Author: RTNM

Cliff Stoll

To a mathematician, I’m a pretty good physicist… To a physicist, I’m a fairly good computer maven. To real computer jocks, they know me as somebody who’s a good writer. To people who know how to write … I’m a really good mathematician!

Cliff Stoll
Wired.com 12/18/19

 

Cliff Stoll sells Klein Bottles (more on that in a bit).  Sure, he has done a lot more than that in his time.  Go ahead and Google him.  Do yourself a favor and watch a few of the Numberphile videos that pop up.   You will not come across a more interesting person than Cliff Stoll.

Cliff Stoll jumps in the air when he gets excited, and man, is he excitable.  Years back, he gave a TED talk, a very good one.  Seek it out.  Try to count how many times he jumps in the air while imparting his particular type of wisdom.

There are so many different ways I can address this incredible man in an essay.  He is a Ph.D. astronomer; his work in that field could take up an entire essay.  How about the story of him and the KGB computer hackers he caught in the mid-’80s?  Well, a lot has been written about that ordeal.  At that point, during the birth of the internet, no one knew what a computer hacker was.  Even still, Stoll caught them, and they were brought to justice.

I mentioned Klein Bottles in the first paragraph.  Ever seen one?  Have any idea what they are?  Pictured are some examples taken from www.kleinbottle.com, the site that Stoll owns.  Simply put, a Klien Bottle is a 3D representation of a four-dimensional, non-orientable, one-sided object of zero volume.  Simply put, that is…

 

 

Of course, its 2D counterpart is the ubiquitous Mobius Strip.  Below is an example.  That object has only one side.  Don’t believe me; cut one out and draw a line down the middle.  If it is two-sided, the line will never end where it began, right?  Draw a line and see what happens.

 

 

Klein Bottles have always fascinated me (and yes, they are composed of two Mobius strips).  I have one sitting on a shelf in my library.  There aren’t a lot of things more remarkable than Klein Bottles.  Oddly, though, this short essay is not about Klein Bottles and Stoll’s long fascination with them.  This essay is about something else entirely.

I was talking to my niece the other day.  She was telling me about the essays she has to write for school.  I told her about a class I took some time ago on the topic of essay writing.  I told her that I like to bury the lede and put my thesis statements at the bottom of page 17.  Being the good uncle that I am, I did not advise her to do the same.  I am not sure that eighth-grade English teachers or standardized test graders would be amused at such a tactic.  She readily agreed.

So, this essay is a bit unusual for me.  I put the thesis statement, the real point of the essay, in the epigraph, right there at the beginning.  As a reminder, here is the quote from Stoll once again:

To a mathematician, I’m a pretty good physicist… To a physicist, I’m a fairly good computer maven. To real computer jocks, they know me as somebody who’s a good writer. To people who know how to write … I’m a really good mathematician!

What is the big deal about this?  Well, it is something I have known to be true for decades.  I know that if you are an archaeologist who understands statistics, you are considered to be a brilliant scientist even though to a Professor of Statistics, you might be seen as pedestrian.  That is the way of the world.  I shook my head in agreement the first time I came across Stoll’s quote.  You have no idea how true it is.  In my experience, I have found this to be the way of the world, academic and otherwise.

I think that mathematicians, in general, view the mathematics of physicists as sloppy at best.  That is unless you are Edward Whitten, the only physicist to be awarded the Fields Medal, one of the highest honors mathematics has to offer.  And suppose you are a physicist who is an absolute whiz with computers. In that case, it is easy to be considered a computer genius until real computer people show up.

And on and on and on it goes.  One person’s genius is another’s dullard.  When I read what Cliff Stoll said, I was glad to learn that my insight is more widespread than I thought it might be.  I was happy to know that I wasn’t the only person who noticed this.  After all, one person’s leap is another’s baby step, and in the land of the blind, a one-eyed person is an exalted leader.  And on and on and on it goes.

 

 

Air Effects: a second-person account of an individual who picks up an almost empty can of air freshener.

 

You are in your upstairs library; you appear to be reading Proust.  Your thoughts, though, are not on the text.  Let’s begin there.

