I’ve been working my way through my last haul from the Louisiana Music Factory. This compilation with sleeve notes by non other than Scott Billington showcases a musician at the height of his game aged around 60, something he sustained right to the end hitting 81. Zappa was a big fan of Gatemouth as guitarist.
The Soul of the World
Roger Scruton’s latest (2014) garnering some warm praise, thoughtful discussion rather than the shrill or snide remarks that Roger (one of the most refined minds around) usually attracts.
EPISTEME 12:2
Touted as the 10th anniversary but actually it’s the 12th anniversary.
WALKER PERCY WEDNESDAY – 39
He began to look forward to meeting Mort Prince. Some years ago he had read two of his novels and remembered them perfectly—he could remember perfectly every detail of a book he had read ten years ago or a conversation with his father fifteen years ago; it was the day before yesterday that gave him trouble. After a war novel which made him famous, Mort Prince wrote a novel about a young veteran who becomes disillusioned with the United States and goes to Italy in quest of his own identity. It is in Europe that he discovers he is an American after all.
Rory Gallagher remembered
On the 20th anniversary of the passing of one of electric blue’s giants, Bob Hewitt looks back on the Irish musician’s life and talks to Gallagher’s brother Dónal.
Head on down to New Orleans,
Prettiest place you ever seen,
Get on down to the river bend,
That’s where the music never ends.
Open your ears,
Don’t you feel good?
Get yourself one helluva shot of rhythm ‘n’ blues.
Go on down to New Orleans,
The greatest place you ever been,
Head on down to the river bend,
Dig the music of the Cajun bands,
Honky-tonk piano,
Make you feel good,
Open your ears,
To rhythm ‘n’ blues.
Rory Gallagher – Bullfrog Blues
Symposium on Jack Russell Weinstein’s Adam Smith’s Pluralism: Rationality, Education, and the Moral Sentiments
Coming very soon. Here is the top-notch lineup of Smith scholars for this special issue:
Introduction
Nathaniel Wolloch
Context-dependent Normativity and Universal Rules of Justice
María Alejandra Carrasco
“… but one of the multitude”. Justice, Pluralism and Rationality in Smith and Weinstein
Lisa Herzog
The dynamics of Sympathy and the challenge of creating new commonalities
Dionysis G. Drosos
The “Spectator” and the Impartial Spectator within Adam Smith’s Pluralism
Spiros Tegos
Was Adam Smith an Optimist?
Maria Pia Paganelli
Jack Russell Weinstein
The Political Hypotheses of Adam Smith’s Pluralism: A response to my commentators
Percy and Springsteen
As the date denotes, this has been known for several years and has been widely covered: here is a follow up to this story. It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to learn that Robert Coles, author of the solid Walker Percy: An American Search (1979) is also the man behind Bruce Springsteen’s America: The People Listening, A Poet Singing (2004), though I can’t vouch for the latter work.
Louis Armstrong’s New York
New York Post: article informed by my chum Ricky Riccardi. The house in Corona is a standard stop for me whenever I’m in NYC.
Minds, Models and Milieux: Commemorating the Centennial of the Birth of Herbert Simon
Coming soon — contributors include Katherine Simon Frank, Robert Rupert, Gerd Gigerenzer, Ron Sun, Morris Altman, Massimo Egidi, Mie Augier and several others.
This book is a collection of specially commissioned chapters from philosophers, economists, political and behavioral economists, cognitive and organizational psychologists, computer scientists, sociologists and permutations thereof as befits the polymathic subject of this book – Herbert Simon. The tripartite of the title “Minds, Models and Milieux” connotes the three inextricably linked areas that Herbert Simon made the most distinguished of contributions. “Minds” connotes Simon’s abiding interest in theorizing human behavior, rationality, and decision-making; “Models” connotes his extensive computer simulation work in the service of his interest in “Minds” but also in the service of minds that are necessarily socially situated, in complex “Milieux.”
This collection while intended to commemorate the centenary of Simon’s birth simultaneously offers a timely reassessment of some of his central insights and illustrates the exponentially growing interest in Simon’s work from beyond the usual disciplines.
WALKER PERCY WEDNESDAY – 38
Man is certainly stark mad. He can’t make a worm, but he makes gods by the dozens.
. . .
“We can’t go back there,” she said. Her pale face loomed unsteadily in the darkness. He was thinking about the reciprocal ratio of love: was it ever so with the love of women that they held out until the defeat of one’s first fine fervor, not merely until one feigned defeat but rather until one was in truth defeated, had shrugged and turned away and thought of other matters—and now here they came, all melts and sighs, breathing like a furnace. Her lips were parted slightly and her eyes sparkled. His nose was turning to concrete.
. . .
He was displeased with her. Was it then the case with love that lovers must alternate, forever out of phase with one another? It did not suit her to be fanciful. Was she drunk? She gave him a kiss tasting of burnt corn. He wished she would chew Juicy Fruit like a proper Alabama girl.
