The Problem with Digital Info

As I’ve often said, here and elsewhere, I’m not necessarily a cutting edge early adopter, but I am interested in – and, occasionally, even bedazzled by – new technology. And while I am now intrigued by the development and potential of electronic reading devices – ubiquitously referred to as “eReaders” (because everything is now either “e” or “i” whatever ... maybe I’ll have to start referring to myself as “iBill”) – I’m foregoing the current Betamax versions (Kindle et al) until the manufacturing powers-that-be get it right. That is, until they make it a durable, magazine-thin and flexible, high quality four-color, interactive and wireless device. I give it another three years or so and we’ll be there.

But digital devices aside, a bigger concern to me as a media professional and avid reader in all mediums is the ramifications of the difference between how we consume and comprehend the digital word versus the printed word. Studies by technology-usability expert Jakob Nielsen and others have, not surprisingly, shown that we absorb online information differently than we do printed information. In fact, our comprehension of the information presented digitally is more superficial. “It’s not a deep learning,” Nielsen says.

This is why the demise of the otherwise outdated print publishing industry worries me. Our culture is already dumbing down at a blinding pace. Will it be pure free fall once print consumption is a rarity (or a for-elites-only endeavor)?

TIME magazine recently addressed this issue to a degree in an interesting article looking at how financial institutions are increasingly pushing clients to opt for online statements rather than printed ones. While this is positioned as an admirable “green” initiative, the real motivating factor is the cost savings to the bank or broker ($1 per statement, according to the TIME report). The “cost” to the account holders is that they’re not absorbing the financial information when delivered online to the extent that they did with the printed statements.

However, the TIME article does go on to point out some of the potential advantages of electronic financial statements – so far mostly unrealized, of course. The examples cited highlight the true value proposition of digital information in this era of both ink and bytes. That is, using the web and digital devices in ways that capitalize on their unique attributes, to do what print can’t do, rather than simply employing them as substitutes for more traditional forms of communication. The best of both worlds is out there, if we’re creative and ambitious enough to find it – and then manage to keep it in balance.

From ‘Collateral Gore’ to Bliss on the Cloud?

Once again, New York Times writer David Carr puts the current maelstrom of the news media in meaningful context with the flare of a jedi wordsmith. While I agree with the shards of optimism Carr plucks out of the sky in the last few graphs of his commentary, it seems a bit abrupt after he has spent 1,000 words or so detailing the carnage-strewn landscape of the industry. And while the boundary-busting exuberance and creativity of technologically empowered youth might merit eager anticipation, it is not likely to prove the savior of the substantive media that we’ve been seeing steadily falling by the wayside over the past couple of decades.

I am not a defender of the old order – with its pervasive flawed business models and the celebrity-like living of the Manhattan media elite (a very small portion of the industry, let me assure you!) – but neither am I smitten with visions of a technology-centric means of qualification when it comes to the media I consume.

Call me elitist, but everyman, citizen journalism (whether tweeted, blogged or You Tubed) is not an adequate replacement for dedicated, adequately funded, professional journalists – a welcome and needed complement, yes, but not a substitute. Yet, the print media’s current tactic of cranking out articles with a self-declared value of $20 a piece (as detailed by Carr), is hardly going to yield high-quality content that will attract and engage readers. Maybe it is time to just throw in the towel and bring on the You Tube News Report and Roland Headley’s Tweets from the Trenches. Who needs thoughtful journalism when we have algorithms to wield?

Ahh, but all is not lost, at least not for all of us. The information-haves – those, in the near future, willing and able to pay the steep prices destined to be attached to content that surpasses the Entertainment Weekly standards employed by the rest of the media industry – will still be able to get their fix.

We’re entering and age, it seems, in which we’ll see, to quote Carr, “a new scarcity of quality content for niche audiences that demand more than generic information.” The day is coming when those who want substantive, accurate, reasonably-unbiased news – and are able to pay a premium for it – will be the niche rather than the mass. What that means for the state of our nation, well ... that’s another matter entirely.

Welcome to the niche, my friends.

Them Crooked Vultures

Not quite a full review (well, almost!), but a few quick thoughts after a couple of listens to the new Them Crooked Vultures CD. ... This is the much-anticipated release from the latest “super group” – this one comprising John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, Dave Grohl of Nirvana and The Foo Fighters, and Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age.

I was fortunate to catch one of the group’s half dozen or so U.S. preview gigs this fall, prior to the release of the CD two days ago. At the time, it was interesting to hear a 90-minute concert in which all of the songs were new and unfamiliar – definitely a departure from the typical concert experience. Despite the unfamiliarity, I was impressed with a lot of the songs as played live.

