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Joined: Sep 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
I had a good day today. Catherine is away at a barbershop jolly, and has taken the kids with her, so I am at liberty to plan my own weekend selfishly ;) In the morning I went into town to get a haircut and do some shopping for food and also some building materials – it’s glorious weather here, so I was buzzing around with the ragtop down, with a blast of U2 thundering from the speakers :) Whilst I was waiting in the barber’s, I read a few more pages from one of my current reading list, Rights of Man by Thomas Paine. I am constantly refreshed by the vigour and elegant simplicity of expression, coupled with extraordinary intellectual precision. What a man, what a giant – where would the USA, where would France and modern Europe be without him? Over lunch I read The Times, and the extraordinary images of yesterday’s appalling instalment of the farce that was once the best railway system in the world was graven into my mind’s eye. This afternoon I spent building a wall destined to be part of the back wall of my sitting room, to hold wall-to-ceiling bookshelves; it was pleasant in the sun, and I had the radio on to satisfy my need for “input” hi, Nova Robot! After some pretty forgettable R&B I tuned into Jazz Record Requests, and heard the vintage Potato Head Blues by Satchmo, and Bix & Tram (see here for details: http:// www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/playlists/jrrn.shtml) and later some very cool Charlie Mingus amongst other good stuff. Late afternoon turned into evening, and I broke off for a beer in the lowering sun: Radio 3 was transmitting La Vestale by Gaspare Spontini – a wonderful opera that was completely new to me, recorded in London a week or so ago. The plot concerns a girl who puts love before slavery to an oppressive orthodoxy, and who is finally saved from the wrath of the priests by the intervention of the gods, who naturally side with true love. hi, you! The producer, Francesca Zambello, was interviewed in the interval, and was extremely lucid about the dual interest of works of art revisited for the twin reasons of assessing their contemporaneous impact and also for measuring their current interest to modern auditors. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/classical/opera/lavestale.shtmlWith Mum away in Oz for the duration, I invited Dad around for some supper – a quick chicken stir-fry with a Thai curry type sauce. We sat and drank an agreeable French wine with the meal, and talked about the incredible changes that his lifetime had encompassed; we were glancing through a book he had pulled out of storage, which was ‘The Silver Jubilee Book – The Story of 25 Eventful Years In Pictures’, presumably published around 1935, when Dad was 5. With captions made quaint by the passing decades, it encapsulates what the producer was saying about a dual perspective of interest: the straightforward photographic record of that tumultuous period of history is captured, with the additional insights of changing social mores underlined sometimes with tragic piquancy – the proud boasts about train speed records caught my eye, for example, as did news of major investment in the London Tube system. And as we sat chatting, a Beethoven Quartet played to us, courtesy of a recording made by the BBC two years ago. As the evening got later, I put on a disc of Dave Brubeck, many tracks recorded around the time of my birth; when Dad went home the final tracks leached out into the clear night sky as I stood outside in the garden, enjoying a cigar and a last brandy. The fumes of the smoke and brandy blended with the honeysuckle scent from the canopy of Clematis Montana, and seemed to insinuate into the chopped rhythms of Brubeck and the lilting alto sax of Paul Desmond. So apart from having drank well and deep of the blushful hippocrene, you may ask, what does all this rambling amount to? Well, I got to taking stock today, and realised that a fundamental constituent of what makes me who I am and what makes me better informed, sometimes deeply happy, always more aware of my fellow yuman beans, is this: that I count myself fortunate beyond price to have been born in the age of information.From the two-hundred year old formative text, to the sepia photographs of WW1, to the news pics in a daily broadsheet, to the range of music I have listened to over the course of the day, to the manner in which I chat to friends over the web – all depend on storage media and technologies beyond the dreams of many generations of our forebears. What an extraordinary blessing this is, and how little we are inclined to give it due weight in our casual acceptance of our modern luxuries. So, obligatory word post element! ;) Are there any special words associated with recording (or data transfer of any kind) that are special to you in any way? And are there any particular media that you cannot imagine living without?
