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December 17, 2006
Hmmmm....4 months since my last confession? And it's occasioned by another coffee buzz....
The memory of Traverse City, part 2, isn't as fresh, but the highlights are still there. I start with that. Letsee...
Well, I saw Barry Lyndon on the big screen. It wasn't exactly as I was expecting on the basis of the DVD. This was more on the order of a preserved (but with specks) original print projected with a dim theater projection light. It's hard to describe what came off visually . . . I'd have to say darker and less vibrant in color, but more realistically lit in many scenes than you'd be led to believe on the DVD. I seem to particularly remember the desks in the scene where Lord Bullingdon and young Brian were doing their studies before their ruckus. The desks came off as very dark brown with not much lighting to give them any "glow," but they still showed very close detail as you'd expect from a film print. Wasn't much of an audience for this showing, maybe in part due to its awkward, early showtime of 9 a.m. (Shame either way.) Again, Festival host Michael Moore and Jan Harlan, Kubrick's brother-in-law and executive producer on his last 6 films, stayed after to answer questions.
I had tickets for some afternoon showings, but I was tired. I had hoped to sell at least one ticket, but thanks to the lady who stood me up for an hour and never showed to buy. So after this, I head back to the hotel and sleep, I think. Got drunk. Did I see another movie the rest of the day? I can't remember. Come to think of it, I think the only movies I saw the whole time I was there, despite buying several other tickets, were the Kubrick ones.
My next viewing was 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1 p.m. the next day. So I finally saw this on the big screen after such a long wait. That's really what I came to the Fest for, right? Didn't exactly see it as the real fanatics recommend: basically stadium seating with a curved screen. This was an old theater with traditional seating and flat screen. Anyway, it was a neat experience but I can't say I was blown away. I probably wore this one out with so many viewings already, as it was. Again, Moore and Harlan answer questions afterwards.
The last viewing was a late (10 p.m.) showing of Eyes Wide Shut. Again, I saw this so many times already that there was no novelty. Specky original theater print in (I believe) 1.85:1 ratio. Well past midnight, Harlan alone remains to answer questions to a nearly-empty house, so I got in a few. The best I can do here is quote from an email that I thankfully wrote shortly thereafter (Aug. 7):
One of the tidbits he threw out was that the harsh and grating piano piece by Ligeti was a near-last-minute replacement by Kubrick. He had considered using a song by Wagner called "In the Treehouse" but decided it was too beautiful for use in the movie. Now I've got to go find it and listen to it.
Another tidbit, which you may already know, is that he mentioned that Kubrick regarded EWS as his finest work (and it's Harlan's favorite as well). I asked whether the dual-layer story (which works on both a literal as well as dream/fantasy level, without making any explicit revelations as to which is which at any point) is a main part of why Kubrick regarded this as so good, and Harlan's answer was rather simple: Kubrick considered it his finest work because its subject matter was the most difficult to portray on screen, and referred to the themes of sexuality and jealousy.
Another tidbit: I asked JH to give some insight into just how huge Kubrick's Napoleon project would have been, and he mentioned that there were some 18,000 pictures in the archive made up by Kubrick for use for the film. I was surprised to learn that by the length of the screenplay, the running time of the film would not have been over 3 hours. (My and everyone else's best guess is that Barry Lyndon was about the nearest approximation to what a Napoleon film done by Kubrick might have been like.)
[Then, from an Aug. 8 email]
'nother tidbit from Harlan: Kubrick had a saying, "Movies don't have to be made," seeing as so many are being made already. That's why SK didn't make many; he only made them when he found it necessary to do so and would be satisfied with the final product. Too bad a lot of other directors don't follow that same idea, heh?
Now, as for what transpired between these two viewings, was the mid-fest party out on the deck of a hotel, facing the bay. Scenic view. Anyway, some celebs deigned to mingle with the slobs, and Michael Moore is there. I stood right next to him as he sat there chatting with a nerdy looking guy who, it turns out, upon my asking him his name, was David O. Russell (you know, director of Three Kings, I Heart Huckabees, and Flirting With Disaster). But that was about the extent of my interaction with the celebs. I didn't have anything to say to Moore. I wanted to chew him out and thank him (for putting on the Fest) at the same time, but he's heard it all before. I think part of his conversation with Russell had to do with the lousy job Bush was doing (I wasn't about to argue it) but that the Fest was doing a good job not politicizing things. And it did, for the most part. A few libs got out some jabs at the Bushies in their addresses, but that's to be expected, I'm sure. As for this mid-Fest party . . . over-priced food, noisy, and, oh well, a decent view.
So that was that. Off the next day back to the real world. Oh, I did manage each day I was there, and on the way back, not to miss much or any of Howard Stern's show. Thank goodness for wi-fi!