Upon now listening to the CD versions, I think a few tunes were better in their live renditions. The songs “Elephant” and “Mind Eraser, No Chaser” come foremost to mind. That’s not to say, though, that the studio versions aren’t good and that this isn't a good album. In fact, it’s quite good.

Overall, the album has a hard rock vibe, with subtle jazzy and prog-rock tinges at times (due, no doubt, to JPJ’s presence). Not surprisingly, the musicianship is top notch. The band is very tight, even through some deceptively complex arrangements at points. Josh Homme’s singing, particularly on the verses, becomes a little monotonous on many songs, but the other vocals complementing the lead on the choruses redeem a lot of the songs.

The lyrics tend to be rather dense and dark of theme – noir leaning toward personally apocalyptic. Familiar clichés are twisted into clever new turns of phrase. There are numerous standout lines, though they are often buried in verses rather than highlighted in the choruses.

In the first few listens, the album grew on me as I progressed through the track sequence. I’m not yet sure if this is because I like the songs in the middle and end of the album better, or because it took my ear a while to get used to the Metallica-esque underpinings to a lot of the songs. (Disclaimer: Though I like my share of hard rock, I’m not a fan of ’80s-’90s metal, or even most grunge for that matter.) There is a sense of the songs having a usual juggernaut mode, which thankfully is broken by more melodic turns here and there.

A few thoughts on particular tracks:

• No One Loves Me & Neither Do I – Can’t miss the “Walk This Way” phrasing of verse vocals on this song; other than that, though, it’s not particularly derivative of Aerosmith. There’s some nice roto-tom percussion and lead guitar touches. The tempo works its way into grinder mode by the end of the song, albeit with some jazzy tinges.

• Mind Eraser, No Chaser – There are decent harmony vocals on the chorus, but overall this is my least favorite song on the album. Probably one of the ones most reminiscent of Homme’s and Grohl’s primary bands. Not a bad song, just more typical of the genre’s clichés than most of the others.

• New Fang and Dead End Friends – Both are somewhat non-descript, but highly listenable and propulsive songs. In fact, “New Fang” is quite a jaunty rocker.

• Elephants – Heavy guitar riff-rock. The slashing guitar parts were more appealing live.

• Scumbag Blues – This one really harkens back to the original super group: Cream. Its Jack Bruce-like vocals are coupled with blues rock guitar leads that jump out of the speakers and funky keyboards straight out of of Zep’s “Trampled Under Foot.”

• Bandoliers – Its Spanish trills aside, this one is almost U2-esque, most notably in the Bono-ish lead vocals.

• Reptiles – Jazzy hard rock and one of the most Zeppelin-sounding tracks on the CD. A good one, too.

• Interlude with Ludes – Sonically, one the biggest departures from the rest of the album. Flavors of The Beatles at their most psychedelic.

• Warsaw or the First Breath You Take After You Give Up – One of the slower and bluesier tracks on the CD.

• Caligulove – Another one of the more distinct songs on the album, it features a twisted carnival-cum-Doors organ break and a few bits suggestive of Bauhaus.

• Gunman – Features Bowie-esque vocals and an ’80s pop groove feel in the bridge.

• Spinning in Daffodils – The album ends on another grinder, though the tune’s closing features some good harmony vocals and more melodic prog-rock guitar (including some slide) and stand out bass licks.

Talk About It

Tonight, I wielded Sato’s ancient blade in the name of William Butler Yeats. No, I haven’t lost my mind and taken to some dramatically deranged Celtic retribution. I led a discussion of the poem “A Dialogue of Self and Soul” as part of five-week long program at my local library exploring the great Irish writer’s poetry.

I’m one of 18 Yeats and/or poetry enthusiasts spending a couple of hours each Monday night during November selecting, sharing and discussing the poet’s works. This is the first time I’ve done one of these programs and it has proven to be a stimulating opportunity to exercise the intellect in ways that have been few and far between since the heady days of college (with fond memories of Drs. Gunter, Rodenheiser, Treadway, Ryle et al) many years ago.

Yeats’ poetry provides many rich veins of pursuit for thoughtful exploration and mining. Nearly every poem is ready fuel for lengthy and involved discussion. Last week, we spent nearly 45 minutes discussing one 11-line poem and had to force ourselves to move on. The biographical and complex philosophical allusions in so much of Yeats’ work make his canon perfect fodder for such a forum.

The gathered group of participants is an interesting mix of would-be Yeats scholars (like me) who are fascinated by his writing, his history and his thought; others who are interested in the mechanics of poetry and drawn to what they might learn from this master’s techniques; and, finally, a handful of folks who are simply intrigued by what they have heard about the famed poet and want to learn more.

The group’s facilitator, a published poet and scholar (but admittedly not a Yeats specialist per se), prompts us to examine each poem and think about how we relate to it (or not) – i.e., strive to articulate where we see ourselves in the poem. This helps keep the discussions from becoming too academic.

