November 2nds

11/2/1872            

(Letters of William James)            

To Charles Renouvier:            

“...On other points of your philosophy I still have doubts, but I can say that through that philosophy I am beginning to experience a rebirth of the moral life; and I assure you, Monsieur, that this is no small thing!…      

[I’m reminded of a book I read several years ago, Sick Souls Healthy Minds. Page 47: “James was reborn in the spring of 1870. There is an entry from his diary on April 30, 1870, “I think that yesterday was a crisis in my life. I finished Renouvier’s second Essais and see no reason why his definition of free will, “The sustaining of a thought because I chose to when I might have other thoughts’, need be the definition of an illusion.””] 

11/2/1914

Wittgensten diary: Ship stuck in sand again, bitter cold. "It is really fortunate to have one’s self in that one can always withdraw into the self." 

11/2/2005

Interesting: Music listeners are again opting to buy singles, not albums...As Malcolm Gladwell suggests, we are designed to "thin slice"). The invention of the iPod apparently reshaped how people consume content—short and mobile. 

Pix on Michigan Avenue (warm evening)

 

11/2/2015

The string fetish of bassists now up to 24 strings. Then there’s the one or two-string bass, which I love because it’s the polar opposite. But you can still have a 2-string bass on the 4-string that you have, simply by using two adjacent strings at a time. It’s a good strategy to get you thinking in more narrow ranges and in double stops, and off the root, which may be exactly what the music needs. Tuned in fifths the 2-string would be good for melodies and intervals of fifths and sixths. It is obviously not as versatile as a 4-string, but even then it is one too many. Tuned in unisons you could get a nice chorusing effect on a 2-string. The bass balalaika has only three strings and works beautifully for the music.  

11/2/2021

We need something that sounds like cubism; We don’t need regurgitated digital files without processing or shaping the raw materials. In terms of conceptual "Level 4," we can call it music arte povera—like Richard Serra using scrap rubber. But music can access pop culture trends more readily because it can be cranked out faster these days without any physical work in a studio. What we want is some kind of absorbing craft that takes weeks or months to complete. If the metaverse can be this space where the digital materials are shaped, then that’s something really new. In any event it has to sound like cubism looked.  

11/2/2024

Song heard in a dream:

Stopped at Fine Arts Building. Haven’t been here in 5 years. The Studebaker Theater is back open. Used to see films here. Stopped at Exile in Bookville book shop. The door chimes and the sound of the protests outside fit right in with the hip hop playing.  

In music I I like the Video 45s, videos exactly 45 seconds long, as a send-up of this. But I also do video albums, where I can set the song sequence, as one would on an LP, as a reaction to the PL (Playlist).]

The Karolinka Club