January 31sts

1/31/2010

It's interesting that when guitarists play basic chords as accompaniment, it suggests other parts (such as background vocals or counterpoint melodies) that you hear in your head. The guitarist may in fact be implying them in such a way that people in the audience might get up on the stage and play or sing them, becoming the ad-hoc collaborators. But then you realize that music done democratically would have a tendency to become an insipid broth of ideas and opinions (very much like what American politics has become). I thought, what is the threshold at which a piece of art or music becomes perfectly composed, i.e. the point at which people aren’t trying to add or remove something, or just saying they don’t like it just because they can? [More] 

1/31/2011

Such an exciting moment in world history. Captivated by the revolution taking place in Egypt and the Arab street, reminiscent of the milestone uprisings I’ve seen in the past: Tiananmen Square (1989) on a small tube TV in my first apartment in Oak Park, the fall of Ceausescu on December 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the execution of Saddam Hussein. All these uprisings rail against corruption and inequality, but it is this same exact thing that should be taking place in the US.  

1/31/2020

Elon Musk releases  Don’t Doubt ur Vibe: It isn’t a “vibe” in the hippie sense but has spiritual power. I think it’s great he’s doing music–part science (Apollonian) and art (Dionysian). I think he could be a positive influence on young people. They need it now, otherwise they are going to be traumatized by this moment in history. 

[1/31/2025: What a difference 5 years makes].

1/31/2024

David Brooks’ How To Know A Person was “unnerving”: “Cases where you’re devoted to a person and know a lot about them it’s still possible to not see them. You can be loved by a person yet not be known by them.” We think we know each other by heart, but the mind is in the way. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Watched a video on the School of Life channel titled “Become Interesting”. The idea is that if we become interesting to ourselves and we listen to ourselves as being interesting then we’ll be interesting to other people. A good metaphor is a “docking” with one another. There has to be enough interoperability between two entities to where they can do this.  

 

1/31/2025

If you want to play piano, find one and walk up to it and play it. I was always naturally drawn to instruments. I never felt it required permission or training. (One of the keys to a happy life is to be fascinated by at least one thing every day.)