Things seem normal until you put down a half-eaten madeleine and pick up a can of Febreze (old book smell can sometimes be overwhelming). Then…well, then things get stilted and awkward.  As you slowly squeeze the nozzle, you can see each of the individual droplets as they slowly exit the cylinder.  You not only smell them, but you can also feel each unique sphere.  Preoccupied with childlike innocence and amazement, you do not notice that the walls are beginning to lean in.  Even worse, the heat suddenly radiating from your chest overwhelms you.

Are you having a stroke?  Probably not; you seem healthy enough.  Maybe you fell in love, and that is what this is all about.  Ahhhh yes…love is powerful enough to warp matter and slow the flow of time.  Didn’t you read that somewhere?  What was straight and simple becomes slanted, geometrically unstable.  Do you really need me to tell you that you are in love?

You must listen to me:  Time and space are part of the same thing; separate them out at your own risk.  The fact that everything is in slow motion and the walls are warping is no coincidence.  The warmth in your chest?  Good luck, you are going to need it.

You…you and your logical mind, is all this too much for you?  What, you think you are some sort of Vulcan, Spock incarnate?  Look around you; the walls are closing in; they are bending at strange and severe angles.  Do you even realize it is also getting darker?  Open your damn eyes; it is getting darker.

It is totally dark now, not regular dark but intense black light dark.  It is pervasive (how unusual); the light seems to be piercing you, invading your essence.  You feel it…you don’t like it…not even a little.

The smell, that’s it!  It is the smell!  The scent of the Febreze reminds you of what Chris was wearing the night you met.  Unfortunately, your deep insight isn’t helping matters.  The walls are so close that you can reach out and touch all four, five, six, seven (what…seven walls?).  You wonder how this is possible.  There were only four walls here a few minutes ago, weren’t there?

You realize the scent that is ostensibly responsible for this fiasco is dissipating.  In your troubled mind, this means that Chris is also fading away.  People like you love metaphor; in a certain sense, you live by it.  Do you even realize the can is still in your left hand?  You do?  Then squeeze the trigger.  What?  Is it empty?  Oh no…

You have just experienced something rare, an unimaginable event at the intersection of your understanding of space and of time.  The Fifth Dimension, the one of pure love and joy, opened up (ever so briefly) around you.  What now?  What of you?  I know exactly what you are going to do next, you are going to buy more Febreeze.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Inuit

Sergio the Eskimo, that is what everyone called him.  No one meant anything mean by it, it was just that his real name was way too hard to pronounce.

No one knew his back story (no one ever cared enough to ask).  The other tenants in his apartment complex would see him around and say “hi” and that was about it.  To them, he was just another guy living in the building.

No one saw him get up at dawn every day to go down to the beach for his workouts.  No one knew he would sprint and sprint and then sprint some more until he threw up on the sand.  No one knew he would come home and meditate for hours and then go back to the beach long after the sun went down.

He never had to explain that he didn’t have to work because the people back home all pitched in to send him to the mainland.  (He was as invisible as a man in plain sight could be.)

One day Sergio posted a notice on the community bulletin board.

RACE AGAINST SERGIO.

All comers welcome.  150 meters.

This is your chance to race against the fastest Inuit sprinter ever.

One week from today at noon.

The big day came and Sergio walked down to the beach to see a couple dozen people at the start line.  They all did their stretches.  Sergio took off his shirt, an old Sergio Tacchini tennis warm-up top, and put it in his duffel bag.

The race began and all 25 people took off.  Sergio crossed the finish line in 19^th place.  He looked stunned as he walked back to his apartment.  He sat for a long time before he was able to compose the following e-mail:

Dearest Elders,
The Americans in San Diego are damn fast runners.  I am sorry that you gave me all your money and sent me here for the greater glory of our people.  I will not be making anyone’s Olympic Team.  I am sorry.  I will come back home soon.

The elders were confused.  Sergio was the fastest runner any of them had ever seen.  Most said that he set the earth on fire with each stride.  They didn’t know what to make of the message.  They quickly called for a council meeting.

A few days later Sergio wrote the council again to tell them that he would be heading home.  He said that he was deeply sorry that he wasted the council’s time and wasted his people’s money.  The elders waited at the train station to greet Biisaiyowaq with a large banner made in his honor.  He never got off the train.

Back in San Diego a policeman came across a canvas bag on a bridge.  There wasn’t much in it, nothing to identify who it belonged to or where it came from.  He had no idea that it belonged to the pride of an Inuit village, a man some called Sergio.

