anonrobt

Martin Gardner is gone from our midst at the age of 95. He is well known for his column on mathematical games and puzzles in Scientific American for many decades. He debunked pseudo science nonsense (-Fad's and Fallacies in the Name of Science-). He wrote books on mathematical puzzles, mathematical problems and popularized many scientific issues and questions. He worked with Asimov to expose scientific frauds. He was probably the best popularizers of science and mathematics of the twentieth century. His productive life was very long and he published well into what is usually regarded as "old age". His body may have been old but his mind remained young for a long, long time.

We shall not see his like like for a long, long time. R.I.P. Martin Gardner. I, for one, will miss his wit and wisdom and the just plain fun his many works provided.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Martin Gardner was always an interesting read, whether in Scientific American or elsewhere.

Bill P

Verily!

Passion, tho cast aside for erroneous information, has a way of coming back - especially if there remains the 'lust for life' of a normal person... for me, it came several years later, after being in a multitude of jobs, experiencing all manner of livings from helping surveying in Indian territory to working in a circus to playing Tarzan for three summers in a Y camp - then while being a cook asked what it was I really wanted to do with my life, what laser focus was it that would fuel my passion, instead of the light-bulb radiating everywhere... it was then I realize that being an artist was always what interested me most - but there was a catch... I never was interested in doing just scenes or portraits or studies of unrelated object flung together... it was then, on reading Rand's essays on aesthetics, that I discovered the importance of THEMES, and how that was the means of utilizing whatever was visualized to the greatest extent... I still kept a job cooking or baking, even doing display decorating for banquets [which always was for me a form of art, even if it not last long] - but my mind even then was always thinking of compositions which would be more than the usual, which would encourage thinking, which would be the kind of work which would be welcomed on a wall to look at and contemplate day after day after day, each time being able to garner something in the way of new insights... and when circumstances forced me to be disabled, to no longer be able to bake, to retire instead - it also gave me the means to spend all my time rendering, slowly trying to detail this theming idea, trying to take it to new directions in terms of visualizing universals... and so it has been ever since, all my other interests now channeled to serving my muses...

An easy road - no... too many not recognize that an artist is in some respects never a capitalist, that while there is certainly nothing wrong, and indeed a moral joyfulness in the selling of a merchandise [the works of art], that does not mean the work was done for the pandering to the buyer, but instead from the vision of the artist.... or worse, that it is a nice thing as a hobby, but other things in life are or ought to be much more important... I lost both wives to those notions - the first for refusing to prostitute my art, for refusing to do any form, from window decorating to portraits or flowers or dogs or horses in order to sell my 'craft' of artistic ability [not that there is anything as such wrong in doing these, just that it was not how I wanted to do art] - the second for finding out there was not a caring of my works, that in doing them, as was with my library, 'out of sight, out of mind'[in other words, out of loneliness, poor choosing in a companion]...

An easy road - no... many deride realism, claiming falsely it merely 'copies' [even as most came from my head, far less that there is a difference between imitating and re-presenting], or were 'pollyannaish' [as if the dung and crippled and decayed [mentally as well as physically] were the essence of existence, and overcoming resistance was the real fantasy], or more absurdly, that grasping reality thru the human means of concepts founded on percepts was an evasion of 'seeing'[translation - 'feeling'] the essence of the world [as if mere sensations of colors or blobs of amorphously melding shapes created those 'feelings']... yet, there were many who did/do see and enjoy what I had/have to show, giving the psychological visibility that helps refuel and keeps the passion going - and it is enough that every so often am told my works 'make one think', which is why show in the first place...

How about a 2005 book, The Age of Rand: Imagining an Objectivist Future World by Frederick Cookinham. I just received it and have read the Introduction. I don't even remember why I ordered it. Has anyone else encountered this book?

I found it very interesting... parts have questions over, but in general think it a fine 'look into the future' kind of projection of how Rand's ideas may well end up influencing the world...

