in the house with my family,such as my wife and my only daughter before and recently we had packed due to my transfer from my working place and now situated in the London in UK,and presently my house is still available for rent for $640 per month including the utilities like hydro,washer and security,it is furnished.Morose Now, i went for a Crusade in the West Africa and i will like you to get in touch with my wife in the state for more discussion as She is with the keys and the document to the house.Pl i want you to note that,i am a kind and honest man and also i spent a lot on my property that i want to give you for rent,so i will solicit for your absolute maintenance of this house and want you to treat it as your own,is that taken,it is not the money the main problem but want you to keep it tidy all the time so that i will be glad to see it neat when i came for a check up.i do that once in a while.I also want you to let me have trust in you as i always stand on my word.Where are you located and where do you see our advert also let us know if you need more pictures.
Address of the Condo :- 761 Bay St Toronto, ON, Canada
Email my wife Jessica on ( bryanjeff98@gmail.com ) and she will attends to you better.
Rev Gary Buck.
God Bless You.
I was baffled by his strange grammar, and his use of phrases like "morose now" and "it is my gladness". Notice how he has supplied two reasons why he's not available to give us the keys in person. Being "now situated in London" wasn't convincing enough, so he added that he also happens to be in the middle of a "Crusade in West Africa" to give his story some credibility. And we're supposed to be further reassured because he "always stand[s] on his word". Regardless, I emailed him (or rather his "wife") back because of the incredibly low rent and the good location. This is what his wife sent back:
Thanks for the email and also Yes, my husband in respect of Rev Gary Buck owned the apartment and also want you to know that t was due to my husband transfer that makes us to leave the apartment and also want to give it out for rent and looking for a responsible person that can take very good care of it as we are not after the money for the rent but want it to be clean at all time and the person that will rent it should take it as if it were its own.So for now,Am here in the London in UK, in our new house and also with the keys of the house,we try to look for an agent that we can give this document before we left but could not see and we are as well as don't want our house to be used any how in our absent that is why we took it along with us here and as you know that,my husband transfer to the West Africa for a mission of God,so i hope you will promise us to take very good care of the apartment....
She went on to ask that fill out a "Rent Application Form" and send it to her. It was actually just 12 questions written in the email there was no attached document or place to sign, and the last question was "first and last month's deposit" , which isn't really a question at all. She ended with:
Await your urgent reply so that we can discuss on how to get the documents and the keys to you,please we are giving you all this based on trust and again i want you to stick to your words,We are putting everything into God's hand,so please do not let us down in this property of ours and God bless you more as you do this.
Regards..
Now I understand why these two are husband and wife. They both have the same bizarre, convoluted and idiotic way of writing. I just don't understand this scam. Why is this person writing as if he/she is a five year old? Also, he could have at least tried to write in two distinct styles, or at least not in one so authentically weird style. I'm glad, though, that they're both so explicit about they're trust in me. Because of that I'm obviously going to ignore all the other suspicious stuff and go ahead and send them $1, 200.
I'd like to note that her name was Jessica Jackson, which is ridiculous when you realize that she made up the name. You'd think when making up a name you'd try and stay away from those that are basically a famous person's name (Jesse Jackson) changed around a little.
*edit* Also, what's even funnier than Jessica Jackson is the name of the husband, Gary Buck. It turns out that there is a real Gary Buck, and he's not a reverend but a Canadian country singer. This might be a coincidence, I'd never heard of the guy, so there's a chance that whoever emailed me hadn't either. But I like to think they chose the name as an homage to the late, great Gary Buck, CCMA hall of famer.
Thursday, 17 March 2011
The Problem of Induction
Ok, so this isn't a philosophy blog, and I'm not planning on overloading it with posts that require three years of university as a philosophy major to understand. That being said there's aspects of philosophy that actually are relevant to real life (even though most people seem to think otherwise). So bear with me here, I promise this is interesting...
Imagine you're at a beach and you want to skip rocks. You know for a fact that if you get a good, thin stone and throw it so that it spins the right way, it'll bounce on the water. Let's examine this a little: implicit in this knowledge are a myriad of smaller facts that you must have known first. For example, you had to know that dropping something will cause it to fall; and you had to know that the rock should be spinning, and should be thin. You may keep breaking down your knowledge into smaller and smaller facts, but you will never reduce it to a fact that you did not discover through experience. The point is this: everything you know about the way the world works is a product of your past experience.
Whenever you draw from past experience you're relying on an idea. That is, if you know some A caused some B, then A will cause B in all present and future times. Assume that A implies the exact same scenario every time; so, if A, you throw the same rock, at the same angle, at the same place, with the same force etc, then you know that B, it will bounce on the water the same amount of times, every time.
But where did this idea come from? Obviously, you couldn't have drawn it from experience, because any inference from experience requires this idea. Maybe, through rational argument, you can arrive at the idea. Let's think about that: imagine the skipping rock again. Is there any inherent contradiction in the idea that the next time you skip the rock it will, say, fly into the air and hit a seagull? The answer should be no. The only reason you'd say you know that won't happen is because of past experience. But this relies on the idea itself (that if A caused B in the past, A will cause B in all present and future events). Since thinking the opposite of the idea doesn't imply a contradiction, the idea can't be deduced through rational deduction.
And there you have the problem of induction. Basically what it means is that there is no such thing as a fact drawn from experience. Even knowledge you would bet your life on, for example that the sun will rise tomorrow, can never be 100% certain. All knowledge relies on this idea that can't be proven through experience or through rational argument. In other words, it is an assumption. An important and unavoidable assumption, since, without it we can't really interact with the world, but an assumption nonetheless.