Speaking of Howard, I was commenting the other day to someone: The man, whatever else you could say about him, should be set up as a textbook example, in schools for aspiring radio or media entertainers, as to how to entertain. It's really quite unbelievable what this guy is able to put out for 5 hours a day, every day. In some ways, the Howard world is a world unto itself, and you're compelled to look (listen) in every day as it all transpires. There's just nothing else like it in the media world. It's all in its own little niche on satellite radio. Another world unto itself, The Big Lebowski, just couldn't survive and be what it is with FCC-style regulation. There are some imperfections of Howard's presence on Sirius: he takes off Fridays. And the Channel 100 team can't seem to come up with an adequate show for Fridays. For the first few months they tried a Friday show, which was halfway listenable. That not panning out as expected, the team is now relying on the Tapes to salvage Fridays. Around the middle of the year, Howard obtained the rights to some 23,000 hours of tapes of his old show on regular, boring, old-fashioned radio. And Fridays are now being used to re-air old episodes. The Howard of old . . . well, let's try and put aside the fact that some of these shows are nearly 20 years old, so some aspect of them is not going to date well. He comments on events current only then. But putting that aside, his old show sounds hardly better than what the present crop of old-fashioned radio DJs can come up with. There's hardly any comparison between old Howard and new Howard. I think it says that he blows the rest of the crop away, if he could get as big as he did with the old show.
Well, enough about that. What's been going on these past 4 months? Well, I did spend most of my internet posting time at SOLO. (One "highlight": things didn't pan out too well between myself and a certain member of the editorial staff of a certain journal I recently got published in. Where it goes from here on out, I don't really know....) Among more recent posts, there's this one encapsulating my latest thoughts on the egoism/rights relation and the theories of Mack, Rasmussen & Den Uyl, et al.
But besides that -- what's been going on all this time? Well, work, for one. And something that doesn't require a whole lot of commentary: MUSIC! Movie-watching has subsided drastically, and music-listening has ramped up. Two significant musical discoveries in the past months: Classical composer Frederick Delius, and current rock act Porcupine Tree. I've been listening to loads of both classical and current/recent rock, and little else in rock that I've been listening to (other than acts I knew and liked already) has compared in quality with Porcupine Tree's recent efforts. And that's after some extensive working down the RateYourMusic Top Albums list, which actually has served as a nice predictor for things that I have liked (though it's mainly worked one way: quite a lot of what I like garners a high rating there, though not vice versa).
Only very recently, I've been starting to "get" a good number of symphonic composers aside from Beethoven. Ones that, before, didn't seem to compare at all to the Master. True, he is more accessible than the rest of the guys, but that's because his language is easier to learn. You really do need to learn a composer's language to really enjoy him most. I think it takes several listens and coming back to, in order to "get" a composer. The composers I've been starting to "get" (or "get" better than before) -- and it's often with symphonies -- are Brahms, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, and just very recently, Sibelius (namely his 2nd). I think that Morricone's "Legend of the Pianist" had something to do with spurring on this exploration; with very open ears I've been going after works that are orchestral, grand (e.g., large buildups and resolutions), lush and Romantic, and I've been enjoying them much more than I had before. I had this thought this morning as I listened to the conclusion of Sibelius 2, and that is: how can pop/rock ever hope to match the total grandeur of what classical can muster? After so much of the past few months listening to rock/pop and only coming up with Porcupine Tree as an impressive new act, I can say with a bit more experience how disappointed I am by pop/rock.
On top of this, I'm wondering if I'm getting closer to being ready to finally "get" Mahler, whom I could barely stand up till now....
End entry for 12/17/2006
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August 12, 2006
Well, as I sit here with Coldplay songs playing over and over in my head (A little digression about Coldplay: I know that a large number of music snobs look down on them, but it's clear enough to me why they're maybe the biggest music thing going at the moment and, heck, that they're the biggest thing going is more of a lucky coincidence than when, say, Michael Jackson was the biggest thing going. And they're simply better than U2, I think that much is obvious to my ears. Incidentally, I did some listening of Nirvana earlier today. I suppose I never really did get what's supposed to be so big about them. The thought that they're so acclaimed and I don't get it doesn't really put any scary thoughts in my mind about my music tastes, as there are plenty of like instances in the world of movies. End of digression. For now.) and listening for the first time to Interpol, I realized that it was time for my much-anticipated, long-overdue report on my Aug. 1-4 visit to the Traverse City Film Festival, while the details were still fresh enough in my noggin.
The first thing to note about this is that I'm a Kubrick geek. The film fest showcased all sorts of movies, but the main attraction that drew me there was the Kubrick retrospective. Why? Hadn't I seen all his films at least five times through already? (Technically, no. But let's not split hairs.) Well, I hadn't seen them (Eyes Wide Shut's 1999 release excepted) on the BIG SCREEN. And that simply had to be remedied. Well, at least for Kubrick's two grandest achievements: 2001: A Space Odyssey and Barry Lyndon. Fortunately, the Festival's schedule of Kubrick films put them in relatively close proximity. Good, that meant that I wouldn't have to spend too much time=money up there if I didn't want to. The schedule so worked out that I'd catch the three hitherto-mentioned Kubrick films in the span of two days.
