Category Archives: iThinks

Repository for review-like categories and opinions.

Audio-Video Never Tasted So Good

Philosonia

So, a short while back I bought a new pre-amp for myself: Peachtree Audio’s Decco.  I bought the black one because it goes with anything and, well, black is the new black.  Nice little bit of gear.  Sounds great.  It will also act as an integrated amplifier if necessary.  And it has a great USB input and its own NOS DAC to go with it.

There was a problem with the first unit I took home, but the guys at the store were very quick to get me a replacement and that one has worked perfectly ever since.  (Not a significant problem mind you.  The volume knob wasn’t responding to the remote, probably the servo was offline or somesuch.  Nothing wrong with the functionality of the electronics themselves.)

At any rate, I was really happy with the service and the store where I bought the Decco and wanted to take a moment to talk about them.

They are called Resolution Audio : Video and they are located in Ballard (Seattle).  I get the privilege of walking down from time to time and listening the highest of highend gear.  Something very nice about listening to a set of speakers which are worth as much as a new car.  Surreal. (They died in this recession.  Very sad.  Peachtree is still very much alive though.)

At any rate, as you can surmise from the Decco they also sell highend gear for normal people.  Don’t feel as though you ought to be selling your VW to buy a set of sweet speakers—though if you do, please invite me over for a listen.  They have a lot of contemporary gadgety gear as well, like iPod docks for audio purists—or folks like me who use uncompressed wav files on their iPods and mp3 players.

They are, in the spirit of the season (read: recession), having a sale to encourage we consumers to do our parts for the economy.  This is not something they normally do (have a sale).  Let’s get booming.

JamesIsIn

Time: Unreal or Surreal?

Ah, Sophia!, Reading Hurts My Brain

Recently I read A World without Time: the Forgotten Legacy of Gödel and Einstein by Palle Yourgrau.  He argues (at least in part) something that I’ve often contemplated, namely that time itself is not real.

I have put forward in conversation the idea that time is not real, that time is an illusion.  “But, wait,” you say, “time is whizzing past me like crazy!”  Well, events are whizzing all around us.  No doubt about that.  But time is merely the framework which we use to explain our ideas of now and later; of past, present and future; of what was, what is, and what will be.  Time is our mental construct to explain the passing of events.

Yourgrau’s contribution is to analyze the work of Einstein and Gödel in an effort to demonstrate not only that they both thought something a little different about time than we might expect, but that they each went a long way toward demonstrating a particular unreality of time.

Simply put, Einstein only stated that time needed to be considered as if it were a dimension in order to work out relativistic events.  It’s sort of like using time as a metaphor (or perhaps using dimension as a metaphor).  It is now common to take that metaphor as fact and fabric of reality.  Gödel comes in handily afterwards in his meticulous fashion and demonstrates that not only are time-looped relativistic universes possible, we may actually be living in one such universe—accidentally spawning the so-called grandfather paradox.

The book is loaded with personal correspondences between some of the brightest minds in the last century.

I have read a lot of books on the history of the sciences and mathematics and this is one of the better written, and I think anyone with even a peripheral interest in these subjects will find this to be a pleasant read.

Parks Produces, Plays

Philosonia

Well, my good friend and music producer Ian Parks (from An American Starlet) is back in the studio again—returning as a musician, singer, and songwriter.  He has put together a little tune of very large proportions.

Girl from Washington

What first strikes me in listening to this new song, called Girl from Washington, is the profound influence of Thin Lizzy.

(Here is an old interview of Ian and Jared Matt Greenberg.  They have changed quite a bit since then, but it’s a nice history of the band and their music.)

I’m not sure whether Ian will publish this song as An American Starlet or seek out a new identity.  It clearly represents a movement along a continuum, a progression in style.  What remains to be seen is whether he will work to make a break from the previous album releases (Sweet Country Lullabies From An American Starlet and The Duchess of Hazard are currently listed on Amazon).

By contrast, it is very apparent that Ian has not lost any of his songwriting shine.  He plays all the instruments on this track.  Wrote it, played it, and produced it.  I hope you enjoy listening to it.

Do you have an Starlet story?  Let’s hear about it.

Dumber’an W

Cinematographicalicious, Forking Tongues, ,

I have been advocating the introduction into English parlance a new phrase.  I think you will find this phrase useful in many situations and that it will grow fruitfully.  I am proud to bring this phrase for the first time to the Internet:

Why, that’s as dumb as W!

There can be many variations upon this basic theme and I encourage you all to explore the possibilities.  This will open new worlds to your discovery.

So there is no confusion surrounding the usage of this new phrase, let’s take a look at how it might be used.  Let’s say your little brother walks into the room and announces he is going to marry the girl next door.  You might respond, “That’s as dumb as W!  Your nine; she’s ten; it’ll never work.”

Alternatively, your friend may come up to you and claim that Clapton is a better guitar player than Hendrix.  You can cooly reply, “Sometimes you’re dumber than W!  Hendrix unleashed the electric guitar.  Clapton merely played it.”

Apparently in conjuction with my efforts, Oliver Stone has made a new movie.  I can hardly wait.

PETA Gets Two Teats Down

Ah, Sophia!, Le Rat Mort, Tourette's Apprentice

Oh, man.  I don’t know how these things happen but happen they do.

So PETA writes this letter to Ben & Jerry (specifically to them) asking that they make a specific maneuver to lessen human and animal suffering.  All sounds good on the surface.  Wait until you get to the meat of the article.

In the letter, PETA VP Tracy Reiman urges Ben & Jerry’s to use human breast milk instead of cow’s milk in their ice cream.  Where do they get these ideas?  Well in this case apparently there is a Swedish restaurant which will be serving dishes containing a mixture using 75% breast milk—or there would be if they had not been barred from doing so.

