Yesterday's Fallout announcement brought to mind Toots and the Maytals, 1973. 

It was around that time that we first heard reggae music.  We were camping somewhere around the Delaware Water Gap in eastern Pennsylvania with a group of about 8 to 10 friends, and were sitting in Keith's tricked-out camper van searching up and down the radio for music.  We couldn't find many stations in that rural location, but somehow we came across an FM station on the far left of the dial that was playing some sort of music we had never heard before.  On the one hand, it sort of rocked but on the other it was a little corny and pop-sounding.  But then the d.j. came on with his Jamaican accent and talked about his "brothers and sisters still living in the mountains and out in the jungle" and we were hooked.  Soon, we had everybody at the campsite grooving to that crazy ONE-two-ONE-two beat percolating out of the van radio and the bizarre lyrics about rastas and ganja and irae.  It wasn't until much later that we learned that what we were hearing was something called reggae.

This was all before the cops showed up to throw us out of the campsite for trespassing (apparently we were on unused but private U.S. Steel property).  Eventually, the police let us stay the night because as they looked around and surveyed all the beer cans and kegs and various other party accoutrements around the campfire surrounded by our circle of vehicles, and heard that crazy reggae music coming out of that one tricked-out camper van, they decide most of our group were so wasted that they didn't want us out driving on the road. "We'll be back around 11:00 a.m. tomorrow, and you'd better be gone by then," they said, and we were, but the moral of this story is that reggae saved us from the cops. 

We couldn't have been more than 20 years old at the time.

     

An Announcement

Best news I've heard this year!  The challenge now will be not to get over-hyped, leading to an unnecessary and otherwise avoidable letdown.

Relapse Into Partisanship

As you may have heard (congrats, by the way, if you haven't), Roseanne Barr got fired from her hit, pro-Trump, television show for posting an Islamophobic and racist tweet.  She was so close, but she missed the bigot hat-trick trifecta by not including a homophobic reference somewhere in the tweet.

We here at WDW note the irony in that the very same people expressing outrage about the perceived denial of her freedom of speech are generally the very same people who complain about NFL players protesting by bending the knee during the national anthem.

Not that any of this matters.   More media-generated distraction from the real issues of the day, but undeniably fun to argue about.

  

You Now Realize That Lebron James Will Never Tenderly Embrace You On National TV

All you have to do to get an embrace like this is be 20 years old, emerge as a superstar in your rookie season, take the Cavaliers to the brink of elimination, and then play your heart out in a losing effort in Game 7.

We here at the WDW Sports Desk congratulate the Boston Celtics on their improbable and inspiring playoff run, and look forward to a 2018-2019 season with a healthy Kyrie Irving and Gordon Heyward, and new superstar Jayson Tatum.  This season was just a hint at the greatness that lies before this team, and the start of a new Celtics dynasty.

We think we're in love. . . .

If you know anything about our current preferences in music, you'll understand why we we consider Anna von Hausswolff's Dead Magic nothing short of a masterpiece and serious contender for AOTY.  Post-rock instrumentation and approach? Check. Powerhouse female vocals? Check. General goth vibe (but not just fashion conscious)? Check.  Morbid preoccupation with death?  Check.

We may not need to listen to any other albums this year.

Okay, I never claimed that I was normal, but I spent twelve hours of my Memorial Day Saturday playing Borderlands 2.  I downloaded it last night (there was a Steam sale), and this morning I figured I'd just check it out and make sure the gameplay worked. . . . 

Twelve hours laters, I'm still on Level Ten but can't stop playing.  The game is refreshingly humorous and doesn't take itself too seriously, and yes, it IS ultraviolent (in the first hour of playtime, I lost count of how many times I was killed and how many others that I killed), but the violence is cartoonish and never sadistic.  

For what it's worth, I did take time off to watch the last few innings of the Red Sox vs. Braves games, and watched Boston rally from behind to beat Atlanta for the second game in a row.

Dreaming of the Masters

Continuing the piano theme, today's Master is the pianist Horace Silver.

I don't know who the musicians backing Silver are, but this video was recorded in Copenhagen in April 1968. This video is the first time I've actually seen Silver - I had always assumed the picture on the cover of his 1964 album Song for My Father was Horace, but it's actually his father, John Tavares Silva, to whom the title song was dedicated. "My father," Silver recalls in the liner notes. "was born on the island of Maio, one of the Cape Verde Islands."

In case the opening of the song sounds familiar to you, the 70s jazz-rock band Steely Dan stole the opening notes of Song For My Father for their hit single Rikki Don't Lose That Number. 

In 1969, the eccentric free-jazz singer Leon Thomas added lyrics to Silver's song and made it into a moving tribute to his own.father.  "If there was ever a man who was generous, gracious and good, that was my Dad, the man," Thomas sings.  This being the start of the Memorial Day weekend, it's perhaps not too maudlin to reminisce about our own fathers as Thomas sings - and them later yodels - his tribute.  