The second thing to note is that not everyone else is a Kubrick geek. See, the advance ticket sales for the shows started a month ahead of the Fest, and a lot of them sold out quickly. The Kubrick films never sold out. That's simply unfathomable! A tribute to the greatest filmmaker of all time (this isn't the time or place to split hairs) and the rare chance for a big-screen viewing, and the Fest is overflowing with available tickets for Kubrick. Damn bad movie-viewing-public's taste. As a signpost pointing in the direction of relative sanity,
[I think the coffee I had a few hours ago is still having its effect. I rarely partake in this beverage, specifically so as to take maximum advantage of its effects when needed.]
the showing for 2001 did end up playing to a pretty full house. A reasonably healthy crowd even showed up for Barry Lyndon. Both films did get ovations from the crowds at the end. Eyes Wide Shut, viewed by the public consensus as Kubrick's failed masterpiece, played to a small crowd in a small theater that's actually a small opera house, and I can't recall whether it ended with an ovation. Nicole Kidman utters the final expletive, cut to black, and the crowd goes, "Oh." At least I think that's how it's supposed to go. Kubrick planned it out in advance, I just know it.
Third thing to note is, um, . . . well, anyway, I schedule my appearance at this Festival by buying a number of other tickets for movies that I might like to see in between the Kubrick films, you know, to kill the time. First thing I discover upon arriving at the ticket office to claim my rightful will-call tickets, is that I actually purchased two tickets for two different 4pm showings on Wednesday the 2nd, but none for any 4pm showings on Thursday the 3rd. So I'm now embarked on a quest to unload my excess ticket for the grand total of $7.00 face value. I did have a nice semi-lengthy chat with the volunteer workers in the Festival ticket office. Apparently I was the only person who had come in all day (this was near 8 p.m., ticket-office closing time) that had actually talked with them about film. The man (I'm horrible with names, and I don't even know if I got it to begin with) and I shared the assessment of Robert Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller that it's a great film and both his and my favorite Altman film. (Grammatically, that looks like sh_t, dunnit? Better than "both our favorite Altman film" anyway.)
Closely conjoined with the Kubrick retrospective, and an event I did buy a ticket for, was a world-premier showing of O Lucky Malcom!, a career retrospective about Malcolm McDowell, directed by Jan Harlan, the brother of Stanley Kubrick's widow Christiane, and executive producer on Kubrick's last several films. Apparently this 90-minute documentary is intended as bonus material for some release of a new DVD edition of A Clockwork Orange presumably next year. While Malcolm is by far best known for his role as Alex DeLarge, the title for this doc is derived from a much lesser-known gem of McDowell's career, O Lucky Man!. (For some years now, this remains one of the few notable films yet to be released on DVD. So far, neither has Nicolas Roeg's Performance, Bertolucci's Il Conformista, Orson Welles's Magnificent Ambersons in Region-1 or Chimes at Midnight or a region-1 of Lynch's Lost Highway and some others.) This doc is done much in the same style as Harlan's own Kubrick restrospective, Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (2001), which is excellent. I even noticed the same piano piece used in both (evidently by Chopin, according to the style of the piece and the soundtrack listing in the end credits) that Harlan must be a big fan of to use again like that. The doc was introduced in person by the trio of Festival founder/host Michael Moore, McDowell, and Harlan, who then did a Q&A together after the film. I'll give you three guesses how long this "90-minute event" drew out to when all was said and done. Show was scheduled to start at 10 p.m., mind you. By the time everyone was seated, concession in hand [Oh sh_t, here's another chance for digression. So I sits myself down on the rightward section of seats down near front, right? Seated next to me is an even bigger Kubrick geek than I. He had the fortitude to bring along his copy of the beautiful mammoth book, The Stanley Kubrick Archives, apparently to get it auto'd by Malcolm. This guy was maybe about my age, late 20s, 30ish, and no-nonsense about Kubrick. But didn't seem really interested in getting into a discussion about it, either. Like it's not something to discuss, perhaps? My conjecture is that this guy was such a geek that he's more anti-social and introverted and dare I say obsessive than I could ever hope to be. Just immerse himself in his own world centered around Kubrick. I ask him what his favorite Kubrick was, and he goes "Dr. Strangelove." That's it. Done. No further discussion warranted, invited or implied. I get the feeling that if I show up to an Ayn Rand conference, even more of similar personality types emerge {well, not} from the woodwork.], and the introduction by the trio completed, it's around 10:30. Keep in mind that I've got to be up early the next morn' for the 9:00am showing of Barry Lyndon.
