What in the world is going on?

So the big news is that Pluto is no longer a planet. I don't know if anybody has written an actual requiem yet. Perhaps this (to the tune of the chorus of Candle in the Wind) will spur a real songwriter to write something better:

And it seems to me that we all should be
More than a little bit annoyed
That what was once the planet Pluto
Is now just an asteroid
'Cause when all is said and done
After all the fancy talk
All the so-called planets are
Just big hunks of rock.

I tried to write a verse to go with it, but it was beyond my abilities.





Now my main concern is this guy:



Is he no longer considered a real dog?

ebay- the perfect solution to bad GAS

I've been pretty good about saving money recently- so good that I succumbed the ol' urge to go ebaying again. It started innocently enough- I've been trying to learn New Testament Greek so I picked up an old Greek Primer for $2.50 plus shipping and a Greek New Testament for 18 bucks. In the back of one's mind is the idea that by merely putting such esoteric books on the bookshelf one will pick up the skill of reading Greek by osmosis. It doesn't really work that way. Another strange idea that sits in the back of my mind is that at 48 years old I should be able to pick up new skills much more quickly than, say, when I was 5 years old. After all, I've picked up many new skills since that age and practice makes perfect, right? Unfortunately, each new skill I try to acquire still demands that I go back to the beginning, do the hard work that I think I've earned the right to skip, and sound or look like a freakin' idiot while I'm doing it. So I pick up my elementary Greek book and start to read and in my ears it sounds like this:

"See... Dick... ummm... run? See... ... Spot ... RUN! ummm... Finny... no, FUNNY... Funny..."

It is kinda funny actually.

Isn't it also funny how we reward ourselves by doing the opposite of what we are trying to do? Like when we've lost 10 pounds we reward ourselves with ice cream. If we try to save money, we reward ourselves by buying something. For the last few months at least my GAS (Gear Aquisition Syndrome) has gotten almost unbearable and I've been looking longingly at all kinds of mandolins. It reached a peak when I had to borrow Teddy's 5-string banjo to play at Bryden place and had to take a flatpick to it. I have the same feeling when flatpicking a classical guitar-it feels like a lame admission that you don't really know how to play the thing.

So I bought a mandolin on ebay.

This also feels like a lame admission. In the music world, buying a mail-order instrument used to be looked upon like buying a mail-order bride: an admission that one doesn't really have the skills to pair up the right way. To actually invest money in an instrument without playing it first to see how it sounds? That's a little desperate. Things have changed, I tell myself. In a world where the vast majority of inexpensive to mid-priced instruments are made in a couple factories in China, there just aren't all that many differences.

But then there is the whole idea that this rather fragile item is being mailed from Florida. It would be better if it were coming UPS. I know that both companies have similar track records- I've heard the success stories and the horror stories. But being a mailman I know the horror stories from one of those delivery companies first hand.

One recent purchase that I don't feel much guilt about is the Reader's New Testament by Max McClain- available as an audiobook on itunes for just $12.95. I first heard Max McClain reading the N. T. on WEEC Springfield 100.7 and thought, "Wow this is cool." Being the cheapskate that I am I found a free audio bible on the internet, but it just didn't compare.

Audiobooks on itunes? Just what I need- yet another temptation.

My new end-time scenario

Everybody knows about the currently popular premillenial end-time scenario with pre-tribulation rapture courtesy of Hal Lindsay, Jerry Jenkins, and Tim LaHaye. I have a slightly modified version that you may or may not find more credible:

The rapture already happened- about 4 months ago. Although we expected that it would be accompanied by numerous car and plane wrecks, that expectation was wrong. When God miraculously pulled all the true believers off of the earth, he also removed any memory we may have had that they ever existed. He also miraculously got rid of all the cars, homes, etc. or listed them on ebay.

Some of us may think that we are true believers and should have been raptured, but we're really not. That explains why none of us are perfect the way true believers should be.

