Oh Well

A friend of mind posted on his blog saying that he was just starting to embark on the study of philosophy. He is also a budding musician and I've spent many hours playing and talking to him.

I commented on his post: "Life is perplexing. Yesterday I spent 5 hours practicing piano and I was proud of myself, but then I realized I had 3 books of the Odyssey to read. If only there were more hours in the day so I could read Homer, Aristotle, Kierkegaard and all those other guys as well as teach myself Calculus, and learn the piano and the saxophone. And I'd have time to give the flute and guitar their due diligence. At the end of every day I remind myself that there must be a reason that God only gave man 24 hours in a day and made us to need sleep."


Why aren't there enough hours in one day to do everything you want to do? It's 10:35 right now and I wish I could nail the changes on "Confirmation" a bit better, but the house is asleep and I should be too. And tomorrow morning I will wake up and play 30 minutes of Hanon, go off to school, do homework and eat, practice for 3 hours, finish my homework and go to bed. I've never wanted to be the musician who only knows about music, so don't get me wrong, I love school. And I appreciate homework. And I need to eat. But why aren't there enough hours in the day to do everything? When I go to bed at night I'll know I need to go to bed if I have any hope of being awake the next day, but I'll want to read another chapter, or transcribe another 15 seconds or whatever. The pursuit of knowledge is always hampered by time.

I've figured out a lot of things about God, or more appropriately he has allowed me to understand things about him, but I've yet to understand why he only gives us 16 hours in a day to do something useful. Think of how much more you could do if you had 4 more hours at your disposal. Think of how much a little child could learn if he had 40 hours to learn in a day. At 20 he would know as much as most scholars know at 40.

Or would he? Maybe humans aren't meant to know everything, even if it is worth while. Maybe they aren't meant to do everything even if it is worth while. And of course how many people complain that they don't have enough time to pray or go to church in the day. Possibly, man only needs 24 hours to accomplish everything God needs him to accomplish, and learning even the most worth while of subjects is frivolous in the mind of God? But then you have to wonder how God could possibly have such a seemingly low view of the products of man's rational abilities.

I've always hated blog entries that ask questions without telling you anything. At least the type of questions that are either easily answerable or to obscure to answer, such that you get nothing out of the entry. Pardon me if I fell victim to my own pet peeve.

The 14th of February

Happy Valentines Day.

The long overdue second "Call It Clear" post.

The first one is here.

Lines in consideration:

You count on your fingers
Pitches you ought to be and soon
Just let them call you

The lyrics first struck me as a bit obscure and the thoughts inside my head weren't as verbose as they were when I was thinking about the first 3 lines. But I realized the multiple meanings that many of the words have. "Count", "pitches", "just" and "call" all have several meanings. And "them" is equally ambiguous.

"count" -
counting numbers or objects: "Count to ten slowly"
including /excluding: "Count me in/out."
to consider: "I count myself lucky"
to be worth something: "I won't count that quiz grade"
to have merit: "Everybody counts on the team"
in law: "He received two counts of first degree murder"
a noble man: "The Count of Champagne"

"pitches" -
to construct: "To pitch a tent"
to throw: "He pitched the baseball"
a degree: "His champaign reached fever pitch"
to sell: "His pitch was convincing. I bought the toaster"
slope: "The ski slope's pitch was daunting"
in naval navigation: "The pitch and roll of the ship"
golf: "a pitch shot"
music: "a note"
a playing field: "you play cricket on a pitch"
location: "The busker claimed 4th and Broadway as his pitch"
to help: "He pitched in"

"just"-
adhering to justice: "the judge was just"
simply: "just go to school"
close proximity: "He just showed up"

"call"-
to use the telephone: "I called him"
to receive divine guidance: "He was called to the priest hood"
to search: "He called out for any hope of human live."

Certainly many of those meanings are irrelevant in the context of the sentence, and the greater song, but the connotations the words provide is certainly interesting. Next Sunday I will try to interpret what all this means.

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In the mean time go and read the Old Romantic's post about Beethoven. I often wondered why he called himself Old Romantic, because he always seemed to be a Mozart devote. But as long as we're talking about double meanings, I think Mr. Romantic is commenting on his charm, suave nature and general way with the ladies, rather than his musical preferences.

And I have updated the side bar of blogs. I had a few to add. Also, I've started posting on "The Philosophic Blurb". I'll republish some of my posts on there from time to time.

Lent

If during lent you are not planning on purging a disordered desire to spend time on the computer, here is some fuel for your mental fire:

Moanin' - Charles Mingues

Belmont High school doing Moanin'

Let's Get It On - Marvin Gaye

Misty - Ella Fitzgerald

Who said Beethoven was depressing?

Maria - Leonard Bernstein

It's a Man's World - Christina Aguilera

Epistophy - Larua Caviani Trio

Math

Nietzsche on Suffering

Musician's money

I have began blatantly copying the CraigsList posts that Andrew Durkin posts on his blog. They are to good to not have on two blogs:

Come make coffee for me at my home!

I am reaching out to all Starbucks to come to my home and make coffee for me. The gig would be Fridays and Saturdays and sorry, I can't offer reimbursement of any kind, but you can put out your tip jar. I don't provide equipment, and I don't comp donuts. If interested email me for more information.

Thank you and I hope to hear from you.

In response to this:
Beaverton Town Square Starbucks is reaching out to musicians and bands alike to come play for us. Gigs would be Fridays and Saturdays at 9pm, sorry but we can't offer reinbursment of any kind, but you can sell cd's and put out a tip jar. We don't provide equipment, and we don't comp drinks. If interested E-mail Paul at "blackbox098@gmail.com" for more information.

Thank you and we hope to hear from you. PostingID: 559345100

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Contrary to popular belief, being a musician is a job and many musicians are smart.

Some people can, like, chose between being, like, an engineer and a musician and they, like, chose to be a musician. So, like, money isn't the most important thing in the world to them. And, like, not all musicians are, like, stupid either. Like, Ethan Iverson is actually, like, sorta intelligent, I think.

The Idiot Youth

High school kids are idiots. You give them two options:

1) Dance (i.e. conceive a child with your clothes, however little you are actually wearing, completely on) to rap and techno music. An example is shown here.

2) Salsa to a (very happening) live band. An example is shown here.

9 of 10 high school kids chose... option 1. And the band is left with the message that they are increasingly worthless because the youth of America are ignorant, stupid, dumb, and every other adjective I can find to insult their minuscule intelligence.

They don't realize how good they have it. Every other school has rap music playing, but they have a live band.