 

I posted a video I put together of a song by The WRB Project.  Give this one a listen.  Justin wrote it for his late sister.  I really like it, it is powerful.

As always, videos are shot with a budget of zero.  We use the best equipment we can scrounge up.  The point is simply to get the music of The WRB Project heard.  Fortunately, these videos have been getting thousands of views.  I am happy that the music is finding an audience.  I hope you enjoy the song.

 

Nonplussed

Aside from all the racial and cultural epithets that are being hurled with more and more frequency, there is a particular word that I genuinely do not like.  It constantly confuses me; its use makes me stumble and bumble even though I am very familiar with it.  I’ve seen it written and heard it spoken numerous times.  Each time this happens, I furrow my brow and wish the author or speaker had chosen another word.

I vowed a long time ago to never use this word in my own writing.  Why?  I simply do not like it.  Words should not create confusion and ambiguity unless that is the intent of the writer.  And I must say that this word always leaves me dazed; I guess you could say that when I read it or hear it, I am nonplussed.

Author’s Note: Yes, I realize that I promised never to use “that word” in my writing, but I have thought about it and have no choice.  I can’t write about “nonplussed” without typing “nonplussed.”  And for those of you who think that is ironic, don’t get me started.  That is a topic for a distant day.

I have been researching this tricky word, and I have found that I am not alone in my dislike for it.  Let’s be generous and just say that its definition seems to be evolving.  In fact, I think that about half the people who use it believe that it means the opposite of what it actually does.  Like I said, its use leaves me confused.

That said, let’s see if we can get to the “root” of the problem.

Author’s Note:  So, an attempt to get to the “root” of the problem?  Of course, I must mean the Latin roots of the word.  I also dislike writing about Latin.  I mean, those people had a different word for everything.  Sure, some of it is pretty close but…

Non and plus in Latin translates to “no more.”  And the way I see it, it is that negative prefix, the non in nonplussed, that is responsible for all the confusion.  Can you think of another word for confused that has a negative prefix?  A negative prefix implies that the person in question is not confused.  See how confusing this is?  You shouldn’t be wondering why I have banned this word from my vocabulary.  If you are, read on.

Historically,  nonplussed meant confused or bewildered to the point you can not speak.  Simple enough, but, once again, we have the negative prefix problem.  Non implies you are not confused; at least it should, right?

In popular use, nonplussed means unfazed, not bothered, or even unimpressed. See all the “un” prefixes?  It seems to me that the popular usage makes more sense.

The big problem is the “non” prefix.  That negative prefix implies that if a person is nonplussed, they are not “plussed,” which means they are unfazed. As Charlie Brown says, Good Grief.  In popular use, the word means something akin to the opposite of its historical definition.  And yes, I am nonplussed.

I am all for the evolution of language.  It is going to happen no matter what any of us do to stop the changes.  My gripe is that words shouldn’t suddenly mean the opposite of what they historically have meant.  If I could somehow fix this problem, that would be really sick.  I mean, people would view me as a bad dude, right?  They might even call me the goat.  Or maybe they all would be too nonplussed to care. Sigh…

 

 

 

It’s a Beautiful Day for Baseball!

I just heard that the great Joe Tait died.  The news was not unexpected; he was old and had several health problems.  Still…

This I know, Joe’s voice was the theme music of my youth.

It was Joe who would let me know that “The Cavs are going right to left on your radio dial” when I tuned in to listen to my team lose again and again.

It was Joe who made me jump out of my seat when “Cleamons got a rebound!” (one of the greatest moments in Cavs history).  It was Joe who made me feel like I was at the old Richfield Coliseum instead of in my bedroom.  He was the best radio announcer I have ever heard.  And yes, I know that every team in the NBA thinks that their announcer is the best, but Cleveland was right; no one was better than Joe.

Joe Tait was the radio voice of the Cleveland Cavaliers.  He also did radio and TV for the Cleveland Indians.  I can remember sneaking a radio to school so that I could listen to his opening day call.  Even if it was 30 degrees and snowing, which it often was in April, you can bet that the broadcast began with “It’s a beautiful day for baseball.”

