There is a term used in the psychology of aesthetics known as the The Uncanny Valley. It refers to that funny area when a computer image looks “lifelike” but still recognizable as artificially generated it causes immediate revulsion by pretty much all conscious beings. The idea is that it is programmed into us to protect us from ‘the other’.

It is my belief that we are at a point in “the digital revolution” where we find ourselves smack dab in the middle of that uncanny Valley in both movies and music. And this explains a lot of why we find so much of today’s art so empty.

It also explains why so many people are drawn to musical styles from another time. There is such a focus on the sounds that are digitally created that there is almost no focus left for the content. We find ourselves inevitably drawn to music from other areas that were frankly more nourishing. This partly explains all the interest in Americana […]

My grandfather used to go on all the time about how fascinating America was. His chief fascination was, “all the ways one can make money!” He didn’t just revel in the idea of the bazaar (a thousand shops, Sahib!). No, what got his juices really going was the creativity. He thought that when a guy came up with a particularly unique business idea? His quote: “Now that’s creative!”

(OK, so he didn’t live to see derivatives trading. I wonder what a guy without even a high school education would’ve thought of that kind of “creativity”. (My rule of thumb? If you don’t understand this kind of derivative? You’ve got no business dealing the financial kind.)

But that sub-rant aside, there are a ton of creative ways to make a living. But what my grandfather really meant was not so much the execution as much as coming up with the idea. “He thought it up and figured out how to get people to pay for it!” Right. […]

Forget Neuromancer, Global Warming and that Maya End Of The World Thing. Here are my predictions for the next 40 years.

1. Use of the internet will be a lot like driving: Citizens will be required to get a license to use it (except for kiddie sites) and be subject to fines for abusing the privilege.

2. Everyone will be required to have insurance of two kinds:
a) Liability for hurting others
b) Protection against damage you suffer

3. Since there will be no paper records, there will be an FDIC or FEMA like organisation which provides insurance to everyone for data loss as a result of outages, disasters or crimes. ISPs and Big Data will pay into a super-fund to cover this, just as banks currently do for investor deposits.

4. There will be a national ID; embedded in your cell phone, which you will be required to carry at all times.

5. You will not expect to have anything like privacy because every transaction you do on-line (which will be basically anything from a phone […]

I’m against it.

As a kid, I spent almost two years in a hospital after coming down with this illness.

There are different varieties—and newer treatments are about 1,000% better than back in the old country. But just ask the fourteen people who’ve died: it’s no joke.

The irony for me is that I was left with a post-recovery arthritis that has made me just the kind of guy who buys those kinds of injections three or four times a year.

But I don’t do them. Because they don’t work. Or rather, they can work, for a short period. See the injections themselves are pretty controversial. There’s a huge placebo affect. And you’re getting an injection millimeters away from yer spinal fluid—which you really want to stay as far away from as possible. But there are a lot of ‘boomers’ these days with a lot of aches and pains… and spare cash. And doctors convinced that this sort of thing is ‘routine’.

My point is this: apparently the places that make a lot […]

There’s a whole philosophy about ‘the pointlessness of…’ life/love/complaining…whatever.

http://nymag.com/arts/popmusic/features/grizzly-bear-2012-10/

The history of art has progressed along with the history of commerce. Successful artists have always struggled to find ways to make a living with their art. From Beethoven to the Beatles, you see the same story over and over: the artist works like a dog performing; all the while plotting on how to stop performing and concentrate on creation. At some point, every artist needs to stop being a trained monkey and start getting paid for the tune.

I’ve railed here a bunch of times on the huge shift brought about by the internet. The main thing, in my view, has been the radical shift in how musicians are viewed. We’ve spent the last 500 years trying to free ourselves from patronage and performance and actually get paid for the music. And in the past ten years it’s all gone down the pan.

This is not sour grapes. When an artist can only make a living doing shows or selling t-shirts, it turns […]