lahoratius | Ladislaus Horatius

Tuning

[An older text from my first attempts to get to grips with the “music of man”, Musica humana. This text reflects on Musica instrumentalis and its connection to M. humana; from the one we can better embrace the other. See footnote for reference to Boethius, from whom these terms originate.]

Imagine that you are listening to a violin-piano recital. Think about all the things that take place before the duo actually starts to play.

The musicians enter on stage. Applause. The pianist strikes middle “A”, thereby establishing the Standard (probably 440 Hz). The violinist tunes his “A” string in accord with the piano. Thereupon he tunes the other strings to this now common standard. The concert can begin!

In this simple, commonplace situation we see a world of meaning. The theme here is tuning, being in tune, and it is not without interesting variations. Witness the different levels in operation.

1) Violinist tunes his “A” according to the piano
2) Violinist tunes his other strings to that “A”

1) means that there is accord within the group, in this case a group of two. 2) means that there is internal accord (harmony) within the solitary instrument.

Actually, this tuning business starts much earlier. For example, the piano has to be tuned before the concert. In this simple act we can see an example of a beautiful guiding principle in music. If we had the same prosaic, quantitative thinking (focusing of efficiency and saving time) in music as we generally have in society, the piano tuner would approach the pianist before the concert, and ask: “Tell me, which keys are you going to play on tonight? No use tuning strings that aren’t used….”

That would be a bad joke. Of course every string is tuned. Not only because it would be disrespectful to do otherwise, but also because the unstruck strings contribute to the overall sound. Overtones, undertones — every string matters.

There are more aspects to consider. The two musicians not only have to tune their instruments, they also have to be in tune as musicians. One cannot play in a wildly romantic manner while the other goes for dry objectivity; they have to find a mean.

Of course, many musicians play together exactly because they have similar musical temperaments. But you cannot always choose your partner. You might have to play with somebody who has a totally different view of the music. The tuning process then becomes more difficult; one or both sides will have to compromise, or at least meet on the bridge.

tungingfork
But it is not just you and the other musician(s) who have to harmonize. You also have to tune yourself to the music, and the composer. You and your partner may form a wonderful team playing a hideous Beethoven; in tune with each other but not with Ludvig.

Or the other way round. There are rock groups and even string quartets where the members don’t speak to each other, even travel in separate cars. They are obviously not in tune as persons, but during the concert they nevertheless play the same piece – in the same tempo – in the same key! Even people who are not on speaking terms regard music as a common, almost sacred zone. Cease fire!

Then we have the room. You have to take acoustics into consideration, too. That’s one more tuning process. You don’t play the same way in an intimate salon as in Carnegie Hall.

And the room is filled, hopefully, with listeners, people. Another factor to harmonize with, acoustically and psychologically. The audience can be seen as, and treated as, an instrument; a many-headed, many-stringed lyre. Especially in rock and jazz music there is much playing on this instrument. (Shall we call it “Audie-phone”?) Sometimes even more than on the regular instruments…

So now we have a whole series of “strings” to tune. The musician, the instrument, the instruments together, the musicians together, the music, the room, the audience. Out of this increasingly complex model I want to single out three factors. Let us call them the Individual (1), the Group (2), and the Whole (3).

In terms of Musica instrumentalis this could mean (1) one instrument, (2) all instruments, and (3) the room. Or (1) musician, (2) all musicians and (3) all musicians and the audience.

Seen on the level of Musica humana (the music of Man) this could mean (1) a single human being, (2) a group (small or large; a couple, a family, circle of friends, nation, etc.) and (3) the Earth (a classical Whole). (3) could also be the solar system.

Footnote: Boethius says there are three kinds of music: Musica instrumentalis (what we nowadays term music: playing, singing, sounds, CD-s. etc. This is all we have nowadays.), Musica humana (the music of man, not very clearly explained as I remember, the subject of my studies), and Musica mundana (the music of the world, what we call the “music of the spheres”, something very abstract and probably meaningless for most of us.).