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
What a lovely day you had, l---y. I am so glad. Your post made me think of several things, none particularly connected to another. First, it made me remember that tomorrow is Mother's Day. I suppose this will reveal how selfish I am, but. The one thing so many of us mothers who are still raising kids would like the most is the one thing that we cannot ask for on this day of all days: a temporary vacation from motherhood. How I love the rare occasions when I don't have to worry about getting supper together by a certain time, or whether there are clean clothes and milk for tomorrow morning.
You and I are alike in many ways, my friend, but not in all ways. I very much appreciate the privilege of hearing music that moves me, and learning new and interesting facts if I happen to catch something on TV. (For ex., the fact that the platypus has venom, and can squirt it from its hind feet.) Reading has taken me to even higher levels of wonder, as has my access to the internet.
Without doubt, yes, I am fortunate to have been born in the age of information. But it comes with a price. Different kinds, in fact. One kind that is particular to me is the fact that I prefer not to know about unpleasantness that I can do nothing at all about. Only--once you know a thing, you cannot un-know it. I am still sorry that I read "Old Yeller"; the agony that my imagination put into that little dog still haunts me after 40 years.
One price that is common to all of us here is due to the fact that there is too MUCH information. Nobody could ever read everything that's on the internet. So we must choose what we look at, leaving us to wonder about what we're missing. Then there's the question of reliability--how do we decide when to believe what we've read? Our present-day wealth of sources, in whatever media, does indeed offer access to more information than in any prior era, but...just how much of this is mis-information? Not that this is anything new to mankind--think of the old medicine shows, for ex. But there is so much MORE of it, now.
However, warts and all, the information superhighway is here to stay, and I for one believe it has done/will do a lot more good than harm.
P.S.--I love your vision.
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Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 16
stranger
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stranger
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 16 |
One of the best pieces of writing I have read on Awad Talk. Reading it made me also live your day. Soak in the pleasure of happy tasks and leisure, and joy of sharing something someone else has enjoyed over boundaries of geography (in this case) or time, through its recording. You wrote about the joys of information age and the nature of your post illustrated just that very beautifully. Thank you
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 819
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 819 |
Yes, the information age is a technological marvel, yet there is something even more marvellous in the remembering and retelling of stories handed down orally, as in the bardic tradition. We've had members reciting songs and poems form long ago memories on other threads recently, and that, to me, is more a marvel than digital Dave Brubek ever will be.
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Joined: Jan 2002
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veteran
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veteran
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
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It was and is, indeed, a good day!
The "age of information" is such a incomplete word for *it. I'm sure there are more we could list for different reasons, but, three points of focus: the printing press (1500's?), public broadcast networks (e.g. US Radio 1927), and the internet. The permanence, permeance and now volume of info. Each hold an independent significance. Recorded music, although significant to a developing culture base, is a bit lacking in 'information'. The "age of communication" may be a bit more accurate, but I suppose, like everything else, it depends on your focus. My life would be considerably different without recorded music and do enjoy all I *hear and all I *listen to. It would be different without AWAD as well, which goes toward your point about not acknowledging the extraordinary blessings. I see (currently) AWAD as "what the internet means" or the most diverse collection of information, people available since I don't have much time to spend, nor do I wish to spend more.
Pardon my *digression.
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Are we creating an addiction to input or is this satisfying human nature? Are we supplanting a desire for interaction with just interinformation?
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Mav - The way the word "digital" sound is *revered and equated with "high quality" is a pet peeve of mine (since you asked). It would be tough to live without a piano.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819 |
Special medium that I couldn't live without: the book. I don't think paper books could ever be replaced to my satisfaction. They may yet invent some digital book, and it may someday catch on, but I doubt it would ever appeal to me. I don't mind digital recordings so much, but I do love the vinyl LP. I have this poster over my bed to remind me of them: http://www.streamlined-prints.com/images/m0002.jpg. There was something perfectly grand about sliding the delicate LP from its cover, placing it on the turntable, and placing the needle on the disc. And the sleeves were large enough that they could serve as substantial media for interesting graphic art, or lengthy, informative liner notes, or both. On the other hand, I can play CD's in my car!
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
My medium of choice is the radio. I'll be taking BBC Radio 4 to my desert island. I love listening to the sound of voices. I love the way that that the programmes take time to produce (as opposed to talk-radio with streaming vox-pops). I even enjoy the programme where people complain about it not being as good as it used to be.