Unlike you respondents, I loved school - from the get-go... as I was also a military brat, that meant many many schools in many states, and two years in Japan... as I was also a military brat, that also meant a growing [and, to me, healthy, dislike of authority]... my school problem, however, came from a slightly different way - while being smart was ok, it was so only up to a point, something I learned in the early years which began yes in a little red-brick one room school where grades one thru six or so were lined up in rows... that point meant to me that, from seeing how the openly brainy kids were treated, 'playing dumb', at least to the extent I fumblingly could [while, sort of on the sly, devoured books after books on all sundry subjects]... whether this was a good thing depends on how one perceives defensive measures - in later years, high school especially, it became a Pagliacci effect because of the psychological browbeating I had to take from my authoritarian father, and the consequence was that it took me many many years to finally overcome that 'protective cover' I had thrown over me... there was one other effect which influenced my life from an early age - I was, in a manner of speaking, a 'child of Rand' in that had seen the The Fountainhead movie when young, and over and over over the years on TV - where, of all the movies [and had seen loads back then, both in the theater and on TV], the courtroom speech remained 'engraved' in my memory like nothing else from any other movie... of course, living in an authoritarian household with that as my mindset explains the Pagliacci effect [and that it was a subconscious defensive reaction, why it took so many years to successfully pry off the mask]...

Passion? I was interested in everything, an intellectual omnivorous being, like a light bulb whose rays went everywhere seeking to soak up information like a never quenched sponge... in the sense of being an artist, my earliest recorded was of the owl clock my parents had, done in crayon on yellow construction paper... appreciated, well my memory does not record a negative of it - but at the same time not record a positive of it than it 'was nice'... in high school, I took art as a guaranteed 'A', not to learn anything, as knew more than the teachers [sadly, as would had loved being more familiar with certain techniques and compositional understandings] - and certainly had no interest in the 'remedial therapy' works they'd thrust on us in the name of 'diversifying'... and when learned from those sage ones that other than being a commercial artist, there was no making a living as an artist unless very 'lucky' [eg - knew someone to be a patron], I stopped doing art when finished high school, thus stifling for a time the closest to passion I had on any one subject...

[more later, maybe...]

Oddly, this is the one Rand novel I've never completed, even after several attempts, tho have seen the movie version several times... the horrors of the life in those times bothers me too much to keep reading to the end... Like Schindler's List, too much to take in for me...

And yet I should add that the movie version is enjoyable, and have seen it several times, from its initial theatrical release to owning VHS and DVD copies...

Please explain how this talk of "free decisions" by the universe (such terminology recurs throughout the paper) follows from the "mathematical result" of the paper. Do you think the universe makes decisions?

That's the same thing as blaming Einstein for using the phrase "God doesn't play dice" by taking it literally, while it was obviously a metaphor. When Conway writes about the universe making decisions he means of course just that what happens in the universe at a certain event in space-time, whether that depends on the information of the past light cone of that event. Such anthropomorphizing terms are quite common in science, like particles that "see" something or atoms that "want" something, etc. Nothing to get excited about.

And that is precisely what is wrong, the cry to not get excited over anthropomorphizing - because it too quickly turns to being taken more than as 'colorful' speech, to say nothing of the fact it has no business in science writing... that it is considered 'quite common' betrays the science in which it appears...

MM: I am not alone in my generation in growing up expecting the Jetsons. In 1960, I certainly thought that by 2010, we would have space stations, colonies on Luna, and probably the first colony on Mars. Progress seemed so easy.

Browsing old bookstores I discovered stacks of Life Magazine and Reader's Digest articles from the 50's on how we'd have flying cars and the houses would be all glass or plexiglass and would rotate during the day to follow the sun.

That was at the close of a century of staggeringly fast progress...and [warning: rant alert] just before big government/the regulatory state had gotten to the point of really choking off progress with environmental impact statements and licensing and prohibitions and having to wear reflective clothes, helmets, and shin guards before taking a crap and before protecting big, established institutions from the innovators and the dreamers.

It was before bold new frontiers, and great advances (except in computers and a few other areas) became illegal and were hamstrung.

If the government had followed Van Braun's notion of the space station FIRST, then the rockets outward from it, those views of the 50's may well had come to pass - but the politics demanded a show, so it was a blast-off to the moon, no midway between, with the current result...

Indeed - Happy Birthday, and many more healthy ones...

If I wanted to be evil, I would say I think it's kinda cute how Angie flirts with George and vice-versa.

But I don't want to be evil, so I won't say it.

Michael

I think it's kinda cute as well. Bloomington is full of elderly, church-going ladies, but flirting with them somehow doesn't quite cut it. And I'm not enthusiastic about going to church together on a first date.

Ghs

afraid the roof will fall in??

The third thing I would like to do is ask you guys, why do you think objectivism is not the philosophy of choice by minorites? I mean, it's not the philosophy of choice by the population in general, but it seems almost non-existent in minority groups.

