If any of you consider Frank Zappa's music to be weird or immature or vulgar or atonal, consider the notes involved in this piece, "Son Of Mr. Green Genes," as performed, as a piano solo, by Mr. Jass Cott:
It's Passover once again, Thank G-d! I always say a special prayer of thanks when I first realize that I'm alive for another Passover - it's my favorite of the holidays.
So, anyway, here I am, thinkin' about this and that, and one of my main thoughts as the 14th of Nisan draws nigh is: Jerusalem. It's been in the news the past weeks (when is it *not* in the news) and I've been spending time, researching, learning, absorbing what I can. And the more I study, the more I keep returning to this question: Why does the global community not use the historical record when they measure the rights of the Hebrew people to maintain Jerusalem as their own?
I'm not indifferent to the Palestinians, and I empathize with the story of their Diaspora. But if you look at Jerusalem through the long lens of history, if you examine the science of the archaeology of that land, you can't possibly deny that the Jews have been treated with monumental injustice. (And if you want to argue this point, please give a thorough read to, at the very least, the Wikipedia entry for Jerusalem.)
Again, I get what's happening now, and I have no issue with other inhabitants of Israel being granted legitimacy, aid, and other basic human rights. But fair is fair - the land wasn't devoid of people previous to 1948. How many times have the Jews been overtaken? Go back to 1200 BCE, start looking at the empirical evidence with an unjaundiced eye, and see if you can't bring yourself to empathize with folks who want Israel to get what they are owed: freedom and fairness.
This is Frank Zappa, along with a group of pretty good musicians, performing "Montana" at Soliden, Skansen, Stockholm, Sweden, on August 21st, 1973 - The band consists of: George Duke - keyboards, Jean-Luc Ponty - violin, Ian Underwood - woodwinds, saxes, mini moog, Ruth Underwood - assorted percussion, Bruce Fowler - trombone, Tom Fowler - bass, and Ralph Humphrey - drums. If you've got headphones, put 'em on, this is some sorta worth it.
Just watched this - Great subject matter, well executed - I rate it an enthusiastic "Very Good."
While I've been busy keeping the GNMParents ship facing in the right direction, I've also remembered to write another essay. Here's the first few 'graphs:
My cousin, Mark, and I work on music together, even though we're on opposite sides of the continent. It's a rewarding process, producing these tunes, one I value immensely. It's fun, and it keeps my brain in a high gear. Sometimes the music is balanced between the two of us, and sometimes it's more Mark than me. What follows is absolutely more Mark - my substantive contributions are the drums and the production work. He wrote the song, performed the original vocal track, wrote and performed the guitar parts, and provided the inspiration for me to put the polish on it. Oh, and before you listen to it, please note that the recording, producing, and mixing were all done over the course of three or four days. So be kind.
About a week ago, I was given temporary guardianship over GNMParents. Certainly it was not a position I desired, as I'm chronically lazy, but I am dedicated to bringing parenting to the forefront of societal discourse. As such, I'm determined to do what I can to keep GNMP doing what it does. To that end, I ask any and all of you for two things: Spread the word about GNMParents, and send me writers. I believe in what we do, as do our community members. But it's not enough. We need to expand our readership, and we need to add to the diversity of our content. It will happen, even if I have to carry the whole thing on my back. But I'd rather have company on this journey, and as we all know, the more, the merrier. So do me the favor, see what effort you can make, even if just for a moment.
I surely appreciate it.
And thanks for all your well wishes, I am fortunate to have such real friends.
I, like most, absolutely love my iPhone. And I mean, my love for my iPhone is absolute. Total. All-encompassing. That said, we all find ourselves noticing little imperfections, even in our very most favoritest thing in the whole wide world.
