Two videos I thought were something

Stupidly I thought all the strings were sampled when I first listened to this band on the KEXP in studio performance. Probably just some guy with a bunch of pedals and loops or something. And the vocals seemed that sort of alterna-cute that I've been growing to loath the last few years. Listened to the whole show, however, and decided that they were inarguably good. Jotted the name of the band down on a scrap of paper so I could get a look on YouTube and this is what I found. Now, I admit that violin girl had me pretty much transfixed the first time I watched the video, but the music grows on me more and more. I even see the goodness of the vocals. It all works together and isn't just another copy of god knows how many alterna-bands.




I particularly like this video. The way that they have used the old, grainy, washed out VCR footage, and cut it to make it follow the feeling of the songs seems really excellent to me. The girl throws off such a vibe - but she just doesn't move at all - ties one in knots. All really great work in the video. I wasn't sure whether I liked the song the first time I heard it, but it gets better and better as well.

Being Correct

I was dispatched to mow my brother's back lawn... It was waste high weeds, filled with pits the two dogs had dug in their incredible exuberance - in short a couple of days work to subdue. This was not a problem at all for me, as I had utterly nothing to do at the time, and needed the distraction. Utter unemployment is a kind of grinding tedium even if you imagine you have deep thoughts to think, and brilliant artistic endeavors to make mediocre attempts of. My brother has picked up and moved his family to Germany, apparently on a whim of his own. I could guess some change was needed, but I never really got the chance to ask him just what brought all this about. South Prairie Washington might be a bit of a narrow rut, and if one were ever to escape, the time would have to be now. So, off they went and it was time for us to rent the house, but the condition of the back yard was not going to be any help at all.

On the second day as I was finishing up, I found a small SUV parked out front. An older, heavyset woman got out and asked me if I could possibly show her the house. She said that she had made an appointment to see the house, but the real estate agent was twenty minutes late. I muttered something about just being a family member here to help out with the lawn, and I really shouldn't be interfering with the business side - that should be the real estate agent. Maybe she could try calling the agent again? I went on loading up the lawnmower, and finished all the last few things about.

The woman was obviously having no luck with the real estate agent. It is my nature to avoid people if I can possibly discover some pretext that would enable me to evade them - a fault I struggle with endlessly, with little evidence of progress. If I see someone who I know vaguely, the first thought-feeling thing that appears in my chest is - "Maybe I can avoid them... They might not see me if I crossed the street..." Things have been like this for as long as there has been a "me" so far as I can recall, and efforts of mine have not had any too much of an effect. So I stopped for a second, being determined to overcome my flaws, and generally filled with a determination to be a correct and generally civil person... I should at least be able to manage that much I tell myself. I took out a penny and flipped it six times in a sort of abbreviated, brain damaged version of casting the I Ching. This is something I do when I really would rather avoid something, but have the suspicion that I really should just gird my nether parts and deal with it. It doubtless makes me appear passing strange, but I simply would never come to a decision at all without some stratagem. This time I received the Hexagram Po / Splitting Apart. "Splitting Appart means ruin," and "It does not further one to undertake anything." Now, if I had not been so determined to Be Correct, I would have stopped right there, just avoided the woman, and gone on my way, even though I had the distinct impression that I was being rude and generally unhelpful. Instead, I walked over and opened up the garage and told the woman that I would show her the house.

The woman was quite talkative, she was raising horses not far from here... she would be living here with only her female friend... she would do some landscaping in the back yard and take care of everything... it was so peaceful and perfect out here. I told her that she would need to get in touch with the real estate agent and work out the details, and wished her luck with that, as it seemed the agent wasn't someone you could actually count on to show.

A couple of months later there are complaints from the neighbors that the people have five dogs shut up in the house while they are away, everything stinks and is covered with dog doo - a regular landlord's nightmare. Orders have been received from across the waters to evict them, but given the energetic nature of the agent, I wouldn't be hopeful. They had previously received some instruction to reduce the number of dogs which they were evidently fighting with some sort of legal action... And all of this has been brought about by my determination to Be Correct. My ongoing attempt to deal with the human race a bit more effectively. And I was warned this particular case was a bad idea for good measure.

I wonder at times if it were not perhaps better to avoid the human race altogether. I seem to be well constructed to do so, and the rewards of the attempt are generally nothing that one might hope for. Generally a hazard, or even more likely, a pebble falling into a pond without raising so much as a ripple. This attempt to improve and at least Be Correct seems to be a menace. It leaves me pushing up a steep hill with difficulty, and does nothing for judgement and foresight. I scarcely speak, but I am often glad that I at least had the sense not to say that, though I saw nothing wrong with saying that but a short moment before. At times I attempt to push myself in front of people and demand attention. The results range from confusing to edifying. Often, it seems that I am totally invisible, though I am standing in front of people yelling and waving my arms about. Then again, at times there is some sudden hostility for things which seem utterly harmless, at least as far as I can see. People are apparently quite favorable, as long as I do and say nothing... a thing highly recommended by the Tao Te Ching, but not seemingly a way to any success in our present world. In this world where each person must run their own marketing department, and battle to promote their own personal brand such an idea would seem quaint, if not actually fatal.

Astrology

A friend of mine once long ago gave me the nickname of "Mood" because of my impossible mood swings from friendly to hostile over some tiny nothing of a turn of phrase, something said I didn't agree with, whatever. The memory of this nickname returns to me regularly and I make a show of living it down... with a notable lack of success. I go forth with the idea that I will attempt to leave my isolate existence and associate with the human race, but one never quite knows what the heart will have in store for one when one arrives. (I call the heart the "chest" in this guise, a place of poisonous and circular turmoil, as opposed to the "heart" which would always have some idea of reaching toward the good, if doubtful on the means at times). I blame astrology for these moods. (Actually, I do nothing of the sort. They seem mine entire, to the point of laming all progress. It would be better if I did, I might be able to walk with somewhat more ease in that case). Some couple of days ago I had one of these attacks. I went out to Starbucks feeling perfectly sane on the way there, sat down, and found myself surrounded by a toxic, squishy, sticky region. People all round about were throwing off tiny, most microscopic gestures intended to get me to pay attention to them. I would simply not yield to any such underhandedness. A clear boundary would be marked, they would stay on their side, I would stay on mine, and, maybe, after a due interval had passed, and they had done sufficient penance, I would suffer them to exist. I had not an attack of this sort of mood for at least a few weeks. It was a complete surprise, and enough to remind me of my nickname.

Now, when I got home I had a look at my transiting planets, and found something, (there being so many indications and so many things that might mean this or that in Astrology one almost always will find something). That day we had Mercury conjunct natal Neptune and Saturn square natal Saturn - good enough for a heap of unpleasantness by some lights. Nothing unusual about finding some indications. When I feel my chest is burning and I simply must do something, whether a good or bad idea makes no difference, I have a look and find that Mars is square to something or other, like as not. I have no idea what to make of this. Do I have some unconscious calculation going to set my mood appropriately? I don't check these things all that often, but the indications are only of my inner moods, never of events, and so infinitely maleable.

I began to investigate Astrology some years ago. I had determined that I was utterly at a dead end and wanted some insight that would give me some guidance to whatever blind spot was holding me back. Some years earlier I had made a passing acquaintance with Astrology, and been amazed to find that the planets in the signs seemed almost like a map of my personality. I found this quite amazing at the time. I was much of the opinion that, if one found something that seemed to work, or gave insight, the correct approach was to lay out its internal logic and consequences, and not attempt to argue until you understood its inner workings. And so, at a time when I had more time than sense and no direction to steer at all, I began a fairly thorough study. I found more impediments and obstructions in my personality, many more than in my first brush with Astrology, but I only seemed to see things which I had discovered by painful trial on my own. I had ground along some painful track - and look, there it was in the chart as well. Was there insight in this, or was it only interpreted in - I still really cannot say.

The End is Nigh

Capitalism requires growth. It simply cannot exist in a steady state, and thereby it approaches its end. This arises from two causes: the first being the necessities of paying interest, and the second the inherent severity of zero sum games. Companies must return profits to their investors which are comparable to what would be earned from savings. This would be compound interest, which is an exponential. So a company's profits must be on an exponential curve, or investors will flee it for some more profitable investment. These sales will most often involve at least some increase in materials, so the consumption of environmental goods will be pushed towards an exponential curve. Any exponential curve which involves consuming matter rather than mathematics, does not go on very long, and the result of its end is rather drastic. Now, it might be argued that greater efficiencies will enable us to produce more with less, and so avoid any sort of inconvenience and unpleasantness. Indeed cars get better mileage, strand board replaces plywood for homes, (of course the trees really have all been cut down, making plywood too expensive for homes). The market finds some more efficient substitute. Yet the consumption of material is on some sort of increasing curve regardless, and the Earth is finite and fixed. At some point in the not too distant future, these curves will inevitably intersect.

The second requirement of growth for the survival of Capitalism is due to the severity of zero sum games. Growth softens this severity, it actually makes The Future. You do not need to grab whatever you can right now, you can put it off till The Future, when there will be more than enough for everyone. The Future will always have more of everything so nothing is lost by saving, or spending time on a futile job - The Future will inevitably produce much more of everything, so everyone can eventually be happy, even if they aren't right now. Without Growth The Future becomes a wil'o the wisp, a complete fantasm. Without Growth, if anyone is to have more, the food will have to be taken from someone else's mouth. Any gain is someone else's loss. (In fact, I wonder if some of the poison of present American politics is not due to stagnant incomes of the middle class gradually filtering into people's emotional response, bypassing reason. They are now fighting for the scraps and are in the emotional state one might expect). Without The Future the emotional underpinnings which make Capitalism possible disintegrate.

We might perhaps even save ourselves by using all the knowledge we have acquired by tracking every single purchase that every single person has made for their entire lives. We could perhaps use this incredible amount of information to see what will actually produced happiness, but instead we will use it for Marketing, and so hasten our own downfall.

Reading Entrails

Really now, we would be better off slaughtering a goat and reading the entrails than listening to these people. Such was my thought a couple of days ago while listening to NPR interview a list of economists. I have had this thought repeatedly since the financial crisis and occasionally before. I found it even more pointed when it occured to me that since a year or so ago economists have been saying that 2007 was the beginning of the recession. This was a boom year for those living through it, and you heard not one word to the contrary from any economists speaking at the time. It's hard to fathom how the recession could have begun so long before the crash without some of their august group noticing, particularly if the field is credited with being any sort of science. Really, we should return to reading entrails for economic prognostication - it would be more accurate.

We live in a time when every economic activity we undertake is tracked and stored in a database. This has been going on at least since the mid 90's, yet I don't think anyone has taken this data and checked the fudamental assumptions of economics. We walk into a store and make endless economic decisions. One can actually see how price is related to demand, or how increases in price cause people to substitute one item for another. Every single granular economic decision that people make has now been documented for a period of several decades, yet we cannot determine we are in a recession till several years later, or that several times the entire world's GDP is pooling in a bunch of obscure derivatives. How can this be? Since this is supposedly a science, it must be brought back into conformity with the data that is now readily available.