Filed under: Uncategorized
What does it mean to criticize music? Or, more simply, to understand music?
How do we extract the “value” of a particular piece, and does such value even exist?
Let’s start at the very bottom and work our way up, as we construct a hypothetical model of a piece of music, bear with me for a bit…
Every sound, no matter how complex, can be broken down into a Fourier series–an infinite summation of simple periodic sine and cosine waves of varying coefficients, which are interpreted as “frequency.” If we “zoom in” on these waves, we can even measure the instantaneous rate of change at any given point. From there, in theory, one could measure the corresponding physical model of sound (oscillations in pressure), down to the molecular level.
But, without seeing how that pressure changes with time, “sound” is completely meaningless, because frequency necessarily requires time–so we need a second dimension to represent the independent variable, time. With enough superimposition, you can accurately model the physical reality of a piece of music on a Cartesian coordinate system in only two dimensions, with amplitude as a function of time—although this would be quite messy and probably obscure most of the details.
However, sound waves travel in three dimensions, so it would be better to picture these waves as emanating from the center of a sphere (the idealized sound source) and traveling outward in all directions. Then, once again, we need to add another dimension for time, so this model becomes a something of a fiber bundle—a 4 dimensional sphere with all of the information from the 2 dimensional time-amplitude representation projecting orthogonally at all points. To visualize this would be to imagine seeing all sides of a sphere at once; rotations in the 4th dimension would produce vantage points at which the sphere looks completely flat!
Then, you move away from the ideal acoustic model and start to take into account environmental disturbances in the medium of wave propagation as it traverses the distance from source to receiver. Notice that we are introducing new variables while retaining all the previous information.
Then, you have to take into account the reflecting, translating, and decoding mechanism in our auditory system, from the pinna to the corti to the auditory cortex, that turns these air pressure disturbances into pitches and dynamics. Now, we have “music”—or do we?
At this point, we reach an impasse, because we can only make objective measurements on SOUND. MUSIC, however, requires active interpretation—an audience—to truly distinguish it from sound. We can make certain qualitative statements about the nature of the sounds, or we can analyze the structure of the piece, or we can compare it to other works, but these all depend upon a previous frame of reference—this requires human interpretation. Once we talk of interpretation, we require an answer to the hard problem of consciousness to proceed objectively. Already we can see a crack in the foundation of music criticism—when applied with rigor it mistakes the aesthetics of a culture for an a priori absolute. Therefore, rigorous music criticism is a fallacy.
But, getting back to the model, suppose we do the impossible and proceed seamlessly from SOUND in the geosphere to MUSIC in the noosphere. Now, a proper representation of a piece of music must examine the interpretative abilities of the listener–their age, life experience, intelligence, knowledge of music, prior musical experiences, cultural conditioning, attentiveness, etc. Any tweaking of these qualitative variables will result in a very different experience for the listener.
Then, we do the same for the interpretative abilities of the collective audience of those that hear the piece, which includes listeners of a wide range of personal and cultural differences, as well as their respective listening environments. We are going from an audience of one to an audience of many.
Finally, we must extend this observation of the interpretive abilities of the collective audience to include EVERYONE who has ever listened to/ will listen that piece. Now, we have included the complete physical profile of a piece of music, and a complete psychological profile.
That’s the only way to truly have the final say on the “meaning” of a piece of music.
A bit of a hopeless endeavor, no?
However, just as we accept that music is both microscopic (pressure oscillations at the molecular level) and macroscopic (the history of the entire population that ever heard it), we can also accept that other elements of nondualism exist in music, and that binary logic simply has no place in music criticism. To generalize this to other artistic disciplines, the obligatory self-referential nature of the act of criticism renders itself null and void of objective merit; its value is purely subjective, much like MUSIC itself.
The BEST critics understand this, and instead use their considerable knowledge and resources to make sense of music WITHOUT removing its cultural context; instead of passing value-free JUDGEMENTS, they ENLIGHTEN the reader by guiding them towards their own, meaningful interpretations. These critics never have to face the embarrassment of having initially panned some new style of music, only to retract their review once it gains critical acclaim!
The point? Enjoy music (or art, or whatever) for what it is—a form of expression–and don’t try to fit it into neat little boxes, or devise a sliding scale or taste hierarchy to measure its intrinsic value. Don’t bemoan the passing of some great era of music—chances are, the power of nostalgia has simply placed it upon an undeserved pedestal. Don’t fall into the trap of defining what is “hip” by the standards of others—standards that were once, in turn, defined by other, decidedly “non-hip” people. Listen to what YOU like, and don’t try to justify it to anyone!!
