Report in The Telegraph. Just yesterday, yet again and before this news, I happened to watch the making of Aja, one of the greatest albums of the 70s and beyond. I always thought Steely had class and intelligence (in an OCD way) but boy could they funk out as pure entertainment. For serious commentary on the band check out Ed Feser’s blog.
Prom 65: Stax Records: 50 Years of Soul
Here is the audio stream via BBC Radio 3 from last night along with a review in The Telegraph.
Booker T was apparently asked to join Ellington’s band aged 13, but his mother wouldn’t let him
The Voice of Liberal Learning
Judging by the numbers “in” class today (not to mention the hundreds of thousands that will view the podcast over the next few weeks), it is clear that the post-modern marxist monopoly on education is being severely corroded. The authoritarian priesthood are increasingly behaving like monomaniacal Aguirres adrift on a raft . . . with the Linda Sarsours of this world standing on the banks cackling as the dhimmies go down.
The leaders of the rising class are consumed with contempt for everything which does not spring from their own desires, they are convinced that they have nothing to learn and everything to teach, and consequently their aim is loot — to appropriate to themselves the organization, the shell of the institution, and convert it to their own purposes (Michael Oakeshott, The Voice of Liberal Learning).
The Stax Story
The outrageous wheel of fortune that is the Stax Story. A couple of segments are blocked from this very decent documentary but you’ll still get a damn good idea about Stax’s torrid and tragic story. If you appreciated Muscle Shoals, then this too is a must. I came to Stax via Booker T, Isaac Hayes and The Temptations (my favourite Motown funksters), records I actually bought in the day. As a psychedelic funk nut — wah-wah guitar, brass and organ — would have to be my everyday style if I had to choose one. (Bowie’s brilliant Hayes-Mayfield-Womack inspired 1984 is “a milestone” according to the very excellent Chris O’Leary). But the big news is tonight’s show at the Proms — can’t wait to see a podcast of it. Boy, are those promenaders in for a treat what with Steve Cropper and Eddie Floyd there! Here is Beverley Knight chatting about the Stax story as well.
The malaise
How a young atheist and a priest who lost his faith made me a better evangelizer — America Magazine.
What Percy called the malaise, Kierkegaard described as a kind of despair: being lost in everydayness, unable or unwilling to confront ultimate questions. Kierkegaard thought that every person lived in one of three spheres of existence: 1) the aesthetic, which was immersion in the sensory pleasures of this world with no awareness of transcendence; 2) the ethical, a kind of Stoicism, which stressed duty, commitment and fidelity to law; and 3) the religious, which was an interpersonal relationship with God that was achieved not through reason or argument or proof but through a leap of faith. A person who makes this leap should live in such a way as to bear witness to the loving presence of God. That witness could be both a sign and an invitation to others.
For much of Percy’s first novel, The Moviegoer, the narrator and main character, Binx Bolling, lives in the aesthetic sphere, but he is on a search. He notes: “To become aware of the possibility of a search is to be on to something. Not to be on to something is to be in despair.” Eventually, through a love relationship with a very needy young lady, Binx makes a leap to God.
Walker Percy Wednesday 151
It was necessary to hit upon a mathematical and semantic vocabulary. The former was easy, again using the physical properties of the hydrogen atom, assigning the binary number 1 to the transition between the parallel and antiparallel proton and electron spins of the neutral hydrogen atom. Such a transition emits a radio-frequency photon of wavelength 21 centimeters and a frequency of 1420 megahertz—the reason for selecting this channel of transmission. An indexical lexicon was agreed upon. Thus, certain binary numbers were assigned to the suns of Centauri by transmitting the number along with the angle or declination of the suns from the path of transmission. Similarly, other names were assigned to other features, the other referents being “pointed at” and “named,” e.g., light, dark, other planets, pulsars, big, little, red, blue, near, far, down, up, here, there, I (the earthship), you (PC3), and so on. Plurals and abstractions and tenses were agreed upon. Goodness was a property attributed to cosmic particles which were beneficial to the metabolism of the PC3 organisms, evil to the ultraviolet rays, which were harmful. Even metaphor was arrived at: I am M4 today, meaning I am your fourth moon, PC3’s fourth moon being bright, small, racy, refractile as a diamond. Or I am M6—sluggish, blue, misshapen, bored. Consciousness was defined as that property of a creature by which he draws attention to something, talks about it, or thinks about it. It was designated by a binary number which we shall call C.
