Extremely Minor Tips For Better Living

It is a well-established fact that the first Traveling Wilburys album is better than the second, whether it's due to the randomness of inspiration, the loss of Roy Orbison, or some mysterious magical chemical that must have been floating around the atmosphere in 1988. But if you listen to both albums together on shuffle, the differences disappear and you have one big chunk of good old-fashioned enjoyable music.

Eden: Heartfelt Reactionary Utopia

Eden is among the truest of myths. It is human nature to remember a better place in a better time, and to extrapolate from that the existence of a long-lost utopia. Perhaps it is because we sense the hand of entropy drawing us down inexorably. More likely it is an adaptation, an evolutionary counterweight to our curiosity and wanderlust.

Eden is the memory of simplicity. It is childhood innocence shared by all and converted into an explanation. Before we knew sex and sin we sought each other innocently, explored our world, named everything in it because that is our nature. Adam must have found Eve attractive before the fall; he just didn't know what to do about it yet. He must have teased her putting snakes in her hair and spiders in her fig leaf.

Eden is a knowable mystery and a conquerable wilderness. It is not civilized or entirely safe but it is an easy environment for humans to dominate. Like a video game, it presents just enough challenge to make us happy. Link goes looking for Zelda and she disappears as soon as she is found - isn't it really a game of hide and seek? Link, again, doesn't know what to do with Zelda when he finds her. And if there is a role for God in this story it would have to be the evil man who keeps them apart, because there are only three characters, and the evil man represents Power.

Some will say that the lesson of the story is that you should be obedient to God(i.e. Power) but the real lesson is Ignorance is Bliss, so long as you live somewhere that is forgiving to the ignorant.

In An Axiom Far Far Away

The Mandalorian Principle: Audiences love what is compelling but not explained.

The Midichlorian Counterprinciple: Audiences do not love what is explained but not compelling.

What I Miss About TV

What I miss about TV is the random access. TV(with cable) was a great technology for quickly finding engaging content without a particular plan in mind. With the web and podcasts and such you have to go through a process of selection that involves mental effort. I guess what I'm saying is websurfing is a more deliberate pasttime than channel surfing, and the ability to mindlessly explore a limited set of TV channels fills a niche in the modern homo sapien's life that the internet can't quite replace. TV's a little bit like iPod Shuffle, in a way. You turn it on, it delivers content, and you respond with a simple binary decision about whether you're entertained. Even when the eventual conclusion is "Nothing's on," there's a certain satisfaction in having looked, and having exhausted the possibilities. The sense of ennui when it seems that there's "Nothing on" on the internet is, by contrast, infinitely deep. It can go on for hours if you persist in looking, because you know the thing you're looking for is out there somewhere(it always is) but you can't seem to find it, or even quantify it with a Google search.

I suppose Youtube is the obvious counter to this, but somehow I don't spend a lot of time there, even though I do like it. Probably I just need more bandwidth. Which is a funny word, sounds like a word a baby would make up. Bandwidth. Huh.

DS-10 Exegesis

I've been tinkering with Korg DS-10, the generally awesome music creation app for the Nintendo DS. It has some limitations, but it's a surprisingly powerful tool for its modest platform and the touch screen allows for direct input in the style of Korg's Kaoss Pad device.

The method I've been using with DS-10 is to construct loops and instrument/scale sets and then improvise with them. You can hear some of the more interesting results of this work here: DS-10 Exegesis

There will be more of this in the future.

Irrational Planet - The Electronic Album

Get it Here.

I have a compulsion to follow my muse capriciously, leaving things unfinished. But with work on my newer projects stalling, I resolved to devote one last flurry of edits to the group of tracks I had long envisioned as belonging to my first album, to be named, as is this blog, Irrational Planet. Some of these I've published before, albeit in different forms. Some are being released for the first time. 

(Technically, I suppose my collected improvisations to date would be my first album... But that seems like a different sort of creature that lacks a specific name.)

Learning is Fun: The Smurfs of War edition

"Amazingly, the plot of Smurf vs. Smurf, published in the early 1970s, was almost exactly replicated in modern history with the escalation of the Serbo-Croatian conflicts of the 1980's and 90's: from a football game (see Dinamo Zagreb-Red Star Belgrade riot), to the ethnical division of villages and finally all-out war." From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smurf_Versus_Smurf

In Pac-Man, three of the ghosts act in concert to try to outflank the player. Blinky aims straight for Pac-Man. Pinky tries to anticipate where Pac-Man is going. Inky attempts to be on the opposite side of Pac-Man from Blinky. The last ghost, Clyde, tries to keep his distance from Pac-Man, but still causes problems because the player will be concentrating on escaping from the other three. Details here.

There are three Transformers that turn into planets, counting the tie-in Death Star toy. Oddly, Fortress Maximus is still a lot bigger, and a lot more expensive - google product search reveals a small industry devoted just to selling all the various little plastic bits of him. You can pay $200 for just his head.