Even at a young age, I knew that Joe Tait had mastered his craft, but it took a high school basketball game for me to truly appreciate his skill.  Joe would travel around Ohio and sit in with the local announcers for select games.  He usually came to my hometown once a year.  One day, I happened to turn on the radio just as a game was starting.  You guessed it, Tait was sitting in.  As the game went on, I was wondering what was happening.  The game sounded like any other.  The local guys were doing all the talking.  No Joe, not a peep.

Halftime arrived, and I could hear Joe’s canned voice doing a commercial for a local pizza joint.  The other two guys analyzed the first half, and then something extraordinary happened.  As the second half started, the local guys turned off their mics, and Joe Tait took over.  I soon realized he had spent the first half learning all the players and their numbers and sizing up each team’s offensive and defensive schemes.  He spent the second half announcing the game just as he would if the Cavs played the Bulls.  A 5’6” point guard became Mark Price and a 6’2” center transformed into Brad Daugherty.  It was unbelievable; Tait flawlessly announced the second half without hesitation, without a single stumble or a fumble.  He was sublime, and I was awed.

It wasn’t until I heard that second-half call that I truly appreciated Joe Tait.  I still think about what he did that night.  Know this: The kids were not wearing their names on the back of their jerseys; there was only a number.  Tait knew every one of them.  That man was smooth.

I read that Joe wanted to be a writer, that he wanted to paint pictures with his printed words on a page.  As an announcer, he did much more than that.  He spent decades making people believe they were at the sporting event instead of sitting in their living room.  I always smiled when told the Cavs were starting the game on the right side of my radio dial and moving to the left.   And no, I never wondered why the opposite wasn’t true.  I merely suspended disbelief, leaned back, and let Joe Tait take me courtside.

How many nights did I fall asleep after Joe said, “Have a GOOD night, everybody!” following another Cleveland loss?  Too many to count.

Not many of us will be able to say that no one ever lived who was better at their job than we were at ours.  This I know:  No one was better than Joe Tait.  He was the best.

Truth Machine

I am a boxing fan.  There is something about two people standing face to face in a ring that is pure and primal.  And yes, sometimes I think the sport should be outlawed.  But then I watch a little UFC, and I realize boxing is tame in comparison.  I find mixed martial arts to be barbaric; I am not a devotee of that type of violence.  When a man or woman is down, where is the sport in jumping on them and pummeling them until you are yanked off by a stripped interpreter of an ill-conceived rulebook?  I think that it says something about human nature that UFC has become far more popular than boxing.

Boxing is known by all its fans as “The Sweet Science.”  Watching two skilled fighters is like seeing a chess match played out with jabs and crosses and bobs and weaves.  While the science aspect of boxing is sweet and underappreciated in today’s climate, it is another aspect of boxing that interests me today.

There is a famous quote about sports not developing character but revealing it.  It is generally attributed to basketball coach John Wooden or sportswriter H.H. Broun.   I always found that sentiment interesting.  I think it is true, that character is revealed and not built, especially when it comes to boxing.  Set any two people in the ring, and you can learn a lot about them in those three-minute rounds.

That quickly brings us to former heavyweight champion Joe Frazier.  His three matches with Muhammed Ali are classics.  Each man tried their best to rip the heart out of the other man’s body.  I just rewatched Ali – Frazier I, on today, the 50^th anniversary of the fight.  And yes, on that day Joe Frazier was something else; he was transcendent and sublime.

Larry Merchant, a boxing commentator on HBO’s telecasts for decades wrote what is perhaps the greatest lede in sports journalism history.  This appeared in the March 9, 1971 edition of The New York Post:

Muhammad Ali fought a truth machine last night, and the truth that emerged was painfully clear. The arrogance and hubris that made Ali a great champion made him a former champion.

You can’t con Joe Frazier for 15 rounds. Joe Frazier comes at you too honestly, too openly. He lets you find out what you have inside you. It is going to take an honest man made of stern stuff to beat him. Ali was not honest enough last night.

Joe Frazier the truth machine. Can you imagine imagery more profound than that?  Larry Merchant just turned 90, and I hope he is still proud of that lede.  Stripped of all pretense, Frazier came at his opponent with no trickery, no hubris; he simply marched forward, baiting his opponent to stop him.  He wasn’t interested in showmanship or style; he was on a mission to break the spirit of the man opposite him in the ring.  Frazier’s opponents learned deeply held secrets about themselves when they stood across from him.  Frazier exposed his opponents to the world.  Had they worked hard enough to withstand him?  Did they have the fortitude to stand face to face with him for 12 or 15 rounds?  Were they willing to take his punishment?

