See the possibilities

Rut = Row

Harmony out of Memory Land

Woke up to the refrain of Ted Lewis singing his hit from the 1920s, "Walking Around In A Dream", and though I can't yet find a legally-shareable clip of the song itself, I ran across a 1929 clip of Lewis and his band which you may view below.

Yes, that's Noah Beery as the Big Pirate in the scene. It was part of Warner Brothers 1929 revue "The Show of Shows" reportedly largely lost, except for clips like this. I'll have to see what else I can find of it on the YouTube.

The Invention of "What"

My reasons for posting the following are not yet fully-formed in my mind. Take it then at your own leisure, at your own pace.

From Steven Johnson's "The Invention of Air":

"...in Priestley's age at least, leisure time was where ideas happened. You can't dabble in scientific experiments when you've got to use all your cognitive resources just to put food on the table, or when you don't even have a table to put the food on. Priestley was a professional minister and educator, in that he was paid directly for those labors, but in some fundamental sense he was an amateur scientist, particularly through the first two decades of his life. Like most of his Enlightenment-era peers, he was a hobbyist where science was concerned."

Priestley reached the top of Maslow's pyramid. His journey unburdened by worries about his next meal or the roof over his head; someone is paying him to think and to pass on knowledge. The latter action made Priestley something to talk about, as well. Though he was mistaken in some of his beliefs, he expended energy in putting his true and false thoughts to paper and mailing them to friends and associates around the world, including Benjamin Franklin. Franklin's thoughts on sharing information could be best said in his own words (quoted by Johnson in "Invention").

"These Thoughts, my dear Friend, are many of them crude and hasty, and if I were merely ambitious of acquiring some Reputation in Philosophy, I ought to keep them by me, 'till corrected and improved by Time and farther Experience. But since even short Hints, and imperfect Experiments in any new Branch of Science, being communicated, have oftentimes a good Effect, in exciting the attention of the Ingenious to the Subject, and so becoming the Occassion of more exact disquisitions (as I before observed) and more compleat Discoveries, you are at Liberty to communicate this Paper to whom you please; it being of more Importance that Knowledge should increase, than that your Friend should be thought an accurate Philosopher."

This sounds much like what we see going around the Internet -- on blogs, and comments, and discussion groups -- the sharing of thoughts and ideas in various stages of completeness and validity. Much like this post here. My own leisure time for the day is at an end and I must now click 'publish post' but will return tomorrow with more stuff.

Good Samaratinism

The adventurer Doc Savage and his men, after keeping the pirate Tom Too from taking over the Luzon Union, leave behind a legacy for the country, The Savage Memorial Hospital. "The institution was to operate always under one inflexible rule -- payment from no one but those who could afford it."

Thus ended another rousing adventure in Doc Savage magazine, "Pirate of the Pacific" by Lester Dent, cover-dated July 1933, only a few months after what many consider the absolute nadir of the Great Depression. Roosevelt had been President for only a few months, as well. I've been trying to find if their philanthropy carries some special classification in economic terms. It's not charity because it's not giving services away to everyone, just helping those who need it. “Good Samaratinism”, perhaps?

This year and its economic problems brought out similar good Samaratinism in people from different fields...

In restaurants, we've got: The S.A.M.E. Cafe in Denver, a restaurant with a priceless menu -- priceless in that there are no prices on the menu's items. They ask that patrons pay what they can afford for the meal, stating that everyone deserves the same service, the same quality of food, no matter their economic circumstances. "S.A.M.E." stands for "So All May Eat" and those with no money at all get the chance to work for the meal -- serving, cleaning, etc. The food itself comes from the high-end of the culinary world (spinach souffle instead of cold beans). It's not a soup kitchen, with dignity for the food as well as the customers. NBC ran a spot on it, which you can view here.

In the field of Medicine, we have news of doctors offering their regular patients one free preventive visit per year.

And this doctor who gives free treatment through 2009 for his patients who have lost their jobs.

If the economy continues to be depressing it's great comfort to realize the examples above are just the ones we've heard of, and that the reporting of their examples has undoubtedly led to the raising of other helping hands. It may not solve all the problems we've got, but it adds a little weight to the side that says that the problems are worth solving, that the human race is worth saving.

NOTE: The image above comes from the cover of a Doc Savage magazine reprint which you can purchase here.

Following the Heard - 2009 so far

We're rapidly approaching the half-way mark of another year, and musically the tone feels kind of 1969, kind of 1979. Will 1989 and 1999 also make an appearance before we're through? Time of course may tell, but may not fully reveal itself until we're further down the road. Just glad we've got another Marianne Faithfull disc. Dylan's on sale again too, and sounds like he's continuing the fine form of his other 21st century discs, and will undoubtedly appear here in another few months.

Here's the rundown:

1) What's In the Middle - The Bird And The Bee
2) Lucid Dreams - Franz Ferdinand
3) Keep The Streets Empty For Me - Fever Ray
4) The Brave and The Snake - P.O.S.
5) Bang Bang - K'naan
6) Cost of Living - Living Things
7) Straight to Hell - Lily Allen (featuring Mick Jones)
8) Heads Will Roll - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
9) Heartbroken, in Disrepair - Dan Auerbach
10) Hold On Hold On - Marianne Faithfull
11) Bozos - Amadou & Mariam
12) Middle Cyclone - Neko Case
13) Nothing Seems The Same - Heartless Bastards
14) Gasoline and Matches - Buddy & Julie Miller
15) Right Side Of My Brain - The-Dream
16) Happy House - The Juan MacLean
17) The Loneliness of Magnets - The Handsome Family

If you'd rather hear the songs, than just read about them, check out a version of this mix on my 8tracks.com site here...

Further on up he rode

It did not take me a month to get this much further into Forest Park (far further than I have ever rode before) but it took me that long to finally blog about it. Stephen Berlin Johnson's new book, "The Invention of Air" is correct about the importance of Leisure Time and I hope to have enough of it soon to continue recording these adventures.