A lexicon and syntax agreed upon, it was now possible for the earthship to transmit basic information about its origin, its sun, the geology, atmosphere, age of the planet earth, the biology of its organisms (e.g., C, H, O, S, H2O, PO4; deoxyribonucleic acid; mobile heterotrophs; surface dwellers; O2 breathers; sexual mammals, etc.), its technology (nuclear energic), its culture (two hundred nation-states, five global powers, sporadic brushfire warfare, environmental pollution), its science, its art (literary, iconic, musical)—a message ending with a sign-off and an invitation: Over and out—come back.
00000
EARTHSHIP: What do you mean by type of consciousness?
PC3: We are C1s. We wanted to know whether you are C1s or C2s or C3s.
EARTHSHIP: What is a C1?
PC3 (patiently): We told you. C = 1 (Int, Soc, Sy).
EARTHSHIP: What does that mean?
PC3 (patiently): It means that in order for the individual consciousness to be activated, it is required that there be a Soc, that is, a society, that is, two or more persons; an exchange of Sy, that is, symbols; and an Int, that is, an intersubjective relationship in which there is agreement about the symbol used and the thing that is talked about.”
00000
PC3: Just a moment. It is still necessary to establish your C-type. We are C1s, that is, first-order consciousness. Through the centuries we have learned by painful experience that there are at least two other C-types, C2s and C3s. C1s and C3s are benign. C2s are dangerous. Which are you?
EARTHSHIP: Say again. What’s the difference?
PC3: A C1 consciousness is a first-order consciousness, or what you would call a preternatural consciousness—according to the dictionary your computer transmitted.
EARTHSHIP: It is? Say again. Preternatural?
PC3: Well, something like the consciousness of a child grown mature and sophisticated but maintaining its innocence permanently and avoiding the malformations of self-consciousness, enjoying the beauty of our planet and each other and our science and art without weariness, boredom, fear, guilt, or shame. Like what you call the Helen Keller phenomenon.
00000
PC3: The joy of consciousness and the discovery of the Cosmos through the mediation of symbols and the cooperation of others and the preservation of this joy against the incursions of boredom, fear, anger, despair, shame, and the love of war and death and the secret desire for the misfortune of others.
00000
PC3: A C2 consciousness is a consciousness which passes through a C1 stage and then for some reason falls into the pit of itself.
EARTHSHIP: The pit of itself?
PC3: In some evolving civilizations, for reasons which we don’t entirely understand, the evolution of consciousness is attended by a disaster of some sort which occurs shortly after the Sy breakthrough. It has something to do with the discovery of the self and the incapacity to deal with it, the consciousness becoming self-conscious but not knowing what to do with the self, not even knowing what its self is, and so ending by being that which it is not, saying that which is not, doing that which is not, and making others what they are not.
Ontology and the history of economic thought: the case of anti-reductionism in the work of Friedrich Hayek
The very excellent Paul Lewis has alerted me to a new paper of his available in the Cambridge Journal of Economics, Volume 41, Issue 5, 1 August 2017, pp. 1343–1365.
On the role of stigmergy in cognition
This published in Progress in Artificial Intelligence, March 2017, Volume 6, Issue 1, pp. 79–86 but available as a galley here.
Measuring the Evolution of Contemporary Western Popular Music
This study from a few years back confirms what genuine music lovers already know to be the general trend in the homogenization of music. Full report in Scientific Reports 2, Article number: 521 (2012). Check out Thoughty2’s popular and rightfully scathing overview below. It was reassuring though to see some under 35s at a recent Pokey LaFarge show, Pokey himself a young guy. All the more reason why the musical milieu that is New Orleans must continue to stand as a bulwark against homogenization whatever the genre of music you are into.
Jazz as a Spontaneous Order
The forthcoming issue of Cosmos + Taxis.
manwithoutqualities 