Today's Big Championship

Today's Big Championship -- Oh...was there some game or something in San Diego.

Really looking forward to this

Ming flashed me back with this one...

Being a Verb
"I live on Earth at present,
and I don't know what I am.
I know that I am not a category.
I am not a thing -- a noun.
I seem to be a verb,
an evolutionary process --
an integral function of the universe."

-- R. Buckminster Fuller

...which brought to mind the PBS American Masters salute to Bucky and its companion Thinking Out Loud site, with my favorite commentary (short quicktime video clip) on him by John Cage.

I'm going to go back to my bookshelf and dust off my old copy of his out of print Untitled Epic Poem on the History of Industrialization. Catchy title, eh?

Antidote for Blogorhea -- From David Lyttle, a bit of ancient greek history blended with etymology...

It would seem to me that the Laconians were practical people who did not boast about their work, did not spread false rumors or fabricate truths. One of their injunctions was not to waste unnecessary words in trying to say what was not known. They avoided confusion by speaking less and did not pay attention to gossip. We can learn a lot from the Laconians.

Guilty as charged. Someone once said "I would have written less, but didn't have the time."

Sumo legend retires - Takanohana, one of two current yokozuna, or Grand Champions, has retired, after over a year of nursing injuries. One of the admirable aspects of this sport, is that if you've reached the top rank, you're expected to retire on your own if you feel that you're losing your edge. Wrestlers are promoted and demoted by the sport's governing body in the lower ranks, but the top ranks carry the tradition and honor of Sumo, and are expected to protect it by avoiding the equivalence of the has-been or the punch-drunk boxer. Classy. Prior to Takanohana, the last yokozuna to retire was Akebono -- a US-born superstar. Remaining at the top rank is Musashimaru, also one of the few non-Japanese natives in the sport. Up-and-coming ozeki (second rank) Asashoryu, from Mongolia has a shot at filling the spot left open by Takanohana, if he is sufficiently successful in the current tournament.

Now they're on "Can't You Hear Me Knocking," with Keith doing a strange little stutter on the opening riff...
...now the break...and the tenor solo...

Serious honkin' on that horn.

Omigod -- strange video effect on Mick with the harmonica that look like something out of the Ed Sullivan show of 1966.

I'm laptopping here tonight in front of the HBO "Rolling Stones Live from NYC" concert. You can call me an old classic rock fart, but those wrinkly old Brits still put on a good show.

They just finished "Midnight Rambler" from "Let it Bleed." -- Whoa!

And that skinny old Mick is bound to put a hip out of place one of these days.

My newest favorite toy for my Mac -- Audio Hijack from Rogue Amoeba (what a company name!!!). For years I've been looking for the equivalent of a VCR for radio. What Audio Hijack does is intercept any sound that any app sends through the Mac's sound processing circuitry, modifies it with DSPs if desired, and record it to AIFF files, which can then be either turned into MP3s or burned to CD. Right now, I've got it set up to record Schickele Mix, Talk of the Nation Science Friday, Studio 360, and a couple other NPR streams from WNYC, WNJN, and WHYY. Now if only Howard Stern would allow his network of stations to stream his show, my audible life would be complete.

Bummer -- [Nostalgic 60s idealism mode on] The effort to get the Sonny Bono Act declared unconstitutional knocked down by the Supremes, 7-2. Larry Lessig writes...

"It has often been said that movements gain by losing in the Supreme Court. Some feminists say it would have been better to lose Roe, because that would have built a movement in response. I have often wondered whether it would ever be possible to lose a case and yet smell victory in the defeat. I’m not yet convinced it’s possible. But if there is any good that might come from my loss, let it be the anger and passion that now gets to swell against the unchecked power that the Supreme Court has said Congress has. When the Free Software Foundation, Intel, Phillis Schlafly, Milton Friedman, Ronald Coase, Kenneth Arrow, Brewster Kahle, and hundreds of creators and innovators all stand on one side saying, “this makes no sense,” then it makes no sense." Let that be enough to move people to do something about it. Our courts will not."

Sometimes I have to wonder how much the ownership of ideas or of "know-how" just sets up new constraints to future creativity. Information wants to be free. It's not the control of information but rather it's dissemination and what you do with it that creates value. [Nostalgic 60s idealism mode off]

Speaking of music, every Sunday morning I set my radio alarm to WNYC-FM at 7AM (eastern) for Schickele Mix, a fantastic series on "music appreciation" hosted by Peter Schickle, of PDQ Bach fame. (Darn -- I forgot to check into his annual year end concert this year -- excerpts here. I think I went to my first a bit over 30 years ago, when the good professor entered via a rope from the 2nd or 3rd tier of Avery Fisher Hall.) This morning's Schickele Mix show, "PG & I," was not about misspelled peanut butter & jelly, but rather, devoted to the music of Philip Glass. The music theme of the day, starting with this show, reminded me about this innovative site of Glass pieces.

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As an old clarinetist/saxophonist that really should find the time to pull out the reeds again, the closing line in CBS Sunday Morning story on a symphony orchestra in Iraq, attributed to one of its members, really grabbed me...

"Music is everything that war is not.

So true.

(Come to think of it, the closest I ever came to military service was a stint in the ROTC band, taken on to avoid the last year (1969) of required phys ed on the banks of the old Raritan.)

NEWS FLASH!!! AOL said ready to boost blogging -- "America Online reportedly will furnish subscribers the tools through which they can publish diaries and commentaries on the Web. Known as "Blogs," or Weblogs, they are easily produced one-page Web sites, popularized by entertainment artists and journalists. They are also used by school pupils and vegetarians, among others, and for political comment by individuals and organizations."

hmmm...entertainment artists, journalists, school pupils, vegetarians, and political commentators...

...and now AOL users...

I've got to find a new crowd to hang with. [grin].