more whist

Whist has long been known for its influence upon what is termed the calculating power; and men of the highest order of intellect have been known to take an apparently unaccountable delight in it, while eschewing chess as frivolous. Beyond doubt there is nothing of a similar nature so greatly tasking the faculty of analysis. The best chess-player in Christendom may be little more than the best player of chess; but proficiency in whist implies capacity for success in all these more important undertakings where mind struggles with mind. When I say proficiency, I mean that perfection in the game which includes a comprehension of all the sources whence legitimate advantage may be derived. These are not only manifold, but multiform, and lie frequently among recesses of thought altogether inaccessible to the ordinary understanding. . . . it is in matters beyond the limits of mere rule that the skill of the analyst is evinced.

~ Edgar Allen Poe

worst case scenario

Romney v. Clinton: if these are the nominees of the Janus-faced party in November, an interesting question presents itself: will more votes be cast for positive or negative reasons?

To be more specific, suppose we exclude from consideration all though who both endorse one candidate unreservedly and despise the other unreservedly. Of the remaining voters, will those who vote because of their positive feelings toward a particular candidate outweigh those who vote solely out of negative considerations (the lesser of two evils, as it were)? If not, would this reflect poorly on our electoral process and the 2-party system? Or, perhaps, on the increasing role of media coverage in the electoral process?

surreal cinema I

Surrealism - loosely understood as the use of (perhaps physically impossible) emotionally charged imagery structured via "dream logic" or free association (often manifest as apparent non sequitur) - has been a part of cinema from its earliest days. Many of the earliest manifestations, however, (perhaps most notably Un Chien andalou) are shorts and, as such, more amenable to inducing the patience for a lack of narrative structure characteristic of the consumption of paintings or music.

Beginning in the 1960s, however, feature-length surreal films began to appear with more frequency, demanding a genre unto themselves. (Admittedly, L'Age d'Or, 1930, at 60 min., is already long-form, but unlike in, say, painting, the golden age for surreal cinema only arrived in the 1960s.) This phenomenon invites, however, an analysis of what exactly it is that is appealing about 90 - 140 minutes of dream logic, how, in other words, one is to watch / appreciate / understand these films.

We will examine the problem in more detail by looking at a variety of case studies:

1. The Phantom of Liberty (coming soon)
2. tba
3. tba

Briefly, for now, the thesis is, roughly, something like this: Narrative cinema presents us with a sequence of events which, when knit together via the structure of the film, take the viewer through an emotional arc (the shape of which may be quite different from film to film, certainly from genre to genre: the emotional arc of action films is usually quite different from that of romantic comedies). Similarly, long-form surrealist films take the viewer through an emotional arc. This arc is to imposed upon the viewer, not through a literal structure of physically-plausible events, however, but rather through a sequence of images, which, in virtue of being emotionally charged, nevertheless create an emotional arc, albeit one at a very abstract level.

Hopefully, this loose claim will be made more rigorous and convincing as we examine some examples.

swing down (sweet) chariot stop . . .

. . . and let me ride.

Comparative Poetics (c.f. the essential treatise by Calvert Watkins, How to Kill a Dragon, 1995) teaches us that as phrases in a poetic tradition evolve, they can change syntactically / phonetically while semantics remain intact or change semantically while syntactic / phonetic structure remains intact. The increased speed of communication and frequency of exposure to poetic artifacts in the age of mass communication has both sped up the evolutionary change of such phrases and provided us with resources of heretofor unknown richness for studying such change. Furthermore, due to the advent of audio recording, we finally possess resources for examining such change in melodies and musical rhythms.

Consider, for example, the phrases / melodies "Swing low, sweet chariot" and "Swing down chariot stop." Both "originate" in early 20th century gospel (by no means the start of their history! ~ though the imagery is (at least) traceable to the stories of Elijah and Ezekial (following Thomas Mann's strategy, we may even wish to posit a connection of sorts between these themselves)).

We can trace "swing down (sweet) chariot stop," for example, from gospel, through funk, to rap:


Herman Stevens Singers, Swing Down Chariot


Parliament / Funkadelic, Swing Down


Dr. Dre, Let Me Ride

Arguably, while the syntactic / phonetic structure of the phrase has remained largely the same (only the adjective "sweet" has been added, possibly due to assonance with "swing low sweet chariot"), the melody altered only slightly (though the rhythm and tempo being changed considerably), the semantics of the phrase has changed. At least, there is a strong implication in the Parliament performance that the "chariot" is literally a spaceship / cosmic chariot, metaphorically signifying (most likely) the vehicle of some kind of artistic / political / sexual liberation. Even if we take the chariot in biblical tales to be metaphorical for a route of communication with the divine, both the literal and metaphorical roles of the word "chariot" have changed. By the time Dr. Dre gets a hold of it, the phrase seems to literally reference joy riding in Cadillacs, while metaphorically hold little weight.

Furthermore, even if surface structure has remained, one wonders whether the underlying syntactic structure has changed - "Swing down chariot, stop, and let me ride" vs. "Swing (on) down (by the) chariot stop, and let me ride" - changing not just the references of the terms, but even their semantic relationships.

Contrast this with a phonetic change with (arguably) no (or little) semantic change (at least on the metaphorical level):


Dizzy Gilespie, Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac

An abbreviated live version

Here, although the word "chariot" has been replaced with "cadillac," the remaining lyrics are a commentary on communication with the divine in much the same spirit of the original gospel version (though admittedly differing in perspective). Thus, the metaphorical meaning has remained unchanged which the surface expression has changed.

Even if this is an accurate analysis of the phenomenon, however, it seems clear that the subtlety of meaning involved in each case prevents any simplistic arguments that the semantics has changed or not. Even in the Dr. Dre version, there remains a lingering sense of spiritual transition in the chorus; even if highly metaphorical, this slight "color" is somehow inherited from the phrase's original sense, and lingers like a stain on any reimagining of the same.

understanding the mind VIII

John R. Peirce, An Introduction to Information Theory, 2nd ed., 1980

A non-deterministic finite state machine which generates sentences of English. (Directions: begin at box 1, word in that box is produced; flip a fair coin, if heads, follow upper path, if tails, follow lower path to next box. Repeat.) Is this how the human brain generates language? Despite Chomsky's famous arguments to the contrary, we should remember that so long as there is an upper bound on the depth of embedding, any natural language may be characterized by a sufficiently elaborate finite state device. If the probabilities on paths to and from each state can themselves be affected by perceptual input, we could envision a situation for which language, considered as an abstract object, was indeed finite state, but language production in situ was context sensitive.

the proletariat, RIP

On Feb. 4, Houston's hippest bar will close it's doors for good, a casualty of the new Richmond light rail project. Current plans for which involve establishing a light rail station on the site where The Proletariat now stands."Hipness" here being measured not by the affluence or social cache of the clientele, but rather by a relentless and unswerving dedication to promoting those nooks and crannies of the cultural milieu unique to Houston. Owner Denise Ramos has long been a patron of the Houston art scene, and has graced its stage herself with her paintings, several of which now hang in her bar.But more than any other of the arts, The Proletariat has always been a home to music, hosting not just numerous concerts by local bands, experienced and unexperienced alike, but also a number of one time musical events, encouraging communication and cross-pollination within the scene. These ranged from a night of 60 one minute improvisations by local improv musicians in benefit of the Pauline Oliveros Foundation, now the Deep Listening Institute, to the infamous "Star Project." This latter was a one time musical event. Participants, including both members of local bands and their supporters / fans, drew names out of a hat, creating 5 new bands. Each band had but a single month to write and rehearse a set's worth of songs, to be performed at the Star Project show at The Proletariat. The creativity and electricity that emerged from some of these random pairings was both stimulating and inspirational.Denise details her struggle with Houston Metro and the reasoning behind her eventual capitulation here. In its final days, The Proletariat is doing what it does best: hosting as many local shows as possible. Those of us with a long history with the prole will not only mourn its passing, but remember it and its owner, and the opportunities they have offered us for so long, with reverence and respect. God willing, may it rise like a phoenix from the ashes, and bless the Houston scene again one day.

what once there was . . .

. . . . you can never go back.