I had a tempestuous relationship with my own late father (hey, it's a hard job, I get it).  He wasn't a bad man and he certainly wasn't the monster that so many others have had to endure in their lives, and to be honest, I didn't make things easy for him and brought a lot down on myself.  However, not to speak poorly of the departed, but I don't think "generous, gracious and good" are the first words that come to anyone's mind when trying to describe my father, and Thomas' tribute always serves to just make me more aware of the yawning gap between how things could have been and how things actually were.

Still a great song, though. 

Another One Bites The Dust!

Took another tree down this week, this time a rottenwood pine that died over the course of the past winter and was endangering the nearby power and telephone lines.  Getting the required permit was no problem - the tree was obviously dead - and I only had to interview two contractors before I found the right crew at the right price to take it down. 

The climbers who do the aerial work on these jobs have got to be among the bravest workers at a most hazardous job.  The dead pine was too rotten to climb, so my climber had to hoist himself up an adjacent tree and somehow reach out and cut the deadwood of the "nearby" tree. 

To give you an idea of how high up he was, look closely at the very top of the picture above.  That's him way up there in the orange shirt.

And then look closely at what he's doing up there - standing on only the thinnest of branches from the nearby tree, he's leaning out at an almost 90 degree angle to saw off a ten-foot section of the dead tree.   Dangling from a rope some 50 feet above the ground and working with a chainsaw while hundreds of pounds of dead timber crash down around you - what could possibly go wrong?  

Fortunately, nothing did and the tree came down successfully without injury or incident. 

For those of you who care, there are still plenty of trees left on my property.  This is the third I've had taken down in the past 24 months, but the canopy still appears intact.  The squirrels, songbirds and beetles have not lost any habitat, and my house and the neighborhood utility lines are a wee bit safer.

Tune-Yards & My Brightest Diamond at Variety Playhouse, Atlanta, May 19, 2018

We're a little late posting this, but last Saturday night we saw Tune-Yards perform at Variety Playhouse.  Bonus points: My Brightest Diamond opened.

My Brightest Diamond is singer Shara Worden (now Shara Nova).  She's a little hard to describe, harder still to classify.  We first heard her singing with post-rock chamber ensemble Clogs (The Creatures In The Garden Of Lady Walton) and with the orchestral composer Sarah Kirkland Snider. Based on that, we initially had her pegged as some sort of semi-classical chamber-music singer, but she later started to rock out and delivered powerhouse backing vocals for Sufjan Stevens and, most notably, as The Forest Queen in The Decemberists' The Hazards of Love.

The Forest Queen parts are, to us, among the very best highlights of The Hazards of Love, an album not without many high points.  Shara dominates the band, fittingly for the part, but we also have to give kudos to Atlanta singer Kelly Hogan, who delivered a more-than-credible rendition of The Forest Queen lines when she sang back up for The Decemberists at Variety Playhouse a few years ago, which turned out to be the highlight of that show.

Kelly Hogan, 1997

But see how easily we get distracted?  Our minds free-associate from Shara Worden to The Decemberists to shows we saw by The Decemberists to Kelly Hogan, but before we go any further let's snap back, if not to the here and now, at least to last Saturday night.

We also are aware that at this point, we're just name-dropping and haven't really described Shara's music, so here's a great La Blogotheque set by My Brightest Diamond that captures the many different styles and sense of performance that she displayed during her Saturday night set.  For us, the highlight below is her cover, starting at the 25:00-minute mark, of Peggy Lee's Fever, but the whole thing is great, and man, that lady can sing!  I would put her ability to blow the roof off a building using only her voice right up there with Florence Welch and Zola Jesus.

Speaking of powerful vocals, the headliner was Merrill Garbus, aka Tune-Yards.  We've been fans of Tune-Yards since Bird-Brains back in 2009, and she's rewarded our loyalty by constantly innovating and changing her sound, and Saturday night was certainly the loudest and most intense show we've heard from her yet.  Somewhere in the dense clusters of overdubbed loops were her signature ukulele strumming and quirky vocals, but she primarily was showcasing dense sonic textures bordering on shoegaze that are new to her repertoire.  

We've never seen her with the same combination of backing musicians twice.  While in the past she's featured saxophones and backup singers, last weekend she just had a bass player and a drummer, and the layers of harmony previously provided by the singers and horns were generated at her pedalboard.  

Here's a new song from a recent KCRW performance, in which she shows how deftly she can pivot from rock to neo-African polyrhythms to hip-hop and back again, all with the flick of a pedalboard switch. 

The set started with songs primarily from her new LP, I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life and eventually segued into some of the audience favorites (Water Cooler, Gangsta, Powa) from previous albums.

Her encore started with our personal favorite Tune-Yards song, Gangsta, from the 2011 album Whokill.