I think aesthetic arrogance is a contributing factor. I've seen white Objectivists tell black Objectivists that their tastes in music are uncultured, unsophisticated and objectively inferior. There's sometimes an attitude conveyed of "you're music is that of filthy, mindless savages" directed at people who enjoy music that isn't based in white/European traditions and preferences. Which is too bad because when Rand wasn't saying similar things, there were times when she recognized that different cultures seem to speak different musical "languages" that won't be appreciated by those who don't speak them.

J

Would have to say this depends on whether speaking of jazz or rap...

I appreciate the interest you all are taking in little ol' me.

Considering all the advice you guys have given on my next literary choice, I think I'm going to browse the aynrandlexicon site, take note of the sources as Jonathan mentioned, and first read the book that matches up with the source I couldn't take my eyes off of. Now I just need to start saving my pennies to buy The Virtue of Selfishness, Romantic Manifesto, and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. I'm a very fast reader, so when I purchase books I try to buy many at a time anyway.

Heh, being a fast reader, too bad ye not live nearby - with a nice library of some 5000 or so, there'd be plenty to come sit and breeze thru, most covering near all of the desired books, plus a number of the lesser, even non-desired... but I imagine there're others here much like me in this department, investing in so many of the worthwhile books, while the neighborhood seems rampant with illiterates...

Yes, Jean - welcome...

You'll find plenty enriched fuel for your mind here, in all its diversity -

And much to integrate to the whole of your being an individual...

Robert

Practical value sometimes lies not in what Rand thought but in how she thought.

BINGO, nailed that on the head if I ever saw it!!!!

That is a great point. But isn't this true of so many thinkers in history: a checklist of their positions gets recorded and their followers (and many of their critics) latch on to the list overlooking the method.

I finally get an enthusiastic response from a woman on OL, and you have to go and spoil it!

Seriously, you are right of course. The thinker I admire most in this respect is Adam Smith, a genius of the highest caliber who had one of the most complex and fascinating minds in the history of western thought. I have read Smith's Wealth of Nations many times -- I even wrote a 180 page manuscript about it for Knowledge Products back in the 1980s -- and I never fail to be amazed by the intricate texture of its arguments.

Over the years, I have drawn up various top-10 lists of the greatest books on liberty ever written; and despite some variations here and there, the Wealth of Nations has always occupied the top position.

Ghs

I wholeheartedly agree with every quoted level of this post

I have a copy of Wealth of Nations that I am about to begin. It's daunting to be sure, but worth it I think. Though, I have to admit the title has me concerned from the beginning as to whether Smith was really more of a statist.

The issue, in context of its time. wasn't statism as it was refuting the mercantilist position and positing an alternative - and why that was better...

I think the biggest issue in all this is getting people to recognize authority, whether it's private or public. This is part and parcel of "law and order". Even in public run systems if enough people disobey laws then they can't be enforced because it would use up too many resources.

Yes, even Rand recognized this issue. That's a general problem that I believe all societies face. I believe anarchists ones have a leg up since any authority is respected (or, following Brant, submitted to) mostly consensually because individual consent can be removed at any time by everyone. (Of course, in some situations, you might point out, this doesn't matter -- say, when a particular individual is being coerced by a widely respected authority -- but it's at the margin where individuals have more power.)

This whole thing hinges on people being "reasonable" (sane) and I think this is the ultimate goal of mankind. The question is can you get people to become reasonable by immersing them in a totally free system or do they have to be reasonable first before it will work?

I don't think one needs any more reasonability or sanity than is normally seen. In other words, I don't think some sort of general reform of humanity is necessary to get along without government. There will still be social conflicts and problems of all sorts, but there will just be one less problem: that of statism.

Also, the argument you're using is similar, unintentionally I'm sure, than arguments against setting slaves free. I've read somewhere that some believed the slaves shouldn't be freed immediately or, for some, ever -- that giving them freedom without adequate preparation or some radical change in the slaves' natures would lead to social chaos or, at least, personal failure as slaves unaccustomed to choosely freely wouldn't know what to do.

Besides, there is a difference between being rational and being reasonable... one can be rational and yet unreasonable [sane? or insane]

I think the biggest issue in all this is getting people to recognize authority, whether it's private or public. This is part and parcel of "law and order". Even in public run systems if enough people disobey laws then they can't be enforced because it would use up too many resources.

