You Make Me Feel Like Dancin'

Well, December 16th means that I am halfway through MoBloYoFoMo! And what better way to celebrate than with a clip episode? But, rather than highlight things that I have done, because that would be seriously self-promotional, I think I'll link some of my current favorite YouTube clips, because that sounds like a lot more fun for everyone involved!

I may have linked this one before, I certainly have on Facebook, but I love... er, thoroughly enjoy and derive great pleasure from, it dearly! In fact, I rather prefer this to the original version of the song. The acappella group is On The Rocks, a group from the "other" University in Oregon, but I can't even hold that against them, that is how good this song is:

As you can see, I am experimenting with embedding video, because I am just that fancy! Anyway, moving on we come to a pop mash-up which I found due to a link on Facebook from the eminently musical Tim Karplus of Sounds Like Japan semi-fame. I know I've said this before, but if you are interested in pop music, and enjoy hearing people who know what they are talking about do so in an amusing manner, then you should check out his blog. Regarding the video, I first heard it almost a year ago, and I was having kind of a tough time, I'm in grad school, you should not be particularly surprised. The upbeat energy and positive message put on repeat really helped me buoy my flagging spirits at times. Yes, I would lie on my office floor and listen to it on repeat. Considering it also contains some of my favorite pop music, some of which I didn't know was my favorite until after I listened to this, I think this is a real winner:

DJ Earworm, the guy who mashed, is that the right verb, this song also came and played a show at MSU last spring. I went for a while, but being by myself in a room of partying strangers has never been my native environment, and got to hear him play this before I left, definitely cool. In case you haven't guessed, I like reinterpretations of pop music. But, enough of that, now for something a little more folksy. This next song is from YouTube music sensation Hank Green, of Vlogbrothers fame. If you see me on Facebook you probably notice I quote and share John Green's videos rather more frequently than Hank's, but this is just because John tends to think about the type of things that interest me more often than Hank does, and has a more eloquent way with words perhaps. But, if you want a song, then Hank is definitely the brother to prefer, so here is one of my favorites from him. Warning, there is slight vulgarity:

Finally, here is a song which I just adore for the instrumentation, although I really like it as a whole. In fact, my only real complaint about this song is that it needs to be a minute or a minute and a half longer. I also wouldn't mind a bridge. I've heard covers that remedy these problems, but they lose the typewriter, and you can never have enough typewriter in a song. I also really enjoy the synthesized organ sound, I think it gives the whole thing a sharp, tightly fitting sound:

Well, I had fun giving myself an excuse to go back and listen to those again, as though I need one, and if you listened as well I hope you enjoyed them too!

It isn't exactly a YouTube clip, but there is a post over at Elf Army Writes that I really enjoy. In addition to containing a Hunger Games pun and being an enjoyable read, it also relates back to an old post about the importance of careful word choice. Ok, looks like I am going to be self-promotional anyway.

Live Your Life

For over a week now I have had a draft of my next post on Identity open, waiting for me to straighten out my thoughts enough to forge ahead on it. However, I tend to think dialogically, so presenting my thoughts in a narrative format can be difficult. So, in the mean time let me post something less substancial.

Toward the beginning of this calendar year, when I was updating at a good rate, I ran a series of thoughts inspired by pop music. This song did not make the series because it doesn't really inspire interesting academic type thoughts, but I love the message of accepting that the past has happened, then dealing with being one's self in the present. I'm not happy with the slow rate that I am posting here, but I am living my life as best I can, and I stand by that!

Gone to Look For America

I have been a bit remiss in posting here lately, as academic life has been exerting intense pressure upon personal life. Which is not to say that I have been entirely diligent in my studies, but rather that the structure of my personal life becomes warped under the force of academic stress. Of course, if, like my sister, you feel you are, in some sense, "behind" in reading my posts this may come as a relief. However, I am going to take a little time off from my reading to go looking for America.

In case you haven't guessed, the inspiration for this post is the Simon and Garfunkle song America, the cover of which by Josh Groban came up on my Pandora station. I think both of them are worth a listen. In fact, I am considering doing a post consisting of nothing but wonderful songs that I have been listening to recently, so as to avoid continuing to clutter my Facebook posts with such things. Of course, I don't have the musical mastery necessary to focus on examining songs as is wonderfully done over at Sounds Like Japan, but I make do with what I know.

Anyway, on to America. In my interpretation, the song details the journey of a couple of poor, young lovers who set out to look for America, but end up disenchanted in the end. I suppose the first question that occurs is, what is the America for which they are looking?

"Michigan seems like a dream to me now." I can glance out my window and look at part of the geographical "America," and currently am doing so. But, if they left Pittsburgh to look for America, it seems clear that their search is for more than the physical entity of America. Furthermore, their search in Michigan, New Jersey, and New York, rather than Washington DC seems to indicate that America is something different than the formal nation-state, which I will call the United States to denote the difference. Their modes of transportation, struggle for cigarettes, and penchant for keeping their real estate in a bag point to a certain level of economic insecurity, but their exploits evidence no effort to hoard wealth, so it seems that "economic success" is not the America for which they are looking in the strictest sense.

What is left is the impression that they are looking for the spirit, or essence, of America, in some sense. In that case their decision to look in Michigan, at that time emblematic of American ingenuity and industrial supremacy, and New York, arguably the cultural center of America, seems more reasonable.

A search for what America means must necessarily, to Americans, be simultaneously a search for personal meaning. Consequentially, their inability to find America leads to a corresponding loss of self, "Kathy I'm lost... I'm empty and I'm aching and I don't know why." Without overarching context for his life, the narrator is left with the vague feeling that something ought be different, but does not even have the reference frame from which to determine what form that difference should take.

As the narrator is alienated from himself, he is also alienated from society at large, "counting the cars on the New Jersey turnpike, and they've all come to look for America," and from his companion Kathy. Contrast the lyrics at the beginning, "Kathy, I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh," with the later line, "Kathy I'm lost, I said, though I knew she was sleeping." The inter-relational activity of communication has become replaced by a facsimile where the author is no longer heard by Kathy.

Of course, as the narrator observes, the search for America is one in which we must all participate if we wish to find ourselves. The scope of the search, and the intractability of the problem, need not be instruments of alienation, as there is a certain amount of comfort, along with the despair, in the notion that none of us truly finds America, and we must continually drive the turnpikes of our search. Finally, we can narrow our search, even if we never actually find America. We know we search for the America that ought be, something non-geographical, non-political, which provides our lives as American's with proper context.

Society Gives You Hell

If you find repeated, unnecessary usage of the word "hell" offensive, I highly recommend that you don't follow the link to this video. In fact, the thought inspired by this song concerns the premise of the music video much more than the lyrics of the song, let's discard them for the most part. Sorry I just indirectly cussed at you a whole bunch for so little reason.

This is a song of which I had never heard before my Top 25 Mashup epiphany, from a group of which I have never heard. While the lyrics, which we henceforth mostly ignore, detail someone dealing rather poorly with a breakup wishing all sorts of ill will upon their ex, the video depicts two neighbors, one set very straight-laced and the other group quite alternative, embroiled in an escalating series of attempts to disrupt each other's lives. It seems that both find the lifestyle epitomized by the other distasteful and disturbing. Interestingly enough, the main character from both households is played by the same member of the band.

One might simply write this off as a gimmick designed to showcase how clever we can be with green screens, I think further thought is rewarding. Suppose, rather than simply being played by the same person, the two main characters actually are the same person. Then what initially appeared to be the conflict between two feuding neighbors actually becomes an inner conflict between the forces of acculturation and individuality.

Put simply. the straight-laced household, to me, represents our inner desire to "fit in." Although our culture has fetishized the "individual," or the "rugged individual," a desire to acculturate is by no means a bad thing. For one thing, forging your own way can be hard going, and perhaps not worth it for unimportant preferences. As Hegel notes, "in dress fashions and hours of meals, there are certain conventions which we have to accept because in these things it is not worth the trouble to I insist on displaying one’s own discernment. The wisest thing here is to do as others do."

Furthermore, participating in a shared cultural background facilitates the various modes a sociability that humans seem to require to live happy, fulfilled lives. Through our interactions with others we obtain both valuable practice in interpersonal skills and shared experiences and vocabulary, both of which, in turn, assist us in further social communication. Indeed, acculturation plays a critical role in our social, and consequentially, emotional well being. Those of you who know how well I fit into a crowd are probably waiting for the other shoe to drop.

That other shoe is the call of individualism. For now I would like to set aside that representing individualism with counter-culture is a flawed metaphor, as counter-culture consists of a group rejecting the dominant culture, and is therefore a culture of its own subject to all the benefits and woes of acculturation. Furthermore, the fact that our concept of ourself as an individual is heavily influenced by external stimuli, such as how we think others see us or what we think is the acceptable thing to do, shall be tabled for now. Both of these concepts are quite interesting, and provide fertile ground for thought, but to address either of them would make this post much longer than I intend it to be.

Although conformity has decided benefits, individualism makes valuable contributions to our personality. While, "being true to oneself," is vague enough as to lack all meaning, I think we all have been in situations where we did not feel our actions corresponded with our self image. Sometimes these feelings ought to be overcome, as we try new things, get out of our comfort zone, and expand our horizon, to borrow a few clichés. However, at other times these feelings indicate that we believe that authority is directing us in an immoral or otherwise deleterious direction.