I really have to wonder if Ms. Reiman (or so many others) ever think these things through before they start acting.  This is the horror we might imagine: an economy for breast milk that puts drug-addicted mothers in a position to get paid by starving their babies.

You can call me a specieist if you’d like, but given the choice between contributing to the suffering of cows and contributing to the suffering of humans I will invariably choose the cows.  Yum yum, little moo.

The complaints that PETA cites in their letter (which appears at the bottom of the above linked article) all surround certain practices of factory farming.  As is so often the case in animal rights claims, they have chosen too far an extreme path for their honorable goals—making those paths dishonorable.

I would like to see a great reform in farming practices, globally.  I think we can improve the health of livestock and humans by making some valuable changes in how we view our relationships with food and food producing animals.  This is something we have begun to address with our pocket books already: prefer buying organic and free-range styled foods, help to define these terms in legal documents, and keep track of where your money is going.

But please don’t fuck with my ice cream by using human breast milk.

Fargo Jr.’s Something Wicked

Cinematographicalicious

Just watched a film called Big Nothing.  I had never heard of this film nor anything about it so my expectations were very low.  My expectations were way too low it turns out.

I was immediately drawn into the plot.  An ex-professor/writer ends up getting involved in a simple crime—or what should have been a simple crime—which goes terribly wrong.  Very much in the vein of Fargo where a plain plan to put some cool cash into a couple of pockets transforms into a Shakespearean tragedy in terms of body count and a Shakespearean comedy in terms of sheer joy.  In short, a true black comedy.

You don’t want to miss this one if you are a fan of dark comedies or a fan of film noir.  Lightly disturbing and smirk ridden, this film is time well spent.  I will be looking for more from Jean-Baptiste Andrea.  Very promising.

Chin Scratching Cannon Drum

Ah, Sophia!, Reading Hurts My Brain

You see, that’s the thing about Fishermen and Farmers:  they’re always talking about beaches and hoes.

I personally have never much cared for religion as a public affair. If I ever do have an affair with a deity I will want to keep it discrete.  Nonetheless I do, on occasion, find myself asking questions in the arena of theology that baffle me.  Recently I read a book by Walter Kaufmann called Critique of Religion and Philosophy.

In this Kaufmann argues, among other things, that the ethical arguments presented by Jesus are prudential arguments—that is to say that it would be prudent to behave well so as to avoid the punishments of Hell and receive in their stead the rewards of Heaven.  Granted, continues Kaufmann, Jesus is notably silent about how one ought to behave, but that is another question entirely.  To reiterate, the ethical arguments put forward by Jesus are prudential:  avoid punishment and seek reward.  This seems to me to be an argument based upon fear.  So my question is, why does Nietzsche have such profound respect for Jesus?

Prudential arguments are certainly those most likely to be presented by so called christians—and Nietzsche held those who claim such titles in much disdain.

“Be afraid, be very afraid, and be obedient as a result of that fear” doesn’t strike me as the sort of position for which Nietzsche would have much care.  And yet he holds a great reverence for Jesus.  Of course, he can’t stand the apostles, thinks they’re a bunch of weak-kneed buggers—but that too is a different story.

The Unbearable Aloneness of Being

Reading Hurts My Brain

I came across two great passages from Erich Fromm while reading his The Dogma of Christ. I’ll only be talking about the first one because the second one is only interesting if you are working on a critical historical analysis of comic book super heroes.

Fromm says:

“What is praised by love experts and marriage counselors is a team relationship between two people who manipulate each other with the right techniques and whose love is essentially an egotism à deux—a haven from an otherwise unbearable aloneness.”

That’s what I see in the world around me lately. People fleeing from this unbearable aloneness. As though being alone were something awful. I’m sure if you’ve never tried it, it would be full of awe. But, really, isn’t this something we should all experiment with? You know “Sure, I tried that in college”.

We don’t just flee into the arms of other zombies either. We flee into the tube, into books, into our works of art, into anything to remove us from ourselves. I once wrote that loneliness is the desire to be alone when no one else is around. I stand by that definition.

We are isolated, often forced into it by our modern world, but we refuse to allow ourselves to be alone. Always the TV on or the radio on in the background. Company. Background noise. Don’t let those thoughts well up, come burbling over.

Anyway, not my favorite book from Fromm. Much prefer You Shall Be as Gods.  But definitely worth the read.

String Theory

Ah, Sophia!, Philosonia

People often ask me about my String Theory of Musical Decline.

Okay, here it is in a nutshell. When a band adds strings to their music it is a kind of death knell. A band can be doing just fine all on their own but then at some point they feel whatever need must be fulfilled and they add some strings to their music.  Take a look at Zeppelin’s worst album: In Through the Out Door.  Now, saying Zeppelin’s worst album is rather like saying “Oh, I pillaged but all I came back with was the Aztec’s worst gold”.  Cry me a river.  But, it is their worst and it’s filled with pseudo-strings.

So, I’ve been articulating this theory for years and what should show up in my collection a while back but a new Diana Krall album, “When I Look in Your Eyes”. Really, not such a bad album. Not nearly as good as the previous stuff she had done, and nothing since has been either. I guess that’s my point. This album marked the end of the classic era for Diana Krall. Unless she has a renaissance, you will want to concentrate on albums prior to that album.

Here’s the rub. The record label placed over the cellophane a small sticker. On that sticker it read “Now with strings”. I shit you not. They stated it in no uncertain terms. As though this is what we’d all been waiting on.

Oh, that Diana Krall, what a performer. But she could use a little more cowbell.

I don’t pretend to understand the cryptic idiocy of the masses. Nor do I claim to fathom the corporate drones who place stickers on CD cellophane. I guess I should be thankful they didn’t place the sticker under the cellophane.