Keyser & Shuriken (Budapest) - newsletter #39: To waste a multitrillion-synapse brain

From: Keyser & Shuriken (keyser.shuriken@freemail.hu)
Date: Thu Nov 09 2000 - 16:20:31 MET

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    Keyser & Shuriken - newsletter #39: To waste a multitrillion-synapse brain

    Newsflash 9.11.2000

    Dear friends,

    we spent this weekend in Zagreb (and it's still on our minds) djing at the
    Kontrapunkt club-night. The amazing hospitality and friendliness of our
    hosts (Eddy & Dus), the taste of Croatian cappuccinos and the best audience
    we have met yet (screaming through the drum breaks until the theme came
    back, unbelievable), the fun we had partying with our friends (big up Maja,
    Dunja, Sanjin, Szabolcs & Zsuzsi) are sweet memories that leave us without
    words for this week.

    That's why we quote taken from "A Conversation with Marvin Minsky" edited
    by Otto Laske:

    "Otto Laske: That is already done in studies in AI and Music, where you
    find systems for doing harmonic analysis, and systems generating
    compositional material, - these are all specific kinds of things, and the
    claim is not that we know what music is. It seems to me that, viewed in the
    light of such studies, the term "music" expresses rather an acceptance on
    the side of society that something is o.k. The composer, as composer,
    doesn't care whether something is music. He is driven to generate
    something, and then, if an audience finds that what he produced is
    acceptable, or 'music,' he is happy, and otherwise he is not - but it's
    essentially not his doing as much as it is society's.

    Marvin Minsky: That raises an exciting and interesting question - that many
    people are reluctant to consider, which is the question: what is, or ought
    to be, o.k.? One thing I like to do is to consider the major human
    activities, and try to get people to ask: "is it o.k.?" All over the world
    many people listen to music for hours each day; in this country many spend
    substantial portions of their incomes on recordings, high-fis, personal
    earphone devices, rock concerts, and tolerate background music in their
    workplaces, restaurants, airplanes, and what not. Is that all right?
    Similarly, we ought to wonder whether it is reasonable to engage in sports.
    I ask people, "isn't there something funny about grown people gathering in
    a huge stadium to see other grown people kicking a ball from one end to the
    other?" Each of those persons is using a multitrillion synapse brain. It
    would be fun to ask the religious ones to consider whether it is not a sin
    to waste such wondrous hardware on watching adults kicking balls around? My
    own view is that this is less a sin than a symptom - of infection by a
    parasitic meme (namely, one that carries the idea that such an activity is
    o.k.) which has self-propagated through our culture like a software virus,
    a cancer of the intellect so insidious that virtually no one thinks/dares
    to question it. Now, in the same way we see grown people playing and
    working in the context of popular music that often repeats a single
    sentence or melodic phrase over and over and over again, a instills in the
    mind some harmonic trick that sets at least part of one's brain in a loop.
    Is it o.k. that we, with our hard earned brains, should welcome and accept
    this indignity - or should we resent it as an assault on an evident
    vulnerability?"

    Check out the whole interview - dealing mainly with Artificial Intelligence
    (AI) and Music
    http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/minsky/papers/Laske.Interview.Music.txt

    Keep on thinking about what's o.k. till next week!

    Keyser & Shuriken

    Playlist

    Tilos Radio (http://tilos.hu)
    Kristalykert (Crystal Garden - 8.11.2000) - DJs: Keyser, Lee'n'gum

    Listen: http://tilos.hu/mp3/24/Wednesday/0000.m3u

    1. Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes - Cosmic Funk (Harmless)
    2. Dennis Coffey - Scorpio (Sussex)
    3. Eddie Warner - BrutusDrums (Fat City)
    4. Jerzy Milian - Wsrod Pampasow (Muza)
    5. Ken Rhodes - The Profile (Spinning Wheel)
    6. Big Boss Man - Sea Groove (Blow Up)
    7. Orchester Ambros Seelos - Mabusso (Spinning Wheel)
    8. Mr. Chop - Contamination (Stark Reality)
    9. United 8 - Getting Uptown (To Get Down) (WEA)
    10. Archie Sheep - Hypnosis - Eddy & Dus mix (Mo' Smog)
    11. Andre Arpino - African King (Blow Up)
    12. dZihan & Kamien - Smile - Eddy & Dus mix (Couch)
    13. Soul Drummers - Shango Prayer (Afro Art)
    14. Fauna Flash - Sundays at the Party - (Compost)
    15. Hajime Yoshizawa - Secret Flight - Pavel Kostiuk mix (Especial)
    16. New Sector Movements - Survival (Virgin