Repertoire

[An older text from my first attempts to get to grips with the “music of man”, Musica humana. See footnote for reference to Boethius, from whom the term Musica humana stems.]

This is a basic factor representing BREADTH, the opposite of narrowness or monomania. Staying on the level of Musica instrumentalis*, I want to point out three kinds of breadth.

1) The ability to play just about every note on your instrument. Your hands must no be too small. A pianist needs to be able to strike the highest and lowest keys of his instrument simultaneously. Child prodigies cannot do this, nor handicapped people. Not everybody allows this to be a handicap, however. Remember Paul Wittgenstein, for whom both Ravel and Prokofiev wrote piano concerti for the left hand.

2) The ability to play in different styles, at least from Bach to Bartók. Saying about a musician: “Everything he plays sounds like Beethoven” is not a compliment. It points to a lack of stylistic breadth.

3) The ability to strike different emotions in one and the same piece. To go from poetic calmness to wild passion in no time, with minimal take-off run. Just as you need to be able to play piano pianissimo (ppp) after forte fortissimo (fff), or a very high note after a very low one, you also need to be quick and mobile when it comes to the emotional keyboard. This is a talent that instrumental musicians share with the actor.

So, a musician needs to be broad and not narrow. (I realize that this is in part dictated by the current state of the music world. Every musician has his temperament, his fortes (and also his pianos, so to say). Formerly an opera singer could tour with very limited repertoire. He only sang what he knew best. In those times his profession was close to that of the circus artist.)

He has to know himself as a musician: know which strings his instrument has, which styles he can play well and less well, which emotions he can express easily and with more difficulty.

Most of this, and so much else, are taken for granted in music.

MOVING ON TO MUSICA HUMANA

So, what can we learn from the musician´s basic relationship with his instrument? What are the consequences for Musica humana?

First of all, a violinist must know that his instrument has four strings. The guitar has six, the piano eighty-eight. How many strings do we have as human beings? Do we adjust our out-of-tune strings, or even notice them?

We can observe interesting differences between different kinds of “out of tune strings”. When a violin string is out of tune, the musician adjusts it immediately, possibly even replaces it. When an accompanist tells a singer that (s)he sings out of key, the singer replaces the pianist… And if somebody dares to point out our weaknesses to us… watch out!

A string is a tone that is often played. Transposing this to our inner life, a thought only once thought, an emotion only once felt, is not a string.

We can picture ourselves as a large keyboard with broken and missing keys.

Harmonium1

Standardization is impossible; no two people have identical keyboards. Nevertheless, each of us stand in a certain relation to the Ideal Keyboard We Could Be. Usually we do not know ourselves as we know our violins and pianos. We do not know our repertoire, which keys we possess and which we are missing. We don’t know when we are out of tune. We also lack a standard, the 440 Hz of human normality.

Footnote: * Boethius says there are three kinds of music: Musica instrumentalis (what we nowadays term music: playing, singing, sounds, CD-s. etc. This is all we have nowadays.), Musica humana (the music of man, not very clearly explained as I remember, the subject of my studies), and Musica mundana (the music of the world, what we call the “music of the spheres”, something very abstract and probably meaningless for most of us.).

Melosophia – presentation

harp
The word Melosophia (one of my word-inventions, others being “ononism” [wanting/ demanding to be online all the time — never, even for a moment (God forbid!) being off-line] and “interligence” [the intelligence engendered when we harmoniously connect our minds together) refers to the combination or fusion of music + philosophy. Let us even dare to use the w-word: wisdom. It´s not dangerous, it doesn´t bite. Let´s get used to it and use it freely, as once the old Greeks and others did.

Sophia = wisdom

There are other old, archaic words for what this is about, but melosophia is a new word. Why a new one when there are old ones? Because old words, as often happens, are weighed down with associations that are no longer relevant, often academic, dry, dead.

Here follow my musings about Musica humana (one of the old words, from Boethius), the concept of musicality applied to everyday life, of musicians as well as non-musicians.

