I’m gonna take a trip down south and see my wits. I’m also gonna see John Harrelson maybe one last time. This obsession with his first and now second death is therapeutic , keeps me from obsessing ‘bout mine.
The other reason is to look up some ol’ physicist buddies of mine. You old time readers of my works know I have been on the Global Warming kick for the past 10 years. It’s time to check the numbers, ‘cause my predictions are coming true.
A few weeks back I predicted a major heat wave, a devastating one. Well, looks like we got the heat, but luckily, 500 miles south of devastation. This year isn’t over yet, but probably we won’t get it this year so that gives us at least a year to prepare…if anyone would listen.
The other “good” news, the folks who monitor arctic ice have changed their predictions by SEVENTY years, now saying the arctic will be ice free by 2030. I’m still betting 2015 if not 2012. The issue is: they admit their computer model is wrong but they are still using it! Any model based on atmospheric chemistry and motion has got to fail. The model for global warming must be based on heat absorption and capacity of water bodies, it’s the only thing that makes sense. Free Water!
Time to go catch the Red Eye to LA…see ya!
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Elitists Fight Back
Over the course of the last decade tremendous strides have been accomplished in the democratization of art, especially technology based art, like photography. Concurrently and symbiotically the democratization of the distribution of art has followed the exponential growth in the number of available images, or videos, or songs, or poems, or stories.
Two very dramatic and "Smithian" results have occurred. The first due to the magnitudes of increased supply; the currency value of any particular work has decreased by magnitudes. The second and perhaps most important is, creation of art no longer requires a person to accept or even address the philosophy of an art. Here the quality of the art itself is the sole market force. Like an infinite number (or even a very large number given the new developments in language acquisition) of chimps at computers running Word 2007 and connected to the internet can produce the Wikipedia in short order, so does art rise to the surface of the mass of human accomplishment. That is, art or the Wikipedia are both of value to the human spirit regardless of how they may have come to be.
Some argue erroneously that cheapening of art has diminished the quality, that two hundred million bloggers makes writing valueless and inartistic or 12 trillion images does the same, the opposite is true. Of those trillions of words and images, so many more great words and beautiful pieces have emerged than perhaps the species deserves. We are blessed by access to our creative side(s) and by access to the creativity (even accidental or unconscious) of our worldwide neighbors. True there is a lot (ok most is) of self-important prattle and ultimately valueless, but we don't shutdown Walmarts either.
A consequence has been many artist writers, photographers, and others can no longer get adequate compensation for their work. Always undervalued for their contributions to society (unless lucky to have a good agent and market) until they are dead and easily exploited, artists are now desperately in need of good government; societal patronage. Especially in societies like ours and those in the Middle East dominated by religious fundamentalists where a concept is a gift of God, these require state sponsorship not only of priests, but poets as well.
In the mean time a nasty outgrowth of the changing markets is commercial elitism. Whining commercialists like Andrew Keen, face of a corporate patrimony, who are losing market share to better, or obscure or even worse, amateurs , are writing books decrying the loss of culture(while continuing their blogs and websites) others shape gangs like a group of photographers and their media puppeteers to make "rules" of the trade only applicable to non-party members to hold their market from other "charitable" organizations . Keen has no trouble using died penniless Kafka's name to make a buck, while crying about others plagiarism and theft. Those elitist photographers haven't a problem torturing caged animals to stage a scene for a "wildlife" photo, but, if a non-party member would do such a thing it would be evil incarnate: which it is for everybody regardless of affiliation.
Market forces will eventually supplant fascist elitists, sure some will make millions, but eventually most will get their due. And market forces will eventually separate quality art from its neighbors. And narcissism? Well, it takes a tremendous effort to keep up ones blogs and websites, especially if there isn't any feedback. Look for the chaff to blow away in the steady winds and artists to die penniless, like they always have.
© Copyright 2007 Gregory Gusse, All Rights Reserved
Two very dramatic and "Smithian" results have occurred. The first due to the magnitudes of increased supply; the currency value of any particular work has decreased by magnitudes. The second and perhaps most important is, creation of art no longer requires a person to accept or even address the philosophy of an art. Here the quality of the art itself is the sole market force. Like an infinite number (or even a very large number given the new developments in language acquisition) of chimps at computers running Word 2007 and connected to the internet can produce the Wikipedia in short order, so does art rise to the surface of the mass of human accomplishment. That is, art or the Wikipedia are both of value to the human spirit regardless of how they may have come to be.
