What's Happening?

[Selene]

> I haven't visited this site in a long time. Where are the more interesting discussions taking place?

George, It's gone downhill over the last two or three years. Bad posts, posters, threads (and "frequent flyers" who never take a break and post mostly one-liners and snark on every thread every fifty minutes) tend to drive out or lessen good. (I won't mention names, but you'll soon learn who tends to crap on all the threads.)

I posted frequently on the "great literature" thread which has had a lot of interesting posts by well-read people such as Ted Keer, JR, Jeffrey Smith and others. There was also a language thread I liked, but I don't remember it's name. I'm more interested in those topics these days than the politics and most recent government outrage ones...

I think you will offer an intellectual upgrade around here. However, please don't keep quoting and throwing that line back at me each time I disagree with you...which I'm sure would happen often.

Welcome back ....

Phil states:

"I have in my hand the names of 150 bad posts, 92 bad posters, 35 bad threads and 7 snarky one line types!"

Adam

I am Spartacus I am one of the snarky I am one of the intellectual down graders

[Philip Coates]

> Phil states:

"I have in my hand the names of 150 bad posts, 92 bad posters, 35 bad threads and 7 snarky one line types!"

Most of them by Adam, I 'm afraid.

[9thdoctor]

I am Spartacus I am one of the snarky I am one of the intellectual down graders

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Phil truly has a gift for drawing out snarkiness. He's a pretty good practitioner of it, too. But he's hopeless with the quote function.

Edited February 5, 2010 by Ninth Doctor

[Jonathan]

I will probably become more active on OL. For nearly a decade now, I have been a very active member of the Yahoo list Atlantis II. I also post regularly on the Yahoo list JazzWestCoast. I am not a musician, at least not for many years now, but I have been a jazz buff since my high school days. Other than Roger Bissell and Chris Sciabarra, I don't know any other Objectivist types who like jazz. I find this curious in a way, since jazz is individualism incarnate in music. Indeed, one often finds discussions of cultural individualism in histories of jazz.

I think that a lot of Objectivist types dislike jazz (well, they probably wouldn't say that they "dislike" it, but that they've "objectively evaluated" it to be a morally and aesthetically inferior art form) because they equate "jazz" with "improvisation," and "improvisation" with "mindlessness." I think there's a tendency for Objectivist types to believe that art should not be created spontaneously or intuitively, but should be very rationally planned and executed, starting with a proper philosophical message which is to be clearly communicated to one's audience, and fleshing it out from there using nothing but pure logic.

I think another reason is that a lot of Objectivists are afflicted with Navin R. Johnson Syndrome -- like Steve Martin's character in The Jerk, they have no sense of rhythm outside of their very basic whitebread tastes. What a lot of people find to be the expressiveness of a funky beat only confuses and angers certain Objectivist types.

J

[Robert Campbell]

George,

I gave a talk once at an Atlas Society event with the title "Jazz: An Art Form for Individualists." So your project about jazz and the state definitely resonates.

I participate on the jazz-research list (though I am not a heavy contributor there) and, with the help of several historians (and record collectors much farther gone than I am) I maintain a music history site at

http://www.redsaunders.org

My jazz listening interests extend well beyond the material covered on the site.

Robert Campbell

[9thdoctor]

George, I list ATCAG on a personal honor roll of sorts, books I don’t have because I lent them to an Ex. Before they were an Ex, of course, so it’s in the category of valuables lost in a breakup. I lost my original copy of Atlas Shrugged this way also.

I don’t recall how you presented the doctrine of the arbitrary assertion, here’s a thread devoted to it. http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7753

I’m interested in your opinion of Dawkins’ The God Delusion and Hitchens' god is not Great. I like them both, but look back on yours as superior. But I needed convincing back then so I must recuse myself.

[Selene]

> Phil states:

"I have in my hand the names of 150 bad posts, 92 bad posters, 35 bad threads and 7 snarky one line types!"

Most of them by Adam, I 'm afraid.

Yes, it is I. I am not afraid. Extremism in the defence of intelligent humored argument is no vice moderation in the pursuit of pedantic condescension is no virtue.

Free at last...free at last...

Thank God Almighty, I am free at last of your,...well, you are self aware.