Cats Can't Talk #2

Lalla Skub Python Spaghetti Pope

Recently I've been listening to the audio book version of The God Delusion, read by author Richard Dawkins and his wife(and former time traveler), Lalla Ward. Generally I agree with it and don't consider it unfair, though he does dwell overly long on some topics that seem gratuitous to me, like nitpicking the Bible. Might as well shoot fish in the theological barrel. I've seen the skub over religion enough times on the web that it's old hat. Just post a link to Skeptic's Annotated Bible and move on.

The internet has provided some lovely trojan horses against religion such as the invisible pink unicorn and the flying spaghetti monster; most venerable of these is Discordianism, which might as well be the official religion of the internet. Discordianism is the true true religion; it is also the old new religion, predating upstarts like the Church of the Subgenius. To some extent they all have their roots in H.P. Lovecraft, for whom atheism was overwhelmingly the optimistic view.

Occasionally on the internet you may encounter the overeager convert to Discordianism. I was such a netizen once, many years ago. To a certain kind of person - someone who quotes The Life of Brian a lot, say - it is a thrilling discovery, an ontological moebius strip that allows and encourages you to be a cult of one and speak in tongues all you want, secure in the knowledge that it only has to make sense to you.

Discordianism is still my favorite answer to the question "What religion are you?" I tend not to say it, because cool people tend not to be the ones asking, and besides the explanation is too long and too much of an in-joke for such conversations.

It is impossible to otherwise respond without a series of parentheticals; I'm agnostic(practically atheist(but with a spiritual side(and an interest in myth, which I see as a key to the human psyche(See? The word "psyche" is a mythological reference)))). Discordianism gives me a more satisfying answer, one that says in one word, "I'm aware it's all a game, but that won't stop me from having fun."

This is the great thing about Discordianism and the reason it's more than just a parody; all the old enlightenment-centered religions encourage you to go into seclusion and deep meditation and throw away all the parts of your personality that are insane, but they don't give you the tools to assemble a functioning human being from the parts that are left over. The missing tool is the Discordian mantra, "You are a Pope."

Anyways, it seems oddly appropriate to be reading/hearing Dawkins's book now, because I've been delving deep into myth-space for my new project, which, if all goes well, will be a concept album of mythological mash-ups. One of my artistic principles is to include a dark heart of Yin in the midst of Yang.

Cats Can't Talk #1

Dacrylagnia

Is one of my favorite words that I learned from the internet. It's a whole story in one word. I haven't gotten around to actually writing that story down, but it seemed a good title for a twisted little tune.

Also present in this virtual B-side is the opening piece of my new project. It's a mind-massaging bit of 11/4 rhythms and tone clusters that I put together just today. It's a funny wine, not what you're expecting, but you may like it.

Dacrylagnia

Three Thoughts On The Watchmen Movie

1. The violence is too much. It's over the top, it's grim and gritty, it's the too-cool and too-desensitized thing that Watchmen(the comic) more or less created and that Alan Moore has regretted for twenty-five years. V For Vendetta(the movie) had exactly the same problem - the message of the story was buried beneath a layer of Awesome Badass. Violence that existed in the comic, and which the nature of comics allows the reader to dwell on exactly as long as he or she wishes, is made so gory and brutal that it must become a spectacle. The sadly formulaic superhero fight scenes drag the film down, and the ultimate tragedy? This brand of action is not even that entertaining anymore, though at least Watchmen's cameramen have the decency not to throw their cameras down a flight of stairs and call the result a fight scene. The sound effects, each one lovingly crafted to make each punch sound like a steamroller flattening a horse, are terribly distracting. Is that guy dead? Oh, no, he's fine. Wait, what about that time? It sounded like his entire skeleton was shattered into a million pieces. Nope, he's getting up again. Huh, I thought these guys didn't have super powers.

2. Otherwise, the movie was amazingly well realized. Doctor Manhattan alone was worth it. The crowd giggled at the big blue wang(not to mention the sex scenes) but I expect it was a horizon-broadening experience for them nonetheless. The movie did have a tendency to push the awesomeness of each moment so hard that at times it crossed into the numb emotional gray of a pop album where the volume is compressed like a TV commercial. It was tiresome, and as a fellow movie-goer put it, "difficult." But it's safe to say that pretty much anything that wasn't a fight scene was astonishingly good, and sometimes beautiful. When Matthew Goode delivered the famous climactic line, I was trembling with awe and excitement, and loving it. And if they didn't quite fit in all twelve cover images - the turning bottle of Nostalgia, ironically, was the most noticeable omission - Oh well. Close enough.

3. Alan Moore's name is not on the movie, and his fame spreads nonetheless. The man is officially the Philip K. Dick of our times; the culture has recognized his brain as a badly needed source of nourishment. I hope he has occasion, someday, to reflect on this, weigh the good and bad, and come out feeling positive about the experience. This is probably me being absurdly naive, so let me rephrase that: I hope the culture doesn't devour his brain too messily. We don't get brains like that every day. It takes a miracle.