Some argue erroneously that cheapening of art has diminished the quality, that two hundred million bloggers makes writing valueless and inartistic or 12 trillion images does the same, the opposite is true. Of those trillions of words and images, so many more great words and beautiful pieces have emerged than perhaps the species deserves. We are blessed by access to our creative side(s) and by access to the creativity (even accidental or unconscious) of our worldwide neighbors. True there is a lot (ok most is) of self-important prattle and ultimately valueless, but we don't shutdown Walmarts either.
A consequence has been many artist writers, photographers, and others can no longer get adequate compensation for their work. Always undervalued for their contributions to society (unless lucky to have a good agent and market) until they are dead and easily exploited, artists are now desperately in need of good government; societal patronage. Especially in societies like ours and those in the Middle East dominated by religious fundamentalists where a concept is a gift of God, these require state sponsorship not only of priests, but poets as well.
In the mean time a nasty outgrowth of the changing markets is commercial elitism. Whining commercialists like Andrew Keen, face of a corporate patrimony, who are losing market share to better, or obscure or even worse, amateurs , are writing books decrying the loss of culture(while continuing their blogs and websites) others shape gangs like a group of photographers and their media puppeteers to make "rules" of the trade only applicable to non-party members to hold their market from other "charitable" organizations . Keen has no trouble using died penniless Kafka's name to make a buck, while crying about others plagiarism and theft. Those elitist photographers haven't a problem torturing caged animals to stage a scene for a "wildlife" photo, but, if a non-party member would do such a thing it would be evil incarnate: which it is for everybody regardless of affiliation.
Market forces will eventually supplant fascist elitists, sure some will make millions, but eventually most will get their due. And market forces will eventually separate quality art from its neighbors. And narcissism? Well, it takes a tremendous effort to keep up ones blogs and websites, especially if there isn't any feedback. Look for the chaff to blow away in the steady winds and artists to die penniless, like they always have.
© Copyright 2007 Gregory Gusse, All Rights Reserved
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
John Harrelson's Blues
There are some things I know and understand inherently, as in, genetically or at the very least, prenatal components of my being. Two subjects (and more if you consider the connecting spider webs) I am unable to evade in any thought process; engineering and music.
Now, I am not a musician. There are physical talents, like perfect (or any) pitch and normal size fingers, I simply did not inherit. My mother, and grandfather, grandmother, and all my great-uncles (OK, not Luigi), were outstanding, actually recognized, world class musicians. The sound of perfectly played violins, cellos, violas, organs and pianos surrounded me in the womb and in my formative years. The perfection was a deterrent to me and I gave up my little fiddle by the age of six, after only four years of training. This was also when I stopped attending Mass everyday with my mother who played the organ each morning. The two occurrences probably are related.
But I understand and know music, all music, the primitive drums of the Inupiat and the philharmonic orchestra as well.
Another thing I know about is regularly being apprised of and dealing with my own mortality. Curiously, even though everybody dies, this knowledge is not inherent. It has been gained by experience: a little out of body here, a little white light there.
This brings me to my topic: John Harrelson.
I enjoyed my post-pubescence in Claremont, California. It was noted in those days for its rest homes, banks, colleges, artesian wells and citrus groves. It was also a navel of the music world, some resident like lint, some just passing through. One of those folks is John Harrelson, a great performer and a knowledgeable musician.
I don't know John well, our circles of folks, like set theory class, didn't have a lot of commonality. Though our lives have shared the same time and I woulda gone after Cindy when I was in high school 'cept I thought she was so far above me. But our love of music, especially, The Blues, the real Blues is certainly in harmony and has been most of my life. I've sought out John when ever I have been in his neck of the woods.
I've been reading John's blog. He seems kinda despondent. Apparently his doctors don't give him too long to live. That's a subject I know all about too. 'Course our attitudes are a bit different, I said "so what?", he says "fuck, fuck, fuck".
Here's what I think. I heard he is playing this Saturday at The Press in Claremont (curiously the building is part of my youth story too). I think anybody who wants to hear some great music aught to go on down, and while they're there toast him and celebrate his life, before he dies. Yep, this is a great opportunity, how often can ya tell I dead man you love him before he travels on. I can't make this one…but if there is another show…I'm gonna brave the long flight and see him one mo' time…if I live that long.
Now, I am not a musician. There are physical talents, like perfect (or any) pitch and normal size fingers, I simply did not inherit. My mother, and grandfather, grandmother, and all my great-uncles (OK, not Luigi), were outstanding, actually recognized, world class musicians. The sound of perfectly played violins, cellos, violas, organs and pianos surrounded me in the womb and in my formative years. The perfection was a deterrent to me and I gave up my little fiddle by the age of six, after only four years of training. This was also when I stopped attending Mass everyday with my mother who played the organ each morning. The two occurrences probably are related.
But I understand and know music, all music, the primitive drums of the Inupiat and the philharmonic orchestra as well.