So what's the significance of this? None really in day to day life. Interesting to know, though, that you can never really prove you won't suddenly slip right through the concrete while walking down the sidewalk, or any other ridiculous thing you care to imagine. It's also the reason that, in science, everything must be called a theory. Take the theory of evolution: with the overwhelming evidence to support it, you might say there's a 99.99999% chance of it being true, but you can never say it's a fact. Facts from experience, if 100% chance of truth is your definition of a fact, don't actually exist.
*Basically everything I wrote here was stolen from David Hume's An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding*
Imagine you're at a beach and you want to skip rocks. You know for a fact that if you get a good, thin stone and throw it so that it spins the right way, it'll bounce on the water. Let's examine this a little: implicit in this knowledge are a myriad of smaller facts that you must have known first. For example, you had to know that dropping something will cause it to fall; and you had to know that the rock should be spinning, and should be thin. You may keep breaking down your knowledge into smaller and smaller facts, but you will never reduce it to a fact that you did not discover through experience. The point is this: everything you know about the way the world works is a product of your past experience.
Whenever you draw from past experience you're relying on an idea. That is, if you know some A caused some B, then A will cause B in all present and future times. Assume that A implies the exact same scenario every time; so, if A, you throw the same rock, at the same angle, at the same place, with the same force etc, then you know that B, it will bounce on the water the same amount of times, every time.
But where did this idea come from? Obviously, you couldn't have drawn it from experience, because any inference from experience requires this idea. Maybe, through rational argument, you can arrive at the idea. Let's think about that: imagine the skipping rock again. Is there any inherent contradiction in the idea that the next time you skip the rock it will, say, fly into the air and hit a seagull? The answer should be no. The only reason you'd say you know that won't happen is because of past experience. But this relies on the idea itself (that if A caused B in the past, A will cause B in all present and future events). Since thinking the opposite of the idea doesn't imply a contradiction, the idea can't be deduced through rational deduction.
And there you have the problem of induction. Basically what it means is that there is no such thing as a fact drawn from experience. Even knowledge you would bet your life on, for example that the sun will rise tomorrow, can never be 100% certain. All knowledge relies on this idea that can't be proven through experience or through rational argument. In other words, it is an assumption. An important and unavoidable assumption, since, without it we can't really interact with the world, but an assumption nonetheless.
So what's the significance of this? None really in day to day life. Interesting to know, though, that you can never really prove you won't suddenly slip right through the concrete while walking down the sidewalk, or any other ridiculous thing you care to imagine. It's also the reason that, in science, everything must be called a theory. Take the theory of evolution: with the overwhelming evidence to support it, you might say there's a 99.99999% chance of it being true, but you can never say it's a fact. Facts from experience, if 100% chance of truth is your definition of a fact, don't actually exist.
*Basically everything I wrote here was stolen from David Hume's An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding*
Wednesday, 16 March 2011
Fighting
As a kid I never got into any real fights. I played rough with my brother and my friends and certainly we hurt each other from time to time. In fact, the first bone I ever broke was in my hand when I collided it into someone's hip-bone in a karate-chop. But I never actually came to blows with anyone. You know, put all my weight in a punch and felt whose ever head it was cave in. Likewise, I've never felt my head get caved in. It's not that I'm particularly eager to but there are a couple of reasons why I'd like to get into a fight.
(1) It sounds stupid and dated, but I feel like it's a right of passage. I don't by into most of the bullshit from 1950's Americana about what it entails to be a man (most of it is just blatant sexism), but I won't deny that some of it has been internalized in me. I have this idea that back then every boy would one day get in a fight at school and be brought to his father, all bruised up. His father would bend down on one knee, put his hand on his shoulder, stare into his eyes and say "Son, you're a man now." It didn't matter if he won or lost, it was just something that he needed to do. Now here I am, 20 years old, and I haven't been in a fight. I feel like I'm depriving myself of an essential experience of growing up.
(2) I'd like to know what I'm made of. I mean this in two ways really. It's a common practice of mine to be walking down the street and imagine "hey, what would happen if I punched that guy?" or "if I jumped that group of guys, I wonder if I could put up a fight?" I think most guys who have never been in a fight secretly imagine they'd be good fighters. It's hard not to when you're such a good fighter in your head. For me it's always a mix of imagining me doing all this cool shit, and trying to convince the rational part of my brain that I could actually do those things. I'm sure for this reason that getting into a fight would be a humbling and disappointing experience; but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Also, though, I'd like to know what I'm made of in the sense that I want to get a feel for my own durability. I want to know my body's own capacity for damage. It doesn't have to be damage from a fight either. People say that when you're a kid you feel like you're immortal, like nothing can hurt you; I think in a sense it's the opposite. When you're a kid you have a keen sense of your mortality, that is, you know exactly how resilient your body really is. Doing things like wrestling, climbing, generally falling over, hitting each other with sticks will give you that knowledge. A child's blase attitude towards danger isn't because he's careless, but because he does that kind of shit all the time. He knows much more intimately what could happen to him if he fucks up.
I was always fortunate in that I never hurt myself that bad, but this has lead me to a dilemma now. I've gotten in the habit of, whenever I do something marginally dangerous - like run down a flight of stairs - imagining the worst possible outcome of the situation. In the case of the stairs, tripping and flying face first into the ground (it's the worst with concrete). As kids we would do things like ride down the stairs on blankets, climb sheer cliff face, jump off high things for no reason. We weren't afraid because we knew we could handle it and that our bodies could handle it should things go astray. Now, having gone so long without serious injury, I sometimes feel like any little slip up could land me in a morgue. This is where getting into a fight could help me. I feel like being in a real brawl, a true test of my endurance, would let me know exactly how much I could withstand. It would be a moment I could look back on when descending the stairs and think "if my body could handle that, it can handle a little fall down some steps."
Then again, people die from that kind of thing all the time.
(1) It sounds stupid and dated, but I feel like it's a right of passage. I don't by into most of the bullshit from 1950's Americana about what it entails to be a man (most of it is just blatant sexism), but I won't deny that some of it has been internalized in me. I have this idea that back then every boy would one day get in a fight at school and be brought to his father, all bruised up. His father would bend down on one knee, put his hand on his shoulder, stare into his eyes and say "Son, you're a man now." It didn't matter if he won or lost, it was just something that he needed to do. Now here I am, 20 years old, and I haven't been in a fight. I feel like I'm depriving myself of an essential experience of growing up.
(2) I'd like to know what I'm made of. I mean this in two ways really. It's a common practice of mine to be walking down the street and imagine "hey, what would happen if I punched that guy?" or "if I jumped that group of guys, I wonder if I could put up a fight?" I think most guys who have never been in a fight secretly imagine they'd be good fighters. It's hard not to when you're such a good fighter in your head. For me it's always a mix of imagining me doing all this cool shit, and trying to convince the rational part of my brain that I could actually do those things. I'm sure for this reason that getting into a fight would be a humbling and disappointing experience; but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Also, though, I'd like to know what I'm made of in the sense that I want to get a feel for my own durability. I want to know my body's own capacity for damage. It doesn't have to be damage from a fight either. People say that when you're a kid you feel like you're immortal, like nothing can hurt you; I think in a sense it's the opposite. When you're a kid you have a keen sense of your mortality, that is, you know exactly how resilient your body really is. Doing things like wrestling, climbing, generally falling over, hitting each other with sticks will give you that knowledge. A child's blase attitude towards danger isn't because he's careless, but because he does that kind of shit all the time. He knows much more intimately what could happen to him if he fucks up.
I was always fortunate in that I never hurt myself that bad, but this has lead me to a dilemma now. I've gotten in the habit of, whenever I do something marginally dangerous - like run down a flight of stairs - imagining the worst possible outcome of the situation. In the case of the stairs, tripping and flying face first into the ground (it's the worst with concrete). As kids we would do things like ride down the stairs on blankets, climb sheer cliff face, jump off high things for no reason. We weren't afraid because we knew we could handle it and that our bodies could handle it should things go astray. Now, having gone so long without serious injury, I sometimes feel like any little slip up could land me in a morgue. This is where getting into a fight could help me. I feel like being in a real brawl, a true test of my endurance, would let me know exactly how much I could withstand. It would be a moment I could look back on when descending the stairs and think "if my body could handle that, it can handle a little fall down some steps."
Then again, people die from that kind of thing all the time.
Friday, 11 March 2011
Hipsters
I think it's time that I weighed in on the whole hipster thing. Since their inception they've been widely ridiculed; even their Wikipedia article is mostly devoted to criticism of the culture. Their defenders are few, and are drowned out by the loud, and getting louder, voices of those who see them as easy targets for jokes and derision. Their use as a punchline has been so overdone at this point that it's becoming less funny and more boring; but nevertheless, I think it's useful to speak out in their defense (as a side note, I read this article as research before writing, it says everything I could hope to say and more, so you should probably read that).
Before I even knew the term hipster I was aware of the trend. Back in highschool there seemed to be disdain for anything 'indie' and those 'indie kids' ; for me it was mostly as a reason to keep private about my burgeoning music taste (mostly Grizzly Bear, Wilco and Animal Collective). I was concerned with distancing myself from 'emo' kids which my musical preference strayed dangerously close to; but I always maintained that I was not emo because I didn't like bands like Death Cab, or Panic! At the Disco, or Blink 182 in their later years (In my weakest moments I may have crooned along with Elliot Smith a little).
But distancing myself from the right bands became more difficult when indie music became a movement in its own right, one that I was well in the middle of. I was caught up in angst trying to make the tricky distinction between the right indie bands and the wrong indie bands. I remember a pivotal moment when I denounced the Arcade Fire as too pretentious after seeing one of their music videos, without so much as listening to a full track.
Then I went off to university and (after an extended Bob Dylan phase) I began sampling the territory of indie music once again. This time, however, I was free from whatever influences I had internalized in highschool and could finally decide what I liked on its own merit as music. Much of this, it turned out, was the music of hipsters, and so, before I could so much as identify a hipster, I was immersed in their music. It wasn't till after my first year of university that I could fully formulate an idea of the typical hipster.
This led to another crisis point where I was faced with a dissonance between the bands that I loved and my feelings towards the image of the hipster. This time I was stronger though; I had conviction about what I liked in music, and what I knew was good; the ghost of the hipster could not sway me. Yet I still distanced myself from the image; I reasoned that even though I identified with their music, the definition of hipster was multifaceted and I did not satisfy that definition.
This, however, is the same reason that no one identifies with the definition of the hipster. It is the result of maximizing, to the point of absurdity, those attributes which are common in most of the West's urban youth: interest in music and art maximized to pretentiousness and elitism; liberal and 'green' tendencies maximized to snobbishness; following cultural fashion trends maximized to conformity (and overall looking ridiculous); indiscretion with drugs and sex maximized to hedonism. It is true that some people exhibit one or two of these maximums; but I have never seen (and I would love to see) someone who conforms to all of them, and so, fulfills the true hipster stereotype.
