Conversations with Henry

Henry: I was part of the baby boom you know.

Me: Come on, weren't you too old? [Henry was born in 1915]

Henry: No I mean I helped do it.

Me: Do it?

Henry: What, aren't I "with it" enough?

Me: What are you getting at, Henry?

Henry: All those babies born after the war? That was lust, not love.

Thoughts on Love & Marriage

Shakespeare taught us:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments,

...but said nothing about the marriage of two bodies.


John Donne taught away from corporeal love as being true love:

Dull sublunary lovers' love
    —Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove
    The thing which elemented it.

Then there was the Bard of Hoboken:

Into The Blue Sparkle

This band calls themselves Slacktone and piqued my interest in instrumental surf back in 2000:

Fundamental Inequalities

Equality is a cornerstone of the law, but it's not at all a feature of natural law.

Consider Heisenberg's famous Uncertainty Principle (but not in any deeper sense than the nature of the symbols):

 

On the left, Δχ and Δρ (position and momentum) are physical variables; on the right is a fixed value—i.e., half of ħ, the imponderable Planck constant.

Equations are like sentences with the equal sign being like the verb "to be;" they represent either equality or the more subtle notion of equivalency. Inequalities are also familiar from algebra but an inequality also expresses—more or less—an important direction of inequality. In this case, the observables are greater than or equal to the constants.

Bell's Theorem has been called "the most profound [theorem] in science" and it too reduces to an inequality. There's another: the Clausius Inequality, which embodies the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and which expresses changes in entropy against a value of zero. Comparing all three—without even understanding them—it strikes me that they all specifically pit observables against abstract constants. Is this general?

Samba Per Voi

Deborah linked an older Santana instrumental song called Samba pa' ti (Samba for you):

This was originally from their second vinyl LP called Abraxas (1970), but Carlos Santana carried it forward through the years, reincarnating the song, as the word Abraxas might have hinted at the time.

Sole Sacrifice

Carlos Santana practically invented "Latin Rock" in the 1960's. He had started out as a blues and jazz influenced musician, but in San Francisco he met Latino and African drummers who beat different rhythms. Hanging around the developing hippie scene in San Francisco, he and his band noticed that girls would spontaneously dance in new and interesting ways to the exotic sounding rhythms--usually with much more hip gyration. He and the band liked this from a stage's eye view, and so the fusion stuck.

The band Santana made its national stage debut at Woodstock in 1969. Three successful albums later, the band had begun to fray, with Carlos wanting to move more towards jazz. Caravanserai (1972) was the last Santana album that I liked. Half the band left him afterwards and later formed the core of the band Journey.

A favorite track from Caravanserai, called Waves Within:

My Funny Valentine

What I Like About You

Pretty unusual for a drummer to sing lead:

Drinkin' Again

Bleak House

A bleak song for a bleak season which will end. 

The Dead Of Winter

Who Invented That?

A sample question from the US Patent Bar Exam:

Roger Rocket is a designer of paper cups at Paper America. During his free time, he likes to attend baseball games at Yankee Stadium. One day, while seated in the stands, he caught a fly ball. He took the baseball home and played catch with his friends Andy Cannon, Orlando Torpedo, and Mariano Missile. Unfortunately for Rocket, Cannon has a problem with accuracy. Cannon threw the ball over Rocket’s head and straight through a neighbor’s front window. The shattered glass ripped the lining off of the baseball. Instantly, Rocket conceived a more durable baseball with an exterior similar to that of a golf ball. Rocket worked for months on his invention in Missile’s garage. His new baseball was comprised of a titanium core, and a plastic shell having circular dimples and V‐shaped laces. Torpedo realized and told Rocket that Y‐shaped laces would enable baseball players to throw the ball faster. Cannon, an engineer in a radar gun laboratory, tested the velocity of the baseball with both V and Y‐shaped laces. To Cannon’s surprise, the baseball traveled 10 M.P.H. faster with the Y‐shaped laces. Rocket wanted patent protection for a baseball having a titanium core, and a plastic shell having circular dimples and Y‐shaped laces, so he approached Yogi Practitioner for assistance. Rocket has no obligation, contractual or otherwise, to assign his inventions to Paper America. 