The beauty of music lies in its limitless capacity for personal expression. Above and beyond that, it’s up to you. -SCB
“Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.”
-Elvis Costello/ Frank Zappa/ Steve Martin/ Laurie Anderson
Filed under: Uncategorized
Available now with TWENTY songs instead of ten, recorded on a fancy grand piano. Check it out!
iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZ…
Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Hello-My-Ragtim…
Filed under: Uncategorized
Chances are, you found this site because of this video. Chances are, you were expecting it to be filled with funny retro stuff, instead of pseudo-intellectual b.s. The joke’s on you!! (or, maybe it’s on me..)
Let’s lighten things up and talk 80’s ragtime:
This piece has a long history. I began playing an approximate version of this almost 10 years ago, only with classic rock songs such as “Stairway to Heaven” instead of 80’s tunes. I was playing with a band at bars in Connecticut, still underage, and I found that interpreting these classic rock chestnuts as stride piano pieces caused a stir. To be accurate, it was pretty polarizing; People either loved it or hated it. ”Freebird” is gospel to some folks, and to them, desecrating it in such a manner was blasphemy.
This current reincarnation came about as I was promoting New Arts NYC’s “New Arts in the Park” concert. My original idea was to cover 40 songs (!!), but that ran wayyyy too long, so I settled on 10. I made the video hastily, listing the songs I wanted to cover on a piece of paper in sharpie (said paper can be seen to my left in the video), and improvising the whole thing off the top of my head. Normally, I’d do a few takes of something like this, but I felt that my neighbors were patient enough with me as it was. I slapped a title on it and threw it online.
A couple of days later, it had gotten 10,000 views, which is more people than I have met in my lifetime. Neil Gaiman in particular was responsible for spreading the word–he twittered (is that the word??) about it when it only had a couple hundred views. From there, it was a short step to viral video sites and blogs.
At the time of this writing, it’s been just shy of two weeks and it’s holding steady at about 60,000 hits…perhaps just a drop in the ocean in pop culture terms, but far more than I could ever have fathomed. I received a lot of really cool emails from people that enjoyed the video, and that always makes me smile. Finding my likeness on certain humor websites was a bit surreal, however.
Let me pause to acknowledge my favorite placement of this video:
http://clownalley.blogspot.com/2009/06/scott-bradley-80s-hits-played-in.html
You know you’ve made it as a musician when you are featured on a site called, “Clown Alley.” Scroll right: They sell clown shoes. And, they misspelled my name.
I’m very appreciative that the internet has afforded such a large audience to my ridiculous hijinks, and am looking forward to the possibilities it will yield in the future. I plan on making many more videos, some funny, some serious. However, I don’t plan on following up the “80’s Ragtime” series with “90’s Ragtime” or the like, because that’s too derivative and I’m not a fan of sequels. I do, however, plan on doing a studio recording of the medley (with a few extras) on a grand piano to be made available on iTunes. That will be the definitive version of this thing, and then I can retire from the world of ironic ragtime medleys knowing that I did my part.
For now, let’s have some fun with this thing and see where it goes. I’d personally like to see it start showing up in completely irrelevant locations on the internet–that would crack me up .
Thank you all for showing it to your friends, and I look forward to entertaining you again. “Clown Alley”–stand by. -SCB
(Note: As a few nerds were all too eager to point out, “ragtime” is a bit of a misnomer when used to describe this video; it borrows much more from stride piano and more contemporary “old fashioned” piano styles. If you are interested in the rich history of stride piano that I humbly attempt to approximate, here is a list of a few of the real masters:
James P. Johnson
Fats Waller
Willie “The Lion” Smith
Art Tatum
Dick Hyman (yes, actually his name)
Terry Waldo
Dick Wellstood
^^^All of them are ridiculously awesome players that contributed to the development of this genre and whose invocation alone keep this style of music alive.)
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: art tatum, einstein, gladwell, mozart, outliers, talent
It is commonplace in our society to refer to exceptional people as “gifted,” a word with a mystical connotation. Likewise, marketing an emerging talent as a “natural” in their field has an element of American folklore about it–kind of a “Paul Bunyan for the 21st century” type of thing. The thought of a child emerging from the womb blessed with an incredible gift is a romantic notion, but it has a flipside that is less appealing: If some people are born “gifted” and others are not, does it follow, then, that some people just aren’t that “special?” Is “genius” a kind of superpower, or is it the full realization of Objectivist philosophy that anyone can attain? Or, is it some combination of the two?