Yes, even Rand recognized this issue. That's a general problem that I believe all societies face. I believe anarchists ones have a leg up since any authority is respected (or, following Brant, submitted to) mostly consensually because individual consent can be removed at any time by everyone. (Of course, in some situations, you might point out, this doesn't matter -- say, when a particular individual is being coerced by a widely respected authority -- but it's at the margin where individuals have more power.)

This whole thing hinges on people being "reasonable" (sane) and I think this is the ultimate goal of mankind. The question is can you get people to become reasonable by immersing them in a totally free system or do they have to be reasonable first before it will work?

I don't think one needs any more reasonability or sanity than is normally seen. In other words, I don't think some sort of general reform of humanity is necessary to get along without government. There will still be social conflicts and problems of all sorts, but there will just be one less problem: that of statism.

Also, the argument you're using is similar, unintentionally I'm sure, than arguments against setting slaves free. I've read somewhere that some believed the slaves shouldn't be freed immediately or, for some, ever -- that giving them freedom without adequate preparation or some radical change in the slaves' natures would lead to social chaos or, at least, personal failure as slaves unaccustomed to choosely freely wouldn't know what to do.

Besides, there is a difference between being rational and being reasonable...

As far as I ever knew it was Stravinsky who said that. Now I'm all confused. It got stolen. He might've stolen it from T.S. Eliot, who said "Good poets borrow, great poets steal."

These guys are all freaking larcenous, man.

Maybe this is where came the phrase - all property is theft, huh...

This aside, aren't there certain aspects of this form of art that are mere entertainment and have little or no bearing on character beyond that? One would not think someone a bad person because they liked Thai cuisine over, say, Cajun cuisine. Does the same apply to tastes in art, at least some of the time? It is possible that the "optional" could apply here as it does in some aspects of ethics and epistemology. [5]

.........................

This makes for the questions - what comprises mere entertainment?, if it is of value, what is the value in a negative like horror? if mere entertainment, could not also boiling dogs? if not, what makes it different from choosing different cuisines [is it really a 'matter of tastes'?]? and if of tastes, are tastes then a-moral?

See, if I cite important sounding sources, you are willing to believe the claims, but stop and think. Is the US Department of Justice really reliable? I mean, given what you know about government, why take DoJ numbers over anything else you read?

Let me put this another way. If you state, "X is the case," is it not valid and reasonable for others to ask, "Why do you believe X?"

Dannie, mein Freund, wenn ich mich klar und deutlich besprechen muss, dann schreibe ich auf Englisch because I once told a German than her Website was "schraeg" as in cool and she complained to my boss that I called her a crook as "schraeg" does mean oblique or diagonal. So, if that is what you wanted to know, you could have saved me about an hour of work. Did you think that I had all those sources in a single file on my hard drive just waiting for someone to ask, maybe under "Objectivists/Ust/Replies"?

I spoke from what I considered common knowledge among criminologists to highlight what most other people do not know, for instance that if you are victimized chances are better than 8 in 10 that you knew the perpetrator. It was not hard to find the sources, but I did search for the best ones. I put some work into it.

Now, you ask another question. WHY DO I BELIEVE THOSE THINGS? What is that supposed to mean? What are you asking? Are you asking for the facts behind the facts or for my mental state?

In addition to the page of citations, I also provided you with my academic credentials and a link to my website which has my professional credentials on it. You failed to acknowledge anything I have done for you.

Perhaps because there is not wanted an acknowledgment of the truth, as it conflicts with certain beliefs that proclaim otherwise...

Here's an online pronunciator with the word already submitted so you can hear it: epideictic at How To Say.

The best graphic representation I have found is:

eh-pi-DIKE-tick

This is more important than it seems. It simply would not do to savagely destroy a snob with a scathing put-down, but mispronounce the word. Oh, the horror, the horror....

Whew! Thanks to Christopher, we're covered. Michael also provided us with some arcane detail to throw in if matters get rough.

Now all you have to do is get a meerschaum pipe, tweed coat, and practice looking down your nose as you chortle. The trick is to make it enough to sting, but not enough to become a caricature.

Michael

Will have to remember my Harris tweed next time, then [already have a calabash ]

I just came across this cool little essay from the Student Pulse site. It is written by Tori E. Gibbs.

Epideictic Oratory in Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead"

From the essay:

His speech is given in a courtroom, in place of his defense against the act of which he has been accused. Roark's speech aligns closely with the tenets of epideictic oratory, despite being held in a courtroom where one might expect a more forensic style of defense. Howard Roark's speech in The Fountainhead is nevertheless an excellent example of epideictic oratory.