Another thing I know about is regularly being apprised of and dealing with my own mortality. Curiously, even though everybody dies, this knowledge is not inherent. It has been gained by experience: a little out of body here, a little white light there.
This brings me to my topic: John Harrelson.
I enjoyed my post-pubescence in Claremont, California. It was noted in those days for its rest homes, banks, colleges, artesian wells and citrus groves. It was also a navel of the music world, some resident like lint, some just passing through. One of those folks is John Harrelson, a great performer and a knowledgeable musician.
I don't know John well, our circles of folks, like set theory class, didn't have a lot of commonality. Though our lives have shared the same time and I woulda gone after Cindy when I was in high school 'cept I thought she was so far above me. But our love of music, especially, The Blues, the real Blues is certainly in harmony and has been most of my life. I've sought out John when ever I have been in his neck of the woods.
I've been reading John's blog. He seems kinda despondent. Apparently his doctors don't give him too long to live. That's a subject I know all about too. 'Course our attitudes are a bit different, I said "so what?", he says "fuck, fuck, fuck".
Here's what I think. I heard he is playing this Saturday at The Press in Claremont (curiously the building is part of my youth story too). I think anybody who wants to hear some great music aught to go on down, and while they're there toast him and celebrate his life, before he dies. Yep, this is a great opportunity, how often can ya tell I dead man you love him before he travels on. I can't make this one…but if there is another show…I'm gonna brave the long flight and see him one mo' time…if I live that long.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Long Strange Trip
The last piece on Otis came out of some dreams inspired by my friend David who suggested I should write my “On the Road”. Why it brought back Monterey days I’ve no idea…but then again.
Certainly, I have had a most wondrous life, filled with adventure, some great accomplishment and if I say so myself (as the author would of himself) a love life rivaling the quivering Tropic’s. And despite once sharing a smile and a sunset with Henry, I chose the travelin’ to be a solitary journey.
The Giants are what make Kerouac compelling. Old Jack is a minor character, a chronicler, a journalist, at best an Ishmael in a grand pod of white whales, which he not only knows, but loves intimately. Some would say Jack made many of them whales, but that isn’t true. Those folks breached so very high above the wine red sea.
I, as well, have met many colossal souls on the roads I have walked, in some cases they were like milestones that were noted and passed on by, but seldom did we walk together. And those great hearts like White, Kolp, Hudson-Reade, Rausch, Coupe and David, too, who did bear, the beast. with me: how could my words in the first person do them justice? And dare I ever let them know I hold them above me? It is not that I lack humbleness, I just don’t like it.
I suspect I will write my “book”. There have been several beginnings, actually over one hundred. Perhaps I have stumbled on the solution. A book of beginnings! No end, no middle, just days of conception and conjunction without culmination. That would be like the strange and glorious road I’ve known.
Certainly, I have had a most wondrous life, filled with adventure, some great accomplishment and if I say so myself (as the author would of himself) a love life rivaling the quivering Tropic’s. And despite once sharing a smile and a sunset with Henry, I chose the travelin’ to be a solitary journey.
The Giants are what make Kerouac compelling. Old Jack is a minor character, a chronicler, a journalist, at best an Ishmael in a grand pod of white whales, which he not only knows, but loves intimately. Some would say Jack made many of them whales, but that isn’t true. Those folks breached so very high above the wine red sea.
I, as well, have met many colossal souls on the roads I have walked, in some cases they were like milestones that were noted and passed on by, but seldom did we walk together. And those great hearts like White, Kolp, Hudson-Reade, Rausch, Coupe and David, too, who did bear, the beast. with me: how could my words in the first person do them justice? And dare I ever let them know I hold them above me? It is not that I lack humbleness, I just don’t like it.
I suspect I will write my “book”. There have been several beginnings, actually over one hundred. Perhaps I have stumbled on the solution. A book of beginnings! No end, no middle, just days of conception and conjunction without culmination. That would be like the strange and glorious road I’ve known.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Where's Otis when you need him?
I attempt to avoid introspection. It seems to me that it is an overly complex process of self-gratification. Not that I am opposed to self-gratification, but I prefer the more physical kind with tangible rewards. Occasionally though, the sub-conscious takes over and I am forced to reflect upon my dreams. Luckily, those are usually reenactments of events that have, or will, occur; giving me a rope to hang on.
Last night the vision of Otis slowly letting go “I’ve been loving you…too long….” echoed over and over, like a wolf’s wail in a deep canyon. Forty years have past since then, but the smell of patchouli and grass mixed with the bass notes of love, youth and hope, foolishly reverberates still. 1967 was an especially configuring year to my world’s fragile psyche.
