Pseudo-intellectual Observations

Terms and Agreements

2010-09-08T03:06:00.001-07:00

you want access ... you want it now.

Of course i'll agree to the terms and conditions.

I recently wanted to watch an episode of the IT Crowd on the UK Channel 4 website In order to do so I was obliged to tick a box that declared i had indeed read and agreed to a passge of decidedly uninteresting text otherwise known as the "terms and conditions". This is them right here

Naturally, i ticked the box.

I'm pretty sure noone has ever read that entire body of text. That is aside from the person who had to write it and the person who had to proof read it. Yet, tens of hundreds of people will blatantly lie, making fraudulant claims that they have indeed A: read and B: agree to those "terms and agreements" in order to get what they want ... now!

This happens a lot.

Unfortunately, more occasionally than you might hope, you find people people also tick or sign off on the "terms and agreements" of other exchanges of goods and services of a much grander nature with the same blasé concern.

When do you read the terms and agreements?

(I bet none of you will ever actually read the entire "terms and agreements linked in this blog)

Rude Bwoy Ting

2010-07-08T05:24:00.000-07:00

sharp suits

rude bowyz ... from the JA to the UK

the JA (there's a video here .... press the play button)

The UK (as above)

There's a conection between the struggle in the lower socio-economic situations that spans continents/oceans and decades ... and it boils down to three chords

The music just turns me on!

2010-07-06T02:07:00.000-07:00

This entry is about an idea ... posed as a question. Why music?!

I don't have the inclination to actually answer the question here at all. What want to do is simply muse on the power it can hold over us humans.

Not long ago i read Daniel Levitin's This is Your Brain on Music. I like it. I liked it a lot. I recommend reading it if you have a passion for music. Levitin used to work in the music industry (enginner/producer and more), but packed it all in for nueroscience (as you do). As a result his approach seems to be reassuringly balanced for music nerds and nuero nerds alike.

One thing he points out is that we can't escape is the influence of music in and on our lives. Whether or not we embrace it with fanaticism (i'm kinda close to that kinda person) or we just accept it as a part of culture that pops up here and there ... music is bound with our memories as much as our experiences of the now.

I'm sure as you sit reading this you can easily associate a particular place and/or time with certain songs ... albums ... movements of music. Open up the playlist on your PC or walkman (nah, fuk you ipods!!), look at your CD collection or record collection ... lurking in those bits and bytes, in those grooves cut into bits of plastic are feelings, thoughts, memories and associations. (lyrics or not!).

That association with memories, thoughts and feelings is one part of the "why music" question. The other part is the level of emotion and passion it can evoke. In this respect it often trancends speech and language ... as basic as percussive rhythm .. no melody.

A piece of music has the power to immediatly sooth your mind, soul and body whilst another can demand you move some limbs and grin inanely or get ANGRY!!! Again, this will cross borders, reject language barriers and disregard many many other factors that separate people across societies. All through the simple (well not really that simple) tools of rhythm and melody.

It's no wonder that music attains spiritual kudos across pratctically every religion that ever gained a disciple, whether it be satanic death metal, hindu raggas, gospel, or roots reggae.On the flipside of course you can exploit its appeal to increase your bank balance. Either way, it's exercising its influence and undeniable power of persuasion.

I could read and write many many words, pargraphs and pages about it and still be no closer to expressing the profound effect it has on me. I feel i will return to parts of this topic in future blog entries because it is one that fascinates and consumes me so much. It turns me on, and i love to turn on other people with my discoveries (i.e. shit hot tunes) ... it drives much of what i do in my life. Why that should be the case? Fuct if i know ... the music just turns me on!

Post Script: the initial title and subsequent final line of this blog are derived from a sample heard in a number of tracks. I think I originally heard it in either the Orb's Peel Sessions recording , or Coldcut's mix of Paid In Full ... more recently MRK1 put the sample into some dubstep pressure.

The Dr Who Dilemma

2010-04-25T02:34:00.000-07:00

This is about the inverse relationship between the progress of the Dr Who theme music and the general production and special effects used in the show.

Over the 40 years or so Dr Who has been on air, it's bloody obvious that the visual effects have improved beyond imagination. Compared to the hokey visual effects of the set designs and creatures from the 60s, 70s and 80s, the quality of today's productions are aeons ahead.

But what happened to the theme music recently?!

When originally aired in 1963 it was a ground breaking composition from BBC's Radiophonic Workshop. I urge you to start your learning journey about this vital institution by clicking this link here.

A total oddity for its time, this wholly electronic piece of music has earned a place in history and in people's hearts and minds. It was (and still is) a unique piece of music ... an electronic theme for a TV show that premiered when rock and pop were to be ruled by guitars for a long time still. Here's the original version. And here's a more detailed insight into its composition and production.

Its legacy looms large. It's been covered by EMD icons, Orbital (to be honest, i don't particularly like this version). Dub Syndicate dubbed it out in fine style. Pink Floyd give it an unambiguous nod in their instrumental "One of These Days", and of course the KLF mashed it together with Gary Glitter's Rock n Roll to forge their No. 1 hit under the guide of "The Timelords".

It got tweaked a handful of times in its life span, and here's a great (and nerdy) insight into one of those reworkings in the 80s : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OWMGAiaNeQ

But now .... well now it's puss. A watered down rehash of a classic and well loved, innovative piece of music. Verging on formulaic and borrowing on the more pedestrian aspects of contemporary electronic (read: dance) music, it now lacks the spark and impressiveness it premiered with. It doesn't inspire awe ... it inspires a yawn.

So whilst the visual effects have improved beyond imagination, the theme music has gone backwards, and is now occupying a stagnant pool of musical mediocrity.

Wanking With Wine

2010-04-25T01:53:00.000-07:00

Wine.

Just quietly, i find it pretty awesome.

Add cheese to this relationship, and it's a pretty sensual menage a trois. Sometimes it's just some light flirting of flavours, and at other times it's a series of orgasms stemming from the personal compatibilities of all involved. Flavour relationships that can lead you into hedonistic trists or simply leave you with a bad taste in your mouth and a vow to never go there again.

One thing that intrigues me as much as it amuses me, is the propensity for people to wax lyrical and exacerbate the snobbery associated with wine. Critics, protocols, reviews, varietals, glass swirling, weird slurping noises ... it's equally mysterious and prohibitive to most. But why should/do these rituals intimidate the average quaffer?

The two things i want to consider in this blog entry are : 1. the language used in the wine world and 2. price snobbery.

Let's start with 1. the language. Here's a line from a review of the wine i'm currently imbibing (d'Arenberg High Trellis Sauvignon) :

"Projects aromas of chocolate, licorice and blackberries. Complex flavour profile on the palate- it has sweet black currants, spices and licorice and is well padded with ripe, chewy tannins!"

Really?! I just thought it tasted yummy. Is all this necessary? How much did they smoke before writing that? "Chewy tannins" ? It's a liquid! Why does it have to have a "flavour profile" instead of just tasting like this that and the other? Clearly this is leaning towards unnecessary verbosity, rather like my blog entries.
All that said though, i have to agree with most of what is said in those 2 sentences ... it really is "padded with ripe chewy tannins". I'm a long way from attaining the descriptive and interpretive eloquence to elucidate on what's in my glass and frankly have no desire to get there. I just enjoy trying to understand why what i'm drinking tastes like it does, so i can find more tipples that appeal to my senses.
It's in that pursuit of some kind of quality that you can fall into the trap of being coerced into paying top dollar for a bottle of plonk with the assumption that the price increase is proportional to the quality. Personal experience tells me that a $12 bottle of wine can appeal to your palette equally as much as something 3 times the price.

One of the most well known and pricey Australian wines of renown is Penfold's Grange Hermitage. Regularly going for over $500, it's like an original pressing of Dark Side of the Moon. Although i'm going to have to give up that metaphor ASAP, because i'm not sure how well it will susatin throughout my diatribe.

So anyway, price snobbery ... or something. I don't really need to do more than to point you to this article here (go on, at least read the first 2 paragraphs). So the bottom line is , you can over spend $400-500 more then necessary on a wine to spark up the love life of the tastebuds
From that article we see that those who are paid to think and talk about wine find "the Grange very, very impressive, but there are many wines at a fraction of the price that outperform and out-finesse it.''

James Halliday annually rates wine, and does using price categories. Wines in the sub $25 division easily rank with those 2-3 times the price.
So it's clear as mud that there's enjoyable wines in all price brackers ... but i still feel dirty buying the cheapest of wines ... why?! Fucks me. Probably because a lot of them are shit. But, there are some gems out there you'll get enough change from a $20 from to spend on a good feed .. and if that involves cheese, then that's even better.

So ... in summary ... the Wordsworth's of Wine more often that not have valid points about what constitutes the romance and passionate embrace with certain wines ... but any notions that the clouded intellectualism of wine review language equates to an education and career aligned with higher incomes and therefore the accessibility to certain wines (that usually score above 90 points) and might preclude the average drinker to gain access to the sensual delights of a well crafted wine is essentially a load of bollox.

By the way this evening's cheese was Cheshire ... i've decided it's essentially the the fetta of the UK .

PPS: the block i was eating from didn't quite look like this at all.

Let's get the ball rolling

2010-04-24T22:13:00.000-07:00

So i see you've made it my my blog. Thanks! (well more thanks are in order if you continue to read not only this post, but subsequent posts) I figure the best thing to to with the first post here is to look at this blog's title. In particular the term "psuedointellectual". First of all let's get a definition :

pseu·do·in·tel·lec·tu·al  /ˌsudoʊˌɪntlˈɛktʃuəl/  Show Spelled[soo-doh-in-tl-ek-choo-uhl] - noun1 .a  person exhibiting intellectual pretensions that have no basis in sound  scholarship. 
2. a person who pretends an interest in intellectual  matters for reasons of status. 

A very small amount of research reveals i have much work ahead of my to qualify to use the tag "psuedointellectual".

Here is a summary of what is expected of me ( ehow.com is clearly an authority on most matters so there's no need to look any further)

One point they make is to master someone else's idea(s) ... and keep them fresh. Well i'm currently touting a myriad of theories stolen from Alvin Toffler's Future Shock . A smashing read about how society/culture is dealing with an increased amount of transience in our lives and the decline of permenence in everything from commodities to organisations, from friends to fashion ... and of course technology.

At the moment I can manage to work at least one idea from the book into most conversations with relative ease. As for the actual relevance of the interjected ideas and the care factor of those i'm convesing with, that's not important ... i'm psuedointellectualising to the max yo!!

Soon, however, i'm going to have to source some fresh material. Some people are finding my allusions predicable and tiresome. I'm thinking some fundamental points from Schopenhauer would sound kinda impressive.

I'll take a tip from the linked article above clearly states:

"A true pseudo intellectual only uses his bite-size elements of knowledge to impress, he or she does not use it to make the world a better place."

On this note, i hope that you will be impressed by what you read here, and I only secretly hope that it will make your world a better place.