Malcolm Gladwell’s book ‘Outliers’ offers a new take on exceptional people, starting with what he terms the ‘10,000 hour rule.’ Essentially, the rule states that for someone to completely master a skill, they must allow for approximately 10,000 of dedicated practice. This holds just as true for gene-dominated fields, such as athletics, as intellectual fields, such as science; the men and women that become standouts are the ones that put in way more time than everybody else. Even the prototypical child prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart does not violate this rule; he simply put his 10,000 hours in remarkably early in life.
The other noteworthy observation is that genius does not exist in a vacuum; that is to say, genius always makes use of its forerunners, even in cases of ideas that seems to come out of left field. In 1905, a clerk in a Swiss patent office discovered what we now know as the Theory of Special Relativity. The man, Albert Einstein, was not employed by academia and worked outside of the mainstream. However, he was very much up to date on current studies on electrodynamics. His revolutionary move was to discard the idea of an ‘ether,’ a medium in which light was believed to travel, similar to waves traveling through water. This was a significant departure from the conventional wisdom of the scientific community at the time, and it stands to reason that only someone with no professional reputation to lose would make such as assertion. Indeed, Henri Poincare would have certainly been the first to discover Special Relativity had he been willing to drop the idea of the ether.
Perhaps, in light of this, Einstein’s genius was his temperament. His natural rebelliousness and ability to focus wholeheartedly on his ambitions (often to the detriment of his personal life) gave him a huge advantage over his peers that were still reluctant to contradict Newtonian physics. That is not to discount his considerable intellect in the least, only to say that there were plenty of brilliant minds and certainly better mathematicians, whom history has since forgotten.
An even more striking model of exceptional human ability is found in those that have achieved despite considerable impairment, whether physical, mental, or social. My longtime favorite jazz pianist, Art Tatum, was one such model.
Blind from infancy, Tatum grew up to be the most technically proficient jazz pianist that ever lived. Even more significantly, he developed a wholly unique improvisatory style, one that fused 19th century impressionistic harmony with elements of stride piano and modern swing. It is testament to his uniqueness that he inspired relatively few disciples in jazz; his style was so inimitable and all-encompassing that he evolved outside of the jazz mainstream.
It would be easy to say that Art Tatum achieved despite his disability, but perhaps it is more accurate to say that he achieved BECAUSE of his disability. Due to the elastic nature of the human brain, a person deprived of one particular sense will find that his/her other senses learn to “pick up the slack,” so to speak. In Art Tatum’s case, the reduced need for visual processing allowed him to develop incredibly sensitive hearing and touch–the two senses that are necessary for performing at a virtuosic level.
A more dramatic example of this is found in savant and “Rain Man” inspiration Kim Peek:
In Peek’s case, the nerves that normally connect the two hemispheres of the brain are absent, forcing the neurons to make other connections. This, in turn, probably resulted in his prodigious memory.
Depending on how deterministic we believe our lives to be, we can readily identify some or nearly all the factors that combine to produce what we recognize as “talent” in others–and the deeper we dig, the less important “natural ability” becomes. Of course, this shouldn’t change our appreciation of displays of talent one iota. There will always be something superhuman about impressive feats of human achievement, regardless of how textbook the circumstances that produced them are in actuality. The miracle in all this is that the sum produced by all these factors is infinitely greater than its parts.
Talent is NOT something reserved for the select few; it is something waiting to be unlocked inside all of us. Of course, not everyone will answer the call, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The sheer investment of time required to master a skill may be better spent in other ways. Besides, we are somewhat past the era of the Polymath; the amount and depth of knowledge in the modern world practically prohibits the mastery of multiple skills, and our fast changing world is impacted more by deliberate, collective efforts, rather than random acts of genius. Still, it’s an empowering idea. I’m going to go get started on those 10,000 hours. –SCB
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: consciousness, coppola, evolution, future, godfrey reggio, ken wilber, koyaanisqatsi, koyaanisquatsi, philip glass, ron frick
That’s right… it’s ON. Let’s do this.
If there is one movie that I am constantly forcing upon people, it is Godfrey Reggio’s 1983 film, Koyaaanisqatsi. I must’ve seen it at least 40 times at the time of this writing, and I still manage find a new angle of appreciation for it with every viewing. I thought I’d write a bit about the film and discuss some of the questions it raises about the future of our planet.