[starting to run out of steam here. I'm going to have to continue this report later, I know it]
Quite literally, ever since the night of the showing, there were things that McDowell said that I can't for sure ascribe to what he said in interviews in the film, or what he said in the post-doc interview/Q-A. One such thing was an anecdote that he relayed about the redhead in A Clockwork Orange who played the writer Mr. Alexander's wife. She told him ahead of their scene together that she was a real redhead. And by golly, by the end of the scene, he discovered that she was a real redhead indeed. I don't think he was the only one to discover that, by the way. Oh, here's one that I do know was in the documentary. There's some Q-A session within the documentary in which McDowell was posed the following question: "Just how heavy was the [valuable and important work of art] with which you killed the cat lady? Was it difficult to lift?" McDowell replied, with characteristic insight and charm, "So you came all this way and this is the question you ask, how heavy was that [valuable and important work of art]!" To which I might have appended were I he, "Good for you!"
A couple anecdotes about McDowell's most notorious role, that of Caligula in the movie of same name. One comes from the doc, the other from the live Q-A. In the doc, he mentions that (perhaps more than anything, I gathered) he felt betrayed over that movie. See, what happened was that there were scenes shot with him, and then the producer, Penthouse's Bob Guccione, had other, unrelated, explicit sex scenes shot and inserted after the fact. So you'd have shots of Malcolm as Caligula doing this and that, and then intercut to scenes of, in MM's words, "10 minutes of lesbians doing whatever it is that lesbians do" (which can't be all bad, now can it). Having such fine eye for detail on these matters, that anecdote I know to be from the film. The one from the live Q-A had to do with MM's father, who kept wanting to accompany MM to the set to watch his son in the shooting of the film. Given the nature of the subject matter (of what scenes MM did appear in, mind you), MM kept finding excuses not to have to bring his father to the set and subject him to the, um, surprise. But one day (I forget the exact details on the how/why) his father showed up and made it inevitable and MM unable to make an excuse. So they go to the set, and crew member greet MM and ask him if he's ready, whether he's had enough coffee to drink, and so on. Then he's on for his scene, and MM as Caligula goes and micturates upon a stone pillar. When the scene is over, MM's father tells him, "Fabulous! That was great, how you could just pee like that right on cue!"
So, the film got over around midnight, and the Q&A lasted past 12:30 in the morning. I wouldn't be back in my hotel room till half past 1 if that.
Quick post-note: Heading up the aisle past where I was standing at the end of the whole session, MM signed a couple autos and was asked by a young man who was an aspiring actor what advice he could give him. He answered by relaying a story involving Dustin Hoffman who (if I remember the story right) had asked that question of another great actor (Olivier?), and received the response, [please note I'm paraphrasing everything but the last part] "You want to be able to say, 'Look at me!' [MM leans in closer to the young man's face, near-whisper] 'Look at me!'"
Ah, I'm halfway, at most, through this report. To be continued . . .
End entry for 8/12/2006
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August 9, 2006
After just jotting down a page and a half of notes on Mack-ian deontology for my next published writing project, I re-realized for the third time in the past week (that's four realizations altogether) that I hadn't made an entry in -- gasp! -- three months. Most unfortunate, indeed, as I realized (that's one realization so far), going over last year's journal, how nice it was to have some documentation of what was going on with me at or around that point in time. So here are three months, undocumented, blammo, like they just didn't exist. Sigh. All water under the bridge, as Walter says. (Okay, to document some of the valuable activities I've been up to, I did very recently spend a week posting heavily to the Lebowski board on IMDb, quoting the whole damn movie when all was said and done, got tired of it, and moved on -- just like the vagrant who used the Dude's car as a toilet, I'll point out. While I was there, for that whole span of a week, I posted like an all-star on the board, a real achiever, not to be out-quoted by anyone else there. And look what I now have to show for it.) There is stuff aplenty in those Google Groups archives, anyway. A few things that have been going on with me (directly or indirectly) lately:
1. The issue of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies with my piece in it finally went to press in very late spring. (First published article -- yay!) As to my current piece-in-the-works, I have several pages of semi-scattered notes, added to from time to time until I have enough to draw from for an organized presentation. It's all there in the noodle, it's just a matter of getting it down on "paper" . . .
2. Attended the Traverse City Film Festival, held the first week of August. A few days of the fest, anyway. I'll get more notes in here about that (hopefully) shortly.
3. Gyorgy Ligeti, RIP. Ligeti passed away June 12, so shortly after my May 5 entry related to him. I believe that leaves Morricone as the greatest living composer, period. (I'm sure the classical music geeks will dispute this with 50 different other names.)