Doctor Who: Alpha Male of Nobody

Of all TV shows, Doctor Who is the closest to my heart. I watched PBS reruns of John Pertwee, Tom Baker, and Peter Davison when I was very young. The imagination and intelligence of the show appealed to me. I didn't notice its weaknesses. The slow pace, and the cheesy special effects - maybe, in a way, they made the show even more appealing, because the show was telling me, again, use your imagination. Just like you do when you're wandering the woods on a winter day, pretending you're on an alien planet. There's probably only two pieces of pop culture you need to see to understand my childhood, how happy and fulfilling those endless seasons were. One of them is Doctor Who. (The other is The Legend of Zelda.)

The show's hero, known only as The Doctor, has certainly influenced me, though he is so close to my childhood that it's difficult to tell the trees apart from the forest. I hesitate to blame my eventual personality on him; perhaps this is only coincidence. Or maybe it's enough to say that his example gave me permission to develop certain antisocial tendencies.

Generally, I think the Doctor is one of the best role models on TV, because he's a superhero of the intellect, and we don't get enough of those. His science may be sketchy, if not laughable, but the point is he uses his brain to solve his problems. Do you realize how many superheroes there are, and how few of them work this way? Even Batman, a smart fellow who defines himself by an avoidance of lethal weapons, ultimately closes each case with his fists. Superman may have a superbrain, depending on who's writing him, but he doesn't need it. He can laser a hole in your head just as easy as look at you. The Doctor is the number one brainy hero, and I'm not even sure if anyone deserves second place.

Of course, role models have a way of letting you down. A lesson for an older child; models are never the same as the thing they imitate. Never quite realistic. The Doctor is an outsider and an alpha male at the same time. He doesn't care, he drops out of the competition. But sooner or later everyone around him is forced, by his genius, to recognize his alpha status. They submit to him, even though they don't understand him. Because his brilliance is overwhelming. 

I've been waiting my whole life for that to happen to me. For a long time I thought I had dropped out of the competition, but in fact I had only redefined it, naming myself Alpha Male of Nobody. I don't have to prove anything to anyone, because I'm outside and above. I thought I was independent, but it doesn't work that way. Without recognition to feed my ego, I disappear. 

It's not enough to just be the smart guy. Except for limited moments of recognition in academia, or gaming, or internet posting, the world does not submit to the smart guy. And anyways, in the rare case that it does - Well, that's how things like Scientology happen. The smart guy is no less corruptible than anyone else, when people start believing his hype. Smart guys do save the day. They do it a lot, more than they get credit for. But they do it slowly, methodically, and often without enough foresight. There are always drawbacks. Smart guys create a new world that's better and scarier than yesterday's.

The new Doctor Who series is much more refined than the old one. Its pace is too fast and it's still capable of embarrassing itself, but overall it is a smarter and more self-aware show. The new show devoted an episode to what happens when people don't recognize the Doctor's alpha status. It was called Midnight. It was scary, and realistic, and maybe I should have seen it when I was a kid. I don't know. It's the forest for the trees - I can't tell.

In Avatar Form, Top Five Doctor Who Villains Who Should Return(And Continuity Be Damned!)

1.2.3.4.5.

Three New Improvs

I've been sitting on these for a while. One in particular needed editing. But if I start cutting and pasting I have trouble deciding when to stop, and there's only so much of that I can do and still call it improvised. So mostly I leave them alone even if I meander for a while in the middle. With each one of these it gets harder to come up with things that sound new. But I'm still tinkering with interesting effects to try out.

I am planning to record some things that are actually composed. Until now I've left my compositions to the computer to perform for me, but I have something I've been working on that I can do by myself.

Strangelet Soup

In the Future, Everyone Will Be "The Man" For Fifteen Seconds

One of the odd things about the internet is meeting famous, or semi-famous people and interacting with them in a kind of community, and having to reconcile this experience with the experience of being a fan.

This is most pronounced, for me, on forums. More than once I have discovered that a person I like very much as a writer is not a person I can get along with on a message board. Of course, there's no reason to expect otherwise. You have to remind yourself that the writer of your favorite novel is not your friend, no matter how much time you feel you've spent with him, or how close you may feel to his characters.

And the strangeness of this dichotomy reaches its peak when the object of fandom has moderator power over the board. I have a small problem with authority - not in a spiteful troublemaker kind of way, more in a naive anarchist kind of way - so it's particularly uncomfortable when someone I admire becomes The Man. I have to resist an urge to take the side of a banned poster, even if they deserved it, and I have to temper my knee-jerk emotional response, which is resentment and paranoia.

I can see in myself the same emotional reaction that causes netizens worldwide to cry "The mods are nazis!" Such reactions are (mostly) unwarranted, but the net is so much like an anarchist utopia that the occasional imposition of authority stands out like black on white. It's impossible not to feel threatened. On occasion I have felt deeply disturbed by events like this, but I get over it within a couple days. I guess the lesson is "sleep on it."

Learning is Fun: Mortality Edition

On a whim, I looked up the location of the grave of Emperor Norton.

That led me to the city of Colma, a modern necropolis. I found myself thinking I should go there someday.

Apparently there's a musical.

The plural of necropolis is "necropoleis."