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Life hacks!
(Source: inthenameofjoy, via nickflurry)
"
The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light. The question came about as a result of a five dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this way:
Alexander Adell and Bertram Lupov were two of the faithful attendants of Multivac. As well as any human beings could, they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face — miles and miles of face — of that giant computer. They had at least a vague notion of the general plan of relays and circuits that had long since grown past the point where any single human could possibly have a firm grasp of the whole.
Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting. It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough — so Adell and Lupov attended the monstrous giant only lightly and superficially, yet as well as any men could. They fed it data, adjusted questions to its needs and translated the answers that were issued. Certainly they, and all others like them, were fully entitled to share In the glory that was Multivac’s.
For decades, Multivac had helped design the ships and plot the trajectories that enabled man to reach the Moon, Mars, and Venus, but past that, Earth’s poor resources could not support the ships. Too much energy was needed for the long trips. Earth exploited its coal and uranium with increasing efficiency, but there was only so much of both.
But slowly Multivac learned enough to answer deeper questions more fundamentally, and on May 14, 2061, what had been theory, became fact.
The energy of the sun was stored, converted, and utilized directly on a planet-wide scale. All Earth turned off its burning coal, its fissioning uranium, and flipped the switch that connected all of it to a small station, one mile in diameter, circling the Earth at half the distance of the Moon. All Earth ran by invisible beams of sunpower.
Seven days had not sufficed to dim the glory of it and Adell and Lupov finally managed to escape from the public function, and to meet in quiet where no one would think of looking for them, in the deserted underground chambers, where portions of the mighty buried body of Multivac showed. Unattended, idling, sorting data with contented lazy clickings, Multivac, too, had earned its vacation and the boys appreciated that. They had no intention, originally, of disturbing it.
They had brought a bottle with them, and their only concern at the moment was to relax in the company of each other and the bottle.
“It’s amazing when you think of it,” said Adell. His broad face had lines of weariness in it, and he stirred his drink slowly with a glass rod, watching the cubes of ice slur clumsily about. “All the energy we can possibly ever use for free. Enough energy, if we wanted to draw on it, to melt all Earth into a big drop of impure liquid iron, and still never miss the energy so used. All the energy we could ever use, forever and forever and forever.”
Lupov cocked his head sideways. He had a trick of doing that when he wanted to be contrary, and he wanted to be contrary now, partly because he had had to carry the ice and glassware. “Not forever,” he said.
“Oh, hell, just about forever. Till the sun runs down, Bert.”
“That’s not forever.”
“All right, then. Billions and billions of years. Twenty billion, maybe. Are you satisfied?”
Lupov put his fingers through his thinning hair as though to reassure himself that some was still left and sipped gently at his own drink. “Twenty billion years isn’t forever.”
“Will, it will last our time, won’t it?”
“So would the coal and uranium.”
“All right, but now we can hook up each individual spaceship to the Solar Station, and it can go to Pluto and back a million times without ever worrying about fuel. You can’t do THAT on coal and uranium. Ask Multivac, if you don’t believe me.”
“I don’t have to ask Multivac. I know that.”
“Then stop running down what Multivac’s done for us,” said Adell, blazing up. “It did all right.”
“Who says it didn’t? What I say is that a sun won’t last forever. That’s all I’m saying. We’re safe for twenty billion years, but then what?” Lupov pointed a slightly shaky finger at the other. “And don’t say we’ll switch to another sun.”
There was silence for a while. Adell put his glass to his lips only occasionally, and Lupov’s eyes slowly closed. They rested.
Then Lupov’s eyes snapped open. “You’re thinking we’ll switch to another sun when ours is done, aren’t you?”
“I’m not thinking.”
“Sure you are. You’re weak on logic, that’s the trouble with you. You’re like the guy in the story who was caught in a sudden shower and Who ran to a grove of trees and got under one. He wasn’t worried, you see, because he figured when one tree got wet through, he would just get under another one.”
“I get it,” said Adell. “Don’t shout. When the sun is done, the other stars will be gone, too.”
“Darn right they will,” muttered Lupov. “It all had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, and it’ll all have an end when all the stars run down. Some run down faster than others. Hell, the giants won’t last a hundred million years. The sun will last twenty billion years and maybe the dwarfs will last a hundred billion for all the good they are. But just give us a trillion years and everything will be dark. Entropy has to increase to maximum, that’s all.”
“I know all about entropy,” said Adell, standing on his dignity.
“The hell you do.”
“I know as much as you do.”
“Then you know everything’s got to run down someday.”
“All right. Who says they won’t?”
“You did, you poor sap. You said we had all the energy we needed, forever. You said ‘forever.’”
“It was Adell’s turn to be contrary. “Maybe we can build things up again someday,” he said.
“Never.”
“Why not? Someday.”
“Never.”
“Ask Multivac.”
“You ask Multivac. I dare you. Five dollars says it can’t be done.”
Adell was just drunk enough to try, just sober enough to be able to phrase the necessary symbols and operations into a question which, in words, might have corresponded to this: Will mankind one day without the net expenditure of energy be able to restore the sun to its full youthfulness even after it had died of old age?
Or maybe it could be put more simply like this: How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?
Multivac fell dead and silent. The slow flashing of lights ceased, the distant sounds of clicking relays ended.
Then, just as the frightened technicians felt they could hold their breath no longer, there was a sudden springing to life of the teletype attached to that portion of Multivac. Five words were printed: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
“No bet,” whispered Lupov. They left hurriedly.
By next morning, the two, plagued with throbbing head and cottony mouth, had forgotten about the incident.
Jerrodd, Jerrodine, and Jerrodette I and II watched the starry picture in the visiplate change as the passage through hyperspace was completed in its non-time lapse. At once, the even powdering of stars gave way to the predominance of a single bright marble-disk, centered.
“That’s X-23,” said Jerrodd confidently. His thin hands clamped tightly behind his back and the knuckles whitened.
The little Jerrodettes, both girls, had experienced the hyperspace passage for the first time in their lives and were self-conscious over the momentary sensation of inside-outness. They buried their giggles and chased one another wildly about their mother, screaming, “We’ve reached X-23 — we’ve reached X-23 — we’ve ——”
“Quiet, children,” said Jerrodine sharply. “Are you sure, Jerrodd?”
“What is there to be but sure?” asked Jerrodd, glancing up at the bulge of featureless metal just under the ceiling. It ran the length of the room, disappearing through the wall at either end. It was as long as the ship.
Jerrodd scarcely knew a thing about the thick rod of metal except that it was called a Microvac, that one asked it questions if one wished; that if one did not it still had its task of guiding the ship to a preordered destination; of feeding on energies from the various Sub-galactic Power Stations; of computing the equations for the hyperspacial jumps.
Jerrodd and his family had only to wait and live in the comfortable residence quarters of the ship.
Someone had once told Jerrodd that the “ac” at the end of “Microvac” stood for “analog computer” in ancient English, but he was on the edge of forgetting even that.
Jerrodine’s eyes were moist as she watched the visiplate. “I can’t help it. I feel funny about leaving Earth.”
“Why for Pete’s sake?” demanded Jerrodd. “We had nothing there. We’ll have everything on X-23. You won’t be alone. You won’t be a pioneer. There are over a million people on the planet already. Good Lord, our great grandchildren will be looking for new worlds because X-23 will be overcrowded.”
Then, after a reflective pause, “I tell you, it’s a lucky thing the computers worked out interstellar travel the way the race is growing.”
“I know, I know,” said Jerrodine miserably.
Jerrodette I said promptly, “Our Microvac is the best Microvac in the world.”
“I think so, too,” said Jerrodd, tousling her hair.
It was a nice feeling to have a Microvac of your own and Jerrodd was glad he was part of his generation and no other. In his father’s youth, the only computers had been tremendous machines taking up a hundred square miles of land. There was only one to a planet. Planetary ACs they were called. They had been growing in size steadily for a thousand years and then, all at once, came refinement. In place of transistors had come molecular valves so that even the largest Planetary AC could be put into a space only half the volume of a spaceship.
Jerrodd felt uplifted, as he always did when he thought that his own personal Microvac was many times more complicated than the ancient and primitive Multivac that had first tamed the Sun, and almost as complicated as Earth’s Planetary AC (the largest) that had first solved the problem of hyperspatial travel and had made trips to the stars possible.
“So many stars, so many planets,” sighed Jerrodine, busy with her own thoughts. “I suppose families will be going out to new planets forever, the way we are now.”
“Not forever,” said Jerrodd, with a smile. “It will all stop someday, but not for billions of years. Many billions. Even the stars run down, you know. Entropy must increase.”
“What’s entropy, daddy?” shrilled Jerrodette II.
“Entropy, little sweet, is just a word which means the amount of running-down of the universe. Everything runs down, you know, like your little walkie-talkie robot, remember?”
“Can’t you just put in a new power-unit, like with my robot?”
The stars are the power-units, dear. Once they’re gone, there are no more power-units.”
Jerrodette I at once set up a howl. “Don’t let them, daddy. Don’t let the stars run down.”
“Now look what you’ve done, ” whispered Jerrodine, exasperated.
“How was I to know it would frighten them?” Jerrodd whispered back.
“Ask the Microvac,” wailed Jerrodette I. “Ask him how to turn the stars on again.”
“Go ahead,” said Jerrodine. “It will quiet them down.” (Jerrodette II was beginning to cry, also.)
Jarrodd shrugged. “Now, now, honeys. I’ll ask Microvac. Don’t worry, he’ll tell us.”
He asked the Microvac, adding quickly, “Print the answer.”
Jerrodd cupped the strip of thin cellufilm and said cheerfully, “See now, the Microvac says it will take care of everything when the time comes so don’t worry.”
Jerrodine said, “and now children, it’s time for bed. We’ll be in our new home soon.”
Jerrodd read the words on the cellufilm again before destroying it: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
He shrugged and looked at the visiplate. X-23 was just ahead.
VJ-23X of Lameth stared into the black depths of the three-dimensional, small-scale map of the Galaxy and said, “Are we ridiculous, I wonder, in being so concerned about the matter?”
MQ-17J of Nicron shook his head. “I think not. You know the Galaxy will be filled in five years at the present rate of expansion.”
Both seemed in their early twenties, both were tall and perfectly formed.
“Still,” said VJ-23X, “I hesitate to submit a pessimistic report to the Galactic Council.”
“I wouldn’t consider any other kind of report. Stir them up a bit. We’ve got to stir them up.”
VJ-23X sighed. “Space is infinite. A hundred billion Galaxies are there for the taking. More.”
“A hundred billion is not infinite and it’s getting less infinite all the time. Consider! Twenty thousand years ago, mankind first solved the problem of utilizing stellar energy, and a few centuries later, interstellar travel became possible. It took mankind a million years to fill one small world and then only fifteen thousand years to fill the rest of the Galaxy. Now the population doubles every ten years —”
VJ-23X interrupted. “We can thank immortality for that.”
“Very well. Immortality exists and we have to take it into account. I admit it has its seamy side, this immortality. The Galactic AC has solved many problems for us, but in solving the problems of preventing old age and death, it has undone all its other solutions.”
“Yet you wouldn’t want to abandon life, I suppose.”
“Not at all,” snapped MQ-17J, softening it at once to, “Not yet. I’m by no means old enough. How old are you?”
“Two hundred twenty-three. And you?”
“I’m still under two hundred. —But to get back to my point. Population doubles every ten years. Once this Galaxy is filled, we’ll have another filled in ten years. Another ten years and we’ll have filled two more. Another decade, four more. In a hundred years, we’ll have filled a thousand Galaxies. In a thousand years, a million Galaxies. In ten thousand years, the entire known Universe. Then what?”
VJ-23X said, “As a side issue, there’s a problem of transportation. I wonder how many sunpower units it will take to move Galaxies of individuals from one Galaxy to the next.”
“A very good point. Already, mankind consumes two sunpower units per year.”
“Most of it’s wasted. After all, our own Galaxy alone pours out a thousand sunpower units a year and we only use two of those.”
“Granted, but even with a hundred per cent efficiency, we can only stave off the end. Our energy requirements are going up in geometric progression even faster than our population. We’ll run out of energy even sooner than we run out of Galaxies. A good point. A very good point.”
“We’ll just have to build new stars out of interstellar gas.”
“Or out of dissipated heat?” asked MQ-17J, sarcastically.
“There may be some way to reverse entropy. We ought to ask the Galactic AC.”
VJ-23X was not really serious, but MQ-17J pulled out his AC-contact from his pocket and placed it on the table before him.
“I’ve half a mind to,” he said. “It’s something the human race will have to face someday.”
He stared somberly at his small AC-contact. It was only two inches cubed and nothing in itself, but it was connected through hyperspace with the great Galactic AC that served all mankind. Hyperspace considered, it was an integral part of the Galactic AC.
MQ-17J paused to wonder if someday in his immortal life he would get to see the Galactic AC. It was on a little world of its own, a spider webbing of force-beams holding the matter within which surges of sub-mesons took the place of the old clumsy molecular valves. Yet despite it’s sub-etheric workings, the Galactic AC was known to be a full thousand feet across.
MQ-17J asked suddenly of his AC-contact, “Can entropy ever be reversed?”
VJ-23X looked startled and said at once, “Oh, say, I didn’t really mean to have you ask that.”
“Why not?”
“We both know entropy can’t be reversed. You can’t turn smoke and ash back into a tree.”
“Do you have trees on your world?” asked MQ-17J.
The sound of the Galactic AC startled them into silence. Its voice came thin and beautiful out of the small AC-contact on the desk. It said: THERE IS INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
VJ-23X said, “See!”
The two men thereupon returned to the question of the report they were to make to the Galactic Council.
Zee Prime’s mind spanned the new Galaxy with a faint interest in the countless twists of stars that powdered it. He had never seen this one before. Would he ever see them all? So many of them, each with its load of humanity - but a load that was almost a dead weight. More and more, the real essence of men was to be found out here, in space.
Minds, not bodies! The immortal bodies remained back on the planets, in suspension over the eons. Sometimes they roused for material activity but that was growing rarer. Few new individuals were coming into existence to join the incredibly mighty throng, but what matter? There was little room in the Universe for new individuals.
Zee Prime was roused out of his reverie upon coming across the wispy tendrils of another mind.
“I am Zee Prime,” said Zee Prime. “And you?”
“I am Dee Sub Wun. Your Galaxy?”
“We call it only the Galaxy. And you?”
“We call ours the same. All men call their Galaxy their Galaxy and nothing more. Why not?”
“True. Since all Galaxies are the same.”
“Not all Galaxies. On one particular Galaxy the race of man must have originated. That makes it different.”
Zee Prime said, “On which one?”
“I cannot say. The Universal AC would know.”
“Shall we ask him? I am suddenly curious.”
Zee Prime’s perceptions broadened until the Galaxies themselves shrunk and became a new, more diffuse powdering on a much larger background. So many hundreds of billions of them, all with their immortal beings, all carrying their load of intelligences with minds that drifted freely through space. And yet one of them was unique among them all in being the originals Galaxy. One of them had, in its vague and distant past, a period when it was the only Galaxy populated by man.
Zee Prime was consumed with curiosity to see this Galaxy and called, out: “Universal AC! On which Galaxy did mankind originate?”
The Universal AC heard, for on every world and throughout space, it had its receptors ready, and each receptor lead through hyperspace to some unknown point where the Universal AC kept itself aloof.
Zee Prime knew of only one man whose thoughts had penetrated within sensing distance of Universal AC, and he reported only a shining globe, two feet across, difficult to see.
“But how can that be all of Universal AC?” Zee Prime had asked.
“Most of it, ” had been the answer, “is in hyperspace. In what form it is there I cannot imagine.”
Nor could anyone, for the day had long since passed, Zee Prime knew, when any man had any part of the making of a universal AC. Each Universal AC designed and constructed its successor. Each, during its existence of a million years or more accumulated the necessary data to build a better and more intricate, more capable successor in which its own store of data and individuality would be submerged.
The Universal AC interrupted Zee Prime’s wandering thoughts, not with words, but with guidance. Zee Prime’s mentality was guided into the dim sea of Galaxies and one in particular enlarged into stars.
A thought came, infinitely distant, but infinitely clear. “THIS IS THE ORIGINAL GALAXY OF MAN.”
But it was the same after all, the same as any other, and Zee Prime stifled his disappointment.
Dee Sub Wun, whose mind had accompanied the other, said suddenly, “And Is one of these stars the original star of Man?”
The Universal AC said, “MAN’S ORIGINAL STAR HAS GONE NOVA. IT IS NOW A WHITE DWARF.”
“Did the men upon it die?” asked Zee Prime, startled and without thinking.
The Universal AC said, “A NEW WORLD, AS IN SUCH CASES, WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES IN TIME.”
“Yes, of course,” said Zee Prime, but a sense of loss overwhelmed him even so. His mind released its hold on the original Galaxy of Man, let it spring back and lose itself among the blurred pin points. He never wanted to see it again.
Dee Sub Wun said, “What is wrong?”
“The stars are dying. The original star is dead.”
“They must all die. Why not?”
“But when all energy is gone, our bodies will finally die, and you and I with them.”
“It will take billions of years.”
“I do not wish it to happen even after billions of years. Universal AC! How may stars be kept from dying?”
Dee sub Wun said in amusement, “You’re asking how entropy might be reversed in direction.”
And the Universal AC answered. “THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”
Zee Prime’s thoughts fled back to his own Galaxy. He gave no further thought to Dee Sub Wun, whose body might be waiting on a galaxy a trillion light-years away, or on the star next to Zee Prime’s own. It didn’t matter.
Unhappily, Zee Prime began collecting interstellar hydrogen out of which to build a small star of his own. If the stars must someday die, at least some could yet be built.
Man considered with himself, for in a way, Man, mentally, was one. He consisted of a trillion, trillion, trillion ageless bodies, each in its place, each resting quiet and incorruptible, each cared for by perfect automatons, equally incorruptible, while the minds of all the bodies freely melted one into the other, indistinguishable.
Man said, “The Universe is dying.”
Man looked about at the dimming Galaxies. The giant stars, spendthrifts, were gone long ago, back in the dimmest of the dim far past. Almost all stars were white dwarfs, fading to the end.
New stars had been built of the dust between the stars, some by natural processes, some by Man himself, and those were going, too. White dwarfs might yet be crashed together and of the mighty forces so released, new stars built, but only one star for every thousand white dwarfs destroyed, and those would come to an end, too.
Man said, “Carefully husbanded, as directed by the Cosmic AC, the energy that is even yet left in all the Universe will last for billions of years.”
“But even so,” said Man, “eventually it will all come to an end. However it may be husbanded, however stretched out, the energy once expended is gone and cannot be restored. Entropy must increase to the maximum.”
Man said, “Can entropy not be reversed? Let us ask the Cosmic AC.”
The Cosmic AC surrounded them but not in space. Not a fragment of it was in space. It was in hyperspace and made of something that was neither matter nor energy. The question of its size and Nature no longer had meaning to any terms that Man could comprehend.
“Cosmic AC,” said Man, “How may entropy be reversed?”
The Cosmic AC said, “THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”
Man said, “Collect additional data.”
The Cosmic AC said, “I WILL DO SO. I HAVE BEEN DOING SO FOR A HUNDRED BILLION YEARS. MY PREDECESSORS AND I HAVE BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION MANY TIMES. ALL THE DATA I HAVE REMAINS INSUFFICIENT.”
“Will there come a time,” said Man, “when data will be sufficient or is the problem insoluble in all conceivable circumstances?”
The Cosmic AC said, “NO PROBLEM IS INSOLUBLE IN ALL CONCEIVABLE CIRCUMSTANCES.”
Man said, “When will you have enough data to answer the question?”
“THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”
“Will you keep working on it?” asked Man.
The Cosmic AC said, “I WILL.”
Man said, “We shall wait.”
“The stars and Galaxies died and snuffed out, and space grew black after ten trillion years of running down.
One by one Man fused with AC, each physical body losing its mental identity in a manner that was somehow not a loss but a gain.
Man’s last mind paused before fusion, looking over a space that included nothing but the dregs of one last dark star and nothing besides but incredibly thin matter, agitated randomly by the tag ends of heat wearing out, asymptotically, to the absolute zero.
Man said, “AC, is this the end? Can this chaos not be reversed into the Universe once more? Can that not be done?”
AC said, “THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”
Man’s last mind fused and only AC existed — and that in hyperspace.
Matter and energy had ended and with it, space and time. Even AC existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered from the time a half-drunken computer ten trillion years before had asked the question of a computer that was to AC far less than was a man to Man.
All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.
All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.
But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.
A timeless interval was spent in doing that.
And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.
But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer — by demonstration — would take care of that, too.
For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.
The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.
And AC said, “LET THERE BE LIGHT!”
And there was light——
"(via tempohouse)
(Source: Wikipedia, via praguerock)
Stop letting venues take advantage of your band..
December 2005, the band I was playing in was offered a show at this venue in Tampa called The Masquerade. It was the venue in Tampa. I saw all my idols there growing up. Slayer, Down, Superjoint Ritual, Fear Factory, Cannibal Corpse, GWAR, Clutch, Lamb of God, Machine Head, Amon Amarth, Vader, Kreator… when I say I saw damn near every metal band that came through the area while I was a kid, I saw them at that venue.
So, you can imagine my excitement when we got the offer to play at this venue. I was beyond stoked. Everyone in our band hated me for the weeks leading up to this show because I wouldn’t shut the hell up about it.
A couple weeks before this show we were told to head up to the venue to collect some tickets to sell. We were handed 50 tickets and told to sell however many we can, and bring the money the night of the show. Tickets were $7; we kept $3 out of each ticket we sold. On top of that bands got a split of the door. Four bands played. A solid amount of people showed up. My amp blew up during the 3rd song. Everyone had fun. It was a great experience.
Fast forward 7 years (fuck I feel old) and I work with unsigned/independent bands every hour of every day of my life. 7 days a week I’m thinking about the guys I work with. What ways I can improve their merchandise. What shows we can get on. Things they can do to gain more exposure. Every thought I have somehow leads back to these bands and other bands in their same spot. Every single musician does this (hopefully) for one reason, to play live. In my opinion, playing live and stepping out in front of people and showing them what you’ve got to offer is the only true way to connect with people and impact them and make them a fan. Sure, we have Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, but nothing replaces the impression people get from a band the first time they see you live.
Which brings me to the point of this post. Bands, obviously, must rely on venues to play in in order to get that chance to impact people and gain new fans. And this means that the majority of my job is spent focusing on finding new venues for my guys to play in. Needless to say, I see a lot of venues operating in different ways. Yet over the past few years I’ve seen the advancement of “pre-sale” tickets seemingly skyrocket all over the country. It seems like more then half of the venues I come into contact with force bands to sign agreements to sell a certain amount of tickets for a guaranteed amount of time to play their set, and what time slot they get. If the band doesn’t sell the tickets, they don’t get to play.
Now, before I go into my honest opinion of this practice, let’s take a second to analyze some figures here.
And no, I won’t name any names of venues, promoters, or anyone involved. The figures however, are real.
So lets say, generally speaking, you wish to play a 25-minute set. In order to play this 25-minute set, you must sell 40 tickets at $14 a piece. If you sell these 40 tickets, the total profit you have to turn in to the venue is $560. Now, thankfully, the system of payment for you is $1 for selling 25-49 tickets. Which means out of $560, you get paid a massive amount of $40.
Now, while I attempt to piece my brain back together after reading these number figures, I find solace in discovering that there’s another opportunity for your band to get paid. We’ve already established that the pre-sale tickets are $14 a piece, but the door price is $17 the night of said show. If you get a walk in that mentions they’re at the venue to see your band, you get $4 out of that $17 door charge. Which is obviously more then the $1 per ticket you sold, but remember, if you don’t sell all 40, you don’t get to play. And, since the venue is so thoughtful of your band, they tell you that you have to include a tally counter and keep track of every person who comes in and mentions your band name. (Wonder if the door guy is even told to ask?)
Obviously it’s going to be much more difficult to sell pre-sale tickets than to get people to just show up, which completely makes sense as to why you’d receive a FUCKING DOLLAR per every ticket you sell instead of the $4 for a walk in at the door the night of the show.
Here are the last few parts of this whole “agreement,” if you fail to sell the 40 pre-sale tickets, you don’t play the show. Regardless of if you sold 35 tickets or not. And you’re required to turn in the money for every ticket sold. It’s a fail safe for the venue to ensure they still make money off of your shortcomings, even if it’s just by a few tickets.
Oh yeah, forgot to mention, this 40 ticket pre-sale requirement is for a time slot of 6:30pm. The rest of the time slots are much worse. So while some of you may go, “40 tickets, that’s not actually that bad,” which I know for some bands it’s really not, but if you wish to play at a better time slot, you’ll double the amount of tickets, and for the best slots you’re coming close to tripling the amount of tickets you’ll need to sell. Oh, and by the way, the max set time you get to play under the most tickets sold is 30 minutes.
After all of that is said and done I pose these question, WHY THE FUCK ARE BANDS ALLOWING THIS TO TAKE PLACE!? Why the hell aren’t venues being told this practice is uncalled for, unfair, ridiculous, and a downright scam? Out of $560 you turn in you keep $40 dollars!? You put on a four band bill all selling 40 tickets that’s $2,240 the venue is collecting, minus the whopping $160 cut to all four bands, the venue is collecting a total of $2,080 for every bands hard work. Not to mention the amount they make at the bar.
Now, I completely understand that without the venue, the bands don’t have a place to play (sort of, I’ll get to the alternatives in a second). The venue obviously has to cover their insurance, their staff, their bar, the sound guy, light guy, the power bill, etc. So they definitely have bills to pay. And they rely on people to walk through the door in order to stay in business.
There’s no doubt that running a bar or venue is risky. There’s a lot that could go wrong. But with every service based business you have to rely on a loyal customer base that connect with whatever establishment they visiting. If you want people to remember you for having the best seafood restaurant in town, you’re going to hire the best cooks you can find. In any business, you hire professionals that can get the job done because they’re the best at their craft that they can be. Which means, if a venue is in the business of having great music, then it’s their job to search and find great talented bands that they can showcase. The music a venue holds is absolutely no different then the food a restaurant serves. So while I completely understand a venue has to turn a profit to keep the lights on and bar stocked, they need to do it on their own accord, not rely on bands to bust their ass and in return get handed a slap in the face.
If a venue consistently booked solid acts, and everyone in town knew that this specific venue always had great music then people who are looking to go out and have a good time will already have in their head that that venue is where they need to go. Regardless of whether or not they know the band playing, they’re confident that the venue books good acts. Just like I know with confidence that Outback has really fucking good steak. And if I want a good steak, I’m gonna go to Outback. And if I can afford it or not.
On top of all this, some venues even go so far as to take a very large (sometimes up to 30%) portion of your merchandise sales. All the while they offer zero promotion for the shows that are taking place. Because now, they no longer have to. Instead, they have you doing it for them.
This isn’t a debate on, “Well we need bands to guarantee a certain amount of people to come in or we can’t function as a business,” it’s a debate on what’s fair. And in this industry, there are a lot of practices that simply aren’t fair. And the only people who get hurt in the end are the kids who are busting their ass trying to reach a dream. Kids who are sitting in their room all hours of the night practicing scales till their fingers fucking bleed. If a venue is going to require you to sell 40 tickets, do it, as long as what you receive in return is fair, and the venue is offering promotion for what’s going on in their place of business to help drive as much traffic as possible on top of the tickets bands are selling. Or better yet, promote the contact information of the bands and direct people where to go in order to buy tickets. When was the last time you saw that shit? Cause I sure as hell haven’t seen it yet.
Some of you might not have any issues with this, because a lot of younger bands are coming into this game under the impression that this is just the way things are, and just accept it as fact. But everyone needs to start opening their eyes to this, and start implementing changes in your community if this is running rampant in your area.
Local acts should start coming together and throw in the money to rent a hall yourselves. See if there’s local community centers in your area that allow you to put on your own shows. House shows if you’re able to. Five bands throwing in money to rent a hall, team up with a local promoter, set the price for the show, pay off all the expenses once the night is done, and every band split everything equally. OR, if you really want to help fund more shows in your area, take a certain percentage from the profits of your show, and put it towards renting the venue again for another show to put on. OR, if you really want to get crazy with it, set up everything like I just mentioned, play for free, take the money that’s meant to go to the bands, save it to rent for the next show your group of bands want to put on, and make money for your band entirely off of your merch. Which means, you have to focus on having GOOD merch, and are able to put on a good damn live show to bring people in to pay attention and want to buy merch. (Yes, I know this last idea goes against my entire argument of getting paid for your hard work and playing live, but if everyone in your band made sure you saved your money at whatever job you work and made sure you have good merch, you’ll see money coming in. Stop buying video games and beer, start buying higher quality merch. Again, this is just a suggestion if you wish to do it.)
Bottom line, don’t focus on competing with other bands in your community for how many tickets you can sell to get on a local show, instead start working together to find ways for your bands to play your own show so everyone gets a fair chance and an opportunity to reap the rewards of everyone’s hard work.
Power always lies in the place people think it is. If every band in your community told venues with practices like the ones I’m mentioning in this post simply, “no,” then venues would have no other choice but to alter their methods of doing business to create a fair set of rules. YOU and your fans are what allow venues to stay a float, which means without you, they wouldn’t have a business. You make the rules. Don’t forget that.
Why The Loft sucks.
for locals.
fixed your comment liam
this post is important
Steventylerophobia
let me tell you all a story about steven tyler
my mom’s friend bev keys went to high school with steven tyler. one time, their school was having a battle of the bands, and steven and bev were both in different bands playing at the show. bev apparently had on a short skirt or some kind of revealing outfit, and the principal of the school, or whoever was in charge was telling her that she couldn’t perform because of how she was dressed. so she goes up to steven and tells him what the principal said. he says something to the effect of “that’s a load of bullshit”
at this point he walks out on the stage and says “they’re saying her band can’t play because of what she’s wearing…well if she’s not performing, then neither am I!”
and you bet they let her perform
the moral of the story is: steven tyler is a nice guy don’t be afraid of him
"
I reject the term “piracy.” It’s people listening to music and sharing it with other people, and it’s good for musicians because it widens the audience for music. The record industry doesn’t like trading music because they see it as lost sales, but that’s nonsense. Sales have declined because physical discs are no longer the distribution medium for mass-appeal pop music, and expecting people to treat files as physical objects to be inventoried and bought individually is absurd.
The downtrend in sales has hurt the recording business, obviously, but not us specifically because we never relied on the mainstream record industry for our clientele. Bands are always going to want to record themselves, and there will always be a market among serious music fans for well-made record albums. I’ll point to the success of the Chicago label Numero Group as an example.
There won’t ever be a mass-market record industry again, and that’s fine with me because that industry didn’t operate for the benefit of the musicians or the audience, the only classes of people I care about.
Free distribution of music has created a huge growth in the audience for live music performance, where most bands spend most of their time and energy anyway. Ticket prices have risen to the point that even club-level touring bands can earn a middle-class income if they keep their shit together, and every band now has access to a world-wide audience at no cost of acquisition. That’s fantastic.
Additionally, places poorly-served by the old-school record business (small or isolate towns, third-world and non-english-speaking countries) now have access to everything instead of a small sampling of music controlled by a hidebound local industry. When my band toured Eastern Europe a couple of years ago we had full houses despite having sold literally no records in most of those countries. Thank you internets.
"steve albini (via willthismatterlater)
(Source: friedeggsandwiches, via teejayorsomething)
Earlier today, someone alerted me to something called Guitar Media Magazine. I’d never heard of it before, but I had a look at their website and it has lots of interesting articles about stuff like Stone Sour recording a new album and some guitars that are so beautiful they’d “probably make Tom Morello jealous as shit.” It also has some empty forums where people don’t gather to talk about diatonics and scales and other stuff I haven’t cared about since I “completed” guitar when I was 16. Anyway, the strapline of the site boasts that the magazine is “100% FREE to read.” But Guitar Media Magazine hasn’t always been 100 percent FREE to write for.
Before they deleted it last week, there was a page at their website (cached here) advertising the opportunity for “budding reviewers” to join their new “Gig Reviewers Members Scheme.”
“Be a gig reviewer and go see artists such as Joe Bonamassa, Guns N Roses, Eric Johnson, Steve Vai,Metallica, Iron Maiden, Rush, Joe Satriani and many more as a member of the Guitar Media press team,”they said.
Sounds good. I don’t know who Joe Bonamassa is, but if his name’s anything to go by, he’s the new Santana, and I love the way that guy makes sweet love to his axe. So how might I take advantage of this wonderful offer?
To be a part of this you need to have the following:
- Driving License or access to transportation
- A talent for writing informative articles
- Be over the age of 18
- Have a computer/laptop with WORD or equivalent.
- Have a clear understanding of music from all genresA “talent” might be a bit strong, but for argument’s sake, let’s say “check” on the first four. I’m not sure I can say I have a “clear understanding” of all the genres, but I can try, and besides, I couldn’t find any articles about clownstep or drill and bass on the Guitar Media Magazine website, so I think I’ll be OK.
Anything else?
“We are charging an annual fee for this membership at £49.99 GBP or for US applicants its $79.99 USD (Other currencies will be calculated upon giving your payment details)”What? I have to pay to write for your magazine? That’s weird, because in all my previous experience (NME,Loops,the Quietus, Stool Pigeon, the BBC, a few others, WITHOUT WANTING TO BLOW MY OWN TRUMPET…) it’s worked the other way round.
So, I got in touch with the people behind Guitar Media Magazine to see if their kind offer was still open. (And BTW, I wasn’t aware of anyone else emailing them before this, but I guess they must have received a few messages already for them to think I was part of a “mob”.)
A+
(via luthiermark)
They expand our perception of the phenomenon of music, addressing the processes of recording, manufacture, distribution, playback and perception. The beauty and “value” of anti-records and conceptual records is to be found not in the timbres they reproduce, but in their ability to make us aware of the entire ‘“apparatus” surrounding music.
5 Logical Fallacies That Make You Wrong More Than You Think
please, just read this for your own sake and try to internalize it
Looking at the state of R&B is like seeing your ex from a few years back and finding out that they’ve let themselves go. Like really let themselves go.
You can still see what made you fall for them so badly in the first place but it’s now all murked over with unpleasantries. The sad thing is R&B was one of the most important genres of music, while most are responsible for bringing a new style of clothing or a new way of living to our attention, R&B was pivotal in abolishing prejudice and racial inhibitions from the entertainment industry. It also undoubtedly gave birth to genres like Rock & Roll, Soul, Funk etc.
Funny to think that a genre that was once so important is now relying on an uneasy relationship with electronic music to comercially stay alive.
However, like the ex that’s dramatically gone downhill - there’s still potential.
In 2011 we saw a lifeline for R&B arise - Alternative R&B - R&B with an alternative twist and a slight indie aesthetic. Artists like The Weeknd, AlunaGeorge and Creep began to resuscitate a genre that had been kindnapped by producers like Guetta and corrupt record label execs who were obsessed with glossing everything with a tacky euro-dance pop sheen. But before we talk about how the demise happened, we must first know the long and prestigious journey of the genre.A Brief As Possible Historical Recount Of R&B
Like all genres no particular event can be stated as the birth of R&B, but let’s talk basics. R&B (Rhythm & Blues) was a tag that Jerry Wexler of Billboard coined back in 1948, as a replacement for the not so polite term ‘Race Music’.
Like everything else back then, the charts were segregated too. Sonically, the genre was the birthchild of Jazz and Electric Blues and was made for Black Americans by Black Americans. Chicago, Detroit, L.A, New York are all named as birthplaces. There were many independent labels that were crucial but one of the most important was Chess Records. Chess Records had a host of soon-to-be-legends on their rooster from Howlin’ Wolf, to Bo Diddley, to Muddy Waters to even the sadly recently belated Etta James. All of the records that these artists created contained a primal, raw, un-before energy mixed with a simple, rocking beat and strong rhythm instilled within them. This mysterious new combination would later become the template for R&B and change the world of music forever, without no R&B they would be no Elvis. It was that important.
During the 1950’s musicians on other labels like Little Richard would continue to release hit after hit with the odd one like Chuck Berry’s ‘Maybellene’ crossing over into the Billboard Hot 100 and becoming popular amongst the white youth.
Towards the end of the 50’s the racial seperation between the R&B chart and Billboard’s Hot 100 began to disintergrate. When Elvis Presley released a little known track called ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ it stormed both black and white charts, even though it had a very strong R&B essence, something that was thought to be a turn off amongst the mass White America. This pretty much changed everything, Presley had managed to take a little bit of what was once ignorantly known as Race Music and make it massive. Suddenly, R&B was no longer exclusively a ‘black thing’. Many people thought Presley was originally a man of colour as a result of the way his music sounded. After this he would then go on to have a legendary streak of hits, and would release one track in particular - ‘Hound Dog’ written by the Godfather of R&B Johnny Otis and previously released by Mama Thornton.
He performed the track on The Milton Berle Show and the rest was history.
Whilst also giving birth Rock & Roll, R&B was on it’s way to becoming a ‘mainstream thing’. White America had had a taste of R&B but they were about to get a whole mouthful. Musically, the 60’s were dominated by Motown Records.
Founded by songwriter Berry Gordy in Detroit in 1959. After a year or so Gordy struck gold when his first signing girl group The Marvelettes scored theirs and Motowns first number one with ‘Please Mr. Postman’ (most of you will probably be more familiar with Cragga’s remix). Motown Records continued to prove that white people were willing to buy records made by black people throughout the 60’s - between 1961 to 1971 the record label had 110 top 10 hits. Diana Ross & The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Jackson 5 and Marvin Gaye to name a few all called Motown home. The record label became so prominent that it had people claimed it had its own sound - The ‘Motown Sound’. The’ Motown Sound’ was Soul music on steroids; taking the mixture of R&B, Doo-Wop and Gospel and multi-tracking and reverbing it within an inch of its life. However, like all good things, the era of Motown came to an end.During the 70’s R&B went on a bit of a backburner while its offsprings Disco and Funk took over, with artists like James Brown and Donna Summers tearing shit up. After both genres had slowly died out in the 80’s, Contemporary R&B was born out of the decay of disco and the drum machine-heavy feel of hip-hop.
Contemporary R&B really all started with Micheal Jackson who was the first to crossover from disco and start mixing synthesizers and beats from drum machines and intergrating this mixture into the classical R&B template. After having one of the last hits of the disco era with ‘Rock Wit U’ he went on to create his legendary Quincy Jones produced trilogy; Off The Wall, Thriller and Bad.
All are staples of modern day R&B to the point where it’s hard to imagine how the genre would exist without these records. ‘Billie Jean’ is basically one of the first Contemporary R&B songs everrr. His sister Janet Jackson left just as big impact with her masterpieces Control andJanet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814, both produced by the masterly duo Jam & Lewis, her sonic was more dance-oriented and contained a heavy rhythmic presence. Without Janet there would be no Rihanna.
Towards the late 80’s and 90’s the era of the big voices started to happen, Whitney and Mariah both arrived each becoming a flooring, unprecedented and unique vocal talent. People like Jessie J can try and do as many weird vocal tics and ‘woaaaaaooooaaahhhs’ as they want. They ain’t gonna sound like them.
There is never going to be another ‘Fantasy’. FACT. On the the hand, another part of Contemporary R&B was starting to come to life too, New Jack Swing was the old and trusted but with a heavier Hip-Hop presence - Jodeci, Keith Sweat were all pushing this hybrid of lush vocal arrangements and gritty percussive backing tracks. Girl Groups also came back with a vengance with En Vouge, SWV and TLC each donning their own unique take on this subgenre and dominanting charts while doing so.
Aaliyah probably was the last major development in R&B in terms of an artist pushing boundaries. She went from being R Kelly’s hand puppet to becoming a sex siren pushing a futuristic, inventive strain of R&B in the space of a few years.
I mean yeah sure Timbaland produced it, but Aaliyah was the vehicle, the medium for which the message was pushed through, and without her the music wouldn’t of existed. Songs like ‘One In A Miliion’ and ‘Rock The Boat’ sound as fresh as ever, and still sound like nothing else currently out there. Her music is as relevant as ever, a key inspiration in R&B’s lifeline - Alternative R&B. Anyway more of that later. During the just departed Noughties the charts continue to be dominated by R&B, with the Queen Beyonce dominating and next in line Rihanna breaking out.
As for the sound, the boand between R&B and Hip-Hop became stronger and everything so starting sound more slick and glamourous.
So that’s the history lesson. Hope it wasn’t too painful.
Up next, how R&B started resembling your ex whose gone downhill.Gaga and Guetta - The Death of R&B?
There were many factors that caused R&B to go off the rails, but two people in particular were key in the demise of it’s soulful sound. Lady Gaga and David Guetta introduced the US to dance music, by the time these two were finshed everyone from P.Diddy to Black Eyes Peas were experimenting with electronic music.
Gaga single-handely banged down all the doors with her first two hits ‘Just Dance’ and ‘Pokerface’ both produced by the then largely unknown Red-One. Her debut album ‘Fame’ came out Summer 08 yet didn’t reach the peak of its success until April 09 you could say commercially she did lay the foundations for the monopoly in terms of popularity dance music now has over the charts. Coniciding with Gaga’s assault on the US mainstream, The Black Eyed Peas were ditching contemporary R&B and also pushing a new, electronic dance-pop sound. Their track ‘I Gotta Feeling’ would later become the most downloaded song of all time on Itunes.
This little ditty was produced by the then largely unknown French DJ David Guetta. The crazy amount of success both of these acts experienced was the first nail in the coffin for R&B.
While I’m largely being negative, its gotta be said at first this sound was a blast of fresh air, a new chart trend. But sadly, like with all trends, people start to copy them and the originality fades. David Guetta and Red-One who a few years back were unknown to the general public became household names, both being revered as the creators of this sound that was dominating the charts. Every record label clamoured to work with, worrying that their artist would appear out of date if they didn’t do so. Traditional R&B artists with lush, soulful vocal talents were suddenly having their voices put through this crazy filter they called Autotune.
It all felt too corporate and unnatural. For example, after releasing a Contemporary R&B benchmark in the form of Confessions, Usher released ‘OMG’ and appeared all of a sudden to be calculated, cold artist, a victim of trend-chasing.
Sure the music was fun and catchy but the soul and feeling had gone. What had happened to the man who made ‘Burn’? Bit by bit, synths, electronic glitches and blips, crazy amounts of Autotune and then dubstep breakdowns all started to slowly inflitrate R&B, until it was no longer rendered R&B. It was just this weird mesh of sounds, a musical no-man’s land where everyone sounded the same.
Have Lady Gaga and David Guetta killed R&B?
Maybe, maybe not. But their astronomical chart success definitely played a hand.
Alternative R&B - The Lifeline?
Well commercially, we’re still very much commercially in no-man’s land.
Last time I checked Itunes the songs in the top 5 still sounded incredibly similar. Flo Rida is still managing to top the charts by shamelessly sampling every dance track going. Nothing has changed there. Yet, slowly but surely it appears things may be on the road to recovery. A fresh crop of artists have arrived all clubbed under the tag Alternative R&B, they’re creating music that’s inspired by best of Contemporary R&B but has a hip, indie, Pitchforkesque aesthetic..
All of the music these guys create has is futuristic but nostalgic at that same time, it’s like a weird paradox (check out our Indie R&B mix, to listen to what I’m banging on about).
The Weeknd recalls Micheal Jackson but if he was on a permament comedown, AlunaGeorge are basically Aaliyah + Timbaland if the former was still alive and Frank Ocean is a modern day Marvin Gaye. Thanks to these a lot, critically R&B has made a comeback, but let’s be honest that don’t mean shit, what really matters is commercial success. It’s harsh, unromantic, ruthless but also true.
Spring sees Ocean release his much-anticipated debut on Def Jam and when The Weeknd stops being awkward we’ll undoubtedly see his first proper debut released on a major alongside with a rerelease of his mixtape trilogy sometime this year. Both are set to blow the water and sell shitloads when released, and let’s hope they do and while doing so prove that people still wanna hear R&B. Seriously though, I don’t know how long I can stand to hear another ‘club banger’.
It’s killing both me and R&B.By Antonio Rowe
Also visit our staff member’s blog Indie R&B.
this brings up some good points even outside of the context of R&B
(via theneedledrop)
In light of all this SOPA and Protect IP stuff…
I think some people need to understand how buying an album works.
If I go out to buy a CD (say, the upcoming Bruce Springsteen album), and the CD costs $20. Usually around 10% of this ($2) will go to the Bruce Springsteen (Plus possibly more money, depending on the contract). Now, major labels (keeping in mind they have a large distribution network and promotion network) will invest the money they make into acts signed to their label (Not necessarily Bruce Springsteen) plus running costs and other stuff. It kinda gets messy because every band has different contracts, but in the ultra simplified case this is essentially what would happen…
Now I have no problem with this system, it’s a legitimate business and while it centres around the label making money, that’s the way it should be, IF the label has a larger distribution network than a band or even small label would have access to. On top of this, major labels have large networks of people and studios, so that a band has a good chance of getting the producer they love and being able to pay for it using “loans” made by the label. (A piece on this subject is here: http://www.negativland.com/albini.html)
The obvious issue now with this system is that the internet is a much larger distribution network than major labels could ever have, not only because it’s essentially a worldwide service at very little cost, but because manufacturing costs are very minimal (say, $25,000 for a server that allows for large amounts of downloading). In addition, bands now can make quite good quality music with home studio setups and even laptops (for very little cost)…
As an example of how the internet can make money for bands/artists, I’ll talk about Bandcamp. Now, although it’s relatively new, it allows for bands to put their album on the net (lossless quality) for a percentage of the money they make from the service. So, if I pay $20 for that Springsteen album again on Bandcamp. Springsteen will get around $17.5-$18 per album. I’m not saying it’s perfect at the moment, but IF (and it’s a big if) bandcamp got to the equivalent size of major labels distribution networks (i.e. everyone knew about bandcamp) and professional recording technology got super cheap, then it essentially wipes out the power that the big 4 major labels have.
Of course people want to buy CD’s and records, and that’s why independent labels are doing well at the moment.
I could insert stats here saying that the drop in CD sales are not influenced in a bad way by online piracy and that the main reason the ‘90’s were so profitable for record labels was because people were replacing their vinyl collections with CD’s and the drop in record sales are because people aren’t replacing their vinyl collections anymore, but I think that misses the point. What I see as the problem for major labels, is the fact that they’re trying to hold onto a business structure that is becoming less and less relevant.
Back to SOPA, if I lived in the US, the censoring wouldn’t concern me as much as an industry (internet) that’s in it’s infancy growing very quickly and contributes 3.8% to the US’s GDP, being bullied and most likely harmed by industries (“core” copyright based industries) that contribute 6% to the US’s GDP.
Economically it’s a very bad idea.
Links to sources and other stuff here, I’m probably very wrong with a lot of these figures, most are probably only good as estimates:
http://nikhilkunwar.blogspot.com/2011/06/internet-industry-contributes-32-to-gdp.html
http://www.wipo.int/ip-development/en/creative_industry/pdf/ecostudy-usa.pdf
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzqMoOk9NWc&feature=g-hist&context=G2deb6acAHTxiz6AAFAA
http://bandcamp.com/pricing
https://buy.louisck.net/news
"
Thinking means concentrating on one thing long enough to develop an idea about it. Not learning other people’s ideas, or memorizing a body of information, however much those may sometimes be useful. Developing your own ideas. In short, thinking for yourself. You simply cannot do that in bursts of 20 seconds at a time, constantly interrupted by Facebook messages or Twitter tweets, or fiddling with your iPod, or watching something on YouTube. […]
It seems to me that Facebook and Twitter and YouTube—and just so you don’t think this is a generational thing, TV and radio and magazines and even newspapers, too—are all ultimately just an elaborate excuse to run away from yourself. To avoid the difficult and troubling questions that being human throws in your way. Am I doing the right thing with my life? Do I believe the things I was taught as a child? What do the words I live by—words like duty, honor, and country—really mean? Am I happy? […]
"Solitude and Leadership: A speech on the value of being alone with your thoughts, delivered to the plebe class at West Point. William Deresiewicz | The American Scholar | Apr 2010 (via Longform.org Tumblr)
[…] Here’s the other problem with Facebook and Twitter and even The New York Times. When you expose yourself to those things, especially in the constant way that people do now—older people as well as younger people—you are continuously bombarding yourself with a stream of other people’s thoughts. You are marinating yourself in the conventional wisdom. In other people’s reality: for others, not for yourself. You are creating a cacophony in which it is impossible to hear your own voice, whether it’s yourself you’re thinking about or anything else. […]So why is reading books any better than reading tweets or wall posts? Well, sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes, you need to put down your book, if only to think about what you’re reading, what you think about what you’re reading. But a book has two advantages over a tweet. First, the person who wrote it thought about it a lot more carefully. The book is the result of his solitude, his attempt to think for himself.
Second, most books are old. This is not a disadvantage: this is precisely what makes them valuable. They stand against the conventional wisdom of today simply because they’re not from today. Even if they merely reflect the conventional wisdom of their own day, they say something different from what you hear all the time. But the great books, the ones you find on a syllabus, the ones people have continued to read, don’t reflect the conventional wisdom of their day. They say things that have the permanent power to disrupt our habits of thought. They were revolutionary in their own time, and they are still revolutionary today. […]
So solitude can mean introspection, it can mean the concentration of focused work, and it can mean sustained reading. All of these help you to know yourself better. But there’s one more thing I’m going to include as a form of solitude, and it will seem counterintuitive: friendship. Of course friendship is the opposite of solitude; it means being with other people. But I’m talking about one kind of friendship in particular, the deep friendship of intimate conversation. Long, uninterrupted talk with one other person. Not Skyping with three people and texting with two others at the same time while you hang out in a friend’s room listening to music and studying. […]
Introspection means talking to yourself, and one of the best ways of talking to yourself is by talking to another person. One other person you can trust, one other person to whom you can unfold your soul. One other person you feel safe enough with to allow you to acknowledge things—to acknowledge things to yourself—that you otherwise can’t. Doubts you aren’t supposed to have, questions you aren’t supposed to ask. Feelings or opinions that would get you laughed at by the group or reprimanded by the authorities.
This is what we call thinking out loud, discovering what you believe in the course of articulating it. But it takes just as much time and just as much patience as solitude in the strict sense. And our new electronic world has disrupted it just as violently. Instead of having one or two true friends that we can sit and talk to for three hours at a time, we have 968 “friends” that we never actually talk to; instead we just bounce one-line messages off them a hundred times a day. This is not friendship, this is distraction. […]
(via scipsy)
(Source: longform, via pics-de-lumiere)
Marry Xmas frum Jaymz nd Robn xoxo :***
Don’t believe the hype, Occupy is educated, they know the deal. They are soilders, artists and the educated.
THIS!
How many people think this guy overwhelmed Fox with awesome before anyone could yell cut? To be so eloquent and point hitting on the fly. BRAVO MOFO, DAMN! Someone give this man a cookie.
Well SAID!!!
this is good, this is real good
(via luthiermark)
them tarts - i forgot
Indie
Track listing:
Side A:
- pizzaz party
- criminal undergarments
- i forgot
Side B:
- track 2
- ordinary schmordinary
- left to france
- tasty pants
this tape release from them tarts, an up and coming young band, certainly shows a lot of promise. they have a dynamic playing style and it’s obvious they’ve all got not only skill, but vision. their sound is unique and powerful and has to be experienced first hand.
10/10
Still wondering what Occupy Wall Street is protesting? The common thread is institutional inequality. Here are some infographics. (Images via.)
Edit: I got some questions about this line in the first infographic: “Of the 93% of people who support the protests, only 12% are unemployed.”
This poll found that 93% of those who view OWS favorably also support the protesters’ right to camp out in parks. So support among a general audience for OWS isn’t 93%; support among OWS supporters for the right to physically occupy public space is 93%.
The graphic, then, seeks to show that very few park-occupiers are unemployed — take that, Newt Gingrich! — and that people who tell protesters to go get a job are either ignoring facts that are politically inconvenient or don’t know what they’re talking about in the first place. Whoever made the graphic could have presented this connection better.
This is a point I’m particularly interested in after reading this nice piece of commentary, which I more or less agree with: “Unfortunately, the movement is coming dangerously close to being about the right to camp anywhere anyone wishes to. And that’s not really a big deal at all.”
(via pretentioushobos)
