Posts Tagged ‘Les Paul’
“To choose the wrong strategy is a serious matter”*…
The estimable Ted Gioia suggests that we’re living in a time without a counterculture…
These are the key indicators that you might be living in a society without a counterculture:
• A sense of sameness pervades the creative world
• The dominant themes feel static and repetitive, not dynamic and impactful
• Imitation of the conventional is rewarded
• Movies, music, and other creative pursuits are increasingly evaluated on financial and corporate metrics, with all other considerations having little influence
• Alternative voices exist—in fact, they are everywhere—but are rarely heard, and their cultural impact is negligible
• Every year the same stories are retold, and this sameness is considered a plus
• Creative work is increasingly embedded in genres that feel rigid, not flexible
• Even avant-garde work often feels like a rehash of 50-60 years ago
• Etc. etc. etc.
He then illustrates his point with a series of 14 tweets: “14 Warning Signs That You Are Living in a Society Without a Counterculture,” from @tedgioia.
* “To choose the wrong strategy is a serious matter. All the movements that only play on liberation, emancipation, on the resurrection of a subject of history, of the group, of the word based on “consciousness raising,” indeed a “raising of the unconscious” of subjects and of the masses, do not see that they are going in the direction of the system, whose imperative today is precisely the overproduction and regeneration of meaning and of speech.” — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation
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As we ferret out ferment, we might recall that it was on this date in 2008 that a worker using a blowtorch to warm up some asphalt shingles at the Universal Studios Hollywood theme park neglected to check that all of them had cooled before he left, and a three-alarm fire broke out. It destroyed three acres of the studio’s back lot tour (including “New York Street,” “New England Street,” and the attraction known as “King Kong Encounter”).
But worse, it obliterated Building 6197 and its contents– between 40,000 and 50,000 archived digital video and film copies were destroyed along with 118,000 to 175,000 audio master tapes belonging to Universal Music Group. Among the artists whose masters were destroyed were Nirvana, Elton John, R.E.M., Sonic Youth, Beck, Bryan Adams, Sheryl Crow, Jimmy Eat World, Suzanne Vega, Les Paul, The Surfaris, and Bryan Adams.
“I looked up my family tree and found out I was the sap”*…
It’s tempting to consider information visualization a relatively new field that rose in response to the demands of the Internet generation. “But,” argues Manual Lima in The Book of Trees: Visualizing Branches of Knowledge, “as with any domain of knowledge, visualizing is built on a prolonged succession of efforts and events.”
While it’s tempting to look at the recent work, it’s critical we understand the long history. Lima’s stunning book helps, covering the fascinating 800-year history of the seemingly simple tree diagram.
Trees are some of the oldest living things in the world. The sequoias in Northern California, for example, can reach a height of nearly 400 feet, with a trunk diameter of 26 feet and live to more than 3,500 years. “These grandiose, mesmerizing lifeforms are a remarkable example of longevity and stability and, ultimately, are the crowning embodiment of the powerful qualities humans have always associated with trees.”
Such an important part of natural life on earth, tree metaphors have become deeply embedded in the English language, as in the “root” of the problem or “branches” of knowledge. In the Renaissance, the philosophers Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes, for example, used tree diagrams to describe dense classification arrangements. As we shall see, trees really became popular as a method of communicating and changing minds with Charles Darwin…
More on the highly-recommended Farnum Street blog.
* Rodney Dangerfield
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As we look to our roots, we might recall that it was on this date in 1955 that Capitol Records released what it claimed to be (and what surely was) the shortest “song” ever recorded. Earlier in the year, Les Paul and Mary Ford has released a single, “Magic Melody,” that concluded with the well-known “shave and a hair cut” musical phrase– sans the traditional “two bits” sting. Disc jockeys around the country complained that the track ended too abruptly, that it left the listener hanging. So Les Paul went back into the studio to record “Magic Melody- Part 2”– which consisted solely of the two “missing” notes. It ran for about one second.
Lies, Damned Lies, and…
From Vali Chandrasekaran, on BusinessWeek.com: Need to prove something you already believe? Statistics are easy: All you need are two graphs and a leading question. Correlation may not imply causation, but it sure can help us insinuate it.
More here.
As we recalibrate our conclusions, we might send amplified birthday wishes to musician, composer, and inventor Les Paul; he was born on this date in 1915. Paul was an accomplished jazz and country songwriter and guitarist; but he is surely best remembered as a pioneer in the development of the solid-body electric guitar (and an early adopter of techniques like over-dubbing, tape delay, and multi-track recording)– that’s to say, as a father of rock and roll.
Les Paul, playing a Gibson Les Paul (source)
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