25 July 05:         Music of the Apocalypse


I spend a lot of time watching the weather channel. For a while, it was less fun, because they took away the live radar pictures. They gave out instead a buffet of golfing reports, gulf coast sea and wind conditions, pollen counts, UV levels, and a bunch of other stuff of no interest to me. They expected the patient viewer to wait 5 or 10 minutes to get to the good stuff, the local doppler radar loop, and then it was only up for a few cycles.

But recently they seem to have come to their senses, and returned to a full time local radar, albeit only in 1 quarter of the screen so as to leave plenty of room for eye-candy. But even for this small amount of video real estate, I am grateful.

Which brings me to my second observation. I have traveled all over this great land of ours, and I can tell you that in my experience and without exception, the music which TV programmers choose to lay over the weather radar information is always and invariably "Cool Jazz." For those in the know, this is music in the style of Earl Klugh and dozens of other contemporary jazz artists. Not classical. Not rock. Not dixieland or rap. Cool Jazz is what weather sounds like.

Now though I have no problem with Cool Jazz, I do wonder how it has become the accepted soundtrack for weather, all across the USA. What is it about Cool Jazz that makes programmers tend to knit it together with doppler radar? Or is it possible that the doppler radar comes equipped with its own music? Could the radar manufacturers perhaps have a Cool Jazz bias? These are questions I have pondered.

But more ominously, it has occurred to me that at the coming Apocalypse, when we are all gathered around our TV sets to watch the great black clouds of poisonous gas drift across the landscape spewing death, that we will all, as a nation, be lstening to Earl Klugh and his friends. It will be the music in our ears and minds as we gasp our last breaths. The music of the Apocalypse will be Cool Jazz.


dpa

30 Dec 04:         Achilles and the Tortoise and the Philosophy Professor


Achilles and the Tortoise and the Philosophy Professor were sitting at the dinner table one Christmas, enjoying the roasted turkey and sweetmeats and basking in the afterglow of a fine meal well-consumed.

Achilles, resting his broad shoulders against the back of an old wicker chair grown warm in the late afternoon sunshine, breathed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and after due reflection, opened the conversation with an innocent observation:

Achilles: The sky is blue.

The Tortoise considered this for a moment, contemplating the many varied aspects of the celestial sphere as golden beams of sunlight angled across the tiled floor. After some thought he replied:

Tortoise: I believe you are correct, good Achilles. The sky is blue. And what a lovely shade of blue it is this fine afternoon!

The Philosophy Professor, never comfortable with unanimity, shifted a bit to find a more commodious position on his tall marble pedestal, and then queried:

Professor of Philosophy: Is the sky always blue?

Achilles: Well, dear Professor, I believe at sunset the sky has a tinge of orange.

Tortoise: True enough, my friends. And even through my rosy spectacles I have seen many a gray and cloudy sky, (though always shaded somewhat towards the pink).

His colleagues smiled and nodded in silent agreement.

Professor of Philosophy: So then the sky is not blue?

The three considered the matter in silence while their Good Hostess passed around fresh coffee and pecan pie.

Tortoise: I suppose one could truly say that the sky is not always blue. But I am not comfortable with definitions which tell me what a thing is not.

Achilles: Perhaps we should say the sky is often blue - a more positive affirmation of its blueness without the sweeping certainty of blue totality.

Tortoise: But the sky's basic nature is blue. The pink and orange and gray are variations, if you will, on the theme of blue.

Professor of Philosophy: What about at night?

Tortoise: (Somewhat irritated) Well of course it is not blue at night! Everything is black at night, even the sky. Why, my own fair green shell is black at night.

Achilles: Indeed, I have seen it and it does look black at night.

Professor of Philosophy: Which is it then: it 'looks' black at night or it 'is' black at night?

The three pondered the ramifications of the Professor's question while they savored the sweet pecans nestled in the crisp, flaky pastry. Achilles swirled his coffee and straightened in his tall chair:

Achilles: As I see it, the sky 'is' black at night, but our friend's shell only 'looks' black at night.

