I got kinda sad after learning of the death of saxophonist/composerJoe Maneri.
Born in Brooklyn to Sicilian immigrants, Joseph Gabriel Esther Maneri was playing professionally by his teens. He often performed for Jewish and Greek weddings, and the music of those cultures influenced his own playing. Though dyslexic, he studied composition and also blended modern orchestral music into his writing. By the 1950s, Maneri's innovative music got some attention from the high-hats: he wrote pieces for the Boston Symphony, and in 1963 he cut a demo for Atlantic Records. But they declined to release the album, which went unissued until 1998, when it was released as Paniots Nine. The title track was used in the opening credits of the movie American Splendor, which was adapted from Harvey Pekar's autobiographical comic of the same name. Pekar's a jazz buff, and also a critic of some note who championed Maneri's music. I really like this tune; the melody shows the influence of the ethnic music of Maneri's youth.
In 1970, Maneri got a teaching job at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. He performed only intermittently until the 1980s, when his violinist son Mat coaxed him out of semi-retirement. The remarkable thing was that, despite his obscurity, Joe had continued to chase his muse. He explored microtonal music: the world of sounds between the notes on a piano. By the 1990s, the Joe Maneri Quartet was performing semi-regularly, and jazz fans in New England realized they'd been ignoring one of the most innovative and original musicians of his era. Maneri got a lot of attention, and released a string of outstanding albums with Germany's ECM Records.
Don't remember exactly where I read the description, but I was fond of the comparison of the rotund, bearded Joe playing alongside his tall, slender son Mat as "Santa Claus and Jesus Christ."
Day before yesterday I was pissed about human stupidity. Today I discover Lamebook.com, which is a website comprised of the stupidest stuff that stupid people post on their stupid Facebook pages.
Did I mention stupid?
I have a Facebook account, but haven't logged in for several months. It's kinda nice to stay in contact with people. But it's also kinda annoying to log in and have to clear all the tests ("which mixed drink are you?"), games and other digital tchotchkes. So Lamebook made me laugh.
A few favorites:
I found Lamebook via Jake of the Web, which has lotsa fun time wasters...
Occasionally, I feel rather misanthropic. The staggering volume of human stupidity is nothing new. But reminders bitchslap me sometimes.
Recently I had a conversation with a guy who shall remain nameless. He told me about a friend who was losing weight with a new supplement -- "I think it's made of iguana urine." Now, people ingest a lot of weird stuff in the name of health (or "health.") So I didn't dismiss the reptile pee idea out of hand. But I asked if the supplement was perhaps guarana -- a South American berry that has high caffeine content, and that is included in some weight loss pills. Guarana kinda rhymes with iguana, so I thought it possible that he'd confused the two words. Oh no, he insisted. It was iguana urine. He spent several hours online, browsing through Google search results looking for proof. A few days later, the guy said to me, "Remember when I said my friend was taking iguana urine? Turns out it was actually a plant called guarana." You mean exactly like I said the first time you mentioned the subject? "I guess..."
Remember that story about how Socrates was the wisest man in ancient Greece because he knew the limits of his knowledge? The curious thing is that dumb people often don't realize that they're dumb. (By "dumb" I mean "ignorant," as in lacking knowledge of a specific subject.) The Dunning-Kruger effect illustrates how the most ignorant people consistently rank themselves as the most skilled and knowledgable. Essentially, ignorant people aren't aware of what they don't know. For example, to communicate with writing you've got to know the basic rules of grammar -- but if you don't know the rules of grammar, you've got no basis to evaluate your own writing skills. The people with the worst grammar rated themselves in the top skill levels, while those with the best grammar rated themselves as slightly worse than their actual competence. (The Dunning-Kruger effect also establishes that someone, somewhere has gotten a research grant to study essentially any topic you can imagine.)
There was another idiotic conversation I had recently, with a different guy who shall also remain nameless. During Occasion 1, he was complaining vehemently about government spending. During Occasion 2, he was complaining vehemently about the cost of college. "The government needs to make college more affordable," he said. How so, I asked. "More grants and cheaper loans. They did a bailout for the banks, why not a bailout for student loans?" What about a week ago when you said there was too much government spending? Where do you expect the funding for cheaper loans and larger grants are going to come from? Blink Blink "Oh. Uh. That's different." How is it different? "Uh. Oh. I don't know." You don't know how to reconcile the conflicting ideas you support? Not a surprise.
In 1964, political scientist Philip Converse published a landmark paper called "The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics." By tracking the same group of people over two years, Converse discovered that about 80% of 'em have no consistent ideology. When asked a political question, most people basically improvise an opinion with no logical, ethical or other foundation for the idea. People are usually unable to explain why and how they reached a specific conclusion. Converse's study helped me understand a common experience that's puzzled the hell out of me. Someone asks my opinion, particularly about politics. I don't usually follow politics closely, so I'll say, "I don't know enough about that subject to have much of an opinion. I can read up on it and get back to you in a few days, if you want." Usually, they simply stare at me as if confused. Blink Blink And I never hear from them again, so no big loss...
To return briefly to the topic of student loans, I need to expel an irritant. Student loans are often a terrible idea. For one thing, 19 year olds are hardly the most responsible demographic. For another thing, college seems to be one of the most expensive uh expenses to which people routinely fail to apply a cost-benefits analysis. When people buy a car, a computer, or a television, they'll go to extremes to save a buck and maximize their return. They'll read reviews in Consumer Reports, quiz friends and relatives, look at resale value. But when it comes to college, people fork over tens of thousands of dollars, often of borrowed money, without seeming to worry about whether or not the degree has any practical value. In the San Diego Tribune, Helen Gao writes how many people with advanced college degrees are returning to school ... at community colleges: "Many of those students found that their liberal arts degrees did not make for a career or that their university education did not equip them with technical skills to be competitive in the job market." You mean that companies aren't lining up to offer eighty grand a year to Vassar grads with a double major in women's studies and medieval Welsh poetry? Outrageous! I hope Obama has a provision for that oppressed underclass in the economic stimulus package (he typed snarkily).
Plus, I know a lot of people who've essentially lived off student loans for half a decade or more... ...and I get really tired of them bitching when the banks are rude enough to actually expect repayment of a loan that the student actually signed a legally-binding contract to repay. If I hear one more irresponsible college student grumbling about how banks are full of Greedy bastards, always screwing the little guy I might snap.
I think I got all the bitching about idiots out of my system.
