Can An Instrument Play a Person?

Thelonius Monk said:


"Stop playing all those weird notes; play the melody."

"The inside of the tune is what makes the outside sound good."

"You got it! If you don't want to play, tell a joke or dance but in any case you got it!'.

"A Genius is the one most like himself. "

In 1971 a band called Real Tears played a lot at the Rusty Nail in Sunderland, Ma. Something about the keyboards/organ (Kit Walker) Tim Moran's sax and Jim Bridges on guitar. Just perfect.

Kit Walker and his (1958?) Hammond B3 are still playing. I had a kind of Bro crush on Real Tears then, I guess first loves stay with you...

I Do Not Know If There Is A God But There Is A Devil...

... sadly, many - here is one - Bishop Richard Williamson. The depths of pain and despair and outright evil that humans heap on each other so completely outweighs the other. I mean what's the upside of life - a good day, some fun or maybe to really push it - wonder, awe, joy etc. But on the downside - the enormity is too long to list - barbarism, genocide, disasters, hunger, sadness, pain, loneliness and death. I do not know the answer but why the church would not fire this guy's ass baffles me.

What You Learn From A Substance Recovery Clinic...

I happened across a web site called Ben.Casnocha.com that had compiled a lot of David Foster Wallace info. Below is a partial list of DFW quotes on what you learn from a substance recovery clinic and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings from DFW's writings (in my mind these can stand as things you learn from paying attention - but maybe paying attention and recovery are one and the same):



That certain persons simply will not like you no matter what you do. Then that most nonaddicted adult civilians have already absorbed and accepted this fact, often rather early on.

That no matter how smart you thought you were, you are actually way less smart than that.

That sleeping can be a form of emotional escape and can with sustained effort be abused.

That you do not have to like a person in order to learn from him/her/it.

That loneliness is not a function of solitude.

That (both a relief and a kind of an odd let-down) black penises tend to be the same general size as white penises, on the whole.

That cliquey alliance and exclusion and gossip can be forms of escape.

That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness.

That 99% of compulsive thinkers' thinking is about themselves. That most Substance-addicted people are also addicted to thinking, meaning they have a compulsive and unhealthy relationship with their own thinking.

That it takes great personal courage to let yourself appear weak.

That you don't have to hit somebody even if you really really want to.

That having sex with someone you do not care for feels lonelier than not having sex in the first place, afterward.

The shopworn "Act in Haste, Repent at Leisure" would seem to have been custom-designed for the case of tattoos.

That, perversely, it is often more fun to want something than to have it.

That if you do something nice for somebody in secret, anonymously, without letting the person you did it for know it was you or anybody else know what it was you did or in any way shape or form trying to get credit for it, it's almost its own form of intoxicating buzz.

That everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.

That AA and NA does not apparently require that you believe in Him/Her/It before He/She/It will help you.

That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt.

To Send From Yourself What You Hope Will Not Return...

In the book, Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace, a young tennis prodigy is learning how to transcend his limitations, develop his talent and manage his fear. It seems to me that DFW is always operating at at least two levels - talking about one thing but at the same time something else (some have suggested his style is fractal). In this case talking about tennis and how to improve your game but at the same time talking about hope, fear, understanding, fathers and sons, parents, the "long waking dream". What son/daughter does not emerge from the family in a "feral and flux-ridden state with respect to their talent" as they try for the rest of their life to "justify their seed"? This, according to our young competitor, is how the Game is played...

"Have a father whose own father lost what was there. Have a father who lived up to his own promise and then found thing after thing to meet and surpass the expectations of his promise in, and didn't seem just a whole hell of a lot happier or tighter wrapped than his own failed father, leaving you yourself in a kind of feral and flux-ridden state with respect to talent.

Here is how to avoid thinking about any of this by practicing and playing until everything runs on autopilot and talent's unconscious exercise becomes a way to escape yourself, a long waking dream of pure play.

The irony is that this makes you very good, and you start to become regarded as having a prodigious talent to live up to.

Here is how to handle being a feral prodigy. Here is how to handle being seeded at tournaments, signifying that seeding committees composed of old big-armed men publicly expect you to reach a certain round. Reaching at least the round you're supposed to is known at tournaments as "justifying your seed." By repeating this term over and over, perhaps in the same rhythm at which you squeeze a ball, you can reduce it to an empty series of phonemes, just formants and fricatives, trochaically stressed, signifying zip.

...Try to let what is unfair teach you.

...See yourself in your opponents. They will bring you to understand the game. To accept the fact that the Game is about managed fear. That its object is to send from yourself what you hope will not return.

On this issue there is no counsel; you must make your best guess. For myself, I do not expect ever really to know.

But in the interval, if it is an interval; here is motrin for your joints, Noxzema for your burn, Lemon Pledge if you prefer nausea to burn, Contractol for your back, benzoin for your hands, Epsom salts and anti-infammatories for your ankle, and extracurriculars for your folks, who just wanted to make sure you didn't miss anything they got."

Science Fact of the Every Other Day...

Question: on earth we measure distance in meters or yards and feet, miles etc, how do we measure distance in intergalactic space?

Answer: in Parsecs

One parsec equals 3.26 light years. On earth that would be about 19 trillion miles or 103,000 round trips to the Sun from the Earth. Our solar system, by way of further example, is only 1/800ths of one light year across.

The nearest known star to the Earth (other than the Sun) is Proxima Centauri, 1.29 parsecs away.

The center of the Milky Way is about 8000 parsecs from the Earth.

One gigaparsec (Gpc) is one billion parsecs. It is believed that the entire Universe has a diameter of about 28 Gpc.

Quote Of The Every Other Day

In the end that is the great commodity of value...focused engagement with ideas and other people... the answer for isolation of both the pathetic and heroic variety... I am convinced that there is a simple yet profound physics to emotional wellness... the farther down we go - that is how far up we can be allowed to go up... it's finding that humble path up that is the x factor... I believe we all have it - that lovely natural awe that I believe is considered a boddishatva sign of something very, very good.

-- Anonymous

Straight No Chaser

Thelonius Monk’s advice to saxophonist Steve Lacy (1960).

A Genius is the one most like himself. - Thelonius Monk

(from swissmiss.com)