That night Frazier was relentless.  He gave no quarter.  His march was forward, his character revealed.  He was a great fighter, a true champion.  He kept asking Ali how deep his well was.  With every left hook, he was asking Ali to see if he could dig a little deeper.

How many of us get to do battle with a truth machine in our lives?  I wouldn’t think many of us do.  At least not one as on point as Frazier.  Our revelations come in different ways.  It is easy to fool ourselves into thinking that we are titans when we are never asked to prove it.  We can’t know how deep the well goes unless we are asked to reach deep down by our own nemesis, our own version of a truth machine.

Of course, we all do face a Truth Machine.  It is Time, that undefeated fabric of the universe.  The difference is, a person could hope to defeat Frazier, which Ali did the next two times they fought.  None of us can say the same about the ticking clock.

Some pundits argue that neither fighter was quite the same after that fight.  They say that the back and forth, the exchange of punishment, took something fundamental from both men.  I believe that is true; I also believe that on that day, fifty long years ago, Muhammed Ali fought a Truth Machine. Larry Merchant had the insight to know that we all can learn something profound from those 15 epic rounds.  I know I did.

Subtle is as Subtle does, the Strange but True Story of 13 over 27

I have studied lots of different subjects.  The most slippery is easy to identify. It is probability theory.  Problems in this branch of statistics trip up experts (and me) all the time.  There are lots of stories of famous scholars who have gone down in flames when presented with what seem to be straightforward questions about the probability of this or that.  This essay is about one such problem.

Let’s imagine that I met a high school classmate at a reunion.  When I saw him, I said, “Hey, I hear you have a son; I saw something about him in the paper.” He replied that he has two children, and the oldest is indeed a boy.  Now the simple question is:  What is the probability that the other child is also a boy?

Well, what are the possibilities?  He could have a boy (B) and a girl (G) or a boy (B) and a boy (B).  Therefore the probability that both children are boys is 1/2, which is 50%.  Take a look at the following table:

BB
BG
GB
GG

Since we know that the first child is a boy, we can eliminate the GB and GG rows.  That leaves only two possibilities, BB and BG.

That little scenario is easy to figure out.  Of course, it can’t all be that easy, right?  Are you ready?  Do you hear The Twilight Zone music in the background?  What if the guy had told me that he has two children, but he didn’t tell me whether the boy was the oldest or the youngest?  What then are the odds that the other child is a boy?

Author’s Note:  There are points in some of my essays where the reader’s head might explode.  This is just a “heads up.” The following might be one of them.

Let’s go back to our table.

BB
BG
GB
GG

The only possibility that can be eliminated is GG.  Therefore (do you see it?), the probability that both children are boys is one in three, or 33.3%.  Very strange.  Most everyone’s intuition tells them that the probability should be 1/2, that it is a fifty-fifty proposition.  When the question is carefully considered, the correct answer is the counterintuitive one.

Probability is subtle; finding the correct answer always depends on meticulously considering all available information.  That said, I almost hate to continue.  I hope some young student isn’t reading this and immediately decides not to study statistics.  Don’t do that!  When you develop some mastery over the material, probability theory goes from the counterintuitive to the sublime.  It can teach you a lot about how human brains evolved, it can give deep insight into the nature of the mathematical world that we live in…and it can be a lot of fun.

Author’s Note:  I will be posting many more essays on probability.  Consider this one a bit of a warm-up.  Now that the blood is flowing, things are about to get even stranger.  Keep in mind how awful human intuition is when it comes to this branch of statistics, and you will be fine.  Remember, it’s not you; almost all of us have terrible mathematical intuition.

Our story continues…

I ran into another guy I went to school with.  He was always a bit eccentric, and it appears nothing has changed.  I said, “I hear you have two children.”  He immediately replied, “Why yes, I do.  In fact, one is a boy born on a Tuesday.”  With that, he turned and danced across the room and out the door.

