From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V16 #674 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Thursday, July 31 2008 Volume 16 : Number 674 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Love Songs ["kevin studyvin" ] Re: John, Paul, George, Ringo, and Chubby (and, ick, Elizabeth Wurtzel) [] Re: Generation gaps [Sebastian Hagedorn ] Re: Generation gaps [Rex ] Robyn's patter bits ["Jeremy Osner" ] Re: Robyn's patter bits ["kevin studyvin" ] Re: Robyn's patter bits [HwyCDRrev@aol.com] Re: Robyn's patter bits [2fs ] Re: Robyn's patter bits ["Jeremy Osner" ] Re:I'm a born lever-puller ["Terrence Marks" ] Re: Robyn's patter bits [Rex ] Re: Brian Epstein [grutness@slingshot.co.nz] Re: Robyn's patter bits [HwyCDRrev@aol.com] Re: Brian Epstein [HwyCDRrev@aol.com] Re: Robyn's patter bits [Tom Clark ] Re: I'm a born lever-puller [2fs ] Re: Robyn's patter bits [2fs ] Re: I'm a born lever-puller [HwyCDRrev@aol.com] Re: John, Paul, George, Ringo, and Chubby (and, ick, Elizabeth Wurtzel) [] Re: Robyn's patter bits ["edwardofsim@tiscali.co.uk" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:35:19 -0700 From: "kevin studyvin" Subject: Re: Love Songs > Well there *is* a school of though called determinism, you know. I wrote my > philosophy (that was one of my minors) paper on Ted Honderich and his two > books "A Theory of Determinism: The Mind, Neuroscience and Life-Hopes", and > "How Free Are You?: The Determinism Problem". He makes very good points (I > think) on why we don't have free will, even if we think we do. That theory > can be depressing, as he himself allows. That's why a large part of his book > deals with the consequences of the theory, i.e. how we should learn to live > with it. More over on the mystical side, that's also the nut of the teaching of Gurdjieff, a notorious con artist who's one of the most fascinating thinkers I've come across. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:48:23 EDT From: HwyCDRrev@aol.com Subject: Re: John, Paul, George, Ringo, and Chubby (and, ick, Elizabeth Wurtzel) shameless self promotion : you may find this interesting, or not http://fab4yerblog.blogspot.com/ see Ringo (7/7) and GH's GH In a message dated 7/30/2008 1:51:58 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, blukoff@alvord.com writes: > From: 2fs > > PS: Defending Paul doesn't mean I dislike Lennon - the notion that one has > to choose is absurd. George was a pretty talented guy himself! Also: Ringo > is a *brilliant* drummer - anyone who thinks he was just kind of middling > is > (a) probably not a drummer and (b) possessed of a couple of stale cinnamon > rolls for ears. Ringo's one of those drummers who's not all that > flashy...but he's incredibly distinctive. You can recognize his drumming > almost immediately...and in fact, you can recognize almost immediately when > another drummer is playing in a "Ringo" style. > Completely agree re Ringo, and as far as George, it's long been my contention that George was the true sonic heart of the Beatles. Almost always singing harmony, regardless of whether it was a John or Paul song; in the early days at least, always playing lead guitar... if either John or Paul had left the Beatles in 1969 and the other three had carried on, it would certainly have been different, but recognizable (see, for instance, "I Me Mine" -- is John missed? I don't think so). If George had left for good during "Let It Be," "Abbey Road" might have all sounded like "Maxwell's Silver Hammer." John and Paul definitely couldn't have continued the Beatles alone, like the Davies brothers and the Kinks or Difford and Tilbrook with Squeeze. That way "The Ballad of John & Yoko" lies. **************Get fantasy football with free live scoring. Sign up for FanHouse Fantasy Football today. (http://www.fanhouse.com/fantasyaffair?ncid=aolspr00050000000020) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:53:17 +0200 From: Sebastian Hagedorn Subject: Re: Generation gaps - -- Carrie Galbraith is rumored to have mumbled on 30. Juli 2008 11:16:44 -0700 regarding Re: Generation gaps: > I often start my first day of a class, in particular my book classes, > with a questionnaire that asks them if they've read Borges, Calvino > or Burroughs, among others. I include questions about recent history, > the Beat poets and some of the fringier (but definitive) art > movements like Fluxus. What level of class are you teaching? For an introductory class that seems to me to be asking a lot. I think when I started university I hadn't read any of those authors (perhaps Calvino), and now that I hold an MA in German, English and Philosophy I still