The encore closed with My Country from the same 2011 album, which opens with the patriotic "My country 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty" but given current events, the refrain from the song ("The worst thing about living a lie is just wondering when they'll find out") sounds eerily prophetic these days. 

In sum, a great show by two dynamic women.  We're so glad we went - je ne regrette rien.  We hope you have the time to enjoy some of the videos we included in an attempt to capture the evening better than our cell-phone cameras could.

From the Politics Desk

We're been trying hard to be non-divisive lately, but it's hard to discuss a political primary without being at least a little partisan.  It was Primary Tuesday here in Georgia today and even though a Democrat has not occupied the governor's mansion in two decades, Stacey Abrams is running to be the first black woman to be the governor of any state, much less of Georgia.  This year's gubernatorial race has even attracted the interest of the New York Times, and reporters Maggie Astor and Jonathan Martin described today's primary as "a battle with implications for health care, gun control and other contentious issues."  

On the Republican side, the race is between four reprehensible mouth-breathers, all white males naturally, each competing to be more extreme, more anti-immigrant, and more pro-gun than the next. One ad features the candidate pointing a gun at a teen boy supposedly interested in dating one of the candidate's daughters.  Another ad has the candidate in an over-sized monster truck saying he had to buy such a large vehicle in case he had to round up some "illegals" and "take them home" himself.  It would literally not surprise me to see one of the candidates actually shoot a Latino on live t.v. just to show how much they love guns and hate immigrants. 

On the Democratic side, the primary is a race between two Stacey's - Stacey Abrams, the former minority leader of the Georgia House, and Stacey Evans, a State Representative from conservative Cobb County.  Georgia Democrats are hoping the same political climate that has buoyed the party in special elections elsewhere will lift them here and that one Stacey or the other will be the next Georgia governor.  

Stacey Abrams leads in polls and fund-raising.  An outspoken progressive, Abrams has distanced herself from Evans not so much on policy as on strategy, rejecting the conventional wisdom that a Democrat seeking office in the South must appeal to moderate and conservative-leaning white voters. According to the Times, 

"Ms. Abrams’s bet is that Georgia’s electorate is shifting. Supporters of President Trump will never vote for her, this thinking goes, and so the way to win is to mobilize core supporters like young people, women, African-Americans and Hispanics — including those who live in majority-white areas far from the state’s major cities — ensuring that they turn out on Election Day.  Georgia’s changing demographics suggest this strategy has potential — African-Americans alone were 33 percent of registered voters there in 2016 — but some of these constituencies have proven difficult to rouse in nonpresidential election years."

If there's one thing we've learned here in Georgia after losses by Democrats Jason Carter, Michelle Nunn, and Jon Ossoff, it's that Democratic attempts to appeal to moderate Republicans aren't successful, and that a Republican voter is actually far more likely to vote for another actual Republican than for a Democrat trying to pose as a Republican.  Despite the recent lessons, Stacey Evans is still playing by the old rulebook and trying to assemble a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans, while Stacey Abrams is giving up on the right altogether and trying to assemble a coalition of Democrats, women, the young, and underrepresented minorities.  

Speaking of Ossoff, the House seat for Georgia's Sixth District (the Fighting Sixth!), a longtime Republican stronghold where Ossoff came close to winning in a special election last year, is also back in play.

"Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District, north of Atlanta, was the site of one of 2017’s hardest-fought special elections. After the most expensive campaign in House history, the Republican candidate, Karen Handel, fended off Jon Ossoff, a 30-year-old Democrat who had never run for office before. Ms. Handel won by a larger margin than political experts had expected, but it was notable that Mr. Ossoff was competitive at all in a reliably conservative district that has not been represented by a Democrat since 1979."

Longtime readers will recall that we here at WDW have a particular revulsion of Ms. Handel, who is now up for re-election.  But four Democrats are running for the chance to unseat her and make sure that her time is Washington is as brief as possible, including Bobby Kaple, a former news anchor, and Lucia McBath, a gun safety activist who entered politics after her son, Jordan Davis, was fatally shot in 2012.

We don't live in the Sixth District and don't have a vote in this contest - we live in the Fifth District (the Fighting Fifth!) where incumbent John Lewis is running unopposed.  But we voted for Lewis anyway, just to show support, and we also cast our ballot for Stacey Abrams because that's the way we're going to take back this state.

Update, 8:00 p.m. - With only 1% of the precincts reporting, Abrams leads Evans by 64% to 36%.
Update, 10:00 p.m. - With 53% of the precincts reporting, Abrams won the primary in a landslide, 75% to 25%.

Anniversary

Unbelievably, today is the 14th anniversary of Water Dissolves Water.

When I first started this blog, I had absolutely no idea how long it would continue.  When I first started this blog, I had absolutely no idea that I wouldn't get a better idea for 14 years.

