zenpundit.com

Long overdue yet exceedingly timely. From one of the great short stories of all time.

2081 Trailer from 2081 on Vimeo.

[ by Charles Cameron ]

[ note: all links are to youtube videos ]

The pianist Glenn Gould is celebrated for his ability to bring the different and at times positively oppositional voices in a fugue by Bach to our attention, so that we follow each one separately while hearing all at the same time as a single whole. What is less known is that he liked to sit at a table in a truck stop and listen to the different conversations at the other tables and booths, mentally braiding their pale or brightly colored threads of human together into an analogous tapestry — one voice harmonizing with or conflicting against another, here a new subject introduced, there an echo of an earlier idea heard in a fresh context, with the murmurings of waitresses punctuated by the kaching! of the cash register, the hydraulic hiss of a door closing — conversation as counterpoint.

Organizations and individual alike, we all have different and at times dissonant voices, and strive to bring them to some kind of resolution. The many stakeholders debating an issue in town halls, blogs or letters to the editor, the many drives within each one of us, idealistic, hopeful, defeated, paralytic, angry, evasive, sluggish, vengeful, curious, alert, defiant, all have voices, all constitute an experience of polyphony, a “music of many voices”, in point counter point.

One of my interests is to find a way to score these many fugues, these musics of meaning.

My DoubleQuotes, then, can be considered as two-part inventions, attempts to show the multiple tracking of the mind — whether of a single individual, as in this case, or of a group, a community, a world divided – so that something of the music begins to be visible, and some of the dissonances can move towards necessary resolution.

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I believe there is unresolved irony between these two statements, made on the same day by Philip J Crowley, the US State Department’s Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Public Affairs – but each has its reasons, and there are arguments to be made for both transparency and opacity, diplomacy and publicity, secrets and revelations.

Between them lies the possibility I think of as a virtual music of ideas.

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Bach published a series of two-part inventions, BWV 772–801, and wrote of them that he intended to offer them as an honest method

by which the amateurs of the keyboard – especially, however, those desirous of learning – are shown a clear way not only (1) to learn to play cleanly in two parts, but also, after further progress, (2) to handle three obligate parts correctly and well; and along with this not only to obtain good inventions (ideas) but to develop the same well; above all, however, to achieve a cantabile style in playing and at the same time acquire a strong foretaste of composition…

Later comes the Art of Fugue.

by Charles Cameron
[ cross-posted from ChicagoBoyz ]

A great many people will have seen (or designed) some variant of the “coexist” bumper-sticker / tee-shirt design:

— the first of which can be found on acsapple‘s photobucket — and hey, the “aum” sign for “oe” is a brilliant bit of graphic substitution! – while I nabbed the second here.

What with a thousand flowers blooming, the importance of preserving memetic variations, peaceful coexistence and all, it’s only natural that some will have different takes on the matter —

— the first of these comes from the blog of a gun-toting political refugee from the People’s Progressive Republic of Massachusetts, while the second is a tee-shirt design by Matt Lussier, and you can get your tee-shirt here…

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As for myself, I have fond memories of India, and was accordingly heartened to see this on an Indian Muslim site…

which is what set me thinking about “coexistence” graphics in the first place.

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Did I ever tell you about the sign I saw over a shop in Delhi, advertising the sale of mythelated spirits?

I frequently feel just a tad mythelated myself.

A big hat tip to John Robb for finding and posting this gem. I guess Nazism, the French and Russian Revolutions, the Spartacus Revolt and several world religions could all have been ignited by an inspired moment of interpretive dance:

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN….THE BEATLES

Absolutely no reason for this, I admit.