haven't read any Borges, and if I'm honest I don't know much more about Fluxus than its name. I think that's to some degree a testament to how different German universities are from American ones. We didn't have any overview classes at all. Everything went into details right away. We were expected to get the overview on our own, but I know few people how actually managed to do so. - -- Sebastian Hagedorn Am alten Stellwerk 22, 50733 Kvln, Germany http://www.uni-koeln.de/~a0620/ "Being just contaminates the void" - Robyn Hitchcock ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:55:22 -0700 From: Rex Subject: Re: Generation gaps On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 10:00 AM, The Great Quail wrote: > > > Well, some certainly did -- and probably some NWA and Beastie Boys, too. > But > I know plenty of people my age who still think "Rap" is anathema. > > Bear in mind, being active participants on an Internet music list, we are > likely more in-tune with modern music and musical technology than most of > our cohorts. You're correct in this, of course, and if you're talking about people whose views (rap anathema etc.) started out ossified, that's outside my experience, I guess. Plenty of young people today are, as someone else noted, narrowcast (narrowcasted?) into corporate niches from birth (Radio Disney is good for this), but you're probably not going to encounter them in your situation, which sounds to be about as self-determining as, say, this list. > Maybe. But I think younger generations view musical genres less as ruts or > ghettoes. You look at the iPods of most people in their twenties, and > you'll > see a wide variety of hip hop, rock, alternative, etc. Certainly more > variety than I'm used to in my own generation, even when we were young. There may be some truth to this because of the internet, but I think it's more that you're just seeing the "high end" of the tastes of the younger generation. For myself and most of my friends, though... I can't recall a time when I didn't listen to a pretty wide range stuff. The really esoteric stuff was harder to find, sure, but for that very reason, once you scored it, you really lived with it and learned it-- in a way that you might not if you, say, DL'ed a Nurse with Wound (or Fela or Robert Johnson or Fall or whatever) track, popped it open and quit it halfway through if it didn't strike your fancy. > > I also agree with Carrie -- I am much more comfortable with typical > millennial views on racism and gender orientation than the cautious & > qualified views frequently expressed by my own generation (that being X), > let alone the condescension of the Boomers. Me, too, but my general take on this is surprisingly optimistic: humans have for some time been growing less bigoted and will continue to do so. But I think this is just a gradual, natural process, hard to pin down to any one demographic (and I think we've all dismissed easy generational labels already in this thread). > > I have scanned my previous emails for any signs that I was expressing > arousal to no avail. But if it pleases you to imagine me with an erection, > knock yourself out. Fair enough. (Pauses, not sure what to feel about mental image.) Well, I coulda been less of a dick about it, but I think you've broadcast a certain somewhat idealized opinion of the post-internet generation (and the politics thereof). Could be wrong. I think most "generations" or groups of youth or whatever start out looking pretty good on paper, but it tends not to last, at least in broad revolutionary terms. I wish I had more time to chime into this thread, since I'm sort of plugged into two or more entirely different groups of "youth" in one way or another, all the way down to pre-teens, but hey. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:49:20 -0400 From: "Jeremy Osner" Subject: Robyn's patter bits Hi all, Wondering (after listening in the car to Robyn at the Turning Poing, introducing "Lysander" as the story of 600-foot-high chess knights with radar vision chasing aeroplanes and some other stuff -- need to transcribe that) -- how fixed or fluid a body of work are the bits introducing songs? I'm pretty sure I have heard some of them repeated with variations between a couple of concert tapes -- I can't imagine he could make up such stories one-off for every performance -- but I do not know. Can someone with more experience of his live shows than I weigh in about which stories you see repeated more or less frequently? I have transcribed some portions of patter from recordings of his live shows and they just blow me away when I look at them. Thanks J - -- READIN 