Mar 26, 2018

Digital Scavenger Hunt. Subject: “Heavy Metal Music”

Entered into Google Ngram Viewer as “Heavy Metal Music” (included “Music to avoid periodic chart type heavy metals). Zooming focus revealed term first appeared in 1976. Other searches revealed many of what we refer to today as “Heavy Metal’ were called “Hard Rock” previous to ~1976. For example, AC/DC formed in 1974. I’d chalk it up to the evolution of the English language in popular culture.

Mar 28, 2018

Copyrighting and the Birthday Song. I’m all for protecting the intellectual art and written work of others, but this issue has reached ludicrous velocity. Apologies to the late Hill sisters and their descendants.

Balancing openness vs. profit regarding intellectual property is one messy problem to ponder. The only solution is to set a reasonable period for copyrights. The definition of “reasonable” can be debated at length, but I do know what is unreasonable: the Disney Act of 1998. The Washington Post characterized the Copyright Term Extension (Disney) Act of 1998 as “…starving the public domain of new works for 20 years…”

Intellectual property vs. physical property. I can build a fence around my livestock, but the computer code I wrote can never truly be fenced-in. The physical world is so much easier to maintain.

The concept of corporations as disembodied immortal beings. That really adds another dimension to how I view corporations from now on. It’s both cool and creepy at the same time.

Bonus fact learned today: Before modern medicine and nutrition, average lifespan figures were skewed by high infant mortality rates.

Mar 19, 2018

“A novice in the archives.” In any discipline, there will always be those who want to keep the membership exclusive, which is understandable. If you’re passionate about something, it’s difficult not to be protective, sometimes overprotective, toward it. History is no different.

One of the best mind exercises is thinking in different ways about familiar subjects and events. Before this class, I never thought of history as something that “belonged” to anyone. I’m OK with museum displays being behind glass or cordoned-off by ropes. History may belong to all of us, but historians and curators should protect the physical artifacts. Digital historical documents, though, are fair game for all. The only risk is the possibility of misrepresentation, but that existed even when all history was stored in print.

Dr. Lewis H. Steiner’s letter from Frederick. Md, dated September 1862, was interesting. I haven’t fully decided what to make of it. He was certainly a well-educated person, but maybe not in matters of military reconnaissance. Access to Steiner’s letter is a great example of the advantage of digital historical documents. Anyone can read it from anywhere. I can’t believe I take that capability for granted.

History as a possession is like water, in a way. Individually, we only use it briefly, but at the same time it’s shared with the world. Water can be a pure substance, or it can be polluted.

Mar 21, 2018

Class canceled due to snow.

Mar 5, 2018:

I missed this lecture. Since I can’t comment on what I didn’t experience, I’ll fill this space with random but hopefully relevant thoughts. Miller’s Segregating Sound could be the source for a semester’s worth of instruction all by itself. I used to have a positive opinion of folklorists until reading of the Lomaxes. If you have a preconceived notion and set out to find evidence for it, that’s not science; it’s advocacy. Before Miller’s book, my concept of folklorists was formed by the Foxfire book series spotlighting Appalachian heritage. Now I question those works as well. It’s healthy to question.

Of course, Miller could be full of it, too. This I doubt, however. One of my favorite passages was (can’t remember the chapter) when he framed folk music as being an occupation. One performer was quoted as saying bad times do not automatically bequeath one with the ability to play the blues. Blues are a talent. It’s hard work. Often inspired by a hard life.

Mar 7, 2018:

Boundaries. Suitable theme given the reading Segregating Sound, by Karl Hagstrom Miller. As stated in the lecture, boundaries either explicitly discourage crossing or implicitly invite it.

Boundaries only work when we’re aware of them. As a white grade-school kid listening to 45 rpm Motown singles (from jukebox castoffs, see previous blogs) in the attic, I had no clue I was crossing a border. It still doesn’t seem like I was transgressing to this day. Just like the people who listened to Eddie Lang’s guitar behind Bessie Smith’s vocals, the artists’ race didn’t matter to me. It’s all about the music.

Decades ago, in a land far away: One of my supervisors, Staff Sergeant “Nasty” Smith, told me about buying a Little River Band album, and being shocked to find the band members were all white (SSgt Smith was not white, by the way). Boundaries. I could see he was deeply conflicted as to whether to keep it or not. Maybe I shouldn’t share that. Sorry, Nasty.

Nationalism. I’d have to argue that contractual nationalism is what I feel. I’m highly suspect of anyone playing the romanticism angle, and as for race, we’re all of them. E Pluribus Unum.

Feb 26, 2018:

Beats revisited. New World beats as compared to African-American beats. Ahead of the beat versus behind it. Now that I’ve seen it illustrated, I’m more conscious of it. Thinking in terms of beats, the tango becomes even more complex. The beat tree of Swing produced the branches Jazz and Blues. See Count Basie and Louis (“King Louis”) Prima.

Interesting niche style: DC Swing/Hip-hop crossover, “Go-Go.” Perhaps the very end of a branch on the music evolutionary tree. Not like it’s a bad thing; it is what it is.