. . .

Epideictic oratory takes place at public events and ceremonies, and considers topics such as praise and blame, virtue and vice.

. . .

... in order for a speech to be epideictic in nature, it must concern itself with virtue and vice, reinforce a set of values, demonstrate the advantage of an idea or practice, and encourage the audience to think or reflect on the subject and potentially form opinions and/or change their beliefs.

Howard Roark, though speaking in a courtroom—an entirely forensic setting—delivers a case of purely epideictic oratory. Where forensic oratory would deal with accusation or defense, Roark employs neither. He never denies having blown up the Cortlandt building, nor does he necessarily plead guilty to the act.

. . .

... the vast portion of Roark's courtroom speech deals with the exclusively epideictic subject of virtue and vice. He presents his own set of values, and proceeds to demonstrate the evil done in the name of selflessness.

. . .

Roark's demonstration of highly effective epideictic rhetoric in a courtroom suggests that the three rhetorical settings are perhaps more interchangeable than Aristotle and fellow rhetoricians present them to be. If an wholly epideictic speech can serve the same purpose (regardless of whether or not this is intended) as a forensic speech, the lines between deliberative, forensic, and epideictic oratory become distinctly blurred, leading us to question the applicability and relevance of ideas thousands of years old.

There we have it. If we ever need a 50 dollar term for Rand's fiction speeches to put down snobbish Rand-critics when they start name-dropping and using their own 50 dollar terms, we can lay "epideictic rhetoric" on them like a ton of bricks. For example:

Rand Critic (scornfully):

My dear sir, surely you have heard of Edmund McBlowhard's differentiating character developments in programmatic storylines. Rand's speeches simply don't pass the muster. Hoh ho ho ho ho ho...

Me:

For a man of your erudition, I marvel at your ignorance of Rand's evolutionary use of epideictic oratory, especially in

The Fountainhead

and

Atlas Shrugged

. I mean, it's all over her work. Rand's famous plot and character development through epideictic oratory is obvious even to the most limited intelligence. And you didn't see it. Hmmmm... Pity...

(walks off in triumph...)

Joking aside, that was a helluva nice little essay...

Nice little site for that matter...

Michael

Good find...

> A classical education is an education in the Greek and Roman authors in the original languages

That's not the only meaning.

It's the only meaning I've ever encountered.

JR

One would have had a 'classical' education even if all was read in translation... [reading The Great Books collection would have constituted having a classical education, for instance]

Unfortunately, since my activities on the internet are now impossible to track with the exception of OL, my ordeal from a few years back, even as recent as a year ago, is now very peaceful, no more harassment and so forth. Since my website that I have for my photography and other interests is completely anonymous, life has been WONDERFUL in that aspect. BUT as soon as I am found out and who I am, this is when problems begin to resurface. Even on my facebook account, everything is set to private. If I get a request for a friend or what have you and I don't know you personally, I will heavily research who the person is, who their mutual friends are, their contacts, their activities, etc., before making the decision to add them.

It's very sad that one has to take such extreme steps to ensure some peace and quiet. For those that know what happened and some of the details of it, that was just the lighter side of it. There are other sites that I was on and when my identity became known what happened there became exponentially worse than it was in the past.

I don't know anything about the details of your situation, but I can fill in the blanks in a general sort of way. Sounds like you have been put through hell.

Ghs

That is an understatement. Please no offense or disrespect taken but I don't want to bring up what happened and I am sure Mike would also not want this to be brought back up because it will give reason or an opportunity for continued problems now. There's other things I want to say but will not do so in public. George, you are familiar indirectly with some of it as I am sure a few here on OL may discuss it briefly on this thread now and this may trigger a memory for you. But for me, it's done and over with. It is in the past and I and hopefully others have moved on.

I would be most interested to see the O'ist porn and what was being said in these comic books. Sounds like it would or may be a great laugh.

I have those - there were three of them... wonder how much they're worth now...

Excuses, excuses - y'all sound like ye didn't even get half...

[but, then, perhaps only half of y'all were given a classical education...]

He passes over the other soft sciences. It would be a great exercise to use Thagard's TEC and his program ECHO to code up Austrian and Keynesian economics to see which would be the better theory. Both theories are very sophisticated, but I'm sure they can be boiled down to a few dozen hypotheses and perhaps as many or more pieces of evidence.

