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Showing posts from March, 2013

Dark Side at 40

Last night I checked out a live stream from the official Pink Floyd website of Dark Side of the Moon .  I have blogged about this album and about the band several times before.  The stream commemorated the 40th anniversary of the worldwide music concept sensation that rocketed them to super stardom and perhaps sold more than 50 million copies . A special Twitter feed went on live during the streaming.  I did not check it out and only listened to a few of the tracks.  My mind was really elsewhere but I wanted to tune-in as part of the celebration .  Rolling Stone did a cover story on the band and the album as recently as 2011.   Dark Side  is definitely still relevant at least to the postmodern zeitgeist . Hard to believe it has been 40 years .  But, I have to remember I did not listen to this album until I went to college.  That was about five years after it was released.  I discovered Dark Side and Wish You Were Here more or less simultaneously which had a powerful impact

Eagles: My First Favorite Band

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Don Henley, Don Felder, Linda Ronstadt, Glenn Frey, Governor Jerry Brown , Randy Meisner, Dan Fogelberg, Joe Walsh, and Jackson Browne circa 1977.  All these people seemed very cool to me at that time in my late teens. My musical freedom began when my mom and dad decided to move their old console stereo out of the living room and into my bedroom. I was 12 or 13 at the time. We didn't have a lot of money so my record collection was rather sparse. The first two albums I ever bought were Don McLean's American Pie (because I enjoyed the hit song American Pie ) and Yes' Fragile (because I enjoyed the hit song Roundabout and liked the cool album artwork). I was too young to recognize the strange dichotomy. Seems I was eclectic in my tastes from the beginning. Growing up in a rural Georgia small town, my exposure to music was limited to Top 40 , gospel, and traditional country music.   My musical awareness would not broaden until I went away to college. With a limited bu

Metzinger: Being No One

“Is it true that the self is an illusion?  I think it is not true because it contains a logical mistake.  On the level on which we are talking there is no such thing as truth or falsity.  There is nobody who could have an illusion in this system.  So, if you really wanted to stay with the idea that the self is an illusion you would have to say that it is an illusion which is no one’s illusion.  If it is true that the self is not a thing but a process, as I have described it, then it is also true that the tragedy of the ego dissolves because strictly speaking nobody is ever born and nobody ever dies.” This radical and seemingly absurd statement is the conclusion to a lecture given by contemporary philosopher Thomas Metzinger at UC Berkeley in 2005.  This lengthy lecture is an excellent overview and summary to Metzinger’s reductionist philosophy of mind and consciousness.  I became aware of Metzinger back in 2004 when I purchased his book Being No One from MIT Press .  MIT is famous f

The Fine Art of Cheesecake But Not The Way Eileen Wants It

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Jennifer's cheesecake ready for serving.  Brian's two sorbet accompaniments await in the background.  More wine! Even after 25 years I am discovering new things about Jennifer.  Driving home from our annual Cumberland Island Armadillo First Feast last night I turned to Jeffrey, who had driven down to Atlanta with us this year, and told him that one of the joys of being with someone for so long is when you learn something new about them it is a bit like having a new woman in your life all over again.  Naturally, such things become increasingly rare and precious after the span of two and half decades of togetherness, but they become increasingly special when they happen as well. Jennifer’s cheesecake is what I will most remember from the 2013 First Feast.  Lord knows there was plenty else to enjoy.  The wonderful olive appetizers or the tomatoes and cheese with their tasty leaves of fresh basil, the surprising champagne that accompanied all that, the Cesar salad with ancho