There have been a lot of changes to this blog in those 14 years.  I think my original "About Me" description was something like "the life and strange times of a typical 40-something Zen Buddhist living in Atlanta," and now it's "the life and strange times of a typical 60-something former Zen Buddhist living in Atlanta."  Fourteen years ago, I was only just starting my study of the buddhadharma, but now if I had to put a label on my spiritual path, I'd call myself a "contemplative stoic."  Fourteen years ago, I was just an ordinary person, but now I have certain gifts beyond the earth plane 3-D world.

LOL.  I was just kidding about that last part. It's an inside joke, but I fear that the only people who might get it won't find it funny.  Oh, well.  Cracks me up.

Let's see what else happened in those 14 years?  I lost the girlfriend that I had when I first started, and I bought a house, this pile of bricks up on a hill I'm living in now.  I'm on my fifth employer since I started (one of which was my own self), and I took in not one but two cats. I almost moved to Portland, Oregon, but the financial crisis of 2008 scotched that.  I saw John Maus live, twice.  I got to enjoy a progressive Democrat in the White House for a full eight years, and endured two Republican Presidents, one of whom is still brightening my life on a daily basis.  I also got a little older (14 years to be exact) but certainly no wiser. 

But most of all, I'm glad you've stuck along for the ride.  Even if you're new here, even if this is the first post of mine you've read.  Even if you stopped reading years ago.  Whatever the circumstance, I'm glad that our paths crossed.  

Let's see how we feel about things 14 years from now.

Post Toasties

I don't have the time to post what I want to talk about, and I don't want to talk about the things that I do have time to post. 

So maybe I'm better off not posting anything.

In trying not to say anything partisan about current events or to speak ill and demonize those I disagree with, I lose a good 50% of the topics about which I want to post. 

Dreaming of the Masters

Ever since the unfortunate passing of Cecil Taylor, we've been in a piano phase here at the Old School Friday desk of WDW.  In keeping with that theme, tonight we offer the late Paul Bley playing a lovely song written by his still-living ex-wife, the immensely talented composer Carla Bley. 

The song is titled Ida Lupino for the earthy, intelligent actor, director and producer, arguably Hollywood's first feminist icon. Martin Scorsese once described Lupino as “a true pioneer" and "a woman of extraordinary talents,” and described the films she directed as "remarkable chamber pieces that deal with challenging subjects in a clear, almost documentary fashion," constituting "a singular achievement in American cinema."

The version of the song Ida Lupino posted up above is a fairly straight-forward reading of the melody from 1965 by the Paul Bley Trio (Bley, Steve Swallow, and Barry Altschul); the version below is a more searching, 1973 solo piano extrapolation of the song's themes.  It helps to hear the trio version first to understand how Bley slices and dices it in the solo version.

 

Ida Lupino is a beautiful and hauntingly sad song that for reasons I do not understand can literally bring tears to my eyes when I hear it played.

I Did Promise Video

A couple times during my posts about this year's Shaky Knees Festival, I promised "Video coming soon," but then I forgot to post them.  

Until now.  Here's a couple short clips from David Byrne's triumphant set, including deep cut I Zimbra from Fear of Music (1979), a song I truly believed I would never hear performed live, at least not by Mr. Byrne.  We also have a clip from ray of sunshine This Must Be the Place. 

Hey, we also promised some Alvvays, so here's Molly Rankin still insisting that Archie marry her already.  Seriously, Archie, what's the deal?  She's been singing this song for years now. 

Anyway, this concludes our Shaky Knees 2018 coverage.  No need for long, multi-post unwrapping like with the Big Ears festival.  Not that Shaky Knees was any less compelling, it was just more immediately accessible and gratifying, and there's not a thing wrong with that.  

Mindfulness

Not that I was there, but someone who was told me that at the Tri-State (Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina) Environmental Law Conference this year, a speaker in the "Wellness" Section gave a talk on the benefits of mindfulness, and even led the conferees in a five-minute, silent meditation.

Well, this is good, except for the parts that aren't.  It may surprise you that I have an objection to meditation being taught to lawyers, but my concern is that much of the popular meditation being promoted these days is treated as a commodity, branded as "mindfulness," and held out as a miracle cure for a great many ailments.  In other words, almost the polar opposite of what Buddhism actually proposes.  Of course, I wasn't there so I'm not passing judgement, I'm just expressing my concern.

One of the objects of meditation is to let go of having an objective. True mindfulness is an escape from striving to attain something, even mindfulness, and just calmly, blissfully being - no cares, no worries, no aspirations, and not even any thoughts.

The titles of books on Buddhism can be pretty concise summaries of the contents of the books.  Buddhism Is Not What You Think is a very clever title by Zen teacher Steve Hagen, as it plays on the dual meanings of maybe you don't really know what Buddhism is and Buddhism is not a set of beliefs, ideas and thoughts.  It's not what you think, it's a process of letting go of thought (don't worry - they come back).  