2.0 http://www.readin.com/blog/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:06:30 -0700 From: "kevin studyvin" Subject: Re: Robyn's patter bits > I have transcribed some portions of patter from recordings of his live > shows and they just blow me away when I look at them. > > Thanks > J Regardless how totally spontaneous or not those little bits of stuff may be, it'd be a wonderful thing if someone more obsessive than me were to transcribe a whole ratload of 'em. It makes for wonderful poetry and it would certainly kick the ass of the collected utterances of Donald Rumsfeld, to say the least. np: John Cale, Sabotage (hey, who agrees with me that Cale's "Memphis, Tennessee" is one of the baddest covers ever?) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 17:10:24 EDT From: HwyCDRrev@aol.com Subject: Re: Robyn's patter bits i agree ! that would not only be awesome but useful in any sort of research my blog is "Yer Blog" http://fab4yerblog.blogspot.com/ http://robotsarestealingmyluggage.blogspot.com/ In a message dated 7/30/2008 5:08:45 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, kstudyvin@gmail.com writes: Regardless how totally spontaneous or not those little bits of stuff may be, it'd be a wonderful thing if someone more obsessive than me were to transcribe a whole ratload of 'em. It makes for wonderful poetry and it would certainly kick the ass of the collected utterances of Donald Rumsfeld, to say the least. **************Get fantasy football with free live scoring. Sign up for FanHouse Fantasy Football today. (http://www.fanhouse.com/fantasyaffair?ncid=aolspr00050000000020) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 17:00:18 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Robyn's patter bits On 7/30/08, Jeremy Osner wrote: > > Hi all, > Wondering (after listening in the car to Robyn at the Turning Poing, > introducing "Lysander" as the story of 600-foot-high chess knights > with radar vision chasing aeroplanes and some other stuff -- need to > transcribe that) -- how fixed or fluid a body of work are the bits > introducing songs? I'm pretty sure I have heard some of them repeated > with variations between a couple of concert tapes -- I can't imagine > he could make up such stories one-off for every performance -- but I > do not know. It seems to me that they evolve, probably from spontaneous origins or actual explanations. Essentially, his stories improvise in the manner a jazz soloist might improvise over chord changes: there's a basic structure and melody, but it's all about the variations, which ...uh, vary. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:34:27 -0400 From: "Jeremy Osner" Subject: Re: Robyn's patter bits Here are some transcriptions of patter from "Storefront Hitchcock": http://readin.com/blog/?k=music:storefronthitch&o=a Anyone know by the way: Was "Storefront Hitchcock" all filmed on a single evening or were the songs taken from more than one concert? Did Demme or Hitchcock make the cuts for the album and CD? J On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 5:10 PM, wrote: > i agree ! > that would not only be awesome > but useful in any sort of research > > my blog is "Yer Blog" > http://fab4yerblog.blogspot.com/ > http://robotsarestealingmyluggage.blogspot.com/ > > > > In a message dated 7/30/2008 5:08:45 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, > kstudyvin@gmail.com writes: > Regardless how totally spontaneous or not those little bits of stuff may be, > it'd be a wonderful thing if someone more obsessive than me were to > transcribe a whole ratload of 'em. It makes for wonderful poetry and it > would certainly kick the ass of the collected utterances of Donald Rumsfeld, > to say the least. > > > > > **************Get fantasy football with free live scoring. Sign up for > FanHouse Fantasy Football today. > (http://www.fanhouse.com/fantasyaffair?ncid=aolspr00050000000020) > - -- READIN 2.0 http://www.readin.com/blog/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:16:32 -0700 From: "Terrence Marks" Subject: Re:I'm a born lever-puller > Also: Ringo > is a *brilliant* drummer - anyone who thinks he was just kind of middling is > (a) probably not a drummer and (b) possessed of a couple of stale cinnamon > rolls for ears. Ringo's one of those drummers who's not all that > flashy...but he's incredibly distinctive. You can recognize his drumming > almost immediately...and in fact, you can recognize almost immediately when > another drummer is playing in a "Ringo" style. Having heard dozens and dozens of bands that try to sound like The Beatles, I agree completely. If the drummer couldn't