Also some practical methods for applying this “musicality”. Deep water, in other words. One of the favorite terrains.

I start by posting two older, rather abstract, texts of mine. Much water has passed in the Danube since I wrote them, new insights have been won since then. “Music tasting” for example is practical (and enjoyable) Melosophia.

Musical favorites: Frank Sinatra

There is so much to say about Sinatra. I use him constantly as an example when working with singers, not opera but musical singers. One can, and should, learn a lot from the white king of jazz, the short guy with the lazy voice. (I think he was my height, and also the same Fach (baritone).)

I make a distinction between receiving music as just sound, and receiving it as a package (sound, plus visuals plus thoughts about the music / song / artist). Admittedly Frank is somewhat of a package for me, which doesn´t mean that I don´t enjoy him also as just sound.

I must mention also what I call the Sinatra-effect; namely that (many) songs sung by Sinatra are so heavily associated with him that if someone else sings the song — My Way, New York, New York, Strangers in the night — the (adult) listeners think “Ah, a Sinatra song”.

He had a talent (genius) for making definitive versions of songs. He was almost a thief in that way, and that is what I admonish my singers to also be. Sing the song so that you own it, so that it is YOURS. Not like a library book that has to be returned within a month.

Enough pedagogics.

I will point to three darker Sinatra songs here. The first one, since it is Saturday night. “Saturday night is the loneliest night of the week” is a great self-pity song (at least once a week).

The next song I hated the first time we met. What a ridiculous song, I thought, silly organ and all. That was until I read the words, and started to listen to HOW Sinatra sings it. Then aversion turned to deep appreciation.

There is nothing nice or polished or “crooner” about this one. Sinatra sounds raw, naked, almost desperate, a natural fish in these gruesome waters. Ridin’ high in April, shot down in May…

The title of the third song is written on Sinatra´s gravestone, and might be written on mine too. “The best is yet to some” is not really dark but a slick, sophisticated, hard to sing Cy Coleman song with a fantastic arrangement by Count Basie. Try it at home, lovely intervals!

We’ve only tasted the wine / We’re gonna drain the cup dry.

No vibrations are good vibrations

Here is a very clear thought I just read: Mind likes to vibrate. These vibrations (thoughts) may be good or bad, may be seen as positive or negative, but vibrate they will, or want to.

“Good vibrations” with the Beach Boys, with its strangely beautiful Theremin vibrations (Sol Sol Fa Mi Fa) is a great piece, but these are not the vibrations I am thinking of. Life itself is probably just vibrations, on different levels.

No, there is something you could rather call shaking. Most of us are, in James Bond lingo, shaken and stirred. Our thoughts and ideas and fancies and attractions and repulsions like to vibrate, to shake us. This can result in a sort of mental / spiritual seasickness.

Seasickness is probably not enjoyed by anyone. But the “Shake it, baby” of Mind is. Like some insect who jumps this way and that, we enjoy flying in all directions, drawn or propelled by this impulse or that Hot / Cool link. (Social media are experts at inspiring us to JUMP LIKE INSECTS.)

So, the “Shake it, baby” of Mind is enjoyed, until it isn´t — until you tire of your boat being tossed this way and that on the stormy sea of Mind. Until you no longer see it as a sign of being “active”, “dynamic” and “alive”, but as seasickness.

Then you might want to anchor your boat and go ashore, to stand still on Terra firma. You will still vibrate, still enjoy good vibrations. (Possibly you might want to skip the excitations bit.)

Why learn the rules if you are going to break them anyway?

Learn the rules so you can break them is such a boring piece of folk wisdom.

Why learn the rules in the first place then? Photography can be such a redneck conservative domain, respecting, even worshiping all these FINE RULES.

As a truly modern writer wisely observed: “All the rules that the sphere of painting discarded already a long time ago (Renaissance rules about proportion, etc.) have been taken over by photography as the Sacred Word.” Amen to that.

