Year: 2005

Thanks to Wired for Narcipost, via Georganna. A post (apparently) of no interest to anyone but the poster. A kind of vanity publishing.

I do a bit of this, but I think, what the heck, it’s my blog, no-one is forced to read it – so I do post my personal diary / “hold that thought” type entries for my own future consumption / organisation. Who knows someone else might find it interesting. I have this know the man, know the work outlook too. The narciposts probably say something about the poster, whatever the post says to the poster or the reader. The medium is the message ‘n’all that.

Blues club here in Perth, 174 James Street, Northbridge. Blue To The Bone. Hope they make a success, ‘cos they have some talented acts. Every band I’ve seen there plays a version of Dylan’s Watchtower – some after Dylan, some after Hendrix – should make it their signature tune. Hope they draw in newer rock acts with blues roots in their souls.

Paul Felton and Pete Romano – The Gators – lead guitar and rhythm/vocals/harp respectively, years together – four-piece, with drum / bass pair / combo varying the times I’ve seen them. Relaxed, improvised links, wide range of electric blues, more than competent professionals also slotting in around guest jams with ease, humour ever present. Paul is a natural, a real unsung hero. Another guitarist who lubes his strings and neck before kicking off – no gap too short for a casual lick – and all styles of bridges and solos, slow sustains and blistering arpeggios, bottlenecking with standard and open tunings, retuning one Strat all night. Pretty well all effects from fingering / pinching / bending / tapping, strings and whole body / neck bends, both hands, airborne feedback sustain control. Stunning without flash, emotion without fuss. A real joy. Particularly memorable covers – Chris Rea’s “Working On It”, Animals “Misunderstood”, Fleetwood Mac (Peter Green’s) “Oh Well”, and a drivin’ version of Mercury Blues, not to mention Heaven’s Door, I Left My Woman, Cocaine and more. Must see – currently Thursday (later) residency.

Rick Steele, blues acoutsic, vocals and harp with assorted supporting cast, including euphonium – Marc on lead, Travis on ivories, Ace on drums and assorted guests (All hail to Kenji – you’ll believe a Jap can play the blues – knockout natural). Originals and standards, Rick in particular a great interpreter of his repertoire of Dylan, plus two faves of mine, Dixie and Big Yellow Taxi. Mark’s piece de resistance is the Allmans’ Jessica, Travis does a great line in Donald Fagen-esque electric piano riffs and jazzy vocals that give upstart Jamie Cullum a run for his money. Must see – curently Wednesday all night, guest night, and Thursday early set.

John Meyer’s Blues Express – three-piece with John on Lead, Pete(?) frontman on bass, and Ric on skins. I like John almost, but not quite, as much as Paul (Felton). I guess the difference is John is holding a three-piece together with less space for improvised licks and frills. John’s signature is the tremelo arm deep bends controlling feedback, releasing at solo ends to drop ringing into the next or final chord, plus all the fingering skills. Set is purer blues rock style, and a large proportion of the material is original – on their 100% original CD – full price too, nice touch. Crowd pleasers include the ubiquitous Watchtower as well as Little Wing. Definitely worth catching – currently Saturday (early) residency.

Lindsay Wells – another three-piece with Lindsay on lead. Blues rock ? Well yes, but a different kettle of fish. Technically very competent, but altogether more flash, centre of attention vocals and lead. Don’t get me wrong, good at it and entertaining. Hear all your favourite heavy rock on request, dominated by Hendrix, extending from the obvious favourites to Fire, but sadly not to Izabella, complete with picking behind the head and with teeth. (For sheer quality of interpretation, without the flash, check out Slim Hamster) Entertaining – currently Saturday late set. [Talking of Phish (Chris) this Saturday was Freo band The Fish – four-piece, bassist frontman plus keyboards – straight in with Bad to the Bone, Honky Tonk Women, and Louie Louie.]

Forgot to mention Fridays ? – Rockabilly night. Good quality musicians, just not my scene. Ted’s, bobby-sox and jiving – like stumbling into the set of Grease.

All together now ..

There must be some (kinda) way out of here, said the joker to the thief
There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth.

No reason to get excited, the thief he kindly spoke
There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.

Outside in the (cold) distance a wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.

Moving post over at Enlightened Caveman, where Chris announces his intention to write fiction to get his message across. A man after my own heart as regular readers will recognise. The plot thickens.

(My thoughts are in the comments to that post.)

Must log a link to Cormac McCarthy’s recommended “All the Pretty Horses“.
Added to the list. Sigh.