Only two short years later most of us knew the wheel of change had gone as far as it would turn. Though I sat behind stage at the same venue playing my harp with Taj as he beat his National Steel rhythm and carryed us windward with a sad song, I felt like a cartoon character, like the capstan of that great wheel was spinning backward and hitting me in the head with each spoke driving me deeper into the muck and mire, cartoon stars and all. When Jesse Ed Davis chastised and chided my friend for his barefooted guitar playing I knew it was over.
Of course, it would take ‘till ’76 before everyone had become bought and co-opted and returned to the control of the corporation. They had to get rid of the war and a bunch of crummy 70’s automobiles first. Where’s my Pinto! By then it was even cool to be a rich black man; way cool! The “Me Generation” was not born, it was made. Now I’m not black, though I didn’t know it ‘till I was sixteen…or I should say I didn’t know I was white. Those were distinctions children didn’t make in Cincinnati’s Evanston ghetto in the 50’s. I did live on the white side of the street but my mom made my clothes by hand from my dad’s acid eaten work wear. We kids dealt in class not color. My best friend from across the street and I traded our little cowboy boots for 5 years old and Mighty Mouse was in black AND white. During the ’67 riots he let me know I was white class had become color. In ’68 they killed King and I was made whiter than ever, or, were they made blacker? In either case, they thrust upon us a false premise blurring differences that should have been accentuated and creating divisions that did not exist. It always surprised me that Burn was not a hit, then again I guess it shouldn’t have been a surprise. It was Brando’s best movie. Today I know I’m white and love my whiteness and I know black and love their blackness but a lot of in-between was lost.
I wish the revolution had been televised. I would watch the reruns like Star Trek episodes with Captain Kirk so I would know it had really existed. But there is contrary evidence, people still must work for starvation wages, war has not only NOT been abolished it has become regular fare, even preemptive, war criminals inhabit the White House, the rich are infinitely richer, the poor couldn’t get no poorer but there are so many more of them, poor children still die from lack of medical care as do their parents and grandparents and so will their babies, pollution of our world has become a God given right along with exterminating anything and anyone who gets in the way and the color of one’s skin is still a criteria for first class citizenship.
Oh, Otis you dead guy! I’ve been loving you…too long.
Last night the vision of Otis slowly letting go “I’ve been loving you…too long….” echoed over and over, like a wolf’s wail in a deep canyon. Forty years have past since then, but the smell of patchouli and grass mixed with the bass notes of love, youth and hope, foolishly reverberates still. 1967 was an especially configuring year to my world’s fragile psyche.
Only two short years later most of us knew the wheel of change had gone as far as it would turn. Though I sat behind stage at the same venue playing my harp with Taj as he beat his National Steel rhythm and carryed us windward with a sad song, I felt like a cartoon character, like the capstan of that great wheel was spinning backward and hitting me in the head with each spoke driving me deeper into the muck and mire, cartoon stars and all. When Jesse Ed Davis chastised and chided my friend for his barefooted guitar playing I knew it was over.
Of course, it would take ‘till ’76 before everyone had become bought and co-opted and returned to the control of the corporation. They had to get rid of the war and a bunch of crummy 70’s automobiles first. Where’s my Pinto! By then it was even cool to be a rich black man; way cool! The “Me Generation” was not born, it was made. Now I’m not black, though I didn’t know it ‘till I was sixteen…or I should say I didn’t know I was white. Those were distinctions children didn’t make in Cincinnati’s Evanston ghetto in the 50’s. I did live on the white side of the street but my mom made my clothes by hand from my dad’s acid eaten work wear. We kids dealt in class not color. My best friend from across the street and I traded our little cowboy boots for 5 years old and Mighty Mouse was in black AND white. During the ’67 riots he let me know I was white class had become color. In ’68 they killed King and I was made whiter than ever, or, were they made blacker? In either case, they thrust upon us a false premise blurring differences that should have been accentuated and creating divisions that did not exist. It always surprised me that Burn was not a hit, then again I guess it shouldn’t have been a surprise. It was Brando’s best movie. Today I know I’m white and love my whiteness and I know black and love their blackness but a lot of in-between was lost.
I wish the revolution had been televised. I would watch the reruns like Star Trek episodes with Captain Kirk so I would know it had really existed. But there is contrary evidence, people still must work for starvation wages, war has not only NOT been abolished it has become regular fare, even preemptive, war criminals inhabit the White House, the rich are infinitely richer, the poor couldn’t get no poorer but there are so many more of them, poor children still die from lack of medical care as do their parents and grandparents and so will their babies, pollution of our world has become a God given right along with exterminating anything and anyone who gets in the way and the color of one’s skin is still a criteria for first class citizenship.
Oh, Otis you dead guy! I’ve been loving you…too long.
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