You guessed it.  Now we need to find the odds that the other child is a boy.  How subtle can this problem get?  The fact that the boy was born on a Tuesday does change the problem, and it certainly impacts the answer.  Think about that for a moment.  How can it matter at all on what day the boy was born?  Let’s find out…

There are 196 possibilities.  We get 49 due to the older or younger siblings being born on any of the 7 ways of the week.  If you don’t believe me, create a matrix of days of the week with possible births.  Such a table is shown below:

So, if you were to create a matrix with every option, you would end up with:

49BB
49BG
49GB
49GG

Out of the 196 possibilities, we can isolate all of those that have a boy born on a Tuesday.  There are 27 cases we can look at that meet this criterion (13 BB, 7 BG, and 7 GB).  The 13 BB scenarios are shown below.  Therefore the odds of two boys is 13/27.  13/27?  48.1%?  Really?  Yes, really.  Study the table below and it will become clear.  It is important to note the overlap on Tuesday / Tuesday (TUTU); we don’t count it twice, giving us 13 instead of 14.

 

 

The probability bunny hole is a deep one.  The more I study the subject, the more interested I become in the limits of human intuition, especially the mathematical type.  It appears we have very little instinct when it comes to numbers, and I don’t think that should surprise anyone.  I have a hard time figuring out when insight into subtle probability problems would have been beneficial during our evolutionary history.  I don’t see when it ever would have been influential on a genetic level.

Not too bad for an introduction to conditional probability theory.  Fairly tame by comparison.  Trust me, things are about to get weird.  Come along for the ride, it is a bit bumpy (seat belt required), but the destination is worth the trip.

Roy

My ears ring; the technical term is tinnitus.  If I am in total quiet, I can hear whistling coming from my ears.  And yes, it is annoying.  That is why I sleep with a television on.  The TV’s sound drowns out the noise coming from my ears, and all is well with the world.

I have been doing this, sleeping with the television on, for as long as I can remember.  Believe it or not, I have a story (more than one); dozing off and on with the TV blaring in the background can lead to some unexpected scenarios.

Sometime in the early 2000s, I was struggling to get to sleep like I did every night.  Rarely was I on an expedited path; most times, my trip to sleepy land proved problematic.  As I contemplated my existence, looking up at my blurry ceiling, I found myself constantly interrupted by a talking meatball.  My vision isn’t stellar, so it took me days to figure out that, along with the meatball, there was an annoying milkshake and a sentient bag of fries along for the ride.  The show was, of course, Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

I will admit that it took me months to understand what was going on.  The only reason I found the show was because it was on Adult Swim.  At that time, Futurama was on that network.  After Fry and Zoidberg did their thing, the Aqua Teens would take over.  Initially, I was totally confused by what I was hearing.  As you might have guessed, the show has become one of my all-time favorites.

In the years since the premiere of ATHF, I have been exposed to several other shows that I am glad crossed my path.  Samurai Jack is fantastic; the last season, which recently aired, is transcendent.  Pure brilliance.  I will stack those last ten episodes against anything else I have ever seen, including The Wire, Game of Thrones, and Breaking Bad.

So…here we are.  Hearing Meatwad drone on about something stupid (that is usually what he did) got me hooked on Adult Swim television shows.  And, of course, that leads me to Rick and Morty, an Adult Swim show that is worthy of some space in my blog.  More than that, it is one of the best shows I have ever seen.  I know a guy who stumbled upon Rick and Morty.  The first episode he saw was Pickle Rick, one of the best 22 minutes in television history.  You guessed it, he got hooked just as I did when I saw the pilot episode.  From that day forward, it is always a good day when a new Rick and Morty episode is airing.

Now that the lede has been sufficiently buried and the (maybe not so necessary) setup is in place, I can get to Roy, a video game that resides at Blips and Chitz, a Dave and Busters type establishment that exists in Rick and Morty’s reality.

“Roy, a life well lived” is a video game that both Rick and Morty play.  The person playing takes over the life of Roy Parsons and leads him down a path that they choose.  When Morty played the game, Roy got cancer, beat the disease, and then went back to work at the carpet store.  Of course, the character in the video game was acting at Morty’s behest.  This did not sit well with Rick and he let Morty know…

“You beat cancer and went back to work at the carpet store?  Boo. … that’s the difference between you and me, Morty.  I never go back to the carpet store.”