Do I fit into the hipster image then? Let's see: I've experimented with writing poetry and fiction, I'm a philosophy major in University of Toronto, I'm open to drugs and drinking, I've been called a hipster because of the way I was dressed, I like lots of 'hipster bands', I'm 20 years old, I have liberal tendencies, I come from a well-off family, I study with my laptop in coffee shops, and to top it all off, I'm writing in a blog right now. It would be hard to deny that I am a hipster.
And yet, for people who know me, so far from the true hipster that everyone imagines. The reason is because the true hipster is an invention of those who seek to hold anger towards today's youth. It takes what is unique and interesting from the culture and distorts it, and takes what is ugly from the culture and magnifies it, until you have a concept which no one can identify with, and so everyone hates. That is why you will never find anyone who will call himself a hipster. So, as the beginning of a revolution, I willfully take on the title so that there is someone to defend it, so that there is someone who will serve as the example of what a real hipster is, so that the term might incorporate what is good about the culture, and not just the bad.
*edit* I just realised that I wrote the Arcade Fire, when it should have just been Arcade Fire. Funny that I've managed to shatter my hipster cred so soon after my self-indoctrination into their ranks
*edit* Also, despite what I said, I do find hipster jokes to be funny most of the time.
Before I even knew the term hipster I was aware of the trend. Back in highschool there seemed to be disdain for anything 'indie' and those 'indie kids' ; for me it was mostly as a reason to keep private about my burgeoning music taste (mostly Grizzly Bear, Wilco and Animal Collective). I was concerned with distancing myself from 'emo' kids which my musical preference strayed dangerously close to; but I always maintained that I was not emo because I didn't like bands like Death Cab, or Panic! At the Disco, or Blink 182 in their later years (In my weakest moments I may have crooned along with Elliot Smith a little).
But distancing myself from the right bands became more difficult when indie music became a movement in its own right, one that I was well in the middle of. I was caught up in angst trying to make the tricky distinction between the right indie bands and the wrong indie bands. I remember a pivotal moment when I denounced the Arcade Fire as too pretentious after seeing one of their music videos, without so much as listening to a full track.
Then I went off to university and (after an extended Bob Dylan phase) I began sampling the territory of indie music once again. This time, however, I was free from whatever influences I had internalized in highschool and could finally decide what I liked on its own merit as music. Much of this, it turned out, was the music of hipsters, and so, before I could so much as identify a hipster, I was immersed in their music. It wasn't till after my first year of university that I could fully formulate an idea of the typical hipster.
This led to another crisis point where I was faced with a dissonance between the bands that I loved and my feelings towards the image of the hipster. This time I was stronger though; I had conviction about what I liked in music, and what I knew was good; the ghost of the hipster could not sway me. Yet I still distanced myself from the image; I reasoned that even though I identified with their music, the definition of hipster was multifaceted and I did not satisfy that definition.
This, however, is the same reason that no one identifies with the definition of the hipster. It is the result of maximizing, to the point of absurdity, those attributes which are common in most of the West's urban youth: interest in music and art maximized to pretentiousness and elitism; liberal and 'green' tendencies maximized to snobbishness; following cultural fashion trends maximized to conformity (and overall looking ridiculous); indiscretion with drugs and sex maximized to hedonism. It is true that some people exhibit one or two of these maximums; but I have never seen (and I would love to see) someone who conforms to all of them, and so, fulfills the true hipster stereotype.
Do I fit into the hipster image then? Let's see: I've experimented with writing poetry and fiction, I'm a philosophy major in University of Toronto, I'm open to drugs and drinking, I've been called a hipster because of the way I was dressed, I like lots of 'hipster bands', I'm 20 years old, I have liberal tendencies, I come from a well-off family, I study with my laptop in coffee shops, and to top it all off, I'm writing in a blog right now. It would be hard to deny that I am a hipster.
And yet, for people who know me, so far from the true hipster that everyone imagines. The reason is because the true hipster is an invention of those who seek to hold anger towards today's youth. It takes what is unique and interesting from the culture and distorts it, and takes what is ugly from the culture and magnifies it, until you have a concept which no one can identify with, and so everyone hates. That is why you will never find anyone who will call himself a hipster. So, as the beginning of a revolution, I willfully take on the title so that there is someone to defend it, so that there is someone who will serve as the example of what a real hipster is, so that the term might incorporate what is good about the culture, and not just the bad.
*edit* I just realised that I wrote the Arcade Fire, when it should have just been Arcade Fire. Funny that I've managed to shatter my hipster cred so soon after my self-indoctrination into their ranks
*edit* Also, despite what I said, I do find hipster jokes to be funny most of the time.
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
The Internet is a stupid place...
This isn't really news to anyone; we all know about lolcats and trolls and whatever dumb internet memes you care to think of. Those are dumb in the sense that they're intentionally silly, but being a frequent peruser of the internet means you have to constantly to be on guard for another kind of dumb: the really actually dumb. Here's two examples:
This sleep infographic which I found while stumbling is a fine example of why infographics are generally bullshit statistics dressed up with fancy graphs and cartoons. It doesn't take long to find out that whoever made this basically made up numbers on the spot. The first statistic, in fact, states that not sleeping will double your chance of breast cancer and then goes on to state that your risk of breast cancer will increase by 200%. This isn't even a matter of bad statistics, it's a matter of bad (terrible) math. Doubling does not equal an increase of 200%; an increase of 100% would be double. An increase of 200% is equivalent to tripling the amount. But, what's even worse is that we're talking about risk (probability), which is already measured in percentage. What this graphic would lead me to believe, then, is that without sleep my risk of breast cancer should increase by 200% on top of the original. Say I originally had a risk of 1% then, without sleep, my risk of getting breast cancer should increase to 201%. I think that speaks for itself.