If you learn the rules in order to be able to break them, the risk is that you will turn into this all to common anomaly: The law-abiding, well-behaved anarchist (LAWBAN).

Just trust your eye. If you have an artist in you, your eyes already has “rules” inside it. The eyes and your inner esthetic / chaotic sense will guide you. If you don´t and then try to add rules from the outside — see the former paragraph.

Tjänare

Tjänare!

Detta är ett intressant ord. Som hälsningsfras tycks det vara en förkortning av “ödmjuke tjänare”. Av vilket det bildats diverse kortformer: tjänare, tjäna, tjenis, tjenis p*nis, samt den kanske roligaste, mjukis.

Saken handlar också om kronor. “Vad tjänar du?” eller “Hur mycket tjänar du?” Bägge dessa frågor fokuserar på lön och pengar.

Men — man kan besvara den frågan lateralt, kanske med “Mammon”. Eller “Konsten”. Eller “Det sköna”. Då handlar det inte om pengar utan om att tjäna något.

I det första fallet handlar det om vad som kommer till oss, “inkomst”. I det andra om vad vi sätter över oss — ett ideal eller högre princip — och hur vi blir tjänare till denna ovanför oss liggande realitet. (I Mammons fall lite tveksamt med “ovanför”.)

Man kan som sagt göra en syntes av de två aspekterna. “Vad tjänar du på att tjäna konsten?”

Svar: I kronor räknat ganska lite just nu, men jag börjar blir en smula rik på ödmjukhet, och Musan kastar vänliga blickar mot mig ibland…

Sherlock and I (bored)

ONE SIMILARITY between Sherlock Holmes and me is that people probably think that we live fascinating, or at least very interesting, lives, while we are terribly bored most days of the week.

I sure am. And not only in the week, I would say most days of my life.

My friends, especially those few who have nine to five jobs, might protest. “Let ME tell you about boredom…!”

We probably talk about different things. The boredom of a steady, monotonous job is alleviated, perhaps every day even, by “entertainment”. You put your day job aside and do things that are fun, relaxing or at least somehow different. You probably also see other people at work, which I don´t. Most of my days are lonely (lonely can be wonderful or terrible company) and I can´t say “No, I am not a composer and writer, that´s just my job.”

Anyway, I am on to this great insight that I am bored most of the time, and that boredom is a central factor in my life. There are so many things I´ve done in life just not to be bored — and so many other (often productive and useful) things I didn´t do, only because they were boring.

Boring is like a traffic sign, and in this case I have been law-abiding.

stop
Of course everything said in French sounds fancier than in English or Swedish but the pangs of “l’ennui” or “spleen” might have been just as painful as ever banal boredom was. Especially for sensitive folks like Baudelaire.

I begin to realize the strength, the acid strength of it. Thinking back on my life I have been severely bored, probably as a child but even more as a teenager when moving to Sweden. Ursäkta Sverige, but there is so much boredom and boring things in Sweden that if I could exchange the moments for coins, I would be a millionaire… in a country of millionaires. (I am certainly not the only non-Swede to feel this way.)

There is even a Latin word for fear of boredom: thaasophobia. Boring.

What is less boring is to slowly realize what a dark and truly heavy cloud boredom can be, how it weighs us down as lead. I am especially thinking of a friend that suffers a lot from this disease. He goes into heavy depressions which I think come from lack of stimulation.

I used to say that there is no excuse for being bored; you are doing something very wrong then. Not so sure about that now. And we don´t need to talk about depression. There is an everyday, “normal” level of boredom. Some common antidotes are

Facebook
television
eating
sitting at a sideboard café (my personal favorite)

sideboard cafe — “Café Terrace at Night” by van Gogh

Another non-boring observation has to do with enthusiasm. I believe it can be a reaction against boredom, even stem from fear of boredom. It need not be a wholly positive energy, it could be based on a running away from-impulse.

Another one: Folk wisdom has it that “one needs to learn to be alone*”. Yes, yes, we´ve heard that one before. Silly thought! One = alone. One is the loneliest number, as Three Dog Night sang.

I believe that many a “one” accepts loneliness, and boredom, far too easily. One can mistake this acceptance for strength or “stoicism”. How noble! But what if one is just wasting precious time, throwing away one´s life? Perhaps non-acceptance is the only wise choice.

Enough, time to put down my pen.

No, I wasn´t ready yet.

What makes Sherlock bored is the lack of a juicy mystery to sink his teeth into. I cannot claim the same excuse; I have mysteries galore to wrestle with, am presently knee deep in one of them, the dark side of music.

No, there is more to it than lack of mystery, probably lack of company.

More needs to be said about boredom´s relation to loneliness. Much depends on the quality of our circle of friends. If they are not stimulating, and we see them a lot, we will cherish loneliness. If they are stimulating and we see them seldom, the opposite.

With the possible exception of those rare hermit personalities I believe there is almost a self-poisoning mechanism in action here. Being “all by myself” for a long time makes me rust. Even a short visit to Lotz Terem makes me fresh again — for a while.

Variatio delectat, but more than that. Change (an important part of which is company) may be not only delightful spice but a basic staple need for humans, at least most of us. Surely for me and maybe even for Sherlock. I mean, he always had Watson to turn to and solving mysteries involves meeting a lot of people. It´s the wait that is lonely, not the hunt.

I will go so far as to suggest that loneliness can kill. Not being lonely, but feeling lonely. In that sense I believe Facebook can be a kind of medicine. And, just like other modern medicine men, Mark Zuckenberg (the sixth richest person in the world, even richer than the Koch Brothers thanks to Facebook earnings) sure knows how to cash in on the disease, this widespread loneliness of our modern world.

A friend of mine some years ago critically called the Internet “one big cry for help”. There is a grain of truth in that exaggeration. Maybe one should say a cry for company. But luckily we need not expose our solitary nakedness. There are smart and sophisticated ways of saying “I feel lonely”. Like posting a picture of our yummy dinner or a cute pet. Or writing a blog post.

Gap the mind

Trying to understand “Mind” (in the sense that Tolle and others are using the word) and trying to distance myself from it is one of the most important items on my shopping list.

Why? Conflict of interest. Mind has its own interests and agenda, it very often fucks up my life (but not only mine, it is generous…).

I notice that Mind is an “out-thinker”. It thinks out things, ideas. These ideas seem smart and intelligent (to mind!), but seldom lead to harmonious results. For one thing, they are stubborn and inflexible. Much more like stone than water, the favorite element of Taoists.

Mind writes in stone and has a real hard time changing or erasing the writing.

“But stability is supposed to be a good thing, no? Look at skyscrapers, they must be very stable to withstand strong winds.” (says Mind)

But skyscrapers don´t go down with grace. They collapse and explode, while softer, more pliable things just f l o a t to the ground with hardly a scratch.

“Here lies one whose name was written in water”, the epitaph of John Keats, points to the real strength of water (even though Keats probably saw writing in water as a weakness). Far better for a poet to write in water than in stone.

“They stoned him with a memorial” said a clear-sighted writer, an observation applicable to many an artist that has floated to the surface, like cream. Whipped cream.

But let us not slander stone. It has its place, its beauty and its love. Let me just remember, and remind Mind, that I am flesh and blood and ether, not rock.

Men are jpg, women are raw

Binary distinctions, like in the headline above, have a great attraction. Everybody likes to say that they REALLY can distinguish between good and bad, black and white. The other, less flattering side of the coin is that then they only see two colors….

Anyway, how are men like JPG and in what way are women RAW?

Shooting in JPG, most people say, is limiting. What you see is what you get, but not much more. With RAW format, however, many things are hidden in the picture. These little secrets and surprises can be brought out later, during the editing process. What you see is much less than what you can get.

I am mainly writing about faces now. A man has one face (two if he is a drag artist or cross dresser.) But a woman often has no face at all.

That might sound shocking, and is of course a bit exaggerated. (Face spying, I mean face detection couldn´t work on women if that was totally true.) It is better to say that she has many faces, none of which can be called her one, real face. Which is the real color of the rainbow? (Perhaps the color of air…)

I am for example thinking of beloved A. P. Montata, who at one moment is a child, then a wise woman, deep as a river, a practical, super efficient no-nonsense businesswoman, a worried soul, or a free spirit beyond looks and words. All of her different facets has a different face. And voice. And emanation.

This certainly doesn´t sound like a JPG.

No, this is the mysterious RAW copy out of which derives, flies, floats a whole gallery of small identities, a cluster of feminine beings and creatures.

More Photography and Images

För maten, i tiden

The title of this entry is not really understandable unless you know the royal motto of the current Swedish king: För Sverige, i tiden — For Sweden, with the times.. (I am also working on a book titled “Ur Sverige, i tid”, which is another story.)

But let´s forget about Sweden and think about food. My close friends know that I have a somewhat peculiar relationship with it. Some people are almost religious about food, and most at least see it as one of life´s great enjoyments. (I have it from a trusted source.)

My personal thoughts about the subject is “What goes up, must come down” and “What goes in, must come out”. That´s an irreligious attitude.

But I really do enjoy food from time to time, at least a couple of times a year. Especially when there is a rich palette of taste involved. And when it moves in time.

Some food is very still, it just sits there on the plate, like a meditating monk. You take one or two bites and you know the whole story: how it starts, continues and ends. Easy: it ends just as it started, because there is no development and definitely no surprise involved.

It´s like entering a city and already having the entire map of it operated into your head on a microchip. Wherever you turn you meet the already known, the already expected. Just more of the same, nothing else.

Anyway, this is poached eggs à la Café Vian, one of the dishes that have found favor with me. At least on Sundays, which happens to be today.

Poached

I have eaten it on enough occasions for the surprise effect to wear off. But it still moves in time. And it almost talks to me:

“Don´t just sit there on your chair, you sluggard. Show some development, surprise us! Don´t let the end be like the beginning…”

How good is the photo?

My old question “What is a good photograph?” has been left behind, replaced with other questions. For example “How good is a photograph?”.

How does one measure the “goodness” of a photo? You tell me. Please tell me, if you know. My impression is that goodness, value and rating depend quite a lot on random and mysterious factors.

Some of these factors the photographer can control himherself. Within every artist (and in many people I wouldn´t call artists) there lives a salesman, small or huge, successful or incompetent. The Inner Salesman tries to get good ratings and many “likes” for the work of his Artist, thus raising hisher status.

But does higher status, more public exposure and more “likes” mean a better picture? In a very pragmatic way, yes. But it´s an awful thing to be that pragmatic. Then, yes, by all means eat shit, because millions of flies can´t be wrong.

If we want to go beyond populist pragmatism, where to turn? We can ask the experts, connoisseurs, professors, photographers, the knowledgeable folks. Maybe they can tell us which picture is okay, which merely good, and which extraordinary.

We can look in photo books, surely those who chose the pictures must know good from mediocre? We hope so.

But still there are many other factors to reckon with. Names count. (And of course we often don´t know how a Name became a Name.)

There is a story of an experienced writer commenting on the new novel of a young aspiring colleague. “Things this bad you can only write if you are already famous!” Which means that after you are established, a Name, you can do quite mediocre or even incompetent things; you will still get thousands of “likes” because the mere fact of you being a Name blinds at least the large audience to the values or non-values of your latest oeuvre. (Just check out the banalities that Paulo Coelho posts on Twitter.)

Age before beauty, name before intrinsic value.

Talking of intrinsic value, the book “The Drunkards walk” by Leonard Mlodinow must be mentioned. It is a fantastic, eye-opening and also hope-inspiring book. Read here what is says about “intrinsic quality” in music.