And that is what this essay is about, going back to the carpet store.  Would you take your last chemo treatment and then head back to the carpet store?  I like to think that all of us would say no way; after an ordeal like that, it is time to do all the things on our respective bucket lists.  It is time to take our second chances and do something bold with them.  That is what you would say, right?

Well, imagine for a moment that you received something like a cancer diagnosis.  What if the prognosis was ugly and the treatment was worse.  After such an ordeal, most of us would like to think we wouldn’t go back to the mundane, that we wouldn’t set foot in the carpet store again.  Of course, there are a few problems with this line of thinking.

As one of my friends said, “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to go back to the carpet store, but I have to eat.” He has a point, doesn’t he?  What if you have a career and a family that depends on you to keep bringing those paychecks home?  What are you going to do then?  We all know what you are going to do; you are going back to the carpet store.  You are going to take a deep breath, straighten your hair, and walk through the front door straight toward the Berber display.

Depressed yet?  I am writing this essay because old Killy McGee (thank you, Homer Simpson) has tried to take me out twice in the last five years.  Came real close the last time; blood clots traveled to my lungs and closed off 90% of my airways.  As a doctor told me, “Well…if those airways are blocked, you simply drop dead.”   Known for understatement, this doctor remains an oracle of sorts; people come from all around…(you get the idea).

The question now becomes a relatively simple one.  Do I go back to my version of the carpet store, or do I sell all my stuff and head for parts unknown?  In my case, those mysterious destinations aren’t going anywhere; I can catch up with them down the road.  For now, I am needed right here.

I do, though, have deep concerns.  I am worried about these novels that are mocking me from the cloud where they are now residing.  They need to be finished; they have to be finished.  I hate to think of the consequences if I am blindsided by something awful before getting them all done.  It is hard for me to think of anything worse.  If I don’t get them completed, in many ways, (the most fundamental ways), my existence will have been a failure.  Strong words, but I believe what I just wrote.

Rick is lucky; he doesn’t have to go back to the carpet store.  That is not how he was written.  His character was created to be one that would never go back to the drudgery of everyday life.  He would never seriously consider it because he can’t; to do so would go against his nature.  For the rest of us, living in the thick muck, there are carpet stores all around.  You can try to avoid them, but you do so at your own risk and to the detriment of those surrounding you.

Maybe one day, future generations will be living in a world where the curious can explore, painters can paint, musicians can master their instruments, and writers can spend their lives writing.  The world that I live in is not that one.  In the world I experience, it appears that the answer to every question, every single one, is money.  That is why virtually no one can be a full-time poet; that job does not generate enough income so that such a person could support themselves.   The same goes for artists of all types.  Passion has to be paid for, and we all know where the money comes from; it comes from the carpet store.

 

Mozart with a Telecaster

Where have all the great composers gone?  That was a question Stephen Jay Gould once asked in one of his essays.  Gould was a Harvard professor who, among many other things, was the greatest essayist on scientific topics the world has ever seen.  Known primarily as an evolutionary biologist, he had his fingers in many varied intellectual pies.  My library is filled with his books.  He still has an honored place on a special shelf in one of my bookcases.  Alongside his books are those of Kurt Vonnegut and the music of the mysterious Athena.  It is an impressive shelf.

Gould, a very knowledgeable classical music fan, had an inclination about modern music that he hoped was wrong.  He wondered why it has been so long since we have had a Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart.  Of course, I am sure I know why and I am confident that, deep down, he also knew the answer.  The geniuses of today are working in popular music.  It is no surprise that Bob Dylan got a Nobel Prize (even though I must admit it did shock me when his name was called).  How long before Jay Zee or another one of the rappers get recognized on such a scale?  It might be sooner than we all think.

Author’s Note: I look forward to the day when Nobel Prizes and Grammy Awards are not taken seriously.  I do think that will happen, but it might take some time.  The day may arrive when an Academy Award or a Pulitzer Prize is viewed with such suspicion that such an award is not something a person would wish to have.

Genius writers and hyper-talented musicians are clearly working in music that is not of the classical variety.  It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?  Young people today are more likely to be influenced by a rapper or an EDM artist than by one of the great classical composers.