This also neatly solves the main problem with the premil-pretrib scenario. If everybody knows that the rapture occurred, say, at 12:18 A. M., April 27th, 2006 then obviously everybody knows that the Lord will return at 12:18 A. M., April 27th, 2013. That's a no brainer. But how can this be if "nobody knows the day or the hour" of the Lord's return?

My guess is that now that the rapture has happened, the next step is for the Antichrist to make his first move. My eyes are on Jerry Springer.

with apologies to my pastors:

You are a Self-Discoverer

You're not religious, but you've created your own kind of spirituality. Introspective and thoughtful, you tend to look inward for the divine. You are distrusting of all forms of organized religion. You especially dislike religious gurus and leaders, who you feel are charlatans.

Steak dinner for 2- cost: $4

Last night Nancy and I had a perfect date. It was as close as one could get to heaven on earth. We enjoyed a grilled to perfection steak dinner on our patio with jazz sounds streaming from the bedroom window. The cost of the steak was about $4 (we got it on sale) and the wine was compliments of Quenetta Gordon.

After hearing a wonderful clarinet solo on a Duke Ellington album of mine, I wondered what ever happened to the jazz clarinet. So I googled various musical instruments to see how they stack up popularity wise for jazz. After doing a few it occurred to me that a more complete list might be interesting, so I ended up googling over 100 instruments total- not every instrument in the book for sure, but more than enough for most people I should hope. I'm posting the results here as a public resource for interested persons. Of course, the raw data needs to be interpreted. "Jazz Guitar" and "Jazz Bass" are going to be inflated because both phrases refer to popular instrument models rather than jazz as a musical style. As another example, although there are 2 hits for the phrase "jazz virginal," neither instance actually refers to the musical instrument. One was a porn site, actually. The actual instrument is not nearly as sexy as it sounds. I played one once when I was an adolescent without having any sexual thoughts at all- at least that's how I remember it. The virginal is a parlor version of the harpsichord, which occupied the position in culture that was later taken by the piano. So now you know the answer to that popular question on I. Q. tests: "Spinet is to Piano as Virginal is to ?"

Don't be fooled by this example into thinking that most of these hits are flukes. Rahsaan Roland Kirk for example actually is the "Master of the Jazz Nose Flute": the one hit I got for "jazz nose flute."

I also hope that the list will help budding young jazzers choose an instrument. If you specialized in, say, the spoons, you'd have far less competition than if you specialized in the conga. I myself am considering digging around in the basement for the flageolet dad gave me several years ago. They aren't too difficult to play and with just a little bit of effort I could proclaim myself "Master of the Jazz Flageolet." If I were you I'd stay away from the bull roarer though. They can be pretty dangerous to play in the intimate settings that typify jazz clubs.

Frankly, I'm shocked that no one is playing jazz jew's harp. Around 1765, Beethoven's teacher Johann Georg Albrechtsberger composed a few concertos for Jew's harp that are actually quite credible as musical compositions. If there is such a thing as "classical jew's harp", (3 hits on google), why not "jazz jew's harp"? The closest thing I could find was this audio track, which is still pretty far from jazz.

The list:

"jazz guitar"- 1,820,000
"jazz piano"- 1,570,00
"jazz singer"- 1,490,000
"jazz bass"- 1,460,000
"jazz trumpet"- 291,000
"jazz saxophone"- 215,000
"jazz drums"- 195,000
"jazz mandolin"- 130,000
"jazz organ"- 108,000
"jazz flute"- 83,300
"jazz trombone"- 83,300
"jazz keyboard"- 72,600
"jazz clarinet"- 48,000
"jazz percussion"- 38,300
"jazz violin"- 38,300
"jazz cello"- 21,000
"jazz harp"- 19,600
"jazz fiddle"- 19,200
"jazz banjo"- 17,000
"jazz harmonica"- 16,200
"jazz accordion"- 15,600
"jazz vibraphone"- 15,400
"jazz euphonium"- 6340
"jazz bassoon"- 4120
"jazz viola"- 2950
"jazz oboe"- 2450
"jazz ukulele"- 2240
"jazz recorder"- 1620
"jazz harpsichord"- 1420
"jazz flugelhorn"- 1210
"jazz piccolo"- 1120
"jazz marimba"- 844
"jazz conga"- 722
"jazz baritone"- 660
"jazz cornet"- 631
"jazz charango"- 573
"jazz chitarra"- 567
"jazz french horn"- 546
"jazz dulcimer"- 533
"jazz bagpipe"- 521
"jazz xylophone"- 510
"jazz synthesizer"- 451
"jazz sitar"- 402
"jazz chimes"- 353
"jazz washboard"- 222
"jazz mandola"- 198
"jazz balalaika"- 189
"jazz bongo"- 189
"jazz steel drum"- 178
"jazz didgeridoo"- 131
"jazz quattro"- 126
"jazz kazoo"- 126
"jazz bugle"- 116
"jazz koto"- 105
"jazz lute"- 101
"jazz gamba"- 100
"jazz bass clarinet"- 94
"jazz shakuhachi"- 78
"jazz zither"- 57
"jazz steel guitar"- 56
"jazz pennywhistle"- 47
"jazz dobro"- 44
"jazz theremin"- 38
"jazz concertina"- 37
"jazz celeste"- 35
"jazz tambourine"- 33
"jazz bass trombone"- 28
"jazz mellophone"- 28
"jazz bouzouki"- 25
"jazz hand drum"- 24
"jazz spoons"- 20
"jazz tam tam"- 20
"jazz contrabassoon"- 12
"jazz english horn"- 11
"jazz glockenspiel"- 10
"jazz calliope"- 9
"jazz ocarina"- 9
"jazz maracas"- 8
"jazz cembalo"- 7
"jazz shofar"- 7
"jazz valve trombone"- 7
"jazz clavichord"- 6
"jazz mellotron"- 5
"jazz bandola"- 4
"jazz autoharp"- 3
"jazz hurdy gurdy"- 3
"jazz pan pipe"- 3
"jazz alpenhorn"- 2
"jazz virginal"- 2
"jazz bodhran"- 1
"jazz lyre"- 1
"jazz mandora"- 1
"jazz nose flute"- 1
"jazz bandolin"- 0
"jazz banjolin"- 0
"jazz bull roarer"- 0
"jazz campanilla"- 0
"jazz flageolet"- 0
"jazz glass harmonica"- 0
"jazz hawaiian guitar"- 0
"jazz jew's harp"- 0
"jazz mandobanjo"- 0
"jazz mandocello"- 0
"jazz pandean pipes"- 0
"jazz psaltery"- 0
"jazz rebec"- 0
"jazz slide whistle"- 0

120 million records?

While reading the Wikipedia article on Gheorge Zamfir, I passed over a small fact that later seemed rather sigificant. Zamfir has sold 120 million records. 120 million? That seemed like a huge number to me. Since I'm not the kind of person who usually notices how many records any particular artist has sold I had to put that number into perspective. So I looked up a few more artists on wiki to see how they compared to Zamfir.

I saw a blurb on the T. V. music station Nancy and I sometimes listen to that Kenny G was the highest selling instrumental artist of all time. So I started with him. According to Wikipedia, he has sold only 57.5 million as of 2003. Bob Dylan? 58 million. The Beatles? According to Wikipedia they've whomped all these other guys with over a billion in record sales. That's more like it.

Record sales may or may not be an indication of musical quality, but they certainly draw the attention of critics- positive or negative. I don't care enough about what critics say to follow their every word, but I do care enough to do an occasional internet search. Apparently Zamfir was popular too long ago for there to be anything in the way of serious reviews of his music on this new fangled thing called the internet. A google search yielded only passing mentions of Zamfir by bloggers, such as this one: "Sufjan Stevens is the Zamfir of his generation." I don't think that was meant as a compliment to either Sufjan Stevens or Zamfir.