4. Using RYM and Acclaimedmusic.net as guides, I've reverted back to listening to pop/rock music to see what I've been missing (read: what the fuss has been all about). Listened to lately such acts as: Coldplay (liked some of it), Van Morrison (really like "Sweet Thing" from Astral Weeks), Patti Smith's Horses (not sure yet at this point -- need more listens), Flaming Lips (Soft Bulletin on Napster), Oasis (their two biggest albums, on Napster), some Dylan (Blonde on Blonde; Highway 61), more obligatory Radiohead (all the albums from Bends forward -- I really like "Fake Plastic Trees"), Neil Young (like some if it for sure, need to listen a lot more), Massive Attack's Blue Lines (meh), Sufjan Stevens' Illinois[e] (bracket mine; too early to tell how much I like this, as I just bought it Saturday, today being Wednesday), a bit of Tool (one listen through so far on Aenima; some good stuff but being a kind of angry-sounding metal it may not be my thing), a few black metal recommendations (thanks a helluva lot, CJW!), the Led Zeppelin compilations Early Years and Later Years ("Kashmir" is about the only one of the bunch I can kind of get into), Velvet Underground and Nico on Napster (need more listens), Jeff Buckley's Grace (Napster; liked one track, #2 I think), Eno (Another Green World; okay), Weezer (meh), Blur (meh), a few once-overs on representative albums by the Pixies (I'm not into punk right now, safe to say), REM, White Stripes, Franz Ferdinand, Wilco, The Strokes. Probably several more I can't recall right off. And a large dose of Sirius radio. I just re-remembered how much I like "Deep Water" from Seal's first album.
5. (Drawing a blank) More to come shortly . . . ?
End entry for 8/9/2006
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May 5, 2006
May be getting the hang of: 20th century classical music. Some of it, that is. "Atonality" per se doesn't turn my ears off; it's just lousy atonality that does. Gyorgy Ligeti (perhaps the genius of late 20th century non-film music composition; lately, I've been extensively revisting my previously built-up mini-collection of his works) composes thoroughly atonal works that happen to be interesting and listenable for the most part. The quality of music would seem to depend a lot on the skills of the composer, not on whether it is tonal or not. There is some atonal music that's more interesting, more memorable, more masterfully crafted/structured than a good deal of tonal, melodic music. There's plenty of boring music no matter what the style.
As I've developed an ear for classical and what's good in it and what's not, so much pop/rock seems . . . well, simplistic by comparison. And no, there's not something snobbish about reporting what my ears tell me -- that too much pop/rock falls too flat on them. There's some rock that at least aims to be symphonic/orchestral, taking time to work out and develop a theme. (Pink Floyd's "Sheep" may be an excellent example of what I have in mind.) I'm also finding myself intensely annoyed by much of the use of "beat" in pop/rock. Maybe it serves some legitimate purpose beyond consistently-spaced noise in the background telling us what the timing is; I'm just not sure.
End entry for 5/5/2006
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April 16, 2006
1. Just added to the site: An article draft, Integration and Unity in Randian Ethics (written mid-2005). As I note on my Philosophy page, it's a rough outline or preview of something that is going to take quite a bit more work to make into an adequately full (and, I presume, much larger) project. Rightly found by all involved to be too sketchy to be accepted for JARS publication in its present form, parts of it explore similar ground and themes covered in my actual forthcoming JARS contribution.
2. Lately, been listening to: Bartok, Schoenberg, Webern, Ligeti (already had a mini-collection of his stuff built up a few years ago), a bit of Philip Glass, a bit of Elliott Carter, Scriabin, Hindemith, some Satie. Lots of pretty effed-up stuff there, I know. I'd throw Berg in there as well but I haven't listened to his violin concerto as of late along with these others. I've heard of Stockhausen, Xenakis, etc. but haven't been able to access their work easily on Napster or the library. (I'd go on a buying spree but for tax day....) What was the "gateway" to my even wanting to listen to this craaazy modern/post-modern garbage? Who else, but Morricone, of course! There's some intriguing-to-fascinating stuff on Itinerary that goes into his modernist sensibilities, and based on the other composers I've heard so far, he might do uniquely modernist expression of beauty at least as well as anyone, just as he does Romantic melody and light/fun melody in his film scores just as well as anyone. The guy's versatile, I guess.
3. Subjects thought about lately: (1) Whether we "owe" animals either concern or respect (to use a traditional distinction); (2) Whether Nozick's "experience machine" hypothetical gives some useful insight into how our genuine interests correspond to our (moral) good. I've got some arguments on these written in emails, which I may get around to posting here (at least this note should be a reminder). Hmmm, doesn't it unduly promote overlap to just re-post email arguments here? Well, heck, I just did it below (4/12). :-)
4. Been spending too much time lately at: SOLOPassion, Notablog, and NoodleFood. HPO's been so under violent spam-assault (apparently from some disgruntled computer geeks) in the past couple days, it's darn near unpleasant to navigate via Google Groups. Anyway, should I bother spending/wasting even more time trying to explain the valid relation between the axioms of existence and consciousness to a clueless HPO'er (in flame mode, I address him as Mr. Jackshit, as in knows-jackshit-about-Objectivism) who's presently baiting the group on the subject? Hmmm....
