I Am a Boiled Frog

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change, life experience

And in all probability, so are you.

We’re all familiar with the adage that if you drop a frog in boiling water, he’ll immediately jump out. The flip side of the story tells us if you put a frog in tepid water and raise its temperature slowly enough, he’ll stay there ’til he’s cooked.

I am reminded on a weekly basis (sometimes daily) about the person that I am — and how I bear little resemblance to the person I was, or even the person I thought I would turn out to be. A long series of small changes leads to a big difference.

Today, that moment of realization occurred when I had a glass of milk. It was a glass of 2% — I normally drink and cook with 1% milk. After a single sip, I remarked on its fatty taste and texture.

I immediately flashed back to my youth, when my family struggled to make it through our weekly budget. One of my cornerstones of my childhood diet was powdered milk. If you dislike today’s fat-free milk, I guarantee you will be revolted by that loathsome bilge of sky-blue fat-free powder-and-water mixture. I have never had that vile Carnation concoction since I finished high school, and hope to never allow it past my lips again.
Time, tide, and tightening belts (due to dietary restrictions, not financial), now have me at the 1% mark. And I prefer it. How times and tastes have changed!

I’ve noted several other changes in my tastes – for example, I now love spinach and grapefruit, foods I could not tolerate until a mere five years ago.

On the non-gastronomical front, things certainly have taken paths I never could have guessed at. As a child, I wanted to be an astronaut veterinarian. My actual career path was solidly grounded on earth, wending through organist, physicist, electrical engineer, software systems analyst, animator, to arrive at my current vocation — writer.

About the only thing that has been constant through that journey is that I have been blessed, allowed to do the things I love to do.

On the subject of being blessed, my belief system has had a similar multi-directional slog through the spiritual multi-verse — from Moravian, to Jesus Freak, to sullen agnostic, finally re-embracing being born again. My stint as a church organist put me in a unique position to sample all that is right (and all that is wrong) over a wide spectrum of denominations. As a result, my belief system is one that both Catholic and Baptist would shake their collective heads at. The feeling is mutual, friends. My best advice is to remove the log from your own eye.

I don’t say that to condemn, but rather to urge you, dear reader, to try something new. Life is change. Perhaps you should have a try at being boiled. Maybe you already are, you just don’t know it. A moment of reflection, and we all can learn something.

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Whistle While You Kraftwerk

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King Crimson, Kraftwerk, Liparulo, music, Rick Wakeman, Soma FM, Triumvirat, WMUH

As a kid, I did all my homework while watching TV — usually Star Trek reruns
— much to the chagrin of my parents.  During my college days, I graduated to listening to music while I worked on my physics and math problems.

The refrains of my unusual musical tastes were loud enough that I couldn’t hear the mumbles, comments, complaints and curses that I’m sure my fellow academicians were voicing in their offices and dorm rooms next to mine.
Since I was a church organist, and an enthusiast about all things keyboard related, my speakers were constantly blaring the sounds of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Triumvirat, Kraftwerk, Chick Corea, Patrick Moraz, Walter (before he became Wendy) Carlos’ synthesized masterpieces, Rick Wakeman and Yes, and of course King Crimson featuring their magically hypnotic mellotron.

In the workaday world that came after college, my cubicle was void of tunes, until I was promoted to an office where I could play my music — albeit at much lower volumes. I also tuned to college radio, so that I could enjoy a variety of music, and not cheese off my office-mate. See? I can be taught to be considerate!

Actually, that was only half the reason for lower volumes.
I found I enjoyed the music so much that it distracted me from efficiently performing my work.

These days, I wonder how I accomplished any work at all.
I shake my head in disbelief a how many of my peers work with loud music. For example, Richard Liparulo told me he often plays music conducive to the genre he’s writing – e.g., playing star-opera movie sound tracks while writing sci-fi.

I now most often work in silence. The noise, dialog and movie rolling in my head when I’m writing is enough and incredibly fragile. My budding efforts are entirely erased if music intrudes. That is simply intolerable to my muse.
On those rare occasions that I can tolerate music — usually when I’m doing light editing — I seek refuge with my old favorites. Though lately I tune into internet radio, streaming my old college radio station WMUH, or  Soma FM’s 70’s, 80’s and Secret Agent channels.

So, what do you whistle while you work, or listen while you lurk?

Original Syn-Thesis

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TED Talk

The other day I heard a TED radio talk by K. Ferguson “Embrace the Remix”.  It was not the best entry in the series I’ve heard, but it was quite challenging and thought provoking, which is a plus in my book.

The talk opened with the statement “the last original thing was the Big Bang,” and everything since then has been a remix.  The talk’s examples were wanting, to say the least, in my opinion.

It compared George Lucas’ Star Wars to the works of Kurosawa (Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, and several others).  I found that part of the argument weak (but not flawed) on several levels: 1) the influences he used as anecdotal proof were due to the art director and costume designer, not Lucas; 2) he totally ignored Joseph Campbells’ work (more on that later), whereby the entire Star Wars story is a retelling of the millenia-old “orphan with a destiny comes of age” story arc.

Ferguson’s other body of examples circled around Bob Dylan. His body of work was considered groundbreaking at the time, but an analysis of his music shows that he cribbed from folk music – e.g. deep dark Appalachia.  Ferguson then proceeded to torpedo his own argument by fessing up that such behavior was the norm in those days – it was expected and encouraged that folk songs copy from each other.
Not only does he kick out one of the legs of his own argument, be he ignores the fact that sometime somewhere somewhen – SOMEBODY came up with the strictures of music not observable in nature (meter, harmony, the math behind the music).

I was struck by the coincidence on that very day I had read from Stephen King’s “On Writing” that original ideas aren’t original, they are the result of two existing ideas colliding in your head.  The writer has to always be ready to capture it.  Two points to Team Ferguson.

However, I noticed that the body of Ferguson’s talk focused on the arts – movies, music, fashion, etc.  Not once did he venture into the more scientific fields.  I would love to hear how he explains away the earth-shaking advances in history made there.  Take heliocentrism, general relativity or quantum mechanics – not only were they arguably original, they went against the grain of accepted thought. What did they crib from, pray tell?

The talk ended with me chortling to myself over Joseph Campbell, who said that there are no original stories – that all stories boil down to seven archetypes.  Guess that means that Ferguson’s hypothesis isn’t all that original either.

Any commentary, controversy, chatter, contradiction, criticism?
But please, only original comments! *snicker*