Professor of Philosophy: Why do you say that?

Achilles: Well, if I were to shine a lamp upon the shell, it would be revealed in all its glorious greenness. But no lamp can turn the night sky to blue, save the lamp of our great solar furnace. But under the warming glare of that great orb, it is no longer night.

Tortoise: I think you have spoken truly, friend Achilles. The nature of my shell is greenness, as the nature of the sky is blueness.

Professor of Philosophy: Would that not depend on the color of the light from your lamp?

Achilles paused from his chewing with a puzzled look and wiped the crumbs from the corner of his mouth, while the Tortoise refilled his coffee cup and those of his two friends. After a moment's reflection, he spoke:

Tortoise: Indeed that is true. I have spent many hours in a photographic darkroom, illuminated only by a single red light bulb. And I can tell you that under that light, red looks white and blue looks black and my lovely green shell does verily look brown.

Achilles: But I must protest my gentle friend. That is a very artificial environment! Under conditions of what artists call "natural light" green and blue and red all take their proper places in the chromosphere.

Tortoise: Perhaps, but even in the best of lighting our eyes may not all calibrate to the same subtle shades. My red may well be your blue.

Achilles: (Impatiently) Yes, yes, yes, and my villain may well be your hero, my terrorist may be your freedom fighter, my music may be your noise. But that's all beside the point. Most folks would have no problem with the sentiment that the sky is blue!

Professor of Philosophy: So the color of the sky is determined by the consensus of "most folks?"

Achilles: That seems as good a measure as any.

Tortoise: Good Achilles, the consensus of most folks might be that the Earth is flat, or that George Bush is a good president. Does that make it so?

Achilles: Now wait. Good doctor, what is that word that philosophers use when they want to insult each other? Sophisticates? Sophomores?

Professor of Philosophy: Are you searching for the word 'sophistry?'

Achilles: Ah yes, that's it. This strikes me as the most sophisticated of sophomoric sophistry.

Professor of Philosophy: In what way?

Achilles: Well... it is artificially contrarian. Is the sky blue to a color-blind man? How about to the Humming-Bird with his retinal ultra-violet cone cells? Or to the Astronaut circling far above us in the heavens?

Tortoise: How marvelous all of Nature must appear to him! Oh! that NASA might consider the lowly Tortoise for their journeymen!

Professor of Philosophy: "Artificially contrarian?" As opposed to "naturally contrarian?"

Achilles: Yes. Much like our friend Mr. Fox. He is an amateur contrarian, nothing to compare with our present company of course, but quite gifted nonetheless.

Tortoise: Ah yes. Mr. Fox does have that gift. Why, just yesterday while walking in the garden I observed that the heavy rainfall we have had this year has produced such an abundance of greenery that even the ditches by the road are alive with color.

Achilles: I remember it well. Mr Fox replied that this might indeed be a very green year, but how could it possibly compare with the great greenness in years long past?

Tortoise: Indeed. I shudder to think how he might have responded to the beautiful blueness of the sky or the sweet warble of the Meadow Lark.

Achilles: (laughing) You must excuse us, dear Professor. Mr. Fox often is compelled to observe that the sweet warble of the Meadow Lark, so musical and melodious to our ears, is in fact a challenge for combat to his fellow Meadow Larks!

Professor of Philosophy: Why is such a sensitive and observant fellow not dinning here with us this afternoon?

Achilles: We don't invite him anymore. After a while his observations become tedious and tend to wick the enjoyment out of any and all small pleasures.

Tortoise: And he only speaks in questions, retreating into the security of one who attacks the castles of others without ever having to defend his own. The joy of the agnostic, as it were.

Professor of Philosophy: Is that a bad thing?

Tortoise: Neither good nor bad. But, as I mentioned, tedious.