End entry for 4/16/2006
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April 12, 2006
1. Some ruminations on "deontology" and the egoism-rights connection
Below are some ruminations may be the seed for a larger project. For some time I had been advancing a hard-line "deontological" interpretation of rights theory, but I'm having some misgivings about the approach. Seeing as I think Rand got it fundamentally right (leaving systematic details to other scholars to work out), and given her animus toward the idea of a "deontological" theory of obligation, how exactly (if at all) is "deontology" supposed to fit into a Randian approach to rights theory, as some Rand scholars (most notably Eric Mack, and to a less pronounced extent, Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl) have argued it does? My current view, in sum, is that "deontology" is, at best, a misleading term as applied to the formal aspects of moral reasoning. Deontology, in straightforward usage, is formalism in ethics: it regards valid moral reasoning as arising only from fundamentally formal reasoning (as in the Categorical Imperative). It takes form in and of itself to be the basis for moral reasoning. (Kant doesn't speak of practical reasoning as having a moral character until he works his way to "rational" formal constraints on the pursuit of ends. Until that point, we're in the realm of hypothetical, means-end imperatives that are mere instructions without an inherently binding character.) An Aristotelian approach, meanwhile, proceeds on a proper understanding of the form/content relationship.
Admittedly these ruminations are still rather sketchy and in further need of development, but . . . here goes . . .
This has to do with a certain misgiving I have about a view on egoism and rights that I had been advocating over the years that lines up closely with those of Eric Mack and the Dougs Rasmussen and Den Uyl. Well, more specifically, a misgiving I have in the approach that Mack takes. Namely, the appearance of a disturbing tendency towards dualism in his egoism-and-rights arguments. (IIRC, somewhere in one of his articles he even uses the term "dualism" in a positive light.) My misgiving may have to do with manner of presentation more than anything. But it has to do with setting up egoism and rights as separate and distinct (and irreducible?) poles of moral reasoning. This seems reflected in such article titles as "On the 'Fit' Between Egoism and Rights." Which leads to some other curious notions: that we've got value-based reasons over here, and then, by other criteria for moral reasons, we've got *deontic* reasons over there. At the least this gives the appearance of buying into a value/deontology dichotomy. That somehow a proper theory of rights needs to involve grafting a deontological/formalist set of reasons onto an egoistic theory of value in order to work.
In some sense, there is an excellent sensibility that's being expressed here: that the egoistic theory of value is necessary to the Moral Individualist perspective that informs the theory of rights. But what we get are "dual" identifications of the man-is-an-end-in-himself idea, each part requiring some unique rationale. Problem being, we're left in an ambiguous position: is each "part" (value-egoism and rights-deontology) part of a truly unified understanding stemming from the same basis of moral reasons, or is there a "grafting" going on, where they're "put together" without being reducible to a common basis of moral reasons?
There were a number of years where I didn't quite see what I think I now see, when objections were raised to the deontological stuff in online fora. (I keep thinking of the criticisms from Ari Armstrong, Will Thomas and others on OWL or Kirez's Objectivism-L.) Namely: where does the deontology come from? Why deontology? What's *Objectivist* about the deontology stuff? Indeed, what it appears to be, from the standpoint of such criticisms, is a grafting-on. And if it's a grafting-on, it's incorporating moral rationale, criteria, etc. that are foreign to an Objectivist approach to moral reasons. If it's not grafting-on, then we can rightly ask why it's called deontology and in contrast or opposition to *what* that it is called deontology. But let's go with an idea suggested in my response to Bass [Spring '06 issue of Journal of Ayn Rand Studies]: that Rand's approach to rights is, non-dualistically, unitary with her approach to value. That similar bases for reasons exist for her egoistic ethics and, *by extension*, her argument for rights.
I think doing so, however, involves throwing out an assumed dichotomy or dualism between "deontology" and "value." In other words, by realizing that Rand's approach to moral theory and, by extension, her rights theory, adopts a different approach that doesn't accept such dualisms. It would not be sufficient for accepting such dualisms to merely point out that Rand's Aristotelian-virtue approach to morality incorporates formal and material aspects. A recognition of a formal aspect to moral reasoning needn't commit us to the idea that there is a distinct "deontological" realm of reasons. That would be just as dubious as saying that the material aspect of moral reasoning commits us to accepting "consequentialist" bases for reasoning, something which Mack does actually refrain from doing. We need to be aware that acknowledging similarities between formal aspects of reasoning and all-out Kantian reasoning doesn't take us on a Kantian turn in ethics, where true deontology is done -- where formal reasoning takes on a life of its own, issuing its own unique basis of moral justification.