So far, at the suggestion of various group members, we’ve enjoyed dissecting “The Second Coming,” “Lines Written in Dejection,” “To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing,” “Into the Twilight, ” “When You Are Old,” “The Fisherman,” “The Stolen Child” and yours-truly’s selection.

I chose “A Dialogue of Self and Soul” because it has long been one of my favorite Yeats’ poems, and while it is not one of his most famous poems, it is not completely unheard of either. It is very representative of several of the poet’s stylistic hallmarks. And, like much of his mature work (he was 68 when it was published in 1933), the poem is accessible on one level, yet densely laden with symbolism and the author’s personal philosophy. It is constructed upon a common theme in Yeats’ writings, that of conflict between opposing forces: in this case, the spiritual world of permanence on the one hand and the earthly world of action, mutability and thought on the other.

It conjures contemplation with its provocative imagery of the Self’s material, historical world, represented by Sato’s ancient blade, expertly fashioned and enduring, adorned with an elegant, worn, but still protecting scabbard, standing counter – in defiance, in fact – to the Soul’s hidden pole, starlit quarter and tower “emblematical of the night,” a spiritual world beyond time and intellect.

“A Dialogue of Self and Soul” depicts the individual’s internal/external conflict in a stark and somewhat novel way. While the opposing voices of Self and Soul do, in fact, argue separate points of view, their discussion is really more opposing monologues than dueling dialogue. Each voice pays little heed to the other.

“All creation is from conflict, whether with our mind or with that of others,” Yeats once said. “We make out of quarrel with others rhetoric, but out of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.” He was a champion wrestler with his own daemon.

It is interesting to note that, given Yeats’ strong association with mystical thought and metaphysical philosophies, in this poem he grants the earthly, life-bound Self the last word in the lengthy conclusion. The poet’s Self declares that as debased as life in the physical world may be, he would bear it all again, striving to live life to the fullest, taking measure and forgiving all (himself included); for, in casting aside remorse, he will find joy and be blessed. The Eden-like innocence of the final lines recalls Blake at his most optimistic.

Here’s the text of the poem in full. Read, contemplate and enjoy!

A Dialogue of Self and Soul

I

My Soul. I summon to the winding ancient stair;

Set all your mind upon the steep ascent,

Upon the broken, crumbling battlement,

Upon the breathless starlit air,

Upon the star that marks the hidden pole;

Fix every wandering thought upon

That quarter where all thought is done:

Who can distinguish darkness from the soul?

My Self. The consecrated blade upon my knees

Is Sato’s ancient blade, still as it was,

Still razor-keen, still like a looking-glass

Unspotted by the centuries;

That flowering, silken, old embroidery, torn

From some court-lady’s dress and round

The wooden scabbard bound and wound,

Can, tattered, still protect, faded adorn.

My Soul. Why should the imagination of a man

Long past his prime remember things that are

Emblematical of love and war?

Think of ancestral night that can,

If but imagination scorn the earth

And intellect is wandering

To this and that and t’other thing,

Deliver from the crime of death and birth.

My Self. Montashigi, third of his family, fashioned it

Five hundred years ago, about it lie

Flowers from I know not what embroidery –

Heart’s purple – and all these I set

For emblems of the day against the tower

Emblematical of the night,

And claim as by a soldier’s right

A charter to commit the crime once more.

My Soul. Such fullness in that quarter overflows

And falls into the basin of the mind

That man is stricken deaf and dumb and blind,

For intellect no longer knows

Is from the Ought, or Knower from the Known –

That is to say, ascends to Heaven;

Only the dead can be forgiven;

But when I think of that my tongue’s a stone.

II

My Self. A living man is blind and drinks his drop.

What matter if the ditches are impure?

What matter if I live it all once more?

Endure that toil of growing up;

The ignominy of boyhood; the distress

Of boyhood changing into man;

The unfinished man and his pain

Brought face to face with his own clumsiness;

The finished man among his enemies? –

How in the name of Heaven can he escape

That defiling and disfigured shape

The mirror of malicious eyes

Casts upon his eyes until at last

He thinks that shape must be his shape?

And what’s the good of an escape

If honour find him in the wintry blast?

I am content to live it all again

And yet again, if it be life to pitch

Into the frog-spawn of a blind man’s ditch,

A blind man battering blind men;

Or into that most fecund ditch of all,

The folly that man does

Or must suffer, if he woos

A proud woman not kindred of his soul.

I am content to follow to its source

Every event in action or in thought;

Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot!

When such as I cast out remorse

So great a sweetness flows into the breast

We must laugh and we must sing,

We are blest by everything,

Everything we look upon is blest.

Serena’s Last Opponent

... And that U.S. Open lineswoman thought she got it bad!