November 19ths

11/19/1964            

(Eva Hesse Diary)            

“I refuse to fear any longer....When a problem, just do it then and there, say it, write it and get rid of it. Face all that I fear, to fear it no longer. . . In my work too. If crazy forms, do them outright. Strong, clear. No more haze...Risk nothing—nothing gained.”

[11/19/2025: Essentially a “just do it” or “just in time” (JIT) approach, where you work from the right hemisphere and trust intuition. I’m of “two minds” about this because we can tend to accept ideas that are perhaps too provisional–and if you worked with them you could create a better version with some re-writes]. 

As a lyric:

When there's a problem
Just do it
Then and there

Say it
Write it
Face it
Strong and clear

Nothing risked
Nothing gained
No more haze
[Inside the brain]         

11/19/1997            

Interesting segment of Jeremy Rifkin’s book Entropy where he discussed the dehumanizing aspects of urbanization: that a person can “meet” 220,000 people within a 10-mile radius of midtown Manhattan, but only “process” and interact with so few. (Neighbors are usually anonymous). I think cities force us to have some anonymity, to want to be separate from the crowd—things about the crowd are unsavory. He says we have become like sailors in a lifeboat: everywhere surrounded by water but not a drop to drink.    

LLM: “Discuss the feeling of loneliness in a city”    

11/19/1998            

Clinton impeachment hearings start.

***

Lots of interest now in the “Mozart Effect”—that listening to certain kinds of music helps young students excel in math and science. Detractors of this theory say it has more to do with enthusiasm, however, I can see how math and music can exist in the same brain constellation, but they have to be connected perhaps genetically—I don’t think there’s a way of teaching that. This is another attempt at mixing domains, but lots of times this doesn’t work. Music can be like painting in some respects, for example, but not in all respects.

LLM: 

“Discuss the Mozart Effect”
“Discuss the connection of math and music”

11/19/2009

Chicago Architecture Foundation lecture. Interesting: Cubs park used to be right on the lakefront, first landfill was from freight Tunnel excavation and rubble from the fire, used to be called Lake Park before Grant Park, rail used to run on the shore, north of river was all industrial, "bombardier view", urban pioneers of 1963, Large IC station was on south end of park (razed in 1974), ganglion of railroads, The Field Museum was initially slated for Grant Park, the "accretion" of the park over time, in 18 years there was stunning growth in River East, attributed to the growth of the park. Other things I liked: The photos of LSD right up against the shore, time-lapse of the development of Millennium Park, the realization how intrinsically Chicago is defined by rail, all neatly covered over with parks, Most of Grant Park is a roof      

11/19/2015

Cloud culture was seen as a security risk five years ago, but apparently has no impact on how the Internet is used socially today. Terrorism has gotten exponentially more dangerous, but cloud computing has no impact on that—or has it, with terrorists sharing spreadsheets on Google Drive for example....When attacks happen they seem like black swans, but they're all black. Even if multiple terrorist attacks started happening, people would tend to shut down. Life goes on, but in never quite the same way, as a sense of fatalism drives the day.

 

 

 

 

 

11/19/2021 
            
Yesterday I watched an interview with Sting by Rick Beato. I was reminded of an article that was published in Billboard magazine in 1994 when Sting spoke at Berklee after he got his doctorate, titled “The Mystery and Religion Of Music”. In essence, what he was saying was that music is a daily constitution or daily “prayer”. It’s a devotion to something that is very meaningful. I’ve always considered music a kind of spirituality or “religion”. There’s a depth in his work that some people think is literally religious, and that he has become a born-again Anglican. I didn’t find that in any of his writings but some people seem to conflate what he’s talking about in the lyrics as somehow being a devotion to organized religion.
                        
I think we can read too much into lyrics. Very often songs start from something very random and then we start to weave in possible meanings as the piece evolves. The piece will begin to tell you what it’s about. Those make for the best songs in my opinion—as opposed to writing a song about “this”. A line might come up as a happy accident and so it changes it again—and could suggest something that could be interpreted as being related to religion or scripture. 

It’s interesting that we see things that aren’t naturally there, or were never really there to begin with. That’s more the mystery than it is the religion. #riff

[11/19/2024: The Songday series is all about randomly selecting words and phrases and shaping it into a meaningful (or ambiguous) form. It’s the musical equivalent of abstract or conceptual art: It might mean something, but you aren’t entirely sure, and the artist usually isn’t either. (Ambiguity is the most interesting thing in art)]. 

11/19/2024 

AI music has raised the bar on production, similar to the loudness wars from 20 years ago. Everything must sound exactly like the finest orchestra, whether it’s even playable by one. Everything has to be “loud” with no dynamic range (human elements).