Could one say that Kant puts himself into a hopeless position of having to try to find a way to graft content onto form? You know, the old Humpty-Dumpty that can't be put back together? The Aristotelian approach, on the other hand, doesn't go in treating form as divorced from content. They have to be treated together, in the same manner that Aristotle treats form in relation to content. The best approach may be that conceived by the Dougs -- not as treating egoism and rights in terms of values and deontology, but in terms of the private and the socio-political. The formal-material integration takes the form of a virtue-egoist ethics where self-directedness or autonomy is an essential formal feature of proper human living, which in turn informs the socio-political case for rights as codified recognitions of that requirement. So their use of the term "deontic" is quite restricted in its application, to refer to formal aspects of moral concepts. There is one nit left, which is their appeal to "deontic irreducibility," but given the context of their discussion, it's reference to a formal aspect of rights' role: as protecting self-directedness or autonomy, whether or not a given individual exercises such to the actualization of his own good.
2. Per Christian Malloch and His Collected Works
A recent online exchange brought back memories of this illustrious character, who flamed briefly across the sky in the late '90s on Objectivism internet forums (Kirez Korgan's Objectivism-L in particular). I was actually quite amazed that someone this young was this bright, well-read, active and productive. (How did he find the time to do all that?) He was bold and brash and irreverent and often even mocking in his tone just to push buttons. And he always had something interesting to say, fun to read. Given his date of death in late 2000, he couldn't have lived to be older than about 21. By that time he had probably interacted online with hundreds if not thousands of people from all over the place, touching some in a more significant way than others. He'd been to conferences put on by Ayn Rand Institute-related organizations, the Institute for Objectivist Studies, and the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and was undoubtedly one of the most outspoken and fascinating participants at all of them. I really haven't any idea, were he alive today, whether he would remember much of anything about me, but he definitely had an impact on me, I'm sure much moreso than whatever I might have had on him.
During his brief stint with Objectivism-related discussions (before moving on to other intellectual endeavors, be it amoralism, Satanism, neo-Tech, and whatever else, bringing with him whatever points he figured he gleaned from Rand), I would remember him as the one who would etch into my mind the challenge raised by amoralism, which really is a broader issue of how and where ethical obligation ever arises at all. To my impressionable young mind of the time, reading Per's "proof of amoralism" ("The Moralist Bag of Tricks," starting on p. 167 of "The Collected Works" in the link above) was a formative experience for my way of thinking about morality. And you know what? It was perhaps as concise, entertaining, and well-written a presentation of the "amoralist" position as could be done, by a seasoned academic or otherwise. For more of the same concision and entertainment, check out his "Crowning Jewel of Postmodernism" on p. 119.
I didn't even know until today that economics and philosophy weren't major subjects of study for him in school, but he was so well-read up on them that you would have thought they were.
Per, we hardly knew ye. You could have been one of the great ones, whatever you would have ended up doing.
End entry for 4/12/2006
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April 8, 2006
My first-ever list of favorite albums, limited to a Top 20 for now:
1. Ennio Morricone, Itinerary of a Genius
2. Beethoven, Piano Concertos Nos. 4 & 5 (various recordings; my favorite is probably the Daniel Barenboim, who plays and conducts the Berlin PO)
3. Beethoven, Symphonies 5 & 7 (Kleiber; Vienno PO)
4. Morricone, The Legend of 1900 [Soundtrack]
5. Elton John, Madman Across the Water
6. Elton John, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy
7. Soundtrack, 2001: A Space Odyssey
8. Morricone, Lolita [Soundtrack]
9. Mozart, The Great Piano Concertos (Vols. 1 & 2)
10. Soundtrack, Eyes Wide Shut
11. Pink Floyd, Meddle
12. Radiohead, The Bends
13. John Barry, Moviola
14. Beethoven, Symphonies 4 & 6 (Walter; Columbia SO)
15. Beethoven, Symphones 3 & 8 (Szell; Cleveland Orchestra)
16. Steely Dan, Everything Must Go
17. Donald Fagen, The Nightfly
18. Soundtrack [Sir Neville Marriner, conductor], Amadeus
19. Pink Floyd, Animals
20. (Tie) Steely Dan, Aja and The Royal Scam
[Rankings revised 4/18/06]
End entry for 4/8/2006
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February 28, 2006
Looks like I may have finally found a Top Albums list, from the Rate Your Music (RYM) website, comparable in format to the IMDb Top 250. Looks like this could come in handy for when I venture back into the pop/rock/jazz/etc. listening mode. There are also some other lists and stats on the RYM website having to do with album ratings. I notice that the top albums score about 4.5 out of 5, which closely resembles the scores (9.0 out of 10) for the top-rated movies at IMDb. That would suggest that albums scoring below about 3.5 (or more like 3.25) tend predictably to be in mediocre territory.
