Good for you! It shows that you are genuine, honest, truthful, trustworthy and principled, all admirable qualities. Not being offended is NOT a human right, I really don't know when so many of us became so sensitive. I think it's actually downright dangerous to shut ourselves off from anyone we disagree with. It makes us ever more entren…
Good for you! It shows that you are genuine, honest, truthful, trustworthy and principled, all admirable qualities. Not being offended is NOT a human right, I really don't know when so many of us became so sensitive. I think it's actually downright dangerous to shut ourselves off from anyone we disagree with. It makes us ever more entrenched in our opinions; unable to argue, debate or defend our positions; less open-minded; less tolerant and more judgemental. We are encouraged to dismiss the people we disagree with as stupid, illiterate, uninformed, unreasonable or even to ‘other’ them. And when we view them as less than human, that's where polarization and violence take root. Having said that, I did finally unsubscribe from Xitter a month ago. If stopped engaging over a year ago and deleted the app about eight months ago. However, when I still did I tried to engage with people I disagreed with. Usually I just got abuse which I always took as evidence that I'd won the argument. I was always polite and civil but I only managed to have a reasonable discussion twice. We didn't change each others' minds but the exchanges were interesting and informative and we ended respecting each others' views.
Regarding your post that God is transsexual, I regret that I haven't read it (at least not yet) but it reminded me of one of my uncle's pearls of wisdom: “Saints are bisexual”. I can't remember if I've mentioned my uncle before? So at the risk of repeating myself, his name was Peter Schmidt (he was my father's older half-brother by my grandmother's previous marriage). He was an artist one of the wisest, gentlest, thoughtful and most intelligent people I've ever met. He's probably best known through his long friendship and collaboration with Brian Eno, e.g. ‘Oblique Strategies’, who was one of his students. He died tragically young aged 49. He'd moved to London long before we did in 1969. Until his death in 1979 we used to see him about twice a year: he'd visit us once and we him once. I actually spent a bit more time with him as I sat for him during his portrait phase. He changed styles frequently until the last five years of his life when he painted watercolours. One of the reasons he started watercolour was because they weren't taken seriously by the art world, seen as amateur (he hated snobbery and had a keen sense of humour) ¹. His watercolours were still lifes and landscapes, mostly of Scotland and Iceland. I think they're stunningly beautiful but you can see for yourself, if you're so inclined, on his website: http://www.peterschmidtweb.com/main.html. I was also a big Roxy Music fan in my teens and on one of his visits he noticed the stickers of them on my door. “Oh, do you like them? Would you like to meet him?” he asked me, pointing at Eno. Of course I said yes and he was true to his word, inviting me a few months later. Some thirteen years after that (the meeting with Eno was in the winter of ’73) I met Eno again at the opening of a retrospective of my uncle's at Watford College of Art, where he taught. I introduced myself by saying “You probably won't remember me but…” and was flattered to discover he did. I chatted with him at length, particularly about his and David Byrne's seminal album ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’ ². Anyway, I won't go on any more, suffice to say that I miss my uncle terribly. His death was one of the most shocking and still affects me to this day. Despite the infrequency of our meetings he was and is one of the most profoundly influential people in my life. In case you're interested (but please don't feel obliged) you can find out more about him from his Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Schmidt_%28artist%29?wprov=sfla1.
¹ One of the tasks he once set his students was to go and study a favourite painting of theirs, analysing its qualities. “Now produce a painting with none of those qualities” 😂.
² The guitarist in the band I was in at the time worked at the Capital Radio record library (Capital Radio was London's first commercial radio station. Previously my friend had worked at the BBC record library) and often gave me promotional copies of albums; they all had “Promotional copy only. Not for resale” stamped in gold lettering on them. That's how I got one of the original copies of ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’. The album's use of sampling before sampling became a thing is one of the reasons I called it seminal. It was years ahead of its time. All of the tracks used ‘samples’ from various sources for their vocals. It was released in February 1981 after going to extensive efforts to sort out permissions for the use of the various vocal recordings. Soon after its release the Islamic Council of Great Britain objected to the use of Qur'anic recital on the track ‘Qur'an’, describing it as blasphemous. In deference Eno and Byrne withdrew the track, replacing it with ‘Very, Very Hungry’, although David Byrne is quoted as saying that they were probably being overly cautious. The second track to be withdrawn was ‘The Jezebel Spirit’ which originally featured the voice of evangelist Kathryn Kuhlman performing an exorcism. Her estate objected to the use of her voice in that context, so they replaced the vocal on that track. Another track, ‘Come With Us’ used a recording of an ‘unidentified radio evangelist; San Francisco April 1980’, according to the sleeve notes. Eno told me that this radio evangelist had one of the most evil sounding voices he'd ever heard. He later discovered that he'd actually died quite some time ago, but that he'd left 25 years' worth of recordings for his broadcast! If you don't know the album, apart from featuring many of my favourite musicians (e.g. Bill Laswell, bassist and producer, founding member of NY experimental band Material)³ it made extensive use of sampling, except samplers weren't available at the time and Eno used tape loops instead. He described one that was over 30 feet long so that it went around the entire studio and required several people to hold it and stop it from getting tangled or twisted!
³ Bill Laswell is one of my absolute favourite bassists. On one of the ‘Seven Souls’ spin-off recordings (with William Borroughs on the subject of Egyptian beliefs regarding the afterlife. I think the spin-off was ‘The Western Lands’. Unfortunately the album isn't available from my streaming service in the UK – it is available in Germany) he plays the same single note every four bars with a different note every sixteenth bar! Compare that to the virtuoso and hugely funky bass line of ‘Come Down’ from the album ‘One Down’ or the intricate harmonics and rhythm of ‘Silent Land’ from the album ‘Memory Serves’ (all Material albums) show what a versatile bassist he is and that he doesn't unnecessarily complicate his parts to show off his chops. The two tracks I mentioned are the only ones I'm aware of where he really shows what he's capable of.
Haven’t had a chance to reply to this. Mostly I just want to say thanks for the long comment. Really interesting stuff. I forgot about Roxy Music! Classic band. Brian Eno, of course, I guess became more well known than Roxy Music, at least among music heads because he was such a prolific producer as well as a band musician. Have a great holiday!
Good for you! It shows that you are genuine, honest, truthful, trustworthy and principled, all admirable qualities. Not being offended is NOT a human right, I really don't know when so many of us became so sensitive. I think it's actually downright dangerous to shut ourselves off from anyone we disagree with. It makes us ever more entrenched in our opinions; unable to argue, debate or defend our positions; less open-minded; less tolerant and more judgemental. We are encouraged to dismiss the people we disagree with as stupid, illiterate, uninformed, unreasonable or even to ‘other’ them. And when we view them as less than human, that's where polarization and violence take root. Having said that, I did finally unsubscribe from Xitter a month ago. If stopped engaging over a year ago and deleted the app about eight months ago. However, when I still did I tried to engage with people I disagreed with. Usually I just got abuse which I always took as evidence that I'd won the argument. I was always polite and civil but I only managed to have a reasonable discussion twice. We didn't change each others' minds but the exchanges were interesting and informative and we ended respecting each others' views.
