Random Riffs
The Real World Out There
May
30
2011
The story goes that three umpires disagreed about the task of calling balls and strikes. The first one said, “I calls them as they is.” The second one said, “I calls them as I sees them.” The third and cleverest umpire said, “They ain’t nothin’ till I calls them.”
Herbert Simons, “Persuasion …
Pointless but Significant: A Postscript
May
7
2011
My friend, Peter Brown, makes the point that “everything is about something – maybe mushy, maybe moody, maybe defiantly pointless and irrational – wandering, inventing, discovering. What’s it about? need not be the same as What’s the point?”
Pointless but Significant: The Case for Play
April
15
2011
Yeah ... I know. Two in two weeks is a bit much. But the experience that serves as provocation for this one is still fresh. It’s now or likely never. Let me set the scene.
On the first Sunday of every month, various combinations of the musicians who comprise the Getting in the Groove cohort make music for jazz vespers …
The Narrative Project: A Postscript
April
5
2011
It struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously. I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.
John Keats
Tradition and Innovation: The Narrative Project
March
18
2011
"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected."
G.K.Chesterton
It’s obvious that Chesterton didn’t know any jazz musicians …