At the weekend I was driving through stunning countryside on my way to a wedding in a Scottish castle so-oo romantic when I heard John Culshaw (of BBC R4's Dead Ringers) doing his favourite impression of Russell Crowe as Maximus Decimus Meridius - a British actor doing an impression of an Australian playing a Spaniard in a American film set in Ancient Rome directed by a British former BBC employee. It stuck me that even heading deep into rural Britain, the rest of the world was only a twiddle with the tuning away.
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old hand
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old hand
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Thanks Maverick for sharing a day in the life of man enjoying the pleasures of the brave new world of information. It was so cleanly written that my own counter comments seemed heavy and clumsy in contrast. So I didn't want to but you forced me to bring in a heavyweight ringer to present another view.
...excerpts from THE MURDERER - RAY BRADBURY
"...remember, I did a dance on my wrist radio? Well, that night I laid plans to murder my house."
"Are you sure thats the way you want me to write it down?"
"That's semantically accurate. Kill it dead. It's one of those talking, singing, humming, weather-reporting, poetry-reading, novel-reciting, jingle-jangling, rockabye-crooning-when-you-go-to-bed house. A house that that screams opera to you in the shower and teaches you Spanish in your sleep. One of those blathering caves where all kinds of electronic Oracles make you feel a trifle larger than a thimble, with stoves that say, 'I'm apricot pie, and I'm done.' or 'I'm prime roast beef, so baste me!' and other nursery gibberish like that. With beds that rock you to sleep and shake you awake. A house that barely tolerates humans, I'll tell you. A front door that barks: 'You've mud on your feet, sir!' And an electronic vacuum hound that snuffles around after you from room to room, inhaling every fingernail or ash you drop. Jesus God, I say, Jesus God!"
"Quietly," suggested the psychiatrist.
"Remember that Gilbert and Sullivan song-'I've Got It on My List, It Never Will Be Missed'? All night I listed grievances. Next morning early I bought a pistol. I purposely muddied my feet. I stood at our front door. The front door shrilled, 'Dirty feet, muddy feet! Wipe your feet! Please be neat!' I shot the damn thing in the keyhole! I ran to the kitchen, where the stove was just whining, 'Turn me over!' In the middle of a mechanical omelet I did the stove to death. Oh, how it sizzled and screamed, 'I'm shorted! Then the telephone rang like a spoiled brat. I shoved it down the Insinkerator, I must state here and now I have nothing whatever against the Insinkerator; it was an innocent bystander. I feel sorry for it now, a practical device indeed, which never said a word, purred like a sleepy lion most of the time, and digested our leftovers. I'll have it restored. Then I went in and shot the televisor, that insidious beast, that Medusa, which freezes a billion people to stone each night, staring fixedly, that Siren which called and sang and promised so much and gave, after all, so little but myself always going back, going back, until - Bang! Like a headless turkey, gobbling, my wife whooped out the front door. The police came. Here I am!"
He sat back happily and lit a cigarette. The psychiatrist sat there in the sunshine of that beatific smile.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055 |
>Are there any special words associated with recording (or data transfer of any kind) that are special to you in any way?
I've always liked the word 'Flanger' from digital music recording. It's used to describe the effect where an offset and varied form of the original wave is created and it sounds phunky as phu..., well, it sounds good:-)
The etymology of the word is interesting too:
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flange Pronunciation Key (flnj)
n.
A protruding rim, edge, rib, or collar, as on a wheel or a pipe shaft, used to strengthen an object, hold it in place, or attach it to another object.
[Possibly variant of flanch, device at the side of an escutcheon, perhaps from French flanche, feminine of flanc, side. See flank.]
flange
\Flange\ (fl[a^]nj), n. [Prov. E. flange to project, flanch a projection. See Flanch, Flank.] 1. An external or internal rib, or rim, for strength, as the flange of an iron beam; or for a guide, as the flange of a car wheel (see Car wheel.); or for attachment to another object, as the flange on the end of a pipe, steam cylinder, etc. --Knight.
AHD
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As to your other question: I couldn't do without audio digital formats:-)
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