In accordance with proper Patent Office practice and procedure, who should execute the oath [i.e., who are the inventors]?

(A) Rocket
(B) Rocket and Torpedo
(C) Rocket and Cannon
(D) Rocket, Torpedo, and Cannon
(E) Rocket, Torpedo, Cannon, and Missile

He Let Go Of His Ego...

...and Id emerged:

I know so many people who think they can do it alone

They isolate their heads and stay in their safety zone 

What can you tell them?

What can you say that won't make them defensive? 

Hang on to your ego!

Hang on to your ego!

Hang on to your ego! 

Hang on, but I know that you're gonna lose the fight 

They come on like they're peaceful

But inside they're so uptight

They trip through the day

And waste all their thoughts at night

Now how can I say it?

And how can I come on

When I know I'm guilty? 

Yeah, hang on to your ego!

Hang on to your ego!

Hang on to your ego! 

Hang on, but I know that you're gonna lose the fight 

a doobie doobay-doo

[cool banjo interlude]

Now how can I say it?

And how can I come on

When I know I'm guilty? 

So, hang on to your ego!

Hang on to your ego!

Hang on to your ego! 

Hang on, but I know that you're gonna lose the fight

a doobie doobay...do

[Marylin Wilson to BW's dog]: Banana!

[Brian Wilson]: Hey Chuck is it possible we could bring a horse in here without...if we don't screw anything up?

[Chuck Britz]: I beg your pardon?

[Brian Wilson]: Honest to God, now, the horse is tamed and everything.

Kiss Me

The original version seems to be harder to find; you won't find it on Google in English, but rather just traces and an ominous "removed for copyright violation"

Enjoy it with Spanish subtitles while it lasts:

American Girl

The guitar sound is very Byrds

Conversations with Henry

Henry:  Did you see that business in the news about negative absolute temperatures?

Me:  You mean this?

Henry:  Yeah, that.  Good thing you know how to manipulate the Internet. I never got the hang of it. You know what that news reminded me of?

Me: No, what Henry?

Henry:  The inverted Marcus region.

Me: Remind me what the inverted Marcus region is.

[Henry moves to the white board, grumbling that people no longer use chalk & blackboards. He sketched three related figures, and then explained them in words]:

Henry: Rudy Marcus laid out three different scenarios for the reaction coordinate of a simple "downhill" reaction using intersecting parabolas to represent reactant and product. Parabolas have a long history in physics (think of pendulums, and they "track" the potential energy in molecules). In the first, notice that the "initial state" reactant parabola is slightly higher in energy than the "final state" product parabola; where they cross represents a moderately uphill barrier given by the distance, ΔG^‡.

In the second (middle) scheme, the initial state (left) parabola is higher in energy while the final state parabola stays the same—follow?  He got there by translating the left hand reactant parabola straight upwards and their intersection slides "down." The barrier to the more downhill reaction is now zero. See that?

Me: Yes!

Henry:  Here is where Marcus was an absolute genius:  if you keep on going as in the third scheme, the initial state parabola gets higher still—this is now a very downhill reaction—but notice that the barrier, ΔG^‡, goes back up because the intersect climbs up the other side!  This is the so-called "Marcus Inverted Region" and is utterly counter intuitive that a more downhill state should require more energy to reach. Boy, he really shook things up with that one!

Me: Fine, but how does that translate to the real world?

Henry: What?  Didn't you read my other stuff?

Me: Here's what I think...I've been saying all along that uphill effort requires more energy than downhill effort, for example here.  But suppose that we have something really severe like the Fiscal Cliff.  Suppose that the fall is so downhill that we will actually face a higher hurdle to get down there than if it weren't so precipitous.

Henry: Hair-brained economics!

Foo Fighters: White Limo

Cross-posted in a comment at EBL

The Day The Muse Just Died*

Bobby Fuller idolized fellow Texan Buddy Holly and The Crickets and it really shows in his covers of "Love's Made A Fool Of You" and "I Fought The Law And The Law Won."

Fuller died at age 23 under mysterious circumstances. Here is a YouTube video dramatizing some of the unresolved details. link

Lesser known was Fuller's involvement in surf music in the early 1960's. Here are three songs he wrote and recorded, all of which appear to contain the same guitar riff which culminated in its purest form in "Our Favorite Martian" recorded and released in 1964.

First there is "The Chase" which I have not been able to date, but I put it first because I suspect it came first:

"Stringer" was recorded in 1963; listen at the 57 second mark for the same basic riff:

Finally, the whole riff was purified and distilled into my favorite, er, "Our Favorite Martian" from 1964:

Bobby Fuller's death was so ignominious, and so unseemly (no matter the motives) that the public barely remembers him; and if they do look they see him as a link backwards to Buddy Holly; I think he deserved a bit more respect than that.
_____________________________

Here Comes A Regular

Well a person can work up a mean mean thirst

after a hard day of nothin' much at all

Summer's passed, it's too late to cut the grass

There ain't much here to rake now in the fall

Sometimes I just ain't in the mood

to take my place in back with the loudmouths

You're like a picture on the fridge that's never stocked with food

You used to live at home, now you stay at the house

And everybody wants to be special here

They call your name out never fear

Here comes a regular

Call out your name

Here comes a regular

Am I the only one here today?

Well a drinkin' buddy bound to another town

Once the police made you go away

And even if you're in the arms of someone's baby now

I'll drink a great big whiskey to ya anyway

And everybody wants to be someone's here

Someone's gonna show up, never fear

Here comes a regular

Call out your name

Here comes a regular

Am I the only one that feels ashamed?

[Kneeling alongside old Sad Eyes

He says opportunity knocks once then the door slams shut

All I know is I'm sick of everything that my money can buy

The fool who wastes his life, God rest his guts]*

First the lights, then the collar goes up, and the wind begins to blow

You turn your back on a pay-'em-back last call

First the grass, then the leaves, then the snow

Ain't much rakin' anyway in the fall
Here comes a ... 

_________________
*Lines omitted, but are in the original version on Tim

Blog post dedicated to Paul Westerberg, who inadvertently brought me and my wife together 25 years ago at a Replacements show.

Who Knows?

Happy New Year, first of all!

Anniversaries mark the same place in the annular solar cycle. It's very ouroboros. Marking a new year is no less artificial and arbitrary than noting what makes a month a month or that "digital" is based on ten fingers. What's arbitrary is that that we chose January 1st instead of say March 1st.

 

43 years ago today, Jimi Hendrix played a series of shows at NYC's Fillmore East Theater in a power trio called the "Band of Gypsys." They hadn't performed together in public and this was sort of their unveiling. Note how Bill Graham introduced them: "...some old friends with a brand new name...a Band of Gypsys."

The Band of Gypsys more or less was just this set of shows—publicly at least. They were to play together just once more—later that month at the Garden where Jimi famously "lost it."  After that, he broke with Buddy Miles and reassembled the Experience but kept his old friend Billy Cox on bass.  They recorded a spring and summer of intense performances, but by September it was over—forever.

The call and response between Jimi and Buddy Miles in "Who Knows" is strikingly spiritual—imagine him doing that with Mitch Mitchell—not.  Though it was already an established technique in American Blues with even deeper roots, it appeared anew and struck the same chord.

One more thing strikes me in that video: the way Hendrix flashes a brief smile through what must have been a painful time (1 min 9 sec). It's as if he realized the sheer joy of performing or perhaps he caught sight of an admirer.  Elvis flashed a smile like that a few months before he too passed away: link
___________________
Here is 30 minutes of the same show: link The version of "Machine Gun" in that show is the definitive one.