Koyaanisqatsi is not a conventional movie. There is no plot. There is no spoken dialogue. There is no character development; in fact, all the people shown are ultimately reduced to one dimensional blips of light in a kind of live pointillist diorama. There is, however, an unmistakably strong subtextual narrative created by the often breathtaking visual juxtapositions. The film may demand a requisite attention span, but it is far from abstruse.
I won’t waste words on describing the sequence of visuals, because they are accurately described here. Or, better yet, stop reading this, turn off the lights and your cell phone, and watch the entire film here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sps6C9u7ras
It is easy to see why this is a significant piece of cinema, even if we place this among present day documentaries. We may forget that Ron Fricke’s cinematography introduced an entire generation to the time lapse video effects that now seem commonplace, but we can not deny that the camera work is absolutely beautiful. Philip Glass’ iconic score may be a far cry from the sweeping orchestral scores that one might expect from a movie subtitled, “Life Out of Balance,” but the cold, sterile minimalism compliments the narrative rather well. Finally, the cinematic sequences themselves–I’ve tried and can not imagine them in any other order than the one in which they are presented. The pacing of the scenes allow for a natural ebb and flow while growing almost imperceptibly faster, until you suddenly are presented with far too much information for your brain to process. People suddenly become Twinkies in a factory, then bits of lights, then invisible particles on a motherboard. You needn’t be cognizant of any message to appreciate the subtitle–watching that climactic fast sequences and the inertia one feels upon reaching the static landscape scene that suddenly interrupts it will make you physiologically feel “out of balance.”
As visually stunning as it may be, the thoughts and questions that the film raises are the real talking points. The film’s use of time lapse effects allows one to take themselves out of the present and consider their place in the world objectively. It is not a comfortable feeling for someone raised in a culture that believes in the triumph of the individual; we may see hundreds of thousands of people appearing in this film, but from our point of view, they are all rather insignificant, despite all their 1980’s glory (there is a bit of retro humor found in this film). Clearly, we are only considering the effects of humankind on a very large scale, so that leaves us with a environmental awareness film that does not compel us to change and instead just essentially tells us we’re screwed. It’s “An Inconvenient Truth” with the original ending exhumed from the cutting room floor.
But, the real question: Is the fatalistic, apocalyptic view presented by this film a valid one? Well, yes and no. Certainly, the film’s portrayal of technology destroying the natural beauty of the Earth and stripping away our humanity is accurate, so taking this to its natural conclusion leads to the grim visions of the future presented therein. In that sense, it may be valid. But, that is overly simplistic and discounts the fact that technology is, in fact, an adaptive process–a sort of extension of our own evolution. Moreover, if we are so destructive by nature, shouldn’t we have blown ourselves up years ago? There are clearly other mitigating factors here.
Take the history of the western world in the last century. Two horrific, devastating World Wars in the span of two decades, followed by a period of relative peace. What brought about this peace? In a lot of ways, the Bomb and its potential to wipe out entire nations. The doctrine of mutually assured destruction is simply enough of a psychological deterrent to prevent a third (and probably final) world war. Suddenly, the fates of nations have become entwined, and peaceful diplomacy is now the only means for survival among world powers. It is a tense peace, but peace nonetheless.
Technological evolution, by definition, occurs on an exponential scale. As I mentioned before, it is an adaptive process that solves many problems, but also creates many problems as unavoidable byproducts–the second law of thermodynamics governs this. There is no distinction between technological evolution and own evolution as a species, because they are one in the same. We have incorporated technology into our lives just as we would have done a pair of wings. Like the increasing amount of entropy in the universe, the process is irreversible. We can not close Pandora’s Box.
However, this evolution has another notable byproduct–it connects our consciousness. With every new development comes twenty more developments, then twenty more for each of those, and so forth, with each one growing in efficiency and efficacy. Information spreads further and faster than ever before. Consequently, globalization ensues, the world grows smaller, and events that once occurred in remote isolation now have global impact. As in postwar diplomacy, our fates become entwined, and it becomes necessary to elevate our collective consciousness to a one world-one society state of being. Technology is simply the agency for this change.
Even if we operate under the belief that humans are destructive and violent by nature, as some evolutionary psychologists do, one could easily argue that these were simply unattractive adaptive traits that were at one time necessary for survival. However, in a globalized world where one’s fate is inextricably tied to that of others, such traits would be an evolutionary disadvantage. Indeed, our technologically advanced civilizations of today are on the whole far less barbaric than ancient civilizations were.