Author’s Note:  Ask around.  Forget the rappers and the DJs; see if any youngsters you know have a guitar hero.  I don’t know any kids who even have a faint interest in learning the guitar. More on this in a bit…

I have often thought about what Mozart would have accomplished in his short life if he had an electric guitar.  Can you imagine?  What would he have written?  How would he have used the instrument?  I doubt he would have ignored it, taken one listen, and ran back to his fortepiano or violin.  I like to think that a plugged-in Tele would have been a revelation to him, that he would have embraced the instrument and played it until his fingers were raw.

Unfortunately, I have yet to master time travel, nor do I have the ability to bring a person through time into our own.  I am working on it but, so far, I have nothing.  It is a difficult problem.  That said, the best I can do is try to imagine what a reincarnated Mozart might look and sound like.  I have a few thoughts.

Maybe Jimi Hendrix was the reincarnation of Mozart.  I once had a classically trained guitar player tell me how in awe of Hendrix he was. “That guy played lead, rhythm, and the bass line all at once.  On top of that, he would sing.  Astonishing.” That said, I don’t know if Hendrix is the right way to go.  I admit that I am impressed that he took a right-handed guitar and played it upside down.  I am aware that some people think that is part of what gave him his unique sound—that, and the fact that he was most likely the greatest rock and roll guitar player who ever lived.

Might the correct answer be Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day?  I like to think that Mozart would be a punk rocker if he were around today, and I am a big fan of Green Day.  Billie Joe is a rare talent; he has created some fantastic music.  Maria is one of my all-time favorite songs.  The thing is, when you look at his entire body of work, it becomes evident that he is nowhere near normal on any scale.  He is something different, a very talented and special musician.

Would a reincarnated Mozart be Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys?  Turner is my present-day favorite.  I love his band, and I am looking forward to what comes next for him.  Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, the group’s last release, was odd.  I have listened to it around 400 times, and I still don’t know if I like it.  Turner is experimenting within the musical landscape, and I imagine Mozart would be doing a lot of that with a Tele and a very loud amp (you know, one that goes to 11).

I hate to say this, but there is one other possibility for why the world has not seen another Mozart.  We tend to equate genius with novelty, whether it be in science or art.  If you think about that for a moment, you will realize that statement is correct.   Popular music, written by pedestrian musicians, can undoubtedly be uninspired and derivative.  Some would argue that all of the modern music being produced today is not to be taken seriously.

I will say this, there is one young artist that I have my eye and ear on.  Her name is Billie Eilish, and I have high hopes for her future.  I am expecting big things from her.  I think she has an excellent chance to be her generation’s Bob Dylan.  I hear a depth to her music that is striking, especially for a person her age.

Now we come to the totally unpleasant point, is it possible that all the novel combinations possible from the piano keyboard or guitar neck have been exhausted?  Have we not seen another Mozart because the musical universe is spent? Isn’t that a terrible thought to entertain?  I hope I am wrong and that the secret chord that Leonard Cohen wrote about in Hallelujah is, in reality, a series of unknown chords that, when revealed by a yet unknown genius, will please all music lovers.  Not only satisfy us, but prove to be a revelation to listeners the world over.  What are the odds of that?  I am not sure, but I will undoubtedly take the other side of that bet.

So, what is the point?  The lede has indeed been buried as I am want to do.  Have we heard a reincarnated Mozart with a Telecaster?  The world lost its mind when Dylan plugged in.  Imagine what would happen if a modern-day Mozart was handed an electric guitar and an amp.  I think all we can do is wait and hope for the improbable.

How about an unexpected end to this essay?  I believe that rock and roll is dead.  If not dead, it is on its last legs.  Kids do not have guitar heroes today.  Taylor Swift is as close as anyone comes.  Acoustic guitars are outselling electrics, and more girls than boys are buying them.  Turn on your car radio to a contemporary station and then call me and tell me how many songs you hear that offer any guitar tracks.  I am telling you, you won’t hear much guitar at all.  Even guitar bands like Arctic Monkeys relegated the instrument to the background in their last studio offering.

It looks like rock and roll is becoming nothing more than a footnote to the history of music.  That means that the time is now for that modern genius, that present-day Mozart, to plug in and reveal herself.  And yes, my guess is it will be a woman, and maybe a very young one.  My hope is that she doesn’t get lost in the shuffle.  It was much easier for Mozart’s genius to be revealed; his game was the only one in town.  In today’s world, a prodigy may be living down the road from you, unheard and unappreciated.  And that, unfortunately, is more probable than possible.