Bruce Springsteen new albúm !

[Steven]

Hi Kush,

Nice link to thew CNN article. Glad that you are appreciating Emmylou Harris more and more. I don't yet have "Red Dirt Girl," but have heard it.
There's a small set of her music that I own and really like. She covers some classics among the songs of people like the Everly Brothers and
Louvin Brothers incredibly well. Graham Parsons (who performed with The Byrds), is credited with helping her to soar, artistically. And she
does soar, in the rarefied territory that only people like her and Aaron Neville do.

[Steven]

Hi Diane,

Steve Martin was great in that movie where he played a lonely guy. There was a scene where he came into a restaurant and was incredibly self-
conscious about dining alone, that was very funny and also poignant. Synchronicity can be an ascribing of meaning. Could be something more,
though, i.m.o. Jung wrote of synchronicity. Haven't read the Dawkins' book. There's a huge book, far from Dawkins' calibre material, that
has just been added to my list. May have to go on reading retreat if this continues. Recently saw a great "Twilight Zone" episode that
was memorable from years ago. In it, Burgess Meredith plays the role of a "reader." A great episode. If you have an opportunity to see
this on the DVD that is available, you'd like it, I'm pretty sure. Heard that ravens mate for life. They must be very committed to each
other, to put up with their raucous calls, if this is so.

[Diane]

Hi Steven, having always been a ragged disbeliever myself, I am glad Dawkins is out there, popularising science and defending non-belief in deities. He even has an advertsising campaign going on over here, with London buses sporting the words, "There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."(!) Nowadays though I wish he would calm down a bit, look wider than the Abrahamic religions, and also address the fact of the religious impulse in humanity.

Yes, Jung's ideas on synchronicity are very interesting. I think an 'amazing' synchronicity is bound to occur, statistically, to everyone, at least once a month though. I think we'd have to invoke quantum mechanics to talk about this, and I make it a rule never to discuss such things of a Monday morning.

There was a time that just looking at Steve Martin used to make me laugh. I don't know the film you refer to about him in a restaurant, which was that? I found and book-marked part one of that Twilight Zone episode you mentioned, on youtube and will def. watch it as it looks like a 30 minuter, thanks. We had a great series over here back in the days I used to watch TV regularly, called Tales of the Unexpected which started out based on Roald Dahl's stories and I think drew from The Twilight Zone.

Regarding the ravens - maybe each other's raw vocalisations are what keeps their interest life-long. You are compelled to pay attention to dissonance (I have discovered lately due to this thread!).

Bruce's studio albums from the noughties, (and not including Seeger Sessions): The Rising and Devils&Dust are both great albums start to finish imo. Magic has grown on me and I like it all bar Livin in the Future, Last to Die and Your Own Worst Enemy all of which seem dispensible. But Magic has guts to it, whereas I have tired of trying to like the sound of Working on a Dream. If he'd used Queen of as the one track in the 60's-pop vein as he did with Girls in Their Summer Clothes on Magic, it could have worked, but good tracks are lost in the hotch-potch. He could have combined Magic and WoaD into one very good album, or at least made two albums, one experimental and one rock. I don't think Outlaw Pete works either, with all that reverb and overdone music. Getting old is inevitable. Getting bland is an option. Looks like I am broadly agreeing with what you both said above. Anyway, Bruce earned his stripes with me long ago and I'll take the bad like I took the good (and live it's all good). I might change my mind again, too.

Funny thing I was listening to Ghost of Tom Joad the other day (which so many people find monotonous) but I was still drawn to the melodies, voice and flow of the entire album even after all these years (18 and counting???).

Lately I ended my 14 year long (not 18 - I checked) sulk about not getting a ticket for the Ghost of Tour (well it mattered so much in those days) and I have listened to this a few times recently Kush, and I do know what you are saying here!! I really like the feel of this cd. It's like having a new album. The story of Sinaloa Cowboys is a showcase for how Bruce can tell powerful stories without elaboration or judgement and with fine economy of words. (There are some parallels in this song with Tom R's Crosses of San Carlos, too.) Ghost of Tom Joad sounds even better without Tom Morello's guitar, finally. Nice one. Never too late.

My favourite music right now is that which plays at any time of the night I care to wake up and listen - the rain and the wind.

Hope the turkey was good.

Edited for waffle.

[Steven]

Hi Diane,

Haven't seen those ads over here, but in some areas there are plenty of religiously themed advertising messages.

Synchronicity can be viewed metaphorically or via a theoretical explanation with quantum mechanics. I more enjoy the collective unconscious
explanation of Jung, though. Some of what is attributed to synchronicity is an unconsciously primed selective attention to and/or seeking
out of something.