Sweet Child O’ Mine, set to a swing beat and performed in New Orleans style by Postmodern Jukebox, was strangely cool. This was the exception; other examples of rock songs set to a swing beat brought on sensations of motion sickness. Enter Sandman in a Bluegrass arrangement might not have been such an affront to the senses had I never heard Metallica’s version. Aesthetic or not, the lesson in beats was reinforced.

Feb 28, 2018:

Four Chord Song, by Axis of Awesome: Fun and educational.

Borrowed elements in music, borrowed elements across culture. Has the phrase, “Cultural appropriation” been overplayed yet? If not, it’s close. If information wants to be free, then music most definitely wants to be free. Not the money end of it, but the creative part. The heart of it.

In the late 19th – early 20th centuries, things were bad enough for African-Americans in the South already. People like Sen. Tillman (SC) and Sen Glass (VA) weren’t satisfied, and sought to further codify discrimination. No wonder the Great Migration took place. At the same time, minstrel shows were still popular. Words fail me. With jobs in northern cities providing more disposable income, and a yearning for familiar sounds, black families bought records. Adam Smith was proven correct again, and a market stepped up to meet the need. Just be sure to look for the word “authentic.” Speaking of authentic: records were, by their nature, audio only. The phonograph didn’t betray Eddie Lang playing guitar for Bessie Smith.

A side note on migration: Later in the century poverty, not discrimination, was the motivator for a similar but smaller migration of white Appalachians from the hills of the southeast to large northern cities in search of jobs. The “Hillbilly Highways” led to cities such as Detroit, Michigan, and Akron, Ohio, once the tire manufacturing capitol of the world.

My only exposure to Muddy Waters prior to this class was whenever I’d hear one of his songs on an Alligator Records anniversary collection CD. His life’s story is incredible. If the Lomaxes did much good with their folklore expeditions, Muddy Waters is a big part of it.

Authenticity is one of those qualities that’s hard to define. When you see it, though, you know it.

Feb 19, 2018

American popular music, an introduction. Before this lecture, I was blissfully ignorant about the very beginnings of American popular music. I enjoyed several kinds of music and had a faint idea of the genres that influenced them, but that was it. I guess I was kind of like the Eloi at the buffet table in H.G. Wells’ 1895 novel, The Time Machine. I didn’t care where it came from, it was good. That all changed with this lecture.

Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s meant Looney Toons cartoons on occasion. Did kids of that era know who Al Jolson was? No. We’d see a guy in blackface on his knee singing “Mammy” behind Bugs Bunny and just ignore it. That may be a lighthearted observation, but there’s nothing lighthearted (or shallow, for that matter) about the phenomenon of minstrel singers and the practice of performing in blackface. It’s a puzzlement for me.

It’s safe to say learning about minstrel shows is a level of disturbing I’ve never experienced before. Blackface performing is a form of insanity, on the part of both the audiences and performers alike. All the explanations as to “why” that were given make sense from an intellectual standpoint. In practice, though, I keep asking myself, ‘What were they thinking?,” and “Who thought that was a good idea?”. I’m so grateful it went out of style. Or it sort of did. The value of this queasy lesson is the ability to see today’s pop culture through a different lens. Blackface never entirely went away, it just lost the burnt cork and greasepaint.

Learning about beats, specifically the 1-3 and 2-4 beats, explains why I was always getting out of step when marching all those years ago. Damn that John Philip Sousa.

Feb 21, 2018

An important take-away from the minstrel show lecture: pop culture vs. political culture. Pop culture is about mixing and integration. Political culture is about enforced segregation. An introduction to Ralph Ellison, a man working between the worlds of European classic music and southern US-based blues. As Miller said in this book, “Segregating Sound,” There’s often more diversity among those in a defined group than between those from different groups. The groups exist in large part because of the political culture that divides us.

Dirt vs. soil is sort of like noise vs. signal. Humans are organizing animals (after adolescence), and thinking is the act of “placing stuff.” Boundary transgressing animals (BTA) are an interesting concept.  If we have no category for it, it’s either a demon or deity.

Ritualized inversions of normality. This may explain minstrel shows, but it’s still no excuse for them. They’re way beyond the reasonable threshold of queasiness.

“Dr. Plecker, 86, Rabid Racist, Killed by Auto” from the Richmond Afro-American newspaper. We should be thankful he never rose to a higher position of power than he did. His acts cannot be undone, but fortunately his policies have. Just as we remember and celebrate those who’ve advanced our society, so should we never forget those whose life’s work was to drag us down.

Feb 12, 2018:

In terms of information theory, information has nothing to do with meaning. That is the highest form of truth. The lecture example took a while to sink in: If “U” always follows “Q” with absolute certainty, then “U” has no information to provide.

Another take on information versus meaning: If a planetary rover on Mars detects a stationary rock in its path, the only information is its size, shape, and location (very little uncertainty). If the same rover detects a moving object on the surface, add velocity and heading to the previous three pieces of information, and describe location as current. There is a bit more uncertainty, but less and less as the behavior is observed over time. Even if the object is flying past the rover it only adds altitude and another axis of heading. All just information until meaning is assigned by a human operator at a ground station on Earth. Auto-complete filling in fields on a computer works in a similar way. There is no meaning other than what the operator assigns. Just information.