Adam

[George H. Smith]

I think that a lot of Objectivist types dislike jazz (well, they probably wouldn't say that they "dislike" it, but that they've "objectively evaluated" it to be a morally and aesthetically inferior art form) because they equate "jazz" with "improvisation," and "improvisation" with "mindlessness." I think there's a tendency for Objectivist types to believe that art should not be created spontaneously or intuitively, but should be very rationally planned and executed, starting with a proper philosophical message which is to be clearly communicated to one's audience, and fleshing it out from there using nothing but pure logic.

Jonathan,

I think your observations about Objectivists and jazz are very perceptive.

Some time ago I did a global search for "jazz" on my Objectivism Research CD-ROM. I only got two hits of any consequence.

Ayn Rand, letter to a radio announcer (Ev Suffens), April 6, 1936:

"For the life of me, I can't understand why people should intrude with their senseless jazz requests upon the only classical program we have, when every other station plays plenty of jazz night and day. Can't we, the badly neglected minority that possesses a trace of good taste, be allowed one good program out of a hundred trashy ones?"

Another letter to Ev Suffens, May 24, 1936:

"...I don't mind suffering through a jazz number once in a while if it's necessary and if your audience demands it."

Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

I’m interested in your opinion of Dawkins’ The God Delusion and Hitchens' god is not Great. I like them both, but look back on yours as superior. But I needed convincing back then so I must recuse myself.

I haven't read either book. The only book by Dawkins that I've read is "The Blind Watchmaker," which is excellent.

Hitchens is familiar with ATCAG and likes it.

Ghs

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

George,

But Rand liked tap dancing. So she had to like some dance music, and it sounds like the kind of big-band jazz you like.

You can't really tap dance to Rachy-baby.

Michael

[Roger Bissell]

Doesn't Leonard Peikoff like jazz?

--Brant

Leonard Peikoff likes only ~piano~ jazz, which apparently means jazz with ~only piano~ playing in it -- as I found out several years ago from his secretary, when I emailed him an offer to send him a copy of my trombone-piano duo jazz album.

So, if you take his secretary's comment at face value, it would seem that Peikoff does like jazz, within a highly circumscribed range.

Whatever floats your boat, I guess. :-/

REB

[Roger Bissell]

George,

But Rand liked tap dancing. So she had to like some dance music, and it sounds like the kind of big-band jazz you like.

You can't really tap dance to Rachy-baby.

Michael

Michael, I don't see how tap dancing would be effective with big-band jazz, unless the dancing were accompanied by "stop-time" patterns (with a note every other beat or so) or "trading" (alternating between the instruments and the tapper in four-measure increments). Listening to that kind of big-band playing would be very boring in short order, except of course for the distraction of (I mean: focus on) the dancer.

The group I often play out-of-town gigs with -- the Side Street Strutters Jazz Band (see their web site) -- has a number dedicated to a tap routine by our trumpet player: "It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing," and it's basically a dance number. The music is secondary. It's jazz-flavored, but virtually all the improvising/jazz is by the dancer -- and that gets old after a while, if you know what I mean.

If you ~don't~ know what I mean, it's this: I really enjoy ~harmonic-melodic~ improvisation. It is a much more fertile, rich medium for exploration and creation than rhythmic improvisation per se. Rhythm is also a "carrier" of meaning in music, but by itself or as a main focus, it is most effective -- and, ultimately, boring -- in repetitive patterns that aim at a goal, rather than in creative patterns that aim at exploration.

As for Rand, I think she liked lanky, graceful guys, whether they were tap dancing or whatever. So, I wouldn't put much stock in her liking jazz music. I think she basically liked the ~guys~ who danced to such music. Nothing wrong with that, of course. But it's important to put it in its (probable) perspective, rather than to imagine that she was some sort of jazz fan!

REB

[Roger Bissell]

George,

I gave a talk once at an Atlas Society event with the title "Jazz: An Art Form for Individualists." So your project about jazz and the state definitely resonates.

I participate on the jazz-research list (though I am not a heavy contributor there) and, with the help of several historians (and record collectors much farther gone than I am) I maintain a music history site at

http://www.redsaunders.org

My jazz listening interests extend well beyond the material covered on the site.

Robert Campbell

I'm with you, Robert. My jazz tastes are quite eclectic, actually.