play like Ringo, it didn't work. The guy from Los Shakers did a good Ringo. The reasons why Ringo doesn't get his due are that drumming has changed a lot in the last forty-five years, his style is less prominent in later Beatles albums, and that he's often imitated. He's the Bo Diddley of drummers, that way. Mind you, I've heard it said that Ringo was the fourth-best drummer in The Beatles. I've also heard similar things said about the other three, as if moving them all one instrument clockwise would've greatly improved the band. Terrence Marks ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 17:31:47 -0700 From: Rex Subject: Re: Robyn's patter bits On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 2:06 PM, kevin studyvin wrote: > > np: John Cale, Sabotage (hey, who agrees with me that Cale's "Memphis, > Tennessee" is one of the baddest covers ever?) It's good! The only one I really don't much like is "Baby What You Want Me To Do", but that's kind of personal... it's a song that keeps showing up in places I don't expect it, and it's just kinda dead weight. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:00:51 +1200 From: grutness@slingshot.co.nz Subject: Re: Brian Epstein >The unidentified trax (12 and 18) on the recording from The Turning >Point a coupla weeks ago are both (so Robyn alleges) from the >soundtrack of a forthcoming movie about the life of Brian Epstein. >Anybody have any more data about this? IIRC Jude Law is behind the movie, including the financing of it. Last I heard it was shelved semi-indefinitely, but maybe there's action on it again. James - -- James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- =-.-=-.-=-.- You talk to me as if from a distance .-=-.-=-.-=-. -=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time .-=- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:26:42 EDT From: HwyCDRrev@aol.com Subject: Re: Robyn's patter bits just peaked at the website - Bravo ! it was a series of gigs, i think it must have been more than one and the LP had different intros (and extra songs) compared to the CD my blog is "Yer Blog" http://fab4yerblog.blogspot.com/ http://robotsarestealingmyluggage.blogspot.com/ In a message dated 7/30/2008 6:34:36 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, anacreon@gmail.com writes: Here are some transcriptions of patter from "Storefront Hitchcock": http://readin.com/blog/?k=music:storefronthitch&o=a Anyone know by the way: Was "Storefront Hitchcock" all filmed on a single evening or were the songs taken from more than one concert? Did Demme or Hitchcock make the cuts for the album and CD? **************Get fantasy football with free live scoring. Sign up for FanHouse Fantasy Football today. (http://www.fanhouse.com/fantasyaffair?ncid=aolspr00050000000020) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:36:04 EDT From: HwyCDRrev@aol.com Subject: Re: Brian Epstein here are some websites to check out, groovers : http://www.fifthbeatlemovie.com/ http://fifthbeatle.proboards50.com/index.cgi my blog is "Yer Blog" http://fab4yerblog.blogspot.com/ http://robotsarestealingmyluggage.blogspot.com/ In a message dated 7/30/2008 9:03:08 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, grutness@slingshot.co.nz writes: >The unidentified trax (12 and 18) on the recording from The Turning >Point a coupla weeks ago are both (so Robyn alleges) from the >soundtrack of a forthcoming movie about the life of Brian Epstein. >Anybody have any more data about this? IIRC Jude Law is behind the movie, including the financing of it. Last I heard it was shelved semi-indefinitely, but maybe there's action on it again. **************Get fantasy football with free live scoring. Sign up for FanHouse Fantasy Football today. (http://www.fanhouse.com/fantasyaffair?ncid=aolspr00050000000020) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:48:03 -0700 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: Robyn's patter bits On Jul 30, 2008, at 3:34 PM, Jeremy Osner wrote: > Here are some transcriptions of patter from "Storefront Hitchcock": > http://readin.com/blog/?k=music:storefronthitch&o=a > > Anyone know by the way: Was "Storefront Hitchcock" all filmed on a > single evening or were the songs taken from more than one concert? Did > Demme or Hitchcock make the cuts for the album and CD? A few people on the list attended the performances. From what I recall it was two performances over two days. - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:53:48 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: I'm a born lever-puller On 7/30/08, Terrence Marks wrote: > > > Mind you, I've heard it said that Ringo