Not sure whether to feel insignificant or lucky to be alive in an age such as this. Who’s watching us? Are we just information, or do we have meaning?

Claude Shannon ties with Vannevar Bush when it comes to coolest people I’d never heard of before this class. The Mars planetary rover mentioned earlier is the logical extension of Shannon’s Theseus (electro-mechanical mouse in a maze). Autonomous vehicles like the Global Hawk recon aircraft are also today’s Theseus. We’re no more intelligent than those who came before us, we just have more capable technology. If Shannon were transported to the present day, he’d be up to speed on our tech within two weeks and building things he could only dream of in his day.

Feb 14, 2018:

Bumper music courtesy of The Meters.

Like an earlier lecture that dealt with WWII and the Cold War, this is one of my comfort zones. Familiar ground, especially the last years of the Cold War. We ought to thank the Soviets. Were it not for them, we wouldn’t have developed many of the technologies they went to so much trouble to buy or steal from us.

What’s the difference between signal and noise? If you look at low enough amplitudes and fast enough sample rates, it all looks like noise. In telephony, of course, signal is the desired intelligence transmitted over wire or wireless means, and noise is the deterioration over distance. The sIgnal + noise / noise ratio used to be a measure of line or channel quality. Of course, that was when “hanging up the phone,” and ‘rolling down the car window” made literal sense.

Computers: Thank you, Military-Industrial Complex. Imagine the relays, tubes, and wiring harnesses buried deep in so many landfills (Maybe not wire harnesses; people used to burn off the insulation and sell the copper for scrap), their roles in progress forgotten. Tubes. Were it not for tubes, the transistor would never have been born. Transistor-transistor logic begat IC chips with layers of transistors etched smaller than imagination. Nostalgia is nice, but I’m glad to live in the 21st century.

Even when tubes and relays were still lighting and clicking in some computers, the seeds of the internet were sewn. Networks, multiple users time-sharing mainframe computer time, all led to where we are today. Doug Englebart and Tim Berners-Lee are among the giants upon whose shoulders we stand to see farther today. Their names deserve to be better known outside the IT community.

Feb 5, 2018:

I struggle to maintain the concept of “self” long enough to apply it to anything. Like starting a campfire without matches, it’s tough. So while I have this smoldering mass of twigs in my hand, I’ll try to harness it.

If we require “two-ness” (a sense of two selves) to read silently to ourselves and I manage to read silently, then I must possess “two-ness.” If Carr is right to fear the internet threat to the “reading self,” then I’m in danger of losing something I can’t quite understand. This doesn’t mean I don’t feel the gradual erosion Carr described. Maybe writing (often) may be a way to delay this effect. If nothing can be done, is this loss just the price of progress?

One final thought on the self. In the ahistorical proposition of someone from the 18th century riding a roller coaster (properly a wooden coaster, like Goliath at Six Flags Great America), and the question of whether or not they’d enjoy it. What if they did? Would it mean that for a few seconds of controlled over-stimulation they had met their second self?

Feb 7, 2018:

Examining how previous generations solved problems using the tools available in their respective time periods is an enjoyable mental exercise. We have to step outside the way we’d approach the problem today. This may be a form of “two-ness” of self, in a way. A good example of this was the US Navy fire control computer, which mechanically performed complex applied mathematics (Note to self: buy a slide rule and learn to use it. May delay the gradual decline Carr warned about). Watching the workings of the Navy’s mechanical computer reminded me of a show I once watched on Discovery Channel. An archeologist was discussing the statues on Easter Island, and why we modern people can’t imagine how they were moved. The archeologist explained how the ancients (who moved them) weren’t handicapped by a knowledge of modern technology. Ditto the Great Pyramids, Stonehenge, and dozens more ancient engineering mysteries.

Vannevar Bush is one of the most interesting people I’d never heard of before. To some of his contemporaries the Memex concept may have been a Rube Goldberg device with no value. To anyone living today it was the essence of visionary. When I read his “As We May Think” essay, I did an internet search to make sure it wasn’t a hoax, written by a present-day person.

Gen. Montgomery Meigs deserves mention here, because his skills as a logistician during the US Civil War are legendary. After the war, though, tasked with administering pension payments for veterans and their survivors, he really shined. In laying out The Pension Building in D.C., I imagine he pictured all the processes that were to be performed, how they were interrelated, and then arranged a building to accommodate it all. Gen. Meigs was an Industrial Engineer before the term was coined. Think the McDonald brothers perfecting the “Speedee Service System” in 1948, but on a far, far grander scale (see movie: The Founder).

After we see something done a certain way, we accept it as common, and rarely appreciate the thought that was involved. Example: Lunar Orbit Rendezvous, the way the Apollo moon missions used separate modules: one to land on the moon’s surface, one to remain in orbit (conserving kinetic energy). Seems like the only efficient solution today, but early in the US space program, the majority of experts favored a method entailing far more expense and risk.