As for Rand, I fear that her comment about your TAS presentation would be: "Hmmph -- Jazz: An Art Form for COUNTERFEIT Individualists." I really think she regarded it as a form of not rational creativity, but glorified whim-worship -- which, to be fair, ~some~ jazz actually ~is~. But there is ~so much~ musical value, so much emotional meaning, to glean from focused listening to ~good~ jazz, that I just feel sad that "Official Objectivism" (TM?) has not been more supportive of jazz over the decades.

REB

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michael, I don't see how tap dancing would be effective with big-band jazz...

Roger,

I just looked it up to make sure and it's all over the Internet.

Back during the Big Band era, it was a common practice for bands, say like Count Basie, Duke Ellington, etc., to travel with with their own tap dancers.

Michael

[9thdoctor]

As for Rand, I fear that her comment about your TAS presentation would be: "Hmmph -- Jazz: An Art Form for COUNTERFEIT Individualists."

I wouldn’t read too much into her apparent antipathy to Jazz, it could just be a generational thing, and besides her musical views aren’t very significant. There’s a video interview with the great conductor Bruno Walter in the early 60's, where he totally disses Jazz without qualification. Then Leonard Bernstein did an album with Louis Armstrong about the same time. http://www.amazon.com/Bernstein-Century-Jazz-What/dp/B000009CYG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1265464650&sr=8-1

I wonder if 50 years from now we’ll look back on Rap the way we now look back on the Jazz of the 50-60’s. Unthinkable, ugh. The only Rap I can take are parodies:

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http://www.neilrogers.com/sounds/bonr1999/03.mp3

[George H. Smith]

Other than Roger Bissell and Chris Sciabarra, I don't know any other Objectivist types who like jazz.

George,

Robert Campbell is a jazz connoisseur.

I both wrote and produced some jazz stuff in Brazil.

Here are A Few Tracks from my past that I posted on OL about a year ago. At least people can listen and know that I was a real musician.

It's more jazz pop, but still jazz (except the first track which is not pop at all--er... on reflection, I think the first track fits you and one of your exes from what you wrote me a while back).

I don't do music anymore. I shrugged.

I shouldn't have. It's still painful to me.

I just re-listened to that stuff. Dayaamm, I was good! And the pain returned.

(Objectivism can be dangerous if taken in large doses...)

I intend to get back in music, but after my present Internet marketing project is finished.

Michael

Michael,

I listened to each of the tunes twice, and I like them all. "You Don't Give a Damn About Me" is probably my favorite of the four. Terrific blues number.

JJ (i.e., Leo Robinson) is an excellent vocalist. I was also impressed by Proveta's alto solo on "Further On Up the Road."

I had no idea you were so heavily involved with music in earlier years.

On "A Few Tracks," you state that you were no longer "a practicing musician" by 1995-96 (when this CD was recorded). Were you a singer before that, or did you play an instrument, or both? Did you play (or sing) professionally, or were you more involved with songwriting, arranging, and producing?

Ghs

[Newberry]

Hey George,

I think we met once at an TAS conference. I am curious about Where Our Freedom Came From and How We Lost It. It sounds like it might be depressing to write, and perhaps fatalistic? Perhaps an influence of Jazz?

Though I am not into Jazz, I love Ella Fitzgerald...and I have understood that she worked with other Jazz greats; which might have something to do with why I like her so much.

One of my favorites of her's is Blue Skies, it always gets a grin out of me.

Cheers,

Michael

[Selene]

Michael:

Her voice is a musical instrument in and of itself. She does not even have to enunciate a single word to be spectacular.

Amazing woman.

Adam

[George H. Smith]

Hey George,

I am curious about Where Our Freedom Came From and How We Lost It. It sounds like it might be depressing to write, and perhaps fatalistic? Perhaps an influence of Jazz?

The basic theme of the book is that the individualistic IDEA of "equal freedom," which took centuries to develop, has largely been "lost" in America. Of course, many people other than libertarians and Objectivists pay lip service to this idea, but it stops there. They show little or no understanding of its nature and implications.

Yes, this conclusion is pessimistic in a way, but that's the way it is. And even if things change for the better, to the point where the notion of equal freedom becomes widely understood and accepted, this will take a long time. I certainly won't live to see it, and I doubt if anyone on OL will, either.