For example, I love to play my mp3s or listen to audio streams using the iPhone speaker. Hearkens back to my first years with a handheld transistor radio. Sometimes I put it up on the counter while cooking, or doing laundry, or even just sitting in the backyard, watching the evening sky unfurl. Sure, I could use headphones, and I do on occasion, but I'm getting older and my hearing is going and I know that I need to cut back on extended exposure to loud noises. The speaker at the bottom of the iPhone isn't awesome or even comparative to even the cheapest headphones. However, for me, better to have one more day of mediocre audio than one more day of no audio at all.
So I walk around with my iPhone blaring Monk or Mingus or Dylan or John Abercrombie (who I'm listening to as I type these words). And I dig it, no question. Certainly enhances my enjoyment of otherwise mind-numbing chores. However, the speaker on my iPhone is tiny, and is not in any way intended for really listening to music. It's built for hearing alert sounds, like an incoming text message or the ring of the phone or the beep from a calendar alert. So when I'm using this speaker to listen to music, it's kinda sorta barely acceptable. Like an old AM radio. If I turn my audiophile dial way, way down, the speaker isn't awful, and I can just enjoy the tunes, like the summers of my youth.
Of course, there are lots of viable options if I want to buy an external speaker system for my iPhone. But I'm notoriasly cheap on myself, a continual guilt over the slightest purchase that I make for myself. So even the Altec Lansing Orbit, the cheapest of iPhone Speakers ($10 at MacMall) is just too much for me. It seems selfish to me somehow. (Hi, welcome to my insanity - jump in, the water's warm.)
But, wait, there's hope! It turns out that I was able to think of a super-cheap alternative, one that increases the sound quality of the iPhone speaker by at least 100%. What is it, you ask? Why, it's a three-inch terra cotta flower pot.
Yes indeed, this little miracle, sitting around our bathroom, empty, is now serving as a solid audio booster, adding depth, breadth, and timbre to the soundtrack of my life. I simply load up a music stream or hit play on my iPod, and then simply slide the iPhone, upright, into the empty flower pot. Instant audio improvement! And the best part? You can buy a three or four-inch terra cotta pot from the local Home Depot for eighty-seven cents. Nice!
Now, I'm sure I'm not the first to figure this out. But I haven't run across this hack before, so I figured I'd throw it out there, 'cause there could be somebody else out there looking to improve their iPod audio without spending real money. Of course, I feel it necessary to say this: If you are cheaping out on yourself like I am, stop it. It's ok to buy yourself a new speaker system (or whatever). You're worth it, go spend the money on yourself, you're a good person and you deserve it.
For my birthday, among other wonderments, I was given a bar of chocolate so fantastic in taste that words, no matter how constructed, could possibly convey the experience. Crafted by chocolatier Vosges, the Woolloomooloo Bar is milk chocolate flavored with macadamia nuts, Indonesian coconut, hemp seeds, and a dash of salt. To my memory, this is the greatest food my tongue has ever known. From the sweet shock of the coconut start to the delicate nutty finish, a chocolate unparalleled.
As if you didn't have enough people telling you what to do, here's my latest column for GNMParents, a bit of parenting advice for those who are open to suggestions: "Let Them Off The Hook."And remember, when you hear someone say something, you always learn one of three things - You either learn something new, or you learn that you already knew that thing and what the person is saying reinforces that knowledge, or you learn that the person you are listening to doesn't know what the hell they're talking about. So feel free to read my essay, but bear in mind that I might not know what the hell I'm talking about.
Spent some time looking through my Schmidt-Cassegrain at Vallis Schröteri, as well as Herodotus and Aristarchus. Vallis Schröteri is particularly beautiful to me. It escapes me that we managed to get to the Moon, to land on its surface and explore the land. A staggering achievement, something I can't fully wrap my head around, no matter how many books and reports I read. Maybe we'll get back there - would be awesome to see some surface pics of Vallis Schröteri, from the bottom of the rille. I'll try to dream about that tonight.
Thanks for all the lovely feedback on my parenting essay from last week. As a way of thanks, here's some Gluck:
