tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post8741541649692938755..comments2024-02-12T23:25:09.583-08:00Comments on Overweening Generalist: Edward O. Wilson and the Humanitiesmichaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-120103380714604612012-07-09T22:56:45.018-07:002012-07-09T22:56:45.018-07:00I've been hanging around a bunch of READERS la...I've been hanging around a bunch of READERS lately, and they've given me all kinds of good reasons why they use e-readers. I'm tilting at windmills and already mourning the death of the codex form of the book, although all of the readers (except maybe one) I know prefer the codex even if they've been using their Kindles a lot. And none of them think the codex form of the book is going away anytime soon. I seem more pessimistic than they.<br /><br />Plato said reading would damage memory, and he's basically been proven right all through written history...The Rebounding Jesus reminds me of part of Eric and Marshall McLuhan's "tetrad" idea that is the heart of the Laws of Media. Given any new media-environment (which will produce a new "language," which has a grammar and syntax un-coded), the new THING will Enhance/Retrieve/Reverse Into/Obsolesce. The Reversal bit seems isomorphic to your Rebounding J.<br /><br />I think the tetrad model works as heuristic, but seems too rationalistic and contrived. Still, both Father and Son exercised their intelligences/imaginations in laying out the theory. <br /><br />The McLoons give as one of many examples: drugs. They just decided on tranquilizers, and I think it's because the hadn't actually used anything else that was psychoactive.<br /><br />In harmony with the speed of electricity, tranquilizers ENHANCED "tolerance of pain via instant relief." The REVERSAL was "from remedy to way of life, from figure to ground." The RETRIEVAL was "fetal security." The OBSOLESCENCE was "symptoms." <br /><br />Their trailing notes on tranquilizers:<br /><br />"disease as art-form"<br /> "narcissism"<br /> "hypochondria"<br /> "enjoy your next cold"<br /><br />Notably lacking is addiction. But I do like that drugs are a technology.<br /><br />I thought what you had to say about western capitalism and jazz and Pynch was muy interesante.<br /><br />I wonder what LSD psychotherapy could've done for Bird and Bud?michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-25716030350360451712012-07-05T07:49:12.341-07:002012-07-05T07:49:12.341-07:00Yes, I own a Kindle. I haven't converted yet....Yes, I own a Kindle. I haven't converted yet. I fear I will drop it as many times as I have my cell phone or that I will lose it as I have lost so many books over my lifetime.<br /><br />I have had some difficulty recalling the Rebounding Jesus Effect. It made more sense to me 20+ years ago, and trying to articulate it has let me know I don't understand my mind from that period as well as I assumed I did.<br /><br />Basically, it seems to me that whenever humans gain something through a new invention, we also lose something. Now, I value the inventions, but I do think we lose something. I remember reading a study about how members of illiterate tribes in the 1920's learned to read, and their memories got worse. That makes sense to me. I remember ten years ago I knew a lot more phone numbers. Now I have them stored in my phone, and I have to think to recall some frequently dialed numbers, and others I don't remember at all.<br /><br />My theory gets hazy when it gets to Bud Powell. I had this idea about how Western Industrial Society, the Jumping Jesus, had jumped on African American musicians like Bud Powell. Reading Miles' Autobiography and Click Song and Night Music by John A. Williams made me think a lot about Powell. He got beated by the cops and put in a mental hospital and given shock treatment. He seemed like a very gentle guy, and his playing suffered. Miles said they gave Charlie Parker shock treatment, but his tougher nature enabled him to better survive the treatment.<br /><br />I remember getting The Complete Blue Note Bud Powell on CD and thinking how great it sounded. The new technology created in partnership with the Western capitalist monster which I see in more Pynchonian terms today had helped to resurrect Powell's music with CD technology. Hence, the rebounding Jesus effect.Eric Wagnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04312033917401203598noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-84764897822581542442012-07-05T01:52:11.587-07:002012-07-05T01:52:11.587-07:00_Sociobiology: A New Synthesis_ is one of those om..._Sociobiology: A New Synthesis_ is one of those omnibus books - sprawling, heretical, fat and difficult, data-filled, and gropes towards a Theory of Everything - that RAW so loved. It arrived in 1975 and was very controversial, but it looks like RAW and Leary read it immediately and used the ideas they liked, especially in 8CB writings.<br /><br />I've been listening to Andy Timmons, guitar god, do his rock guitar version of the entire Sgt.Pepper's album. Chops for frikkkin' daze.<br /><br />Watched Exit Through the Gift Shop, finally. I liked it. More than F For Fake (which some people who had seen Exit when it came out said I'd like it, and when they described it I said it sounded like Welles's film), it reminded me of an underrated documentary I saw called My Kid Could Paint That.michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-25917582210602126022012-07-04T17:34:14.811-07:002012-07-04T17:34:14.811-07:00Great blog, as usual. I still haven't read So...Great blog, as usual. I still haven't read Sociobiology. I listened to a little Bud Powell today, getting ready to write on the Rebounding Jesus effect tomorrow...or sometime soon.<br /><br />Bob Wilson used to have friends over to his house on the Fourth of July to watch the film "1776". Happy Independence Day, y'all.Eric Wagnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04312033917401203598noreply@blogger.com