In short: Evolution is a real procrastinator. It takes a threat that promises to annihilate a species before it brings about change. I am fully confident that when we, as a global community, are faced with such a threat, we will have the ingenuity and collective will to overcome it, just as we have done in the past.
But this is all large scope stuff. Where does that leave us in our day to day lives? Reliance on such evolution sounds a bit like a soft nihilistic philosophy. Should we even bother to care about conservation? Or how we treat others, for that matter? The answer is YES!
We don’t live on a plane of existence where thousands of years pass before our eyes. We don’t even live in a time lapse world where people turn into twinkies and cities turn into microchips. The distant future of this planet is something that we may never see, let alone directly impact. But, our actions do have tangible, measurable effects on the here and now, and we owe it to OURSELVES, as part of a global community, to make responsible decisions that improve the world around us. A simple act of kindness may not have an appreciable effect on the world two hundred years from now, but it may mean all the world to another person for an instant, and ultimately, our lives are a series of instances. Don’t do good with the expectation of reward, do good because we’re all one and the same, made up of the same matter, living in the same environment, with the same needs, the same dreams, and the same destiny.–SCB
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: a night in tunisia, bebop, dizzy gillespie, hartt school, jazz, piano, stride
Two blog posts, and now a video of me playing piano…clearly, it was a productive day that did not involve showering or putting on real clothes (or earning money…)
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: business, CDBABY, frankie lymon, indie, marketing, music, record labels
I thought I’d try to make this easy on myself by posting about something I know quite a lot about, but now I’m realizing that I really don’t have much firsthand music industry experience after all. I don’t even play pop music; I play jazz piano. That’s ok. What follows will just have to be a lot of speculation and possibly misdirected finger-wagging.
—–
The history of the recorded music industry is one of resisting innovation until it is safely no longer innovative. With the introduction of radio, many feared that the new medium would funnel sales away from records, instead of embracing the new technology. With the advent of the LP, many executives believed that no one would want to hear an album full of pop songs and reserved the extended play format for classical music. When MP3s emerged as the format of choice in college residential halls, the record companies stuck their fingers in their ears and pledged to scream until it went away. Some of them wised up since then; others are still screaming.
All this resistance to technological innovation, however, it but a symptom of a larger fault: The reluctance to embrace a dynamic business model that rewards risk instead of clinging to the status quo. If the death knells that have long sounded for major labels ever materialize, it will be for this very reason.
People want to spend money on music. People will pay to be entertained. What people don’t want is to see something they’ve seen a million times before repackaged as something new. Even kids these days are market savvy and can sniff out b.s. a mile away. When you trot out a “safe” choice clothed in a conventional, multi-million dollar marketing plan, you sacrifice long term viability for a quick dollar. That’s not the way to play chess, and it’s not the way to build a lasting business.
Every immensely popular genre of music was initially met with extreme resistance. That is an inherent trait of ANYTHING innovative; this should be recognized as such by a seemingly progressive industry that caters to a youth market. But let’s really step back and see the forest from the trees on this one–why does music have to appeal to a youth market to be commercially viable?
The long-ignored over 30 demographic finally became relevant in 2002, when Norah Jones sold 18 million copies of “Come Away With Me.” When I take the subway during rush hour, it is not unusual to see 50 year old commuters with iPods buds planted firmly in their ears. Did they not get the memo? They’re too old for that!
The older demographic may not spend as freely on music as adolescents, but they also don’t view music as a disposable commodity, either. They are often extremely loyal customers with a deep sense of reverence for musical talent. The reason they aren’t buying is because they aren’t being reached….yet.
Which brings me to my next bit of speculation for the future: On the nature of live music.
Despite the increasing compartmentalizing of musical genres into subgenres and sub- subgenres, there is a universal need for engaging live performance. This is something that studio magic can not fix (Auto-tune makes my ears BLEED!). Instead of spending millions of dollars dressing up the performance of any of the interchangeable 20-year-old du jours, why not spend that money helping them hone and develop their performance skills to the calibre of past greats? To quote David Foster, of all people, “Good is the enemy of great.” Foster’s own reliance on “safe” choices notwithstanding, he does make a good point: Lasting success in an industry dictated by wild shifts in public tastes can only be achieved by those that are either utter masters of their craft or are able to shift, chameleon-like, into a new role easily and naturally.