was the fourth-best drummer in > The Beatles. I've also heard similar things said about the other > three, as if moving them all one instrument clockwise would've greatly > improved the band. This is, of course, nonsense. McCartney was a competent drummer - but I've never heard any evidence that either Lennon or Harrison could play drums at all. Similarly, while McCartney was also a competent lead guitarist (in fact, some very distinctive leads are his: "Taxman," "Good Morning, Good Morning," to name two), Lennon was at best an iffy bassist (I think one of his recorded performances is "I've Got a Feeling"), and off the top of my head I can't think of any Harrison bass-playing. Ringo, so far as I know, couldn't really play any other instruments. To sum up: McCartney: in many ways the best overall musician of the band, excellent bassist, fine and distinctive lead guitar player, good rhythm guitar, good piano. Harrison: excellent lead guitarist (particularly his slide playing from about '68 onwards) Lennon: distinctive rhythm guitarist, adequate bassist, reasonable piano player. Starr: excellent drummer. Note that where players may not have been "excellent" (in technical terms, Lennon was probably the least impressive) they played with such distinctive character as to overcome those technical limitations. Note also that I've never been one to value technical considerations over other musical considerations; I value distinctive playing over facile but characterless playing. (That's one of the most rock'n'roll things about me!) - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 22:04:34 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Robyn's patter bits On 7/30/08, Tom Clark wrote: > > On Jul 30, 2008, at 3:34 PM, Jeremy Osner wrote: > > Here are some transcriptions of patter from "Storefront Hitchcock": >> http://readin.com/blog/?k=music:storefronthitch&o=a >> >> Anyone know by the way: Was "Storefront Hitchcock" all filmed on a >> single evening or were the songs taken from more than one concert? Did >> Demme or Hitchcock make the cuts for the album and CD? >> > > A few people on the list attended the performances. From what I recall it > was two performances over two days. Correct me if I'm wrong - but aren't a few of the actual performances of the smae songs different on the LP vs. the CD? I heard the LP version for the first time a few months ago...and it struck me as significantly different. Maybe just misremembering. You know...because no, I don't remember Guildford... - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 23:42:40 EDT From: HwyCDRrev@aol.com Subject: Re: I'm a born lever-puller i think Lennon said that about ringo - it was a joke he told jim keltner that JK was his 2nd favorite drummer - after Ringo lennon played a bit of drums in the Let It Be movie - while lighting a cigarette !!! Lennon on bass : i think you mean Long + Winding Road (which explains phil spector's lush strings) i've got a feeling - that was live on the roof with the usual line-up (plus billy preston) ringo's plays other instruments sometimes (including a bit of piano - twice! - in Let It Be) see lyrics for "Early 1970" I play guitar, a - d - e. I don't play bass 'cause that's too hard for me. I play the piano if it's in c. And when i go to town i wanna see all three, And when i go to town i wanna see all three, And when i go to town i wanna see all three. my blog is "Yer Blog" http://fab4yerblog.blogspot.com/ http://robotsarestealingmyluggage.blogspot.com/ In a message dated 7/30/2008 10:57:11 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, jeffreyw2fs.j@gmail.com writes: This is, of course, nonsense. McCartney was a competent drummer - but I've never heard any evidence that either Lennon or Harrison could play drums at all. Similarly, while McCartney was also a competent lead guitarist (in fact, some very distinctive leads are his: "Taxman," "Good Morning, Good Morning," to name two), Lennon was at best an iffy bassist (I think one of his recorded performances is "I've Got a Feeling"), and off the top of my head I can't think of any Harrison bass-playing. Ringo, so far as I know, couldn't really play any other instruments. **************Get fantasy football with free live scoring. Sign up for FanHouse Fantasy Football today. (http://www.fanhouse.com/fantasyaffair?ncid=aolspr00050000000020) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2008 02:34:20 -0400 From: "(0% rh)" Subject: Re: John, Paul, George, Ringo, and Chubby (and, ick, Elizabeth Wurtzel) Benjamin Lukoff says: re: Elizabeth Wurtzel: > Yeah... she can write, but the self-indulgence is just too much for me. I > can't imagine dealing with 200+ pages of this, let alone paying for it. > 'Sides, I think THIS has pretty much made me never want to hear about the > trials and tribulations of 20-something East Coast Jewish women writers ever > again: > http://ettyblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/self-indulgent-self-indulgence.html i read the article in the NYT (i like to stay in touch with what the kids are up to.) from what i recall, i think there's one really important difference between the kind of self-indulgence of NYT gawker gal and that of wurtzel. the gawker gal wrote about herself, her friends, and anyone she felt like writing about in a way that was thoughtless and mean. it seemed like sometimes the very point of her writing was to just be mean. wurtzel has the dignity to keep the focus on herself ( <-- a joke) and doesn't write with any malice. also, that gawker gal had NO sense of humour. wurtzel's humour is, for me, the high point of her writing. xo - -- "people with opinions just go around bothering one another." -- the buddha ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:56:22 +0100 (GMT+01:00) From: "edwardofsim@tiscali.co.uk" Subject: Re: Robyn's patter bits Well, hey, I'd happily volunteer to transcribe as many as were made available to me! Exactly the kind of project I really get off on. If someone(s) really want this, all I need is the audio and I'll get started! Could set them up to xref according to intros for the same song over periods of time, perhaps even thematically similar intros to varying songs, etc. (As well as all the obvious date/venue info.) peace, Edward >----Original Message---- >From: HwyCDRrev@aol.com >Date: 30/07/2008 22:10 >To: >Subj: Re: Robyn's patter bits > >i agree ! >that would not only be awesome >but useful in any sort of research > >my blog is "Yer Blog" >http://fab4yerblog.blogspot.com/ >http://robotsarestealingmyluggage.blogspot.com/ > > > >In a message dated 7/30/2008 5:08:45 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, >kstudyvin@gmail.com writes: >Regardless how totally spontaneous or not those little bits of stuff may be, >it'd be a wonderful thing if someone more obsessive than me were to >transcribe a whole ratload of 'em. It makes for wonderful poetry and it >would certainly kick the ass of the collected utterances of Donald Rumsfeld, >to say the least. > > > > >**************Get fantasy football with free live scoring. Sign up for >FanHouse Fantasy Football today. >(http://www.fanhouse.com/fantasyaffair?ncid=aolspr00050000000020) > _______________________________________________________________ Fight the credit crunch; get paid to recycle - http://www.tiscali.co.uk/recycle _______________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2008 08:03:10 -0400 From: "Bachman, Michael" Subject: RE: Robyn's patter bits - -----Original Message----- From: owner-fegmaniax@smoe.org [mailto:owner-fegmaniax@smoe.org] On Behalf Of 2fs Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2008 6:00 PM To: Jeremy Osner Cc: a sweet little cupcake...baked by the devil! Subject: Re: Robyn's patter bits On 7/30/08, Jeremy Osner wrote: >> >> Hi all, >> Wondering (after listening in the car to Robyn at the Turning Poing, >> introducing "Lysander" as the story of 600-foot-high chess knights >> with radar vision chasing aeroplanes and some other stuff -- need to >> transcribe that) -- how fixed or fluid a body of work are the bits >> introducing songs? I'm pretty sure I have heard some of them repeated >> with variations between a couple of concert tapes -- I can't imagine >> he could make up such stories one-off for every performance -- but I >> do not know. >It seems to me that they evolve, probably from spontaneous origins or actual explanations. Essentially, >his stories improvise in the manner a jazz soloist might improvise over chord changes: there's a basic >structure and melody, but it's all about the variations, which ...uh, vary. They certainly did evolve during the 2001 SB's tour, especially the bit about spinifix the hopping mouse. Michael B. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:39:40 +0200 From: Sebastian Hagedorn Subject: Re: Love Songs I hope we aren't boring the others too much ... - --On 30. Juli 2008 13:22:35 -0500 2fs wrote: > My understanding of the issue is that calling it "free will" leads us a > bit astray. What is "will" if not freedom of sorts? And so, adding the > "free" is a sort of honorific, a sort of glorification...which makes us > (as no doubt intended by its adherents) less likely to argue against it. Well, perhaps, but OTOH you could say that "will" is the conscious act of doing someting, e.g. lifting your leg. That's different from an un-willed movement, e.g. a reflex. Nobody would say that the two are the same in their degree of being "willed". Still determinists would argue that even voluntary actions aren't "free", because one couldn't have acted differently in any given situation. > There's also the notion that what people generally mean by "I acted freely > of my own will" and some sort of absolutist definition of "free" are > rather different from one another. By "free" we simply mean something > like, I examined the situation to the best of my knowledge, and chose a > course of action that seemed most beneficial (or most altruistic, or > easiest, or whatever rubric one might use). The notion that wait a minute > - our actions are "determined" by the variables at hand, by the > limitations of our knowledge and situation, etc...such that "really" we > could have done nothing else...that notion's problematic, if only because > there's no real test case (no way to A/B the choices, since the > definition has already said there is no choice). That doesn't make it "problematic", IMO, it just makes it impossible to prove or disprove empirically. It comes down to belief. > The usual comeback > involves some sort of trivial situation - say, I could have gone to the > sub place for lunch today, but instead I went to the Chinese place...and > if I'd been thinking about the "free will" argument, I might have gone to > the sub place *even if I really felt like going to the Chinese place* > just to prove my "free will." (Which, of course, doesn't work, the > determination to make a point re "free will" being among the variables > that "determine" the action.) Exactly! > Maybe a better way to look at it is that even though the universe is > deterministic at the subatomic level (apparently), Actually no. I'm no physicist and only have a superficial understanding of these things, but Heisenberg & Co. can actually be interpreted to mean that the universe is *not* deterministic at the subatomic level. Honderich takes that approach. He does *not* endorse a determinism in the mold of Laplace, who postulated that the future could be predicted entirely if one could only know the state of the entire universe at any given moment, plus the laws of physics that govern it. Instead he claims that only human action is determined. According to him it is determined by traits we are born with, by outside influences during our lives, and by accident, e.g. subatomic indeterminism. So you can't predict anybody's future, because it depends on factors that haven't yet been determined. Still, we as humans don't actively decide anything ... > and so each individual > action leads to a predictable reaction, the summation of all those actions > is impossible to predict, through sheer complexity and the fact that there > are more actions than neurons/bits/etc. available to try to calculate the > results. > There's also the question that unless someone were capable of > *knowing* all those variables, even if there was an ability to calculate, > the data would be incomplete and hence inaccurate. The claim amounts to a > pseudo-scientific way of saying "There's a plan in the universe, but it's > just unknowable to us." That's a criticism for Laplace, not for Honderich. > Practically speaking, what we mean when we say "free will" is simply that > we *feel* as if we're choosing, Right. > as if we're free to have made another > choice. (I could have had a sub if I'd decided to. And I could have hit > delete w/o sending this message - an action some of you probably regret > that I didn't take...) And to argue against that idea, we end up denying > the reality of that perception (not its accuracy, its reality) - which > seems odd, since surely that perception of consciousness and choice is > among the variables "determining" our actions. Perhaps. The big question really is: what difference would it make if everybody accepted that nobody is morally responsible for anything? On the plus side you wouldn't have to feel bad about failures, on the minus side you couldn't feel proud about successes anymore. And what about criminals? The US system is much more based on revenge than the continental European systems. Revenge makes even less sense if there is no actual responsibility, but OTOH you could argue for harsher penalties if you didn't believe that a criminal even has a chance of redeeming him- or herself! - -- b. Sebastian Hagedorn b Hagedorn@spinfo.uni-koeln.de b' http://www.uni-koeln.de/~a0620/ ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V16 #674 ********************************