Achilles: Yes. I once saw a lovely Red-tailed hawk soaring above our table, and as I exclaimed at its presence, Mr. Fox gazed at me as one would a foolish child and chided me for my pleasure. "Do you not know that hawks are quite common in this area?" he admonished.

Professor of Philosophy: Then hawks are not common in this area?

Achilles: No, they are quite common, and often quite beautiful. This one in particular was quite common and quite beautiful.

Tortoise: Yes, Mr. Fox always speaks what is true. He is not deceitful.

Achilles: Truly said, friend Tortoise. He is very intelligent, always polite. But nothing will convince him that he is not the smartest animal in the room. As I said, we don't invite him often anymore. He's not very much fun.

Professor of Philosophy: Could it be that he poses his questions in order to prod his friends into thinking new thoughts?

Tortoise: Assuredly. And thinking new thoughts is indeed worthy and perhaps in short supply.

Achilles: But, dear Tortoise, I have not noticed a lack of new thoughts on your part, and I seek to achieve some small portion of that myself.

Tortoise: Dear Achilles, your thoughts are always of value to me. But friend Fox appears to operate from the belief that such thinking does not take place without his royal prodding.

Achilles: Perhaps that is the root of it. Though I seem not to have the capacity, or perhaps the desire, for such contemplations myself, of which you two good friends are so facile, there is something nonetheless both arrogant and shallow in the assumption that we have not thought deeply about these things independently, or that our conclusions must of necessity be pedestrian, easily characterized and casually dismissed.

The Professor of Philosophy clambered heavily back up to the perch from which he had briefly descended to take a phone call and retrieve his coffee mug.

Professor of Philosophy: You were saying?

Tortoise: Achilles was offering some deep insights into what he sees as his own lack of depth.

Achilles: It often seems that Mr. Fox approaches our thoughts, as do you, good Professor, from the belief that our conclusions must of necessity be pedestrian, easily characterized and casually dismissed.

Professor of Philosophy: Can you give an example of what you mean?

Achilles: (surprised) But dear friend, these are the very touchstones of our colloquy: the greenness of the garden, the blueness of the sky, the majesty of the hawk, the melody of the Lark.

Professor of Philosophy: But those are not good examples, they are all the same, can you give us nothing better?

Tortoise: Good doctor, you are best equipped to give us examples illustrative of your own thinking, as Achilles is of his.

Achilles: Perhaps and perhaps not. As when Zeno first allied us in pursuit of the Great Infinity, we have always been seekers but only occasionally have we been finders.

Tortoise: But we have found some things, if not All Things.

Achilles: And we have found, amid all the gray skies and the combative Meadow Larks, that the world is good, as was pronounced so long ago.

Professor of Philosophy: Do you think that Mr. Fox does not also find the world to be good?

Achilles: I cannot pretend to speak for Mr. Fox, but I can tell you that his obsession in conversation is to discover not if the world is good, but rather why the world is bad. On this hangs all the law and the profits.

Tortoise: Well punned my good friend! But there is a kernel of truth in your humor. Even without my beloved rosy spectacles, I choose to contemplate whatsoever things are true, noble, pure, and right.

Professor of Philosophy: And Mr. Fox chooses to contemplate other things?

Tortoise: I suppose. But, dear friends, I believe that even Mr. Fox on his best day would not have a problem with Achilles' simple observation that the sky is blue.

Achilles: True enough. Though I suspect he would also feel compelled to remind us us that he knows a little more about blueness than we!

Professor of Philosophy: So then, you already know everything about blueness that you need to know?

Tortoise: The thirst for knowledge is unquenchable.

Achilles: Unquestionably so. But one need not know everything about blueness to observe that the sky is blue.

Tortoise: Indeed.

The three paused in awkward silence as the late afternoon sun glinted through the last window pane above the sash, flooding the room with a final glorious golden patina.

Professor of Philosophy: Well, then, shall we have some more Pecan Pie?

best regards,
dpa