physics23

QUOTE (tepes22b @ Dec 22 2005, 03:09 PM)Well, here's some demos that I haven't really decided what I'm going to do with. They're from the tail end of my harder metal phase, and when I was more a lead guitarist that can play bass. Now, I am pretty good at both. Anyway, here's a few selections, but feel free to click on the main artist page to see the rest of what I have. Black Rain The Power to End it All Pariah Does tepes still post here? Going on four years since I first heard these tracks, I still find myself humming "Black Rain" and "Pariah" on occasion.

QUOTE (steelcaressed @ Nov 10 2006, 04:39 AM)QUOTE (physics23 @ Oct 29 2006, 03:18 AM) QUOTE (steelcaressed @ Oct 26 2006, 05:17 AM)Henderson the Rain King, Saul Bellow. Really? I'd be interested in hearing what you think of it. I'm halfway through Humboldt's Gift right now, and I've got mixed feelings about Bellow's style. I can't say I'm necessarily enjoying his Pulitzer winner; yet there's something in his prose that keeps me engaged almost involuntarily. I think it takes a while to adapt to his sense of humor, to know which of his remarks are meant to be taken seriously and which are just facetious cynicism. He goes into these long soliloquies, digresses inveterately, makes almost constant reference to classical authors I've never read which is a bit intimidating, and is always leaping back and forth between time frames. Given your descprition, there are certainly similartities between "Humboldt's Gift" and "Henderson the Rain King." The references to other literature are mostly in the form of biblical anecdotes, some I understood and some I had never heard of (the latter were fairly easy to interpret when read in context.) The cynicism is certainly there, along w/ extended tangeants that sometimes seem to drift so far from the original topic that it is easy to forget what inspired them in the first place. They were however quite interesting, which is important if your're going to lose your readers. His insights were always deeply reflective and humorous at the same time, sometimes at the expense of others (cynical) and sometimes just situationally funny. Much of Humboldt's Gift is a conversation between Bellow and authors like Joyce and Wordsworth. In his own peculiar way he's trying to reconcile a variety of philosophical questions and probe the meaning of life. But because it took me a while to catch on to this, the first third or so of the book read like a series of thoughts and events vaguely interesting but desultory and without cohesion. Frequently I would think, And this book won the Pulitzer?? It was only later that the different dots began to send out vectors and the vectors began to converge, and stuff starting coming together. No doubt Nabokov's aphorism - that a book cannot be read, it can only be reread - applies here: Humboldt's Gift is a novel with more to offer the second time around. QUOTE I gather from some interpretations that it is Bellow's attempt at a satirical mythical hero that is the antithesis of the existential hero at the same time, redundant though that sounds. The lead character does have a great deal of the Hemingway style to him, but with a recklessness and a conscience that would be out of place in Hemingway's world. He is a reluctant stoic, in short, far more affected by his emotional responses than he would ever admit, and that conflict is constantly bubbling at the surface for him. The more time passes between the novel's last page and the present, the more I find myself identifying with the narrator's character. Excepting the anthroposophic nonsense that may have sounded plausible in the sixties and seventies but sounds like total voodoo drek now, there is much wisdom about humanity and such conveyed through the narrator's quasi- theatre-of-the-absurd experiences. There are obvious parallels with Homer's Odysseus and Kafka's Joseph K. The archithemes of fatalism and bureaucracy serve as the current over which the novel progresses. The conflict you describe between how the narrator idealizes himself and how he is actually revealed through his interactions with others also shapes Humboldt's Gift and makes it interesting to follow how the narrator's character develops in the course of the story.

I thought of you, tick, when I saw this: QUOTE Syrinx in popular culture In the song "10001110101" by Clutch, The Temple of Syrinx is said to be having the bake sale of the year. Wikipedia

QUOTE (steelcaressed @ Oct 26 2006, 05:17 AM)Henderson the Rain King, Saul Bellow. Really? I'd be interested in hearing what you think of it. I'm halfway through Humboldt's Gift right now, and I've got mixed feelings about Bellow's style. I can't say I'm necessarily enjoying his Pulitzer winner; yet there's something in his prose that keeps me engaged almost involuntarily. I think it takes a while to adapt to his sense of humor, to know which of his remarks are meant to be taken seriously and which are just facetious cynicism. He goes into these long soliloquies, digresses inveterately, makes almost constant reference to classical authors I've never read which is a bit intimidating, and is always leaping back and forth between time frames.

QUOTE (DonnaWanna @ Feb 19 2006, 12:29 AM)QUOTE (physics23 @ Feb 18 2006, 02:11 PM)[image] thesaurus.com!!! hmmm and whats in that doc titled "What if i told you" LOL im nosey and Enquiring minds wanna know I love thesaurus.com. That doc is a narrative poem I'm writing on personal freedom. Your screenshots are cool too, Donna.

I apologize ahead of time that this image is so large. http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y129/amirror/printscreen.jpg

Keep it up, Larks.

QUOTE (Weakly Criminal @ Feb 8 2006, 10:55 AM)School may seem worthless now but Stick It Out! As someone who was suspended a semester and considered dropping out but didn't, I can tell you. You'll be glad you finished! It's not so much what you're learning in school, but from school. It's about the perseverance! Learning to get through this will help you get through songs you didn't think you could finish, and jobs you didn't think you could stand. Never, never, never give up!!! Suspended for a semester? What did you do?

I believe the neurological effects of various kinds of music have been empirically confirmed. I recall coming across websites of several American college students dealing with this very topic at a time when I had a strong interest in it myself. Many people fail to appreciate how vulnerable the mind is to being manipulated, and music is certainly a powerful tool for persuasion. Simply observe the score accompanying a tv ad for the evening news, even the stopwatch ticking on 60 Minutes. Part of the research I intend to embark on next year, if I can obtain the necessary funding, will deal with the extent to which individuals can be brainwashed with words, and if there are specific linguistic patterns which facilitate this process. (My hypothesis, loosely speaking, is that the extend is vast, and that there are indeed syntactic and other linguistic dimenstions involved.) There is no reason to suppose that music and printed words are any less effective than graphic stimuli.

I heard Sting's version for the first time this weekend. Wasn't impressed. Concrete Blonde also does a nice version of "Little Wing."

To follow up on clearingsky's comment regarding the title being a clever twist on the speed of light: Neil is drawing an analogy between the physical properties of light - which can be measured, quantified, and whose behavior can be predicted - and the physical properties of love. As with most any work of poetry, there is rarely a single layer of meaning to the words of Neil's songs. Love is born with lightning bolts Electro-magnetic force Even though it is a completely natural occurrence, a component of our biology, there is no reason to regard love with any less wonder. The fact that a lightning storm is a perfectly common and understable phenomenon of stmospheric electric discharge makes it no less an awe-inspiring sight.

It's better than "You Bet Your Life."

HA, nice poll, Pratt. But you also forgot the rabbi. My vote went to Newman. I'll never forget the episode when he's driving the truck and it catches on fire.

http://www.maale.org.il/live.htm

Nice song, Rat.