The book points out to what great role chance, Lady Fortune and randomness plays in making things or people “great”. This must surely also be relevant in photography.

Some expert or arbiter of taste once thought that a certain picture or photographer was great (maybe they were friends), and after that the picture or photographer has continued to be great. Nobody today honestly think that it or he is great, but tradition is often driven by momentum, and until some freethinker or iconoclast comes along, that greatness will stick.

I almost wrote stock, which was a lucky coincidence. Stock photography must be good in itself. It is anonymous, devoid of name, thus status., therefore it must stand on its own legs. Nobody accept a lousy stock photo (or clip-art), but with a famous name attached, or some learned comments from some professor or other cognoscenti, one can get away with almost anything.

This picture, for example, is supposedly “one of the greatest photographs of all time”.

The Steerage

I question that it would be that great without all the paraphernalia attached to it, the mental “crutches” that uphold it. (See the whole wordy Wikipedia article about the photo here.)

If this picture was new, shot by a total unknown, I doubt that many people would turn round to look at it, more than to say “it looks old”.

This, however, I find to be a memorable (if not fantastic) photo.

GermanCommunist
Also found when Googling for “the greatest photographs of all time”. I hope it is not arranged. If it is, perhaps the young communist was never shot but died of old age, in bed, perhaps with a lovely young woman beside him. But if so, does that take away from the photo an sich, the intrinsic value? That is another question. What I am sure of is that the question “Real or staged?” will keep our interest alive.

More anon, perhaps.

(More about Photography)

Meaningslessful films

In Andy Warhol´s film “Sleep” a man sleeps for six hours. His film “Eat” shows a man, you guessed it, eating (but only for 45 minutes).

I have a better suggestion. The following film shows a train journey through beautiful Norway. There´s a lot to rest the eyes on.

I am sure somebody was sleeping during the trip, and somebody was eating. But the camera looked elsewhere.

;

Unintentional wisdom

Sometimes when our minds (or is it mouths?) relax, word order gets mixed up. Not a big problem, it can create funny situations.

The other day an acquaintance said to me: Jag hoppas du söker det du finner (I hope that you seek what you find). She caught herself and immediately corrected herself. We both laughed a bit and that was that.

Talk about unintentional Taoism.

I hope you find what you are seeking, the usual hackneyed phrase, presupposes that we seek something worth seeking, which is not necessarily the case. The thought contains both more wisdom and humour when turned on its head.

Upside+Down

The small questions

Philosophical minded folks (like me) often forget that Big is not better. The Big Questions can be anything but good, they are often pretentious and also impossible to answer (which is one reason for their perennial popularity; we will be able to argue about them for many more long winter evenings…).

I recently talked with the wife of a very good and important friend who passed away in cancer. How do you cope, I asked her.

Fine, she said, and then – Do you know the hardest bit, what I miss the most? Coming home and there is somebody who says: How are you? How has you day been? Tell me about it!

These are the small but oh so important questions. Forget the meaning of life and the universe. Forget Truth. All you want to do is to tell somebody you love that your day has been gray and monotonous. Or that you have been at the dentist and she carved around in your face for two hours, with no anaesthetic (your choice), and now your skull feels like a war zone.

How wonderful to be able to recount unimportant details about your life to an interested listener!

“Niche” is the new “normal”, or, Mommy Engine Optimization

What happened to breadth, versatility and universality?

There is nothing eyebrow-raising in the fact that Béla Bartók wrote ballets, dissonant string quartets and pretty piano pieces, that Beethoven wrote symphonies, piano sonatas and folk song arrangements, that Goethe wrote tragic plays, lyric poems plus a weighty Theory of Colours. Some classical composers admittedly specialized; Chopin composed almost only piano music, Wagner only overlong operas.

But generally it was very normal for artists not to work in a niche, a specialized market, but to do most everything. The fact that composers once upon a time were performing musicians (often virtuosos), teachers, conductors, music critics and even impresarios was nothing strange.