However, in recent years people have embraced the concept of mindfulness as a worthy product of Buddhist practice, and many books have been written on how you can achieve mindfulness now, how mindfulness can solve all your other problems, and how a teacher's advanced state of mindfulness can be yours if only you just buy the book, or attend a seminar, or join a practice group.  Mindfulness is being packaged as a commodity, bought and sold, and advertised as a miracle cure-all.

In Buddhism, mindfulness is but one part of the Buddha's Eightfold Path, along with right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort and right meditation.  But today's mindfulness proponents have made mindfulness the goal itself, not a pathway leading to enlightenment.

The same could also be said about Zen Buddhists and right meditation.  The criticism of Zen is that it puts all of the focus on just one part of the eightfold path, meditation, and ignores all the rest.  Zen Buddhists counter that when one practices right meditation, one is necessarily practicing all the other paths - right understanding (understanding mediation as the essential pathway), right thought (which is no thought), right effort (sitting still without fidgeting), etc.  

But the critics have a point, and I maintain that the emphasis of mindfulness is guilty of the same single-mindedness.  Further, there is nothing more detrimental to attaining mindfulness than holding mindfulness out as a goal to be achieved, thereby implying that you don't yet have it and that it's something outside of you.  The more you clutter your mind with thoughts of "Oh, I have to be mindful," the less mindful your mind is for that very clutter.

So, I'm glad to hear of a ballroom full of lawyers practicing five minutes of mindfulness meditation,  Really. And I believe that no harm will come of it.  But on the other hand, I'm deeply suspicious of the current mindfulness movement, and the West's latest attempt to clumsily appropriate an Eastern ideology, and try to package, market, and commodify it.

There's always something to complain about, isn't there?      

Oh, and happy Ramadan, y'all!

My Office Today

Today, we got to go to sample and monitor the response to rainfall of a rural stream adjacent to a cemetery in south-central Georgia.  I know, I know, dream job, but it's not always all glamour and prestige in our little world!  

We posted the first picture above to our Facebook feed, and among the puns that we've heard so far are "See you're in the dead center of town," and "Your co-workers are stiffs," and "See you're stuck in a dead-end job."

LOL!

Enlightenment

Elon Musk (center) and Grimes (right) at the Met Gala

Early in his book Enlightenment Now, author Steven Pinker bemoans the cognitive abilities of the human species.  "People are by nature illiterate and innumerate, quantifying the world by 'one, two, many' and by rough guesstimates," he writes.  "They generalize from paltry samples," he continues, "namely their own experience, and they reason by stereotype, projecting the typical traits of a group onto any individual that belongs to it."

Pinker goes on to catalog many other shortcomings of our species and of our minds.  "For every misfortune they seek a scapegoat," he claims, and "People demonize those they disagree with, attributing differences of opinion to stupidity and dishonesty."

As a example, we were recently scrawling through our Facebook feed, and saw a post that simply read, "Elon Musk is an asshole."  No further explanation was offered, no reason for the condemnation was provided.  Did she recently buy a Tesla which turned out to be a lemon?  Does she think space exploration should best be left to nation-states and not private corporations?  Does she disagree with Musk's recent warnings about artificial intelligence?  Or does she resent the fact that he's apparently now dating the musician Grimes?

Grimes at The Earl, Rocktober 2011

We may never know, but apparently the poster disagreed with something about Musk, demonized the person and not the position or statement with which she disagreed, and then publicly attacked the individual, not the individual's statement, attitude, or position.  This, Pinker would argue, is the very barrier that enlightenment needs to overcome in order to help the human race.

But before we cast the first stone, or fall into the same error and attack the Facebook poster and not her mistake, we have to admit we're guilty of the same thing.  In this blog and in other media, we've insulted and disparaged right-wing politicians with whom we've disagreed, claiming they were stupid or uninformed or worse.  And then we've taken that perceived trait and cast in on all members of the very large group of people who vote differently than we do, or view politics differently than us, or think differently than we do.

To be sure, we're not saying that they're right, or even that they have a point.  We're saying that it's very unenlightened to call the individuals stupid and otherwise demonize them, and then to project those traits onto their entire group.  Did we learn nothing from Hillary's "basket of deplorables" comment?

There are deplorable people in the so-called alt-right, and fascism and racism are deplorable.  But it's also wrong to label all those who disagree with us as "deplorable," just as the labels and prejudices they project on our side are equally - and almost assuredly more - wrong.

We've never met Elon Musk, and it's possible that he is, in fact, an asshole.  We don't know.  But if so, it's not because he's dating Grimes.  That part's cool.