I encountered this site while Googling for top rated classical music works, but managed not to turn up anything obvious in that dept. Apparently there's not enough public interest. On a 1-10 scale voting system like on IMDb, what classical works would top the list (broken down by category, I'd guess), and with what "score"?
In other news, I recently put up some thoughts in a "review" of Woody Allen's Match Point on HPO. (As it happens, Match Point is the third movie I've watched at a theater in roughly the past two years, the others being Terrence Malick's The New World last month and the final installment of George Lucas's recent craptilogy last spring/summer. Oh, and I'm falling way behind in my movie watching pace as of late....)
Also, I felt it was about time to do a listing (More ListMania!) in approximate order of preference of favorite (read: most beautiful) Morricone film score titles. Nearly all are on a CD-R I burned, though they don't appear in this order:
Love in the Morning (Lolita, 1997)
Lolita title theme (Itinerary of a Genius version)
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury/Opening credits (Lolita)
Rampage (Itinerary of a Genius version)
Once Upon a Time in the West (title theme)
1900's Theme (The Legend of 1900)
Deborah's Theme (Once Upon a Time in America)
Once Upon a Time in America title theme
For Annette and Warren (Love Affair)
Metti, una sera a cena (2nd theme, Itinerary of a Genius version)
The Legend of the Pianist (The Legend of 1900)
Playing Love (both versions, The Legend of 1900)
The Crisis (The Legend of 1900)
Duck, You Sucker (title theme)
Gott mit uns (numerous versions)
Cinema Paradiso (orchestral arrangement by Nick Ingman for Decca's Movie Adagios)
Casualties of War (Yo-Yo Ma version)
Nocturne With No Moon (The Legend of 1900)
Romanza (Itinerary of a Genius)
The Harvest (Days of Heaven)
Le due stagioni della vita
Gabriel's Oboe (The Mission)
Lizard in a Woman's Skin
What am I Doing in the Middle of the Revolution?
From what I've been able to find to listen to so far, I'm quite confident that an 80-minute CD-R with Morricone's scores is about the best 80 minutes of music I could put together from any one composer/songwriter, save for Beethoven (who'd need about 800 minutes anyway).
End entry for 2/28/2006
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February 16, 2006
Continuing with the classical music exploration. The list of piano concertos that I actually care much about is down to about 8 in number, and in approximately the following order:
Beethoven #5 "Emperor"
Beethoven #4
Rachmaninov #2
Mozart #22
Mozart #23
Mozart #20
Mozart #21
Brahms #2
(Does Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto qualify?)
Symphonies? It's a sad looking list, really, because who composes anything like Beethoven? Plus, there are tons that I haven't yet heard. But hardly anything I've heard so far really compares in my mind. My top ten-ish list so far, and trying really hard to work other composers into it:
Beethoven #6
Beethoven #7
Beethoven #5
Beethoven #3
Beethoven #9 (maybe I'm not the biggest fan of this one)
Beethoven #4
Beethoven #8
Mozart #40
Dvorak #9
Brahms #3
Haydn 94/100/104
Favorite composers, working in film composers, looks like this, again in approximate descending order:
Beethoven
Morricone
Mozart
John Barry (esp. "Somewhere in Time" and "Out of Africa")
Rachmaninov
Schubert (esp. Ave Maria and the string quintet adagio)
Debussy (esp. Claire de lune)
Chopin (esp. Nocturne No. 19 in E minor, Op. 72, No. 1)
Brahms
(10th place - "tie" between Haydn [symphonies], Wagner [Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde], Liszt [Benediction de Dieu dans la solitude], Shostakovich [piano quintet], Dvorak ["Dumky" trio, Symphony 9], Ligeti [the Kubrick-movie stuff], Bach [Air from Orchestral Suite 3])
I've still a long ways to go to reach the stage of music (just classical music!) literacy comparable to my current film literacy. I'm probably by now at a 2 or 3 on a 1-10 scale. As to whether Beethoven is too "easy" a pick at this point, I might liken my estimation of him to that of Kubrick amongst film directors. Asked about 5 years ago as a budding movie enthusiast who my favorite directors are, I would have said Kubrick, with the Coen brothers a close second. I think David Lynch would have been #3. I only knew of the other really well-known directors at the time - Spielberg, Scorsese, Coppola, Woody Allen (who was probably #4 on my list) - and next to nothing of the foreign directors. The Coens aren't so close anymore, and no one else is all that close right now, either. For a time Tarkovsky took the top spot and had about as lofty a place in my "pantheon" of favorite directors as Kubrick had had for a long while and has again reclaimed. Anyway, point being, it would appear that guys like Kubrick/Beethoven can stand out just as much in the estimation of a novice as that of a seasoned veteran.
End entry for 2/16/2006