Esther Vilar has some harsh words to say about specializing and limiting yourself — especially if you are a man. In the name of recognizability, I suspect — photographers often do this same self-limiting act, i.e. taking images that are so alike in style that one immediately recognizes their originator.

Where did surprise, novelty and some healthy hide and seek go in all this niche-thinking?

I am sure some photographers do this for honest reasons; this is what they like or do, who they “are”. But I suspect many others bow to the god, I mean goddess, of Praise.

Now Vilar:

“Take a man like Samuel Beckett. For twenty years he has produced a
series of Godot replicas – and surely not for pleasure. After all, he is an intelligent man. He avoids risk the way an alcoholic avoids a cure. Yet if only he could free himself from his conditioned behavior, he would probably do something quite different. Perhaps he might design planes – the reliable construction of his plays hints at a scientific talent – or grow rare plants. He might even, perhaps, just once, write a comedy. Surely so much success is bound to drive away the depths of despair. It might even turn out to he a success with the public. But no, the risk is too great for a carefully manipulated man. Better go on writing plays about the absurdity of the vital instinct – then, at least, he can be certain of praise.“

Ah, but we have so many fine words for this predictably conditioned behavior. We call it consistency, integrity, being firm and uncompromising. It may even bring us a Nobel Price.

Tell me I´m a good boy... — Tell me I´m a good boy, mommy…?

Specialization and niche thinking got even worse with the Internet. Now we are told that if we want our website to be successful — and what is our success? The same as the success of a store-owner or a used car salesman: many visitors / clients /buyers — we must create a niche website. We must think narrow and narrow down our product to fit the imagined niche audience.

This is fine for certain purposes. My site Provsjungning.se is very niched, and straightforward; it addresses singers who want to do better auditions. The site is also trying to sell a book, so the visitor IS a potential buyer.

But my new site, the one you are reading right now, it not niche. I usually say it´s about philosophy, music and photography, but really it is about most anything. And philosophy, music and photography is already very much. This, according to current SEO (search engine optimization)-thinking, is a problem and a difficulty, since I am not targeting my niche audience.

But what if the SEO-thinking is the real problem? (I am not talking about business sites now, but private sites like this one.) What is SEO-thinking? What likes behind it, really? And how deep are we prepared to gaze into the well of our psyche when trying to answer those questions?

Vilar again:

“Once a particular field of work has brought a man success and financial security, it is rare for him to test his abilities in another sphere, attempting to satisfy his curiosity. His supply of praise may be dangerously reduced. Like Miro with his dots-and-lines technique, Johann Strauss with his waltzes, and Tennessee Williams with his plays about psychotic women, he will stick firmly to his successful technique. The risk of attempting to be the measure of his own success is too great for him to take.”
(Both quotes from “The manipulated man”)

As a parenthesis, I´ve always wondered myself what would happen if somebody like Tom Waits woke up one morning and his voice was, lo and behold, pure and clear as a newly washed window? Would he sing Gounod´s Ave Maria, or drink a whiskey and have a smoke to get back into /out of form?

So — “success” seems to be not just a question of the number of visitors. Deep down it seems to be a question of acceptance and praise. And mainly from women, according to Vilar.

Ah, the things we do for love, the things we do for praise, we manipulated men!

Two things stand out from those Vilar quotes. First, if we go where our fancy leads us and not where we have found earlier success, our supply of praise may be dangerously reduced.

Secondly Vilar gives us, especially men, a desideratum to aim at: to be the measure of our own success. I decide what my success is, not the “world”, not my friends, sweetheart or admirers. Not women.

Trying to understand the SEO-impulse in depth, we can turn to the old adage “cherchez la femme”. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) = Mommy Engine Optimization (MEO)?

A fitting soundtrack can be the symphonic sketch “La Mere”.

Postscript January 28.

I find it both funny and somehow comforting that after I posted a link to this text on Twitter, somebody added me to a list of “SEO-experts”. (I see myself more as a MEO-explorer.)