So, in conformity and individualism, we have two powerful, important, and opposing drives shaping our persona. Guess what, I'm not going to even give advice on how to reconcile them, sorry! For one thing, I wouldn't venture to claim that I have done a great job balancing them against each other. I also think that our search for a way to harmonize them within ourselves is one of the most important, difficult, and rewarding struggles that we may face in our lives. So, keeping in mind the importance of the oft uncomfortable interplay between conformity and individualism, I hope they give you much to think about!

Poker Face and the Problem of Other Minds

A week ago, the estimable Mr. Karplus of Sounds Like Japan fame posted a rather addicting "mashup" of the top 25 pop songs of 2009. In a successful attempt to procrastinate reading some math, I embarked to watch the music videos for each of these songs. Through this process I came to two realizations; firstly, as addicting as some pop music is, some is either musically or substantially (ie relating to its content) unpalatable; secondly, there are some interesting concepts to be explored.

Music tends to evocative, rather than expository, communication, by which I mean songs tend to communicate by inspiring the listener, rather than rationally detailing their message as a philosophical or mathematical argument would. Due to this, I will be giving myself license to interpret the song as it relates to me, instead of claiming to explain something inherent to the music. If you appreciate music qua music, that is, the musicality of music, you should check out Sounds Like Japan, Tim knows his stuff!

As you might imagine from the title, I am going to begin by examining Lady Gaga's song "Poker Face." Let me make clear from the beginning that I do NOT wholeheartedly endorse the message of this song! That said, what is the essential message of this song?

I find that choruses are a good place to begin the search for the overall purpose of a song. Because it is repeated throughout the song, the message in the chorus ties the various parts of the song together. In "Poker Face," the chorus is as follows:

"Can't read my,
Can't read my
No he can't read-a my poker face
(she’s got to love nobody)"

My interpretation is that this song is narrated by a woman who avoids emotional investment in her romantic relationship because her partner cannot discern her true detachment behind her "poker face." However, I do not think that this is a very satisfied woman.

The line of the song that I find most objectionable is, "And baby when it's love if its not rough it isn't fun." My main problem with this message is that it normalizes force in the context of a romantic relationship, something I find abhorrent. While, rationally, I recognize that each couple defines their manner of interrelation within the context of their personal relationship, our society has such deep issues with domestic and relationship violence that it hardly seems necessary to glorify it in song.

The reason that I mention that line is that I find it indicative of the self-destructive behavior the unhappy narrator is displaying. Further supporting this interpretation is the previous line, "Russian Roulette is not the same without a gun." If that doesn't seem self destructive, I don't know what would. The question then becomes why is the narrator, despite the freedom implied by, "she has got to love nobody," so despondent?

My interpretation is that the depression results from being unloved, despite being in a romantic relationship. The chorus makes clear that she considers some essential part of herself unknown to her partner. In such a situation, one must doubt whether he really loves her, because she believes that he doesn't really know her, because he cannot read her poker face, that is, know her most private reflections.

This leads us to the problem of other minds. While each of us has uniquely privileged access to our own minds, we can neither access the mind of another on such an effortlessly deep level, nor easily share our own inner workings. Thus, one of the greatest wonders and joys of living is the continual sharing of ourself with others and being trusted by others who attempt to share themselves with us.

One of my favorite YA authors, John Green, coined the term, "imagining each other complexly," to describe this process. Imagining is an appropriate term, given that our impression of someone else is forever trapped within our own mind, but the joy and hope of the phrase comes from the word complexly. We seek to know our partner not as they exist-for-us, by which I mean as we want them to be, but as they exist-for-them-self, to borrow a distinction from my man Emmanuel Kant. To quote John Green in this video, where he is quoting Ze Frank, "we want to feel what it's like to be other people, and let other people feel what it's like to be us." While this was said specifically in relation to why YouTube users make videos, I think it applies to why we write blogs, write music, risk ourselves in the hope of love, and why we walk out into society each day in spite of the often alienating nature of the world in which we live.

To finish with "Poker Face," while the narrator "has got to love nobody," she also has got nobody to love, nor is she loved in return, at least not in a complex notion of the word. While the song starts out in an ominous tone, by the end the chorus sounds distinctly like a lament. I believe the narrator would welcome exchanging the risks of basing a relationship on emotional deception for the true risks involved in an emotionally vulnerable relationship based in open honesty.

Let me conclude by noting that this is a good example of the value that philosophical reflection has to the "layperson." Personally I think "Poker Face" is a wonderful and catchy song, but consumption of its message without critical reflection seems, in some sense, dangerous. With reflection one can both enjoy a driving, compelling, mournful song and attempt to come to grips with some of the problems that seem essential to being a human.

Find Your Song

I kind of spaced about it being Friday until just now, so once again, no revision of the Atheist post. By the end of August, this is my commitment. Since I had so few suggestions, I have blank weeks to spare. Fortunately, I have just the thing on hand to fill this blank at short notice. This was originally written for a different audience, so forgive me if the tone is a bit different than my usual.