From the Sports Desk

As discussed here in the past, one of the questions that continues to fascinate us is how can otherwise seemingly intelligent people hold such radically different political views than do we?  Do they have a huge cognitive blindspot that allows them to accept policies and leaders that we find abhorrent, or do we have the blindspot and can't see what they so clearly perceive?

We just finished reading Johnathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind, subtitled, Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, and it has done more to help us understand this question than anything else we're likely to ever read.  We recommend the book wholeheartedly and unreservedly to anyone on either side of the political spectrum who has an interest in understanding the other side.

To avoid stirring up any unnecessary controversy, we'll avoid talking about what we learned in terms of current political events and instead discuss sports. We've made no secret here that we're New England Patriots fans, and have been since college years in Boston in the 1970s.  Based on the recent successes, it's not a bad time at all to be a Patriots fan, but even in their off years (i.e., the 80s), when there wasn't a whole lot to otherwise cheer for (it's hard to remember right now, but they weren't always perennial Super Bowl contenders), we'd always first look to see where they were in the standings and whether they won or lost on any given Sunday before reading about whatever actual contender we found ourselves cheering for that particular year.

Nowadays, a lot of people resent the Patriots for their success and have found no small number of reasons to hate them (Deflategate, Brady's pre-Giselle romantic involvements, Belichick and Brady's bromance with Donald Trump, etc.).  People throw all those things and more at us, and it does absolutely nothing to sway us from our loyalty to the team. In fact, like many Patriot fans, Brady's suspension two seasons ago actually triggered a sense of injustice, and made us bond with the team even more.

Haidt's point is that the subconscious mind generally comes to a decision long before the conscious mind even knows it, and then the conscious mind goes about finding rationalizations and justifications for the decision already made.  What's more, the conscious mind tells itself that those rationalizations and justifications it generated were the reason for the decision, not a defense of the decision.  We are deeply intuitive creatures, Haidt points out, whose gut feelings drive our strategic reasoning.  Haidt's analogy is to a monkey riding an elephant - the subconscious, intuitive mind (the elephant) goes where it wants, and the rider monkey comes up with strategic reasons to justify those decisions and mistakenly thinks the elephant is responding to it's direction.

Need we point out the similarity between Haidt's analogy of the conscious mind as a monkey and the Buddhist metaphor of our "monkey minds?"

If we're really clear and honest with ourselves, we probably became Patriots fans not because of an appreciation of their gameplay or player roster or any other such rational reason, but because living in Boston in the 1970s we wanted to fit in with our new friends there and watch Sunday football with them.  We wanted to be accepted and liked.  We also dated women there who along with their families cheered for the Patriots, which gave us an added romantic reason to become Pats fans. Our subconscious elephant veered in the direction of becoming a Patriots fan, and the monkey-minded rider came up with reasons to justify the elephant's decision.

Haidt points out that when we encounter evidence that supports our subconscious decision (e.g., a winning season or a standout performance), the conscious mind askes itself "Can I accept this?", and when confronted with evidence that contradicts our decision (e.g., Deflategate), we ask "Do I have to believe that?"  It's very easy to dismiss as hearsay evidence that contradicts our decisions, just as we're inclined to accept evidence, no matter how far-fetched, that supports our decisions.  

Some people, for a variety of reasons, subconsciously adopt a progressive, or a libertarian, or a conservative, mindset.  We am among those people, you are among those people.  Our conscious minds (yours and ours) then go about searching for reasons to support that decision ("Can I accept this?") and reasons to reject contrary evidence ("Do I have to believe that?") for our whole lives, and then we look at each other in disbelief and ask:

"Really?  The New York Giants?  What's wrong with you?"

Panda Bear at Variety Playhouse, Atlanta - May 10, 2018

No Animal Collective tour this summer - at least not of the full, four-piece band - but the next best thing is Avey Tare and Panda Bear will be on the road performing the seminal LP Sung Tongs in its entirety over the next couple of months.  First, though, Panda Bear has to wrap up his current solo tour with Animal Collective's Geologist, and Thursday night in Atlanta was the last night of that tour.

As one would expect, Geologist's set was all instrumental - no vocals - and consisted of some very abstract electronic jams.  Here's a pretty representative example.

In addition to being a member of Animal Collective, Geologist (Brian Weitz) holds a masters degree in Environmental Policy and briefly worked on ocean and climate change policy in Washington.  He reportedly scuba dives regularly with fellow Animal Collective member Deakin (Josh Dibb), and the music and video were inspired by their dive trips.  He brought this vibe with him to Variety Playhouse, and the audience ate it up.

Panda Bear (Noah Lennox) performs what is probably the most accessible of Animal Collective's music.  While electronic, it has clear ties to pop music and while listening one can choose to either just enjoy the melodies and sing-song vocals, or dive deeper beneath the surface (another scuba analogy) and appreciate the layered electronics.