I think that the Steve Martin movie was called "The Lonely Guy." I hope you enjoy the Twilight Zone episode. I'm not familiar with the
series you mentioned, but will see if I can get ahold of a DVD of it, or watch some of it on Youtube. I don't watch much TV nowadays.
As a young kid, watched alot of TV. I was compelled to try to not pay atttention to the disonnance that was at home and that wasn't
on the TV. The turkey was okay. Waffles sound better, though. Rain and the wind can sound very nice. I think that Kris Kristofferson
mentioned rain on window to evoke mood/imagery in one of his great songs.

[Diane]

Welcome to the forum cutecuboo.

Some of what is attributed to synchronicity is an unconsciously primed selective attention to and/or seeking out of something.

True.

I mostly just forget to switch the TV on these days Steven (I miss some good things), but yeah you're so right - the TV can be a reliable distraction in a frantically dissonant environment. I was there, too.

The rain and the gales of this time of year make me feel invigorated and like the atmosphere is 'happening'. Dissonance (musical dissonance), too, presses you up against something and binds you to the moment. So does the eternal restlessness of the sea, which I am fortunate to live close to.

And how about grammatical dissonance;-)

Is a dream a lie if it don't come true
or is it something worse
that sends me down to the river
though I know the river is dry

These lines make a sentence equivalent of one of those Escher drawings. You have to reflect on the actual meaning again and again. I like that. Are there any other nonsense lyrics like that I wonder.

I feel I am learning the art of keeping "on topic" whilst being off .

[Steven]

Hi Diane,

There were some pretty good gales coming through around here last night with lots of rain. I too can enjoy those things, and especially
the way storms can invigorate the sea and its observers. Grammatical and other disonnances can trigger avoidance and attention tendencies.
The Bruce lines you quoted really work, poetically, for people who attend long enough to them to have them make sense. -- Yes, agree with
you on the need for reflection to have that happen. Escher had an amazing mind. I sometimes put that kind of an aberration into
perspecive this way: orb spiders webs are intricately amazing too. And back to the lines you quoted, I wonder if Bruce was influenced
by the classic poetry lines that asked: "What happens to a dream deferred?" Seems that off-topic in the context of this and similar threads
is really on-topic, mostly.

[Kush]

Good morning Diane, Steven

- I have mixed feelings on Richard Dawkins as I sip my mrning coffee. I respect his academic achievements but the man is also a bit of an egocentric idiot I think. I have not read his stuff but from what I gather it looks like he is fundamentally confusing 3 different issues - an acknowledgment of a source or energy or power that might explain our phsyical existence in the broadest sense not only human existence....lets call it Einstein's God, secondly the theory of evolution which descibes a process (and admittedly goes against the ideas of every major and non-major religious understanding of humanity's beginnnings) and thirdly a belief in a personal God which is basically faith and binds community and tribe and all of those things. I am much more of a believe and let believe kind of a guy (and let what you believe evolve at your own time, not because Richard Dawkins says so) so dont see a huge conflict in these 3 separate issues. The first issue I dont know if we will ever figure it out...you can't figure out a system of existence (in the broadest sense not just the physical universe) when you exist within it. Most of the time we (or science) is able to shed light on a system by perturbing it so that system has to be small enough or distant enough for us to be outside of it (think atoms or distant stars or brain cells in a rat).
Think it was earlier this year or late last year I was having breakfast with a former protege and colleague of Dawkins (who shall remain unnamed for obvious reasons) and he pretty much confirmed to me that Dawkins is a little too full of himself. This is not to detract from his academic credentials but as we all know very accomplished people can be idiots sometimes ....I am thinking Tiger Woods!
Check out this clip.....astrophysicist Neil De Grasse Tyson rebukes (not so gently either) Dawkins for his attitude but of course RD completely misses his point.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_2xGIwQfik

Tyson:

" your commentary had a sharpness of teeth that I had not even projected for you"

"you are professor of public understanding of science not professor of delivering truth to the public, and these are two different exercises"

"Persuasion is not here are the facts and you are either an idiot or not, persuasion is here are the facts and here is a sensitivity to your state of mind and its the facts plus the sensitivity when convolved together creates impact."


Dawkins:

Fuck off

(actually he doesnt say that directly to Tyson but in a roundabout way by invoking someone else's quote)

until the next time.....and its back to music

[Steven]

Hi Kush,

I'm past morning coffee now and am about to move onto afternoon tea. Went to the Dawkins link; good to be able to do that kind of thing now.
I've not read Dawkins either. So can't comment. Leaving out any mention of and making no reference to specific people in your post, here's a general observation: emotional intelligence may not be highly correlated with extremely high academic/intellectual achievement. The very drivers that propel off-the-charts kinds of performance may be correlated to lower emotional intelligence. Anyway, nice snow falling here now. May not feel so good about it later and tomorrow after
shoveling and driving through it.