I disapprove of the corporate capitalist framework that has become the foundation of music in the US, and probably most of the developed world. Don't get me wrong, in theory I have nothing against capitalism, and I definitely have nothing against artists being able to make some money off their works. But how could you like any institution that spawned the RIAA (insert appropriate gang of thuggish goons for your nation)? On a related note, we have them, in part, to thank for all sorts of ridiculous legislation, including our moronic and anti-capitalist copyright laws.

That said, my biggest beef with the consumer driven music market is that it robs the rest of us of our songs. Perhaps you are familiar with the video showing how a pretty-but-average girl is made up, staged, and photo shopped until a "glamorous" billboard picture is ready. To some extent this is what the recording industry does, using excellent acoustics and sound editing they take musicians who, I must admit, are talented in their own right (usually), and set them, Adonis like, on marble pillars. Just as the model's photo might look pretty, but serves to undercut our security in our own self image, these polished products too often silence our songs.

I love to sing. I joined my first choir in seventh grade (I think) and by the time I graduated high school I was a member of three community choirs (school choir does not count, because it was a joke). But, as those who listened to my songs earlier can attest, I am nothing spectacular vocally. Does this matter to me? A little, especially when I sing alone in public. Does this silence my song? No. However, too many people are hesitant to break out in song as they judge their talent to be lacking.

Not having been alive in the 1800's, I cannot say this is accurate. But culture has instilled the image of a family or neighborhood gathered around the fire. Some among them hoist fiddles or beat drums, and all join in song, singing a familiar folk tune. We have outsourced our song, and, from lack of practice, lost our own voices. So, while I do hope you dance (really, it is fun), I also hope you sing (notice how the song leaves that bit out, job security eh?).

Tautology

Ever since I saw this XKCD and joined the Tautology Club myself I've been meaning to write our club song. I knew it would be a parody of "Ironic" by Alanis Morissette, I even wrote some of the easier parts based on what parts of the song I knew, but it took me a long time to getting around to finishing it. This is a pattern with me, I have all these ideas, which I think are good but I will leave that open to debate, then never get around to doing something other than thinking about them. Not this time!

I looked up the lyrics so I'd be able to base mine off the originals, and used a YouTube clip to figure out what the song was supposed to sound like, and here are the lyrics I came up with. Please bear in mind, the heavy lifting on this project was done in about 90 minutes this afternoon. Although this is a long time for me to devote to a project, it probably isn't as long as most lyricists take; so if my bridge seems a bit off mea culpa, I welcome suggestions.

A statement that is always true
No matter what values it takes
A definition, an equivalency
Some might say it's redundancy
And isn't it tautologic... don't you know

It's like rain on a rainy day
It's a free ride for which you don't have to pay
It's the good advice that you'd be well off to take
Who would have thought, it's logic!

The ancient Greeks thought the word quite rude
Mr. Kant used it to describe explicit truths
Wittgenstein found the notion pleasing
Of a conclusion deduced purely through reason
And isn't it tautologic... don't you know

It's like rain on a rainy day
It's a free ride for which you don't have to pay
It's the good advice that you'd be well off to take
Who would have thought, it must follow

Well life has a funny way of being lived
By the people who are alive and by those yet to die
And life has a funny way of ending at the same time that you died
No matter how much you might wish otherwise

A traffic jam when the roads are congested
A no smoking sign where smoking ain't permitted
It's like ten thousand spoons being one more than nine-nine-na-nine
It's meeting the man of your dreams
When you're asleep for the night
It isn't at all ironic... don't you think
But quite tautologic... you really should think...

It's like rain on a rainy day
It's a free ride for which you don't have to pay
It's the good advice that you'd be well off to take
Who would have thought, it's logic!

Life has a funny way of being lived
Life has a funny funny way of ending when you die
When you die

After writing the lyrics I wanted a better idea of how they would sound than I got singing along with the YouTube clip, so I tried to record my singing. After some microphone hijinks with Sound Recorder (which despite what its name implies would not record sound, and would only mess up Skype), I downloaded a free recorder (and hopefully no viruses) and the result is below. Again, please forgive lack of polish, the background is a MIDI that I converted to MP3 by the brute force method of re-recording it with my headset resting on my speakers. And the vocals are done by yours truly, so you can imagine what a train wreck that will be. Then I compressed it to 4MB to get it on Blogger. But, I am happy to have this done, and if you too are looking for a project feel free to send me some better background music, or record a prettier version yourself.

Tautologic by Kenny Barrese is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

I should note that I do not believe I own the song Ironic, but that I probably do own the parody, if it turns out that I don't I will be ok with that, but while I think that I do you can certainly play with it as long as you attribute it to me and don't use it to make money.