Kenny G is contemporary enough that Google found critical commentary on his music, and it is unremittingly negative. I went through 3 or 4 pages of Google results and only found a single positive review- which was jumped on greedily by Barnes & Noble and Amazon as they try to sell ever more CD's. Even that review felt like the squirmings of a critic who was getting paid well to say something good about Kenny G without losing his credibility. Most of the action I found on Google revolved around a highly caustic blog by jazz guitarist Pat Metheny which many quoted with glee and no one (in my brief googling session) saw fit to contradict.

Why is there such a disconnect between critical opinion of musicians like Zamfir and Kenny G and the numbers of records they sell? My personal opinion is that there are two competing frameworks for discussing the purpose of music. The dominant framework in critical circles is what I would call the progressive framework. This framework got a strong foothold as we moved from the conservative 1950's to the liberal 1960's with musicians such as Dylan and the Beatles evidently playing a huge part. Certainly this framework existed well before the 1960's- it is essentially the same thing that Robert Schumann was championing in the 19th century with his talk of musical Davidsbündler (David's men) vs. musical Philistines. The progressive framework says simply that the purpose of music is to move our society forward- by revolution or evolution.

Anyone who adheres to the progressive framework is going to go to some lengths to discredit musicians like Kenny G. Graham Collier in an article on jazz says this:

We must also try to show ... the quality difference between a Kenny G and a Kenny Garrett. We won't win them all: Kenny Garrett is less pleasant to listen to, moves outside the comfort zone more often, than the other Kenny and that means a lot to many people.

I think that Collier has inadvertantly put his finger on the very point. In the eyes and ears of many people Kenny Garrett's music is of better quality than the other Kenny's music because it is less pleasant to listen to. Music which is merely pleasant does not conform to Collier's musical framework. Revolutionaries come in many shapes and sizes, but they are never pleasant.

But if Zamfir's and Kenny G's record sales are any indication, there is a competing framework that is still darn popular. I'm going to blog on what that might be- perhaps in a couple of weeks.

Julius Caesar- Act I Scene ii

Reading:

(Slowly but Surely) Piece by Piece- Tori Amos
(Still) Quisling: The Career and Political Ideas of Vidkun Quisling 1887-1945
(The Book) Learning Greek for the rest of us- William Mounce

Listening:

(The enclosed CD-ROM) Learning Greek for the rest of us- William Mounce
Roumanian flutes 1- Gheorghe Zamfir
Ruta And Daitya- Keith Jarrett and Jack DeJohnette

Is it true that you learn something new every day? Wednesday I learned that Shakespeare wrote the phrase "It's all Greek to me". Friday I learned that Shakespeare got the idea from a popular Medieval Latin proverb.

Gheorghe Zamfir was a modest Romanian nai player before he became the "Master of the Panflute". (Nai is Romanian for panflute.) I had no idea until I found the record Roumanian flutes 1 in the local thrift store. (It's true- you learn something new every day!) I figured it was worth the 99 cent asking price and I secretly hoped that maybe it was a rare record that would bring in a huge haul on e-bay should I decide to sell it. (Unfortunately... no.) A few months back I had picked up Zamfir- The Romance of the Pan Flute for 25 cents- I thought it might be something Nancy would like and I had an inkling (proved to be correct) that maybe she wasn't familiar with the Master of the Panflute.

Perhaps from Gheorge's point of view he was recording commonplace boring standards in 1975 like Rustemui ca la Listeava, Sirba din Dolj, and Hora de la Bascov; whereas a few short years later he was recording exotic melodies like Jingle Bells, Unchained Melody, and Chariots of Fire. Myself, I enjoy the earlier record more. Besides the nai, there are examples of other various Romanian folk instruments I was previously not familiar with such as the fluier, the taragal, the cobza, and the cimpoi.

People have it all wrong about speed limits. Speed limits are upper limits, not lower limits. In other words, a speed limit of 45 M. P. H. means that you can go 45 or slower, not 45 or faster.

Perhaps if Mel had realized this, his dirty little secret would still be a secret.