This doesn't mean, of course, that things cannot or will not improve politically to some extent. But without a sound philosophical underpinning, such changes will ebb and flow, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. To communicate the value of freedom and all that it entails is not easy in a culture of sound bites.

Listening to Janis Ian depresses me, but listening to jazz never does.

Ghs

[Selene]

LOL:

Now that is hilarious: The little Jewish 16 year old Marxist - "Society's Child" - on the Smother's Brothers show...

Listening to Janis Ian depresses me, but listening to jazz never does.

I'll take Krupa anytime - best white drummer I ever saw.

Finishes with match boogie on the table top.

Adam

[Xray]

The weirdest nitpickiing and misunderstanding crusade I have ever encountered online

Be careful with this last one. Before I caught the person of interest, she had managed to alter a whole slew of her earlier posts to conform with her later arguments. But even with the changes, the thread is one of the wonders of the modern world. If you manage to get all the way through it, you will have an uncontrollable urge to sit naked in a darkened subway station getting drunk on rubbing alcohol and pretending you are Napoleon Bonaparte playing a banjo.

To set the record staright: I made no changes whatsoever to conform them to arguments. I once edited a post to elaborate on the term 'truth', and had deleted banter from another of my posts, totally unconnected to your opinion (you believed that I thought I had convinced this poster to drop his objectivist belief. I got a good laugh from that. )

That thread you decided to put in the garbage pile contained most interesting discussions.

If G. H. Smith should decide to give it a look, I'd be interested in his opinion.

Truth remains truth, wherever one 'puts' it.

I'm also interested in the book GHS has written: "The Case against God". Does there exist a thread here at OL about it?

[9thdoctor]

I’ve never heard of Janis Ian until now, she’s really cute, and I liked the song.

Here’s an amazing performer, he’s actually a friend of mine going pretty far back, he has solid Jazz chops which he applies to R&B/Pop, his live performances are just jaw dropping. Almost like a circus act with such a WTF factor:

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[Brant Gaede]

The weirdest nitpickiing and misunderstanding crusade I have ever encountered online

Be careful with this last one. Before I caught the person of interest, she had managed to alter a whole slew of her earlier posts to conform with her later arguments. But even with the changes, the thread is one of the wonders of the modern world. If you manage to get all the way through it, you will have an uncontrollable urge to sit naked in a darkened subway station getting drunk on rubbing alcohol and pretending you are Napoleon Bonaparte playing a banjo.

To set the record staright: I made no changes whatsoever to conform them to arguments. I once edited a post to elaborate on the term 'truth', and had deleted banter from another of my posts, totally unconnected to your opinion (you believed that I thought I had convinced this poster to drop his objectivist belief. I got a good laugh from that. )

That thread you decided to put in the garbage pile contained most interesting discussions.

If G. H. Smith should decide to give it a look, I'd be interested in his opinion.

Truth remains truth, wherever one 'puts' it.

I'm also interested in the book GHS has written: "The Case against God". Does there exist a thread here at OL about it?

There was one altered post that Michael focused on as I recall, but don't remember if it concerned substantive content. Putting the thread into the Garbage Pile was simply an editorial comment on where it had all devolved to--that OL wasn't sanctioning it. I suggested that and Michael immediately jumped on it. And supposedly I'm the guy who dropped his "objectivist belief." Sounds kinda religious to me. I believe in reason and that what exists exists and all that stuff.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I once edited a post to elaborate on the term 'truth', and had deleted banter from another of my posts, totally unconnected to your opinion (you believed that I thought I had convinced this poster to drop his objectivist belief.

This is why I don't trust Xray.

This is a flat-out lie.

Xray edited a whole slew of posts, starting with ones concerning concepts being categories. I know because I read them, then on trying to quote them, saw that they had been altered. That's not the only topic, either.

OL's 24 hour limit for altering past posts is due to this misbehavior.

Michael

[Selene]

Ms. Xray:

I'm also interested in the book GHS has written: "The Case against God". Does there exist a thread here at OL about it?

You can start one yourself and maybe you can break precedent and actually read the book and depart from your non-reading of Ayn's works.

Adam

always urging Ms. Xray to be a better reader of Rand