We last saw Panda Bear with Animal Collective at the Buckhead Theater almost exactly two years ago.  We  last saw Panda solo during the 2015 edition of Shaky Knees (this year's edition was last weekend, and we're just now recovering after the three-day festival followed by a week of work).  Here's an outstanding video of a 2015 performance by Panda Bear which was quite similar to what we saw at Shaky Knees.

We're fans, but to be honest, Panda's released a lot of new music since 2015 and we didn't recognize but one or two of the songs that he played this year.  If anything, his vocals sounded even better and more assured than in the past, and the electronics were generally a little harsher, but in a good way.  We may not have been able to name the songs, but our friends at Setlists FM identified the following from the set:

1. Dolphin
2. Flight
3. Calling In Sick
4. I Know I Don't
5. Sabbath
6. Shepard Tone
7. Crosswords
8. Untying the Knot (instrumental)
9. Buoys
10. Sunset
11. Drone

The encore consisted of You Can Count on Me, Woken, and Nod the the Folks.

Speaking of encores, we left our usual forward-right platform spot at Variety Playhouse and slipped back up to the balcony for the encore, just to compare the view and acoustics, both of which, it turns out, were excellent.

A great set and a great night, made even better by the fact that it all kicked off at 8:00 p.m. and we even managed to make it home before 11:30 - a nice bonus on a working weeknight.

Dreaming of the Masters

How, I wonder, could I have gone so long through this Friday-night series without posting Monk?  Time to correct that oversight.

A YouTube commenter (sydysydy) captured it perfectly: "Almost hitting the note. Playing around the expected note. Implying the note through discord. Creating a new version of the note with atonal harmonics. Textural splashes. The melody never repeats exactly the same way. Monk is the definition of avant-garde. Half pianist, half painter."

No time to post anything more - tonight, we're off to see this band at Variety Playhouse.

On Crowd Surfing (Part Two)

Okay, I know we covered a lot of ground yesterday, but please allow me to repeat myself more simply and in more of my own words.

Scientists tell us that the human mind has an affinity for group behavior, and sometimes, in that group, we can lose our sense of individual self identity and transcend to something larger.

Physical effort and repetitive motions can help trigger that "hive mentality."

I think a rock audience qualifies as a "group," and the shared communal experience of enjoying the music bonds the listener with the rest of the audience.  Repetitive motions of dancing, slamming into those around you, and surging with the flow of the crowd all heighten the sensation of hive mentality.

With crowd surfing, a person or persons is physically lifted and passed hand over hand over the heads of the rest of the audience.  More than just a metaphor for transcending the mundane, everyday life, the action I believe can literally transport the surfer, as well as those lifting the surfer, temporarily into a realm which can be called "divine."

On Crowd Surfing (Part One)

As noted the other day, I've been reading The Righteous Mind by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. In the book, Haidt challenges us to consider two separate visions of society.  

First, imagine society as a social contract developed for the mutual benefit of all within.  Each individual in that society is equal, and all are left as free as possible to move, develop talents, and form relationships as they please.  The only purpose to which power is ever exercised against the will of an individual is to prevent harm to others.

At its best, such a society would be a peaceful, open, and creative place where diverse individuals respect each other's rights and voluntarily band together when needed to help those in need or to change laws for the common good.  This is basically an idealized version of the liberal-progressive vision of society.

By contrast, Haidt then asks us to imagine another society created not as an agreement among individuals but as something that emerges organically over time as people find ways of living together and binding themselves to each other.  This other society would suppress selfishness and punish those deviants and freeloaders who threaten to undermine cooperative groups.  The basic social unit in such a society is not the individual but the hierarchically structured family.  

At its best, such a society would be a stable network composed of many nested and overlapping groups that socialize, reshape, and care for individuals who, left to their own devices, would otherwise pursue shallow, carnal, and selfish pleasures.  Such a society would value self-control over self-expression, duty over rights, and loyalty to one's groups over concern for out-groups.  This is basically the conservative ideal of an America that prioritizes family, church, and country over individual whims.

According to Haidt, the failure of the American left is they cannot see the latter society in terms other than hierarchical, punitive, and religious.  To a liberal, since the latter vision places limits of people's autonomy and endorses traditions, often including traditional gender roles, it must be combatted, not respected.

However, the patron saint of the latter vision of society is the late 19th century sociologist Emile Durkheim.  Durkheim acknowledges that the first vision of society, the liberal-progressive vision, leaves autonomy and personality intact and takes very little independence away from the individual. However, in the second vision, one can transcend the limits of the individual and becomes part of a larger whole, whose actions one follows and whose influence one is subject to.

And here (finally!) is my point - in the latter vision, Haidt notes that the dropping away of the individual ego to participate as a part of something larger can be liberating in its own way.  As Durkheim observed, "The very act of congregating is an exceptionally powerful stimulant.  Once the individuals are gathered together, a sort of electricity is generated from their closeness and quickly launches them to an extraordinary height of exaltation."