The emphasis on appealing to a youth market again runs antagonistic to this, but this is hardly nothing new. The original sad tale of the child star was that of singer Frankie Lymon:
With an amazing voice and charisma that belied his age, Frankie Lymon became a bona fide star at age 14. When rock and roll and r&b replaced doo wop as the genre of choice, however, Lymon lacked the maturity and, more importantly, guidance to adapt to the new styles and was banished to “where are they now?” status before his 20th birthday. Oh yeah, he picked up a heroin addiction along the way, too. Contrast the above video with this one:
Frankie’s tragic death at 25 begs the question of what kind of career he might have had if he hadn’t been exploited so young. Certainly, his innate musical gifts and stage presence could have made the transition into more modern styles of music, and he very well could have been the original James Brown or Michael Jackson.
But let’s go back to the present, and assume that the kids on stage today are all well-adjusted and well cared for. Let’s further assume that they are absolutely the most talented of their generation and are creating some of the hippest music ever played. Is that enough?
It depends on what you consider to be “enough.” I see amazingly talented musicians every day. I listen to their albums and see their shows and can easily picture them onstage at Wembley or MSG. They may never make it there, but they DO have loyal fans, comfortable incomes, and the ability to say that they do what they love. The lack of all pretension that comes from avoiding the major label rat race is so REFRESHING that it almost seems…well, marketable!
I believe that in time the smart labels will shift away from the “Form a band and conquer the WORLD!” mode of operation and begin to redirect their energies into cultivating innovative, honest acts that don’t have to choose between artistic integrity and a contract. These labels will remove the barrier between the performer and audience by encouraging formats that emphasize personal connection between the two. Sell a record to someone and you’ve made a customer for the day. Spend some time engaging them directly and you’ve made a fan FOR LIFE. This will prove to be more important than ever as the cluttered backdrop of impersonal marketing tactics merge together as one giant outdated model of how business was done in the past. Customers are not recession-proof. Fans for LIFE are.
The idea of a band “taking over the world” will likely sound horribly quaint in the future. Music, as well as culture itself, is becoming increasingly personalized; there is no common culture the way there was in Frankie Lymon’s day. We don’t have three television networks anymore, and as globalization makes the world smaller, the number of mediums for transmitting culture grow exponentially larger. In short:
Old Model:
-Artists with broad appeal
-Indiscriminate, large budget “shotgun” marketing
-Reinforcement of boundary between artist and audience
-Obsession with youth
New Model:
-Artists with narrow “niche” appeal
-Personalized, small budget “sniper rifle” marketing
-Blurring of boundary between artist and audience
-Obsession with individuality
Of course, most of the indie labels and even some majors have already employed this philosophy to varying degrees. Bands are sponsoring “listening parties” in people’s living rooms and interacting with fans via social networking. However, there is still a bit of hardheadedness that is natural when dealing with a total paradigm shift, and not just from industry folk. ”Stage moms” (and dads) are still pushing their kids into the spotlight with a complete disregard for their eventual well-being, musicians are convinced they need to turn off the part of them that is unique because “it sounds like it doesn’t belong,” and American Idol is still on the air. These things will probably continue indefinitely, but they will become the exception rather than the rule. History will continue to heap its honors upon the bold, the daring, and the genuine. – SCB
For those of you interesting in marketing in a new fashioned way, I highly recommend Mark Hughes’ excellent book, Buzzmarketing.
Hey folks,
On nearly a daily basis, I find myself completely awed by something I’ve seen, read, or heard about. These miniature moments of catharsis are tempered only by the disappointment that I am not constantly surrounded by all my friends that share that sense of wonder. Usually, this leads to a consequence of trying to express the magnitude of my experience to people individually at poor contextual times (i.e. drunk at a bar, in the middle of the workday, at weddings/funerals), thus completely diluting the effect and coming off like a crazy person. Well no more! Thanks, internet- by giving me a platform to write all my pontifications, you are sparing my friends from having them yelled into their ear.
I won’t call this a “blog,” because that word has connotations that I hope to avoid: namely, a lot of mundane material and blatant exhibitionism. I haven’t yet thought of an alternative for the b-word, but I do have a title for this thing.
I believe the chief defining characteristic of our species is our curiosity about the world we inhabit, and life is merely a consequence of this curiosity. All of us, knowingly or not, use our considerable mental resources for one purpose: To synthesize the bombardment of sensual information into one giant map of our own personal universe. We connect ideas together and come up with theories. We combine theories into philosophies. As we continue to refine these elements throughout our lifetime, we naturally find them to become increasingly entwined with one another, as if rushing to one great singularity of everything. Some call this Wisdom. I call them Points of Convergence.–SCB