[Kush]

link to Springsteen receiving Kennedy Center honors -

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp ... 3#34301503

agree with your observation Steven. When a child prodigy learns to swing a club better and with more precision than anyone else in history I'll cut him some slack on the emotional intelligence count... (not that I am such a emotional intelligence hotshot to pass judgment ....but the really sad part is I cant swing a club too well either )

[Steven]

Hi Kush,

Thanks for the link to the Kennedy Center honors. Won't make any claims to high level emotional intelligence myself and have
never played golf, other than mini-golf. Once drove by a course and shouted "fore," which probably isn't a marker for high
emotional intelligence, but may be for some form of humorous ability.

[Diane]

Hi Steven and Kush. My moosic's on so I can't listen to that Dawkins clip til tomorrow, or that Springsteen thing (but I did see a picture of him with his deputy, Obama, in the paper today).

you can't figure out a system of existence (in the broadest sense not just the physical universe) when you exist within it. Most of the time we (or science) is able to shed light on a system by perturbing it so that system has to be small enough or distant enough for us to be outside of it (think atoms or distant stars or brain cells in a rat).

Nice point, Kush. I have enjoyed most of Dawkins' books over the years - he is an entertaining writer on evolution and, like Carl Sagan, he makes an excellent case for how science's revelations increase our sense of wonder about the world. The thing that bugs me about him is that he has made himself the most prominent evolutionary biologist and yet not once has he addressed the evolution of the spiritual sense in humanity. He simply says God is a non-explanation. But his arguments are a non-explanation for the human idea of God, too. Another evolutionary scientist, Steven Pinker, explained that some things we sense are real and some are constructs. The table in front of us is real and can be demonstrated to be so, but colours don't exist, and rather are constructs of the brain placed on the detection of certain wavelengths of light. Pinker suggested that a moral sense, for example, may be a real property of the universe, rather than just a human construct that reinterprets the nature that Dawkins famously described as being of blind, pitiless indifference. What about the way empathy (love) has been selected for during evolution - this is an example of awareness of our interconnectivity encoded from the genetic level. I have a feeling Dawkins is not going to address these things, probably deeming them too nebulous, and therefore, much as I agree with what he says as far as it goes, he has outlived his usefulness on my bookshelf.

In my years as a mountainbiker I have found passing through golf courses to be a little precarious. The golfers always seem less than happy at our presence and I always imagine a ball might strike me on the side of the head at any moment.

Steven - what happens to a dream deferred - wow that question makes me feel very sad as I have just got in from travelling back from a funeral in London. You have snow - I'm envious. Everything here is just very wet. Kush I must check out that other Khaled song you mentioned. The live album I got is a fave. All for now. Nos da.

[Steven]

Hi Diane,

Sorry to hear of the loss surrounding that funeral. Didn't mean to make you sad, you know. "Is a dream a lie if it don't come true" words that are near
those words you quoted from song, are what prompted the "dream deferred" comparison. Lots of synchronicity around the sentiment of the song and life,
sometimes. The snow was very pretty. There was about 3 or 4 inches (sorry, don't know the metric equivalent, off-hand) that fell on Sat. Most
of it is melted away now. Hope you get some pleasant snows in your area. Take care and, again, sorry to hear of the loss.

[Diane]

Steven, thanks, but as if thought you meant to make me sad:-) I didn't mind anyhow. I like the quote. We don't do metric in the UK (although we are supposed to) so inches are fine. I am crazy about snow. "Snow falling at night is like religion" as someone said. Enjoy it.

Haha K I thought you were just paraphrasing what Dawkins said - that is a funny video. He should be a comedian or a politician. But yes, his smugness doesn't do him any favours.

[Steven]

Hi Diane,

Snow on deciduous trees' empty-of-leaves branches/boughs is very pleasing to look at.

[Diane]

Snow and trees reminds me of Wallace Stevens.

It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

I appreciate traditions celebrating renewal and the light that comes from the darkness at this time of the year. I hope you have a good Hanukkah, Steven.

Check the Springsteen site about a documentary including him, being aired in the US on Sunday. http://www.brucespringsteen.net

Using dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries and speeches of everyday Americans, the documentary feature film THE PEOPLE SPEAK gives voice to those who spoke up for social change throughout U.S. history, forging a nation from the bottom up with their insistence on equality and justice.

Narrated by acclaimed historian Howard Zinn and based on his best-selling books, A People's History of the United States and, with Anthony Arnove, Voices of a People's History, THE PEOPLE SPEAK illustrates the relevance of these passionate historical moments to our society today and reminds us never to take liberty for granted.