Dan,

I'd read your article back when Full Context was still going. Thank you for re-posting it.

A few thoughts about the effort described in the book:

Paul Thagard does a lot of interesting work.

There's a big difference, however, between using a computer program like ECHO to size up theories on which the relevant scientific community has had plenty of time to return a verdict, and theories that are in live contention today.

One reason is contained in that little phrase "to code up." ECHO doesn't study books and journal articles and such, in order to extract or infer from them what the tenets of each theory were. A programmer (Thagard himself, or someone working with him) has to analyze the theories and predigest them for the program.

Robert Campbell

I agree. Of course, I wasn't hoping that use of ECHO or similar programs would completely mechanize the process here, but I do think it might illuminate some important differences and help to focus debates over rival theories. And, yes, someone or some group would have to whittle out the supposed concepts and relations of a given theory. But my guess is such an undertaking would be open and could be transparent. This would allow for people to debate whether the models of the various theories were correct. And there's no reason to think, say, that different individuals or groups might encode theories in different ways. However, this should be no problem if the approach is to examine each one to see if one or more (or none) are relevant and accurate.

Also, I wouldn't make Thagard's TEC or a particular application of it sacrosanct. I wouldn't want to end up with people substituting one of these for thinking. Finally, I wouldn't want to have something like the alleged Euler-Diderot incident become the norm -- where someone declares a theory is right or wrong based on something no one else understands and that is, in fact, invalid to determining this.

Yes - wouldn't want this turning into a 'climategate'

I think this hinges on the definition of taste, Merriam Webster lists two that are relevant: Noun 6. individual preference; 7. critical judgement, discernment, or appreciation. 6 seems to be the more appropriate one here, though 7 is better if you want to speak of someone having well developed tastes in something. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/taste

Let’s apply it to a context. Food preference is a context where there shouldn’t be much dispute, if you don’t like Indian food or hoppy beer, what can anyone say to you about it? You may develop a taste for it someday, that’s about it. Are there contexts where tastes are more debatable? Or could it be that to the extent it is debatable, it’s no longer a matter of taste?

Here’s a musical illustration. I’m going to assume you generally like the Beethoven 5th Symphony, if not bear with me, I’m trying to hold as many factors constant as I can.

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAm4e45Z25k&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param'>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAm4e45Z25k&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAm4e45Z25k&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhcR1ZS2hVo&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param'>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhcR1ZS2hVo&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhcR1ZS2hVo&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

I don’t think one could make a definitive case that one’s better than the other. Both were equally competent in execution. But Bernstein uses a notably slower tempo, and gets a very different result, heavier, maybe less tense. If you prefer it, I’d say that’s a matter of taste (I like HvK’s better), but in the definition 6 sense.

Now compare to a performance by a community orchestra, or even a good college orchestra, where you’ll likely be treated to bad intonation, sloppy ensemble, and indifferent phrasing. If you prefer that, and especially if you prefer it for it’s shortcomings, I’d say we can switch to definition 7 and speak on terms of improving your taste. I couldn’t quickly find a performance to serve as a proper illustration, but this one’ll do, plus it’s hilarious.

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="

name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="

type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

Now back to food, a colleague tried to introduce me to Vietnamese cuisine, so we went to lunch at a place and I ordered Phở, which is a beef stew. I didn’t like it at all, and he disapproved of whatever he ordered, sampled mine and told me definitively that it was not even a proper Phở. Now what if I had liked it, and then I tried good Phở, and hated that? The mind boggles. Rather like preferring the disco version of the Beethoven 5th.

You’ll find a great illustration of the wrong way to argue about musical taste here: http://www.solopassion.com/node/4585

Tastes, perhaps - but there is also how one approaches music conducting... Bernstein was a romantic, and it shows [it flows more], just as Von K was Germanic and more like 'old school' in his approach [indeed, one could almost set a metronome to the pace - much as Beethoven himself indicated on the sheet], similar to Furtwrangler... there is also, as in this case, the issue of repeats - Bernstein used all of them as Beethoven had written, whereas Von K, like most others, omitted some, making getting thru it a faster seeming pace... a better set of illustrations would had been different recordings of, say, Toscanini, who varied a fair bit depending on the mood he was in at the time - and it very much shows, even as same guy, same music, same orchestra even...

As for Schickele - heh, that is a more glorified version of ol 'BeetleBaum' of Spike Jones' fame... both, btw, very funny and great to listen to...