Regarding your post that God is transsexual, I regret that I haven't read it (at least not yet) but it reminded me of one of my uncle's pearls of wisdom: “Saints are bisexual”. I can't remember if I've mentioned my uncle before? So at the risk of repeating myself, his name was Peter Schmidt (he was my father's older half-brother by my grandmother's previous marriage). He was an artist one of the wisest, gentlest, thoughtful and most intelligent people I've ever met. He's probably best known through his long friendship and collaboration with Brian Eno, e.g. ‘Oblique Strategies’, who was one of his students. He died tragically young aged 49. He'd moved to London long before we did in 1969. Until his death in 1979 we used to see him about twice a year: he'd visit us once and we him once. I actually spent a bit more time with him as I sat for him during his portrait phase. He changed styles frequently until the last five years of his life when he painted watercolours. One of the reasons he started watercolour was because they weren't taken seriously by the art world, seen as amateur (he hated snobbery and had a keen sense of humour) ¹. His watercolours were still lifes and landscapes, mostly of Scotland and Iceland. I think they're stunningly beautiful but you can see for yourself, if you're so inclined, on his website: http://www.peterschmidtweb.com/main.html. I was also a big Roxy Music fan in my teens and on one of his visits he noticed the stickers of them on my door. “Oh, do you like them? Would you like to meet him?” he asked me, pointing at Eno. Of course I said yes and he was true to his word, inviting me a few months later. Some thirteen years after that (the meeting with Eno was in the winter of ’73) I met Eno again at the opening of a retrospective of my uncle's at Watford College of Art, where he taught. I introduced myself by saying “You probably won't remember me but…” and was flattered to discover he did. I chatted with him at length, particularly about his and David Byrne's seminal album ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’ ². Anyway, I won't go on any more, suffice to say that I miss my uncle terribly. His death was one of the most shocking and still affects me to this day. Despite the infrequency of our meetings he was and is one of the most profoundly influential people in my life. In case you're interested (but please don't feel obliged) you can find out more about him from his Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Schmidt_%28artist%29?wprov=sfla1.
¹ One of the tasks he once set his students was to go and study a favourite painting of theirs, analysing its qualities. “Now produce a painting with none of those qualities” 😂.
² The guitarist in the band I was in at the time worked at the Capital Radio record library (Capital Radio was London's first commercial radio station. Previously my friend had worked at the BBC record library) and often gave me promotional copies of albums; they all had “Promotional copy only. Not for resale” stamped in gold lettering on them. That's how I got one of the original copies of ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’. The album's use of sampling before sampling became a thing is one of the reasons I called it seminal. It was years ahead of its time. All of the tracks used ‘samples’ from various sources for their vocals. It was released in February 1981 after going to extensive efforts to sort out permissions for the use of the various vocal recordings. Soon after its release the Islamic Council of Great Britain objected to the use of Qur'anic recital on the track ‘Qur'an’, describing it as blasphemous. In deference Eno and Byrne withdrew the track, replacing it with ‘Very, Very Hungry’, although David Byrne is quoted as saying that they were probably being overly cautious. The second track to be withdrawn was ‘The Jezebel Spirit’ which originally featured the voice of evangelist Kathryn Kuhlman performing an exorcism. Her estate objected to the use of her voice in that context, so they replaced the vocal on that track. Another track, ‘Come With Us’ used a recording of an ‘unidentified radio evangelist; San Francisco April 1980’, according to the sleeve notes. Eno told me that this radio evangelist had one of the most evil sounding voices he'd ever heard. He later discovered that he'd actually died quite some time ago, but that he'd left 25 years' worth of recordings for his broadcast! If you don't know the album, apart from featuring many of my favourite musicians (e.g. Bill Laswell, bassist and producer, founding member of NY experimental band Material)³ it made extensive use of sampling, except samplers weren't available at the time and Eno used tape loops instead. He described one that was over 30 feet long so that it went around the entire studio and required several people to hold it and stop it from getting tangled or twisted!
³ Bill Laswell is one of my absolute favourite bassists. On one of the ‘Seven Souls’ spin-off recordings (with William Borroughs on the subject of Egyptian beliefs regarding the afterlife. I think the spin-off was ‘The Western Lands’. Unfortunately the album isn't available from my streaming service in the UK – it is available in Germany) he plays the same single note every four bars with a different note every sixteenth bar! Compare that to the virtuoso and hugely funky bass line of ‘Come Down’ from the album ‘One Down’ or the intricate harmonics and rhythm of ‘Silent Land’ from the album ‘Memory Serves’ (all Material albums) show what a versatile bassist he is and that he doesn't unnecessarily complicate his parts to show off his chops. The two tracks I mentioned are the only ones I'm aware of where he really shows what he's capable of.
Haven’t had a chance to reply to this. Mostly I just want to say thanks for the long comment. Really interesting stuff. I forgot about Roxy Music! Classic band. Brian Eno, of course, I guess became more well known than Roxy Music, at least among music heads because he was such a prolific producer as well as a band musician. Have a great holiday!