Just to drive this point home, the graph also says that without enough sleep your risk of dying in the next 20 years increases by 20%. There's no reference here. I'm 20 years old, so I'll be 40 in 20 years; but what if I was 50 and reading the same article? A 20% chance of dying at 70? Maybe. But I'd like to believe that I have less than a 20% chance of dying at the age of 40 even if I tend to wake up early, call me an optimistic.
Whoever makes these things probably has some sort of source; I think the problem is that they misread and misreport whatever source they have. The fact that this author in particular lacked basic arithmetical knowledge says a lot about how trustworthy his information is.
My second example is this article by the BBC, with the amazing headline Are humans still evolving by Darwin's natural selection? I love that it's Darwin's natural selection, as if there are other kinds, but this one belongs to him. It's so sad that this is on the BBC, which is supposed to be a reputable news source, and that this is considered news. This whole article stems from a blatant misunderstanding of natural selection:
1. we need to be able to reproduce
2. we need to be able to die
So long as we're having children, and passing on our genes, and some of us are dying before we can pass on our genes, we will be constantly evolving as a species. Natural selection is completely compatible with the idea that animals interact with and affect their environment, technology being an example of such an interaction (see Wikipedia's article on fitness).
In fact, we don't even need to be able to die. So long as we're reproducing we're effectively making a choice about which offspring to bring into the future, and so long as there's that choice (i.e. not all possible offspring are brought into existence), natural selection is inevitable.
I'm not really going anywhere with this. I'm not about to go on a never ending endeavor to try and correct all the misinformation on the internet. But, if there's something to take away from this it's that you can't trust anything on the internet. Check sources, cross examine, etc. etc.
This sleep infographic which I found while stumbling is a fine example of why infographics are generally bullshit statistics dressed up with fancy graphs and cartoons. It doesn't take long to find out that whoever made this basically made up numbers on the spot. The first statistic, in fact, states that not sleeping will double your chance of breast cancer and then goes on to state that your risk of breast cancer will increase by 200%. This isn't even a matter of bad statistics, it's a matter of bad (terrible) math. Doubling does not equal an increase of 200%; an increase of 100% would be double. An increase of 200% is equivalent to tripling the amount. But, what's even worse is that we're talking about risk (probability), which is already measured in percentage. What this graphic would lead me to believe, then, is that without sleep my risk of breast cancer should increase by 200% on top of the original. Say I originally had a risk of 1% then, without sleep, my risk of getting breast cancer should increase to 201%. I think that speaks for itself.
Just to drive this point home, the graph also says that without enough sleep your risk of dying in the next 20 years increases by 20%. There's no reference here. I'm 20 years old, so I'll be 40 in 20 years; but what if I was 50 and reading the same article? A 20% chance of dying at 70? Maybe. But I'd like to believe that I have less than a 20% chance of dying at the age of 40 even if I tend to wake up early, call me an optimistic.
Whoever makes these things probably has some sort of source; I think the problem is that they misread and misreport whatever source they have. The fact that this author in particular lacked basic arithmetical knowledge says a lot about how trustworthy his information is.
My second example is this article by the BBC, with the amazing headline Are humans still evolving by Darwin's natural selection? I love that it's Darwin's natural selection, as if there are other kinds, but this one belongs to him. It's so sad that this is on the BBC, which is supposed to be a reputable news source, and that this is considered news. This whole article stems from a blatant misunderstanding of natural selection:
"So clearly our technology and inventions didn't stop us evolving in the past. But what about today?"It asks, as if technology really had anything to do with it. Here are the two requirements we as a species need for natural selection to take place:
1. we need to be able to reproduce
2. we need to be able to die
So long as we're having children, and passing on our genes, and some of us are dying before we can pass on our genes, we will be constantly evolving as a species. Natural selection is completely compatible with the idea that animals interact with and affect their environment, technology being an example of such an interaction (see Wikipedia's article on fitness).
In fact, we don't even need to be able to die. So long as we're reproducing we're effectively making a choice about which offspring to bring into the future, and so long as there's that choice (i.e. not all possible offspring are brought into existence), natural selection is inevitable.
I'm not really going anywhere with this. I'm not about to go on a never ending endeavor to try and correct all the misinformation on the internet. But, if there's something to take away from this it's that you can't trust anything on the internet. Check sources, cross examine, etc. etc.
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Marriage
Atheism was the norm with the people I grew up with (friends, family, schoolmates), and because of that indulgence in feelings of superiority over the 'unenlightened' was pretty common. It was both easy and popular to place the majority of blame for any misdirection in our society on the devoutly religious. In fact, many of the people I knew who gleefully denounced religious practice were the same kind of people who, in a different time, would probably embrace religion the most wholeheartedly. I myself am an atheist, but that's beside the point, and this is an article about marriage anyways, not religion.
But the questioning of religion brings with it the questioning of all religious institutions, marriage being one of them. Combine that with the woefully high divorce rates in North America, and it's pretty easy to form an anti-marriage argument: What is the meaning of commitment through marriage when you don't think the commitment will likely be honoured? And why get married at all if there's a good chance it will end poorly?
I believe that the answer to both of these questions has to do with the need to reevaluate the meaning of marriage in our society. Marriage in its current state is an artifact of an older generation and a different set of values, and it was with those values that it made sense; it was only when we moved away from them that the incidence of divorce rose to the level that it is now. Now, by many marks our society is much improved over our grandparents and great-grandparents, especially in terms of gender equality and the relationship between men and women, and yet the state of marriage has only gone downhill. The obvious objection to this is that there was probably as many unhappy marriages back then, but only less divorce, because of the stigma against it, and the difficulty attaining one. But this is precisely why I believe that these marriages were happier. The key to a happy marriage is that both spouses have the will to be happy with each other, something which would be more likely when the partners are, in a sense, stuck together.
Take, as another example, arranged marriages; here the spouses have little to no say in who they marry. They are usually marriages borne out of the pragmatism of joining two families and yet (I read this in my psych 101 textbook) their marriages have been shown to increase in happiness over time. In contrast, in the same graph, modern marriages of love were shown to peak in happiness early (around the three year mark) and plummet drastically afterwards.
I'm not here suggesting that we should abolish divorce or bring back arranged marriages. I believe in the importance of freedom of choice. And yet, there is something implicit in both these situations that modern day marriages are missing: loving your spouse isn't an option.
Society today is so suffused with the idea of the one true love, love as an immortal, eternal feeling, that even fully grown adults enter into marriage with the idea that they'll feel that way about their spouse forever. This is the folly of modern marriage, and this is why so many marriages are doomed to fail. There is a specific type of love, passionate love, which most people in relationships are still gushily wrapped up in when they decide to get married. Unfortunately, passion dries up pretty quickly, and by the three year mark the spouses are left wondering if they made some terrible mistake.
Compare this with an arranged marriage, where the passionate love wasn't there in the first place, and the problem ceases to exist. Instead both spouses, knowing their commitment to be together, regardless of their compatibility, make a conscious effort to see one another in the best possible light, and make the best of their marriage. So, instead of evaluating their spouse based on some ephemeral feeling, they slowly grow in fondness of one another by gathering positive assessments together in the idea of their partner. I can only imagine that in a marriage without divorce as an option the same positive assessment would take place, as a necessity.
How can we bring these ideas into a society where arranged marriages are seen as barbaric, and divorces are a very real option? My answer is with knowledge of what a marriage is, and what exactly to expect. Passionate love is great and fun, but should never be mistaken for the true reason for marriage: it's an institution meant to build a lasting bond over time so that you will always have someone to depend on. Parents grow old and pass away, families become distant, and marriage becomes a new way in which you can care and be cared for. (And of course, it's the foundation for a family of your own)
The idea that you made the wrong choice is irrelevant, so is whether or not you are still 'in love'. There is no correct choice in marriage, and you must work for your love. Granted, sometimes one partner will fail in their commitments through lack of emotional availability, adultery, whatever, and in such a case, the commitment to marriage effectively becomes severed.This is why divorce needs to exist as an option. But, so long as both spouses are firm in their commitments, which can only be attained by first knowing what those commitments are, I believe that marriage can be a good thing, even in our modern times.
But the questioning of religion brings with it the questioning of all religious institutions, marriage being one of them. Combine that with the woefully high divorce rates in North America, and it's pretty easy to form an anti-marriage argument: What is the meaning of commitment through marriage when you don't think the commitment will likely be honoured? And why get married at all if there's a good chance it will end poorly?
I believe that the answer to both of these questions has to do with the need to reevaluate the meaning of marriage in our society. Marriage in its current state is an artifact of an older generation and a different set of values, and it was with those values that it made sense; it was only when we moved away from them that the incidence of divorce rose to the level that it is now. Now, by many marks our society is much improved over our grandparents and great-grandparents, especially in terms of gender equality and the relationship between men and women, and yet the state of marriage has only gone downhill. The obvious objection to this is that there was probably as many unhappy marriages back then, but only less divorce, because of the stigma against it, and the difficulty attaining one. But this is precisely why I believe that these marriages were happier. The key to a happy marriage is that both spouses have the will to be happy with each other, something which would be more likely when the partners are, in a sense, stuck together.
Take, as another example, arranged marriages; here the spouses have little to no say in who they marry. They are usually marriages borne out of the pragmatism of joining two families and yet (I read this in my psych 101 textbook) their marriages have been shown to increase in happiness over time. In contrast, in the same graph, modern marriages of love were shown to peak in happiness early (around the three year mark) and plummet drastically afterwards.
I'm not here suggesting that we should abolish divorce or bring back arranged marriages. I believe in the importance of freedom of choice. And yet, there is something implicit in both these situations that modern day marriages are missing: loving your spouse isn't an option.
Society today is so suffused with the idea of the one true love, love as an immortal, eternal feeling, that even fully grown adults enter into marriage with the idea that they'll feel that way about their spouse forever. This is the folly of modern marriage, and this is why so many marriages are doomed to fail. There is a specific type of love, passionate love, which most people in relationships are still gushily wrapped up in when they decide to get married. Unfortunately, passion dries up pretty quickly, and by the three year mark the spouses are left wondering if they made some terrible mistake.
Compare this with an arranged marriage, where the passionate love wasn't there in the first place, and the problem ceases to exist. Instead both spouses, knowing their commitment to be together, regardless of their compatibility, make a conscious effort to see one another in the best possible light, and make the best of their marriage. So, instead of evaluating their spouse based on some ephemeral feeling, they slowly grow in fondness of one another by gathering positive assessments together in the idea of their partner. I can only imagine that in a marriage without divorce as an option the same positive assessment would take place, as a necessity.
How can we bring these ideas into a society where arranged marriages are seen as barbaric, and divorces are a very real option? My answer is with knowledge of what a marriage is, and what exactly to expect. Passionate love is great and fun, but should never be mistaken for the true reason for marriage: it's an institution meant to build a lasting bond over time so that you will always have someone to depend on. Parents grow old and pass away, families become distant, and marriage becomes a new way in which you can care and be cared for. (And of course, it's the foundation for a family of your own)
The idea that you made the wrong choice is irrelevant, so is whether or not you are still 'in love'. There is no correct choice in marriage, and you must work for your love. Granted, sometimes one partner will fail in their commitments through lack of emotional availability, adultery, whatever, and in such a case, the commitment to marriage effectively becomes severed.This is why divorce needs to exist as an option. But, so long as both spouses are firm in their commitments, which can only be attained by first knowing what those commitments are, I believe that marriage can be a good thing, even in our modern times.
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
Album Length
I watched an interview of Wilco's frontman Jeff Tweedy not too long ago, and he made an interesting point about album length: "The length of a record... somehow is pleasing," he says, referring to your average time of, say, 45 minutes to an hour on an album. The statement was meant as a possible counter argument to the idea that society is moving towards only buying singles, and not full albums. The length of a release is dictated by the medium, sure, and now that we have the internet, musicians don't have to conform releases to the length that can fit on a record (something, I might add, that was fairly antiquated before the internet); but, Tweedy claims, even before the record, that specific length can be found in classical works. It's a 'magical' length and he is hopeful that it will continue into the age of the internet.
Is his statement about classical music true, though? Admittedly, I don't know much about classical music, but with a brief look at the length of Beethoven's symphonies you can see that they average at around 40 minutes in length; which is exactly what you'd be looking for if you were trying to prove Tweedy's point. Obviously, as a late Baroque composer, Beethoven is only evidence that there might have been a trend towards that length in that brief moment of time in which he existed, which is only a small fraction of the several centuries of classical music. But, it's still proof that this length has some appeal aside from the desire to fit a body of work onto a record.
What I find interesting, though, is that Beethoven didn't only write symphonies: he wrote Sonatas and Concertos (which is all I can think of, but I'm sure there's many other types) all of varying lengths and intensities. He wrote 9 symphonies, which is as many albums as most prolific bands will release, but also many smaller stand alone works. The symphonies (it seems to me) were each intended to be a sort of magnum opus, the most intense and broad in scope, while his other works served as a more free form of musical exploration. These alternate outlets of music would be less stressful to produce, and less emblematic of Beethoven's musicianship. A kind of sandbox where each piece could be released without the fear of judgement of overall musical integrity. At the same time, it could provide a sort of critical forum where musicians and critics could assess one another, help each other grow, etc.
This kind of release would be a pretty foreign concept in the modern world of music. To my knowledge, there's basically three types of releases: the single, the EP and the LP. Only music critics and hard-core fans listen to EPs, which are usually unpolished and contain only the single and two other tracks that will appear in the album anyways. Which means that, if you don't listen to singles (which I'll get to in a moment), you only listen to the albums. Consequently a band is judged entirely by its main output, it's relative to the symphony, the album.
I'm sympathetic to the kind of pressure this puts on the artists, especially established ones; every output will be scrutinized and picked apart by critics, and will essentially redefine the band in the eyes of the audience. Where judgements like 'I liked there first album better' are common, what is basically meant is I liked this band's old music better, and I don't believe they are capable of making music like it anymore.
Singles are no better for two reasons: (1) they're on the album anyways, so they really only supply less criteria for the band to be judged and (2) a lot of the time the single is definitely not the best song on the album. It's a fairly obvious idea that the song that is picked because it is most accessible, i.e. it will appeal to the most people, is probably not the most interesting and musically good song on the album (though I don't know exactly what that means).
And so I'm against only listening to singles, but I don't like the idea of artists being judged solely on their albums either. This is were Radiohead's newest album King of Limbs, which dropped suddenly two Sundays ago, comes in. It seems to me that this album is something like what I'm talking about; it was obviously not intended to be any kind of magnum opus, clocking in at 37 minutes, if I remember. It's pretty short for an album, but it's much more polished than an EP. A brief, well developed theme runs through and it works well as a cohesive whole. This kind of mediator between EP and LP is something I'd like to see more of in bands. Something that doesn't come with the hype of a full album, but is more interesting than a single.
I think Tweedy was right when he said there was something inherently pleasing in the length of an album. As long as a bands are willing to fill that length with provocative content that works as a whole (no filler), then it certainly can be magical. But, the medium of records was also a trapping for a lot of artists. Sometimes even the best musicians don't have anything to contribute past the 30 minute mark, or less. Which is why, now that everything's electronic, the artists are free to release exactly the product they want. Which is, in my opinion, a boon to modern music.
*edit* A funny coincidence I recently discovered (I don't remember where) is that the first CD's were arbitrarily designed to have a length of 72 minutes so that they could contain the longest recording of Beethoven's 9th symphony. I guess I must have been on to something with that whole Beethoven thing...
Is his statement about classical music true, though? Admittedly, I don't know much about classical music, but with a brief look at the length of Beethoven's symphonies you can see that they average at around 40 minutes in length; which is exactly what you'd be looking for if you were trying to prove Tweedy's point. Obviously, as a late Baroque composer, Beethoven is only evidence that there might have been a trend towards that length in that brief moment of time in which he existed, which is only a small fraction of the several centuries of classical music. But, it's still proof that this length has some appeal aside from the desire to fit a body of work onto a record.
What I find interesting, though, is that Beethoven didn't only write symphonies: he wrote Sonatas and Concertos (which is all I can think of, but I'm sure there's many other types) all of varying lengths and intensities. He wrote 9 symphonies, which is as many albums as most prolific bands will release, but also many smaller stand alone works. The symphonies (it seems to me) were each intended to be a sort of magnum opus, the most intense and broad in scope, while his other works served as a more free form of musical exploration. These alternate outlets of music would be less stressful to produce, and less emblematic of Beethoven's musicianship. A kind of sandbox where each piece could be released without the fear of judgement of overall musical integrity. At the same time, it could provide a sort of critical forum where musicians and critics could assess one another, help each other grow, etc.
This kind of release would be a pretty foreign concept in the modern world of music. To my knowledge, there's basically three types of releases: the single, the EP and the LP. Only music critics and hard-core fans listen to EPs, which are usually unpolished and contain only the single and two other tracks that will appear in the album anyways. Which means that, if you don't listen to singles (which I'll get to in a moment), you only listen to the albums. Consequently a band is judged entirely by its main output, it's relative to the symphony, the album.
I'm sympathetic to the kind of pressure this puts on the artists, especially established ones; every output will be scrutinized and picked apart by critics, and will essentially redefine the band in the eyes of the audience. Where judgements like 'I liked there first album better' are common, what is basically meant is I liked this band's old music better, and I don't believe they are capable of making music like it anymore.
Singles are no better for two reasons: (1) they're on the album anyways, so they really only supply less criteria for the band to be judged and (2) a lot of the time the single is definitely not the best song on the album. It's a fairly obvious idea that the song that is picked because it is most accessible, i.e. it will appeal to the most people, is probably not the most interesting and musically good song on the album (though I don't know exactly what that means).
And so I'm against only listening to singles, but I don't like the idea of artists being judged solely on their albums either. This is were Radiohead's newest album King of Limbs, which dropped suddenly two Sundays ago, comes in. It seems to me that this album is something like what I'm talking about; it was obviously not intended to be any kind of magnum opus, clocking in at 37 minutes, if I remember. It's pretty short for an album, but it's much more polished than an EP. A brief, well developed theme runs through and it works well as a cohesive whole. This kind of mediator between EP and LP is something I'd like to see more of in bands. Something that doesn't come with the hype of a full album, but is more interesting than a single.
I think Tweedy was right when he said there was something inherently pleasing in the length of an album. As long as a bands are willing to fill that length with provocative content that works as a whole (no filler), then it certainly can be magical. But, the medium of records was also a trapping for a lot of artists. Sometimes even the best musicians don't have anything to contribute past the 30 minute mark, or less. Which is why, now that everything's electronic, the artists are free to release exactly the product they want. Which is, in my opinion, a boon to modern music.
*edit* A funny coincidence I recently discovered (I don't remember where) is that the first CD's were arbitrarily designed to have a length of 72 minutes so that they could contain the longest recording of Beethoven's 9th symphony. I guess I must have been on to something with that whole Beethoven thing...
Baseless Doubt
I just had an argument with my girlfriend about the correct time; it was the microwave clock v. the oven clock v. my phone clock v. her iphone clock. I sided with the oven which I've always trusted to be correct, and was quickly beaten down by the one argument that trumps all others with respect to arguments about time:
Her phone was connected to satellites.
Nevermind that neither of us have any real conception of how this connection takes place (something about radiowaves and space... signals). The mysteriousness and awesomeness of the concept, some sort of hive-mind of space-computers revolving around the earth at huge speeds, is enough to give her argument the win.
But I mean, there really isn't much argument here, when you think about it; why should it be that whatever time is sent from these satellites is the one true time that we hold to be the standard against which all other clocks are set. Ultimately the ones responsible for setting this satellites time are the service providers? or is it apple? Who the hell owns these satellites anyways?
I guess the fact that satellites are so high-tech, even though they've been around now for half a century just proves that they must be in tandem with some insanely high-tech timing device. I'm thinking one of those clocks that measures radioactive decay, with like a million significant figures. Really, though, there's no firm basis for this reasoning.
Which brings me to the final point of my girlfriend's argument: if we don't trust the satellites, then who do we trust? It's not as if there's some more sophisticated clock in the oven, or microwave. At least with this satellite time it will be more universal, assuming it will tell that time to whoever is connect to that service provider/has an iphone. And in the end that's only way you can measure time, since it's all relative anyways. Even if there were some super sophisticated clock that told us the time from the beginning of the universe and said it was 12:53, it wouldn't hold any water if everyone was connected to satellites telling them that it was 12:55.
But, even so, I can't just give her the win in the argument. Not when there's still doubt about these satellites. It may be baseless doubt, but I'm going to hold on to it for the sake of the truth!.... and winning dumb arguments.
Her phone was connected to satellites.
Nevermind that neither of us have any real conception of how this connection takes place (something about radiowaves and space... signals). The mysteriousness and awesomeness of the concept, some sort of hive-mind of space-computers revolving around the earth at huge speeds, is enough to give her argument the win.
But I mean, there really isn't much argument here, when you think about it; why should it be that whatever time is sent from these satellites is the one true time that we hold to be the standard against which all other clocks are set. Ultimately the ones responsible for setting this satellites time are the service providers? or is it apple? Who the hell owns these satellites anyways?
I guess the fact that satellites are so high-tech, even though they've been around now for half a century just proves that they must be in tandem with some insanely high-tech timing device. I'm thinking one of those clocks that measures radioactive decay, with like a million significant figures. Really, though, there's no firm basis for this reasoning.
Which brings me to the final point of my girlfriend's argument: if we don't trust the satellites, then who do we trust? It's not as if there's some more sophisticated clock in the oven, or microwave. At least with this satellite time it will be more universal, assuming it will tell that time to whoever is connect to that service provider/has an iphone. And in the end that's only way you can measure time, since it's all relative anyways. Even if there were some super sophisticated clock that told us the time from the beginning of the universe and said it was 12:53, it wouldn't hold any water if everyone was connected to satellites telling them that it was 12:55.
But, even so, I can't just give her the win in the argument. Not when there's still doubt about these satellites. It may be baseless doubt, but I'm going to hold on to it for the sake of the truth!.... and winning dumb arguments.
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