Since I posted a blog post, and an accompanying note on Facebook, about how Facebook pictures shape the way we look at ourselves and others, I’ve been thinking on and off about how photographs shape our experience of life. For example, how much of what we remember of people’s faces is a product not of what we see of them in the flesh but of the pictures we see of them? Continue reading
I keep getting struck by how many pictures of so many of us are up on Facebook…and how unflattering many of those pictures are. When I was growing up, there weren’t that many pictures of us and most of them were posed. People tried to look their best in those posed pictures and while we didn’t always attain that goal, we were rarely caught in strange, unflattering poses. And if we looked really bad in a picture it was easy to get rid of it. On Facebook there are so many candid photos of us looking anything but our best. And there is no controlling these pictures as there are so many of them and its practically impossible to get rid of the last digital copy of a phot. Continue reading
Reposted from YPP on Tue, 10/21/2008 – 12:13am. I was in the audience at a taping of a program on WHYY TV on health care reform tonight. And now I know how we managed to get PA ABC, Governor Rendell’s program to insure another quarter of million people, through the Senate. Continue reading
When I worked for SEIU I was limited in what i could blog. So I wrote this under an assumed name for Young Philly Politics. Before citing it, please read the note at the end. You would think that, with the Nutter administration securing a substantial victory on tax policy, talk of the “job-killing business tax” would be on the decline. Continue reading
RIP James Brown James Brown was one of the three or four most important popular musicians in my life. Most of the popular music to which I listened—and more importantly to which I danced—was either by James Brown or influenced by him. And Brown’s reach went far beyond popular music. I wrote this essay, It’s Best Done With Scissors: Miles, Groucho, and the Art of Composition with Tape, for a group of on-line friends a few years ago. I’ve never published or posted it before. But it occurred to me that today might be a good day to do so, in honor of the life of James Brown. Most of it is not about James Brown at all, but about the most important musician in my life, Miles Davis. But in the middle of this essay, I detail a number of ways in which Miles’ electronic music of the 1960s… Continue reading
I couldn’t resist posting on the closing of CBGB, once I thought of the title of this post And, no, I’m not talking about CDBG–community development block grants. The first time I heard my friend Derek Greene talk, in his fast paced voice, about CDBG I couldn’t quite figure out what a club on the Bowery in New York had to do with housing programs in Philly. I actually didn’t go to CBGB that often. And I saw some so-so bands there: Dead Boys and Steel Tips, for example. But twenty years ago it was a fun place to hang out. And I saw one absolutely transcendant show there, Television in its prime. Verlaine and Lloyd already didn’t seem to care for one another. But they clearly enjoyed playing together, as they redefined what two lead guitars can do in a rock and roll band. Continue reading
I am of the age where young people in their late teens and twenties, and especially my students at Temple, ask me for general advice about life. I can give plenty of advice, but most of it would take a long time to explain and I save it for articles and books I write. Here is the one piece of advice I can give quickly: choose the music you listen to when you are young—that is, when you are falling in the love for the first time—wisely because that is going to be the music that rocks you for the rest of your life. These days, the music I listen to is mostly jazz. I love the classics-Duke, Parker, Monk, Trane, Sonny, Ornette and, most of all, Miles. But I also spend time exploring new avant garde jazz made by people whose names are not widely known and who, in… Continue reading
Blogging here will be a little light for a few days as I take a little trip north. And that reminds me of a story I heard during my last trip. In an effort to spur their economy, Vermont farmers are taking a leaf from makers of Scotch. They are soon going to start marketing high-end milk and cheese products from particular farms that, they claim, have distinctive tastes as a result of the grass and water eaten by their cows. The marketing firms have not decided what to call this designer milk. My suggestion is in the title to this post. Note: when I first posted this, ACM commented: heh, not sure that people want to be reminded of the biological specificity of their milk, but who knows. I distinctly remember as a kid (when you’re drinking a lot of milk straight), noticing the change of taste when the… Continue reading
When was the last time a Vice President shot a man? First correct answer gets a free, lifetime subscription to Marc Stier at Large. Thanks to Karl Marx for the title. In the 18th Brumaire of Louis Napolean he writes “Hegel says that history repeats itself. He forgot to add the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” And no, David Horowitz, knowing this quotation does not make me a Marxist. PS Does anyone know what a Brumaire is? 7 Responses to “The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce” acm Says: February 16th, 2006 at 11:25 am e hint: it involved a duel, not a hunt… Matthew Flaschen Says: February 16th, 2006 at 7:53 pm e Alexander Hamilton shot rival Aaron Burr in a duel. Matthew Flaschen Says: February 16th, 2006 at 9:05 pm e Err, other way around. TRAY Says: February 16th, 2006 at… Continue reading
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