In other words, Haidt maintains that liberals fail to realize the emotional experience of identification with a larger whole.  That experience can allow one to fully but temporarily transcend from the realm of the mundane, the ordinary day-to-day world where we live most of our lives, concerned about health, wealth, and reputation, into the higher realm of the sacred, where the self disappears and collective interests predominate.

  

As Haidt puts it, humans seem to be neurologically wired to respond positively to forming groups and acting in the interests of well-defined social units, be they families, churches, and nations, or less-well-defined units like clubs, gangs, bands, flash mobs, and audiences. Haidt calls this the human hive mentality and notes that psychologically, we're 90% chimpanzee and 10% bee.  We not only seek identification with larger social groups, but in that involvement we can experience a transformation from the mundane to the divine.

In a future post, we'll talk about how this relates to crowd surfing. 

Shaky Knees - Day Three

After Saturday's clouds and brief rain, Sunday could not have been a more pleasant day - it was all sunshine and low humidity and fresh air.  A nice day for an outdoor indie-rock music festival.  Here's who we saw:

Tedo Stone

Tedo is a soulful, Atlanta-based singer-songwriter who opened the day for us at the Criminal Records Stage (we got to Shaky Knees some 90 minutes after the gates had opened and missed the first few acts of the day). In any event, it was a more-than-pleasant, gentle intro to a more-than-pleasant, gentle day.

Alice Merton

After Tedo Stone, we went into the tented Ponce de Leon Stage where it wasn't nearly as hot as on Friday.  Alice Merton is an English-Canadian indie pop singer who continued the pleasant groove of the day.

Alvvays

It was too nice a day to spend much time in a tent, so after Alice Merton we headed out into the sunshine of the big Peachtree Stage for the sunny indie rock of Molly Rankin's band Alvvays.  Alert readers may recall that we saw Alvvays at Terminal West back in October, and the set and song list were not dissimilar.  That's a good thing, as the folksy girl-pop of Alvvays were in perfect synchronicity with the weather and the day, and sometimes you just want to hear Archie, Marry Me followed by Dreams Tonight.  Video coming soon!

The joke here is that by 3:00 p.m., the drugs had kicked in, but that's just a joke - no illicit substances were ingested or inhaled by your humble narrator.  We didn't even smell much of that familiar cannabis aroma that usually lingers over rock-festival audiences - say what you want about kids these days and their vaping, but it all smelled much less illicit and more wholesome.  No illicit substances were injected or inhaled, but your humble narrator did have some fun with his iPhone photo-filter tools.

 Lord Huron

Lord Huron is one of our favorites and part of the whole reason we went to Shaky Knees this year.  It was our third or fourth time seeing him, as he also performed at Shaky Knees 2014 (the Atlantic Station year) and we saw him open for Andrew Bird at The Tabernacle a year or so before that. Sunday, the Cinemascope sound of his wide-open-west brand of folk rock went perfectly with the laid back vibe of the whole day.

Vance Joy

People thought we were joking or being ironic when we referred to him as "some guy named Vance Joy" on Instagram but seriously, we had never heard of him.  Nor are we likely to want to hear him again after his bland, pandering performance at Shaky Knees.  Granted, the whole solo-acoustic thing went well with the laid-back vibe the day had going for it, but with all the great musicians and bands who graced the stages this weekend, how was he selected as the penultimate festival closer?  

He got the biggest crowd reaction of his set by his faithful rendition of Lionel Ritchie's All Night Long, but the whole point of indie-rock is to not have to hear All Night Long, at least not covered unironically. Mayb a punk-rock version, sure, but not a faithful rendition like Vance Joy delivered. Lionel Ritchie is the epitome of commercial music, and indie is the opposite - some would say the antidote - to commercial music.  We tried not to be all stuffy and tried to get into the mood along with the couples dancing in the audience, but it just wasn't working for us.  Somebody needs to play Vance Joy a Clash album and wake him up.   

No illicit substances were ingested or inhaled by your humble narrator, but the beers were free in the VIP area, and when beer is the same price as water, which is to say free, well, let's just say some beers were consumed. The free beer helped us get through the Vance Joy set.  

The National  

That was more like it!  About the only band who could have rescued the day from the Vance Joy set was indie-rock royalty The National.  Like Lord Huron earlier, The National also played in 2014 at Shaky Knees (Atlantic Station edition).  Their set on Sunday night was great, and a great antidote to what went down before and a great closer to a great festival weekend, which is to say, that was it, folks!  Nothing more after The National.

The National played a 90-minute set with all the songs you'd want to hear from them (our favorite is Bloodbuzz, Ohio), after which we managed to track down an Uber and got home by 11:00.  Monday morning was a bit rough - no hangover, but sore feet and tired legs, a minimum of sleep, and a little too much sun.  But we survived and are already looking forward to Shaky Knees 2019!