Old news to anyone in the know technology-wise, and old-hat to anti-Microsoft geeks and long-standing converts to open comms standards, but I think it’s significant that this story reaches mainstream news at the Beeb.

From 2006 ALL files generated by MS-Office products will be XML, not just optional, not just some. Oh for some meta-schematic structuring / patterning standards too, as well as file formatting. Yes I know – standards – so good, you can never have too many, but here’s hoping for sensible convergence to continue.

Also Johnnie Moore, this time posting an analysis of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.

But, apart from that moment of immediate experience, do we ever have any non-interpreted experiences on which to base our life and business decisions ? (See my comment on Johnnie’s post.)

Says Dave Snowden, with apologies to the autistic everywhere. [via Johnnie Moore]

“The only humans who analyse all the data and then make a rational choice are autistic, but economists insist this is the way we all work.”

But how do you turn the “non-rational” into something manageable, predictable, justifiable, etc …

One day.

Noticed this meme (sic) circulating – “Name 5 books you’re embarassed to admit you’ve not actually read”. Will Wilkinson’s response is interesting and very reminiscent of my own predicament. In response to one particular book, not important here which, he says ” [introducing] this helpful category: Books I’ve read, but not by myself. I’ve read so much secondary literature about [it], that it seems like I’ve read it. I consider it among the books I’ve read, but just not by myself. But I suppose I should actually work my way through it. ”

I probably have a dozen books in that category – some I realy should read, but some I’m happy I’ve simply got the (second hand) gist. I also have a list of “Books I’ve only read part of, but still feel they are important enough to complete ….. sometime”. I may create those lists, in the spirit of the “meme”.

Actually, one of the reasons my habit is to post book “reviews” in stages – once at the start (exposing my objectives and prejudices), once after introductory chapters (exposing my prognosis), again after about 20% or so, and again on completion (if I ever get there) is so I can (a) capture the value of what I did read, and (b) diagnose afterwards why I did or didn’t complete it, without the post-rationalising filter of hindsight.

[The use of “meme” here is kind of specific to this “chain letter” idea – a suggestion circulated with the explicit suggestion that you pass it on, rather than an idea or implied assertion, that simply gets passed on in the course of other communication – the “less is more” in me says if you have to say “this is a meme” and invent a communication specifically to communicate it, it probably isn’t really one, but that’s a side issue here. I am after all, passing it on – the game theorists meme – a double double bluff.]

One of my subjects recently has been “quality of explanation”, and alternatives to “psuedo-logical rationale” in misplaced circumstances. Interesting quote from Neil Kinnock today, commenting on the EU needing to start from scratch on its future strategy syaing it’s “got to do what it should have done for years past … go for a propaganda-free, explicit, factual strategy of tireless explanation.”

Transparent politics – now there’s an idea.

Open Sauce Live is a marketing blog to which Johnnie Moore contributes. Some interesting quotes on the front page …

Rupert Murdoch “What I worry about much more is News Corps ability to make the necessary cultural changes to meet the new demands of the digital native.”

The Economist “The less control a company has over its marketing message, the greater its credibility.” This latter is an example of the rational plans achieving the opposite of their intent. Which begs questions about whether any cynical deception / game theory strategies could ever counter it ?

Another quote, not really related to my agenda, just Joe Public amateur interest – “the challenge is not awareness, it’s engagement” Slick marketing may attract attention and entertain, and sow brand awareness and linked associations, but does it ever do anything at all to make a potential customer believe in (buy into) the product. The awareness is of the brand marketing values, not the product qualities, and as a human, you can tell the difference.

A review by Josh McHugh in Wired of a paper by Peter Lynds “Time and Classical and Quantum Mechanics: Indeterminacy vs. Continuity”. [via Leon] Really is just a review. Wheeler gets a namecheck, Everett doesn’t, Hawking is dismissed as “off”, but David Deutsch is the “godfather”. Typical Wired racey overview. Ominous news is “Lynds has a literary agent, Heide Lange, who also represents Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code. That’s the kind of firepower that practically assures publication – and serious marketing” … whatever the quailty … “Lynds can be Dan Brown to Hawking’s Umberto Eco”. In the review, the jury is out on the multiverse – but the conclusion is the current one – time doesn’t flow anywhere, it’s just a sequence (network?) of events.

(Review also mentions different cultural views of time flowing forwards or backwards, from or to the future, etc, treated at length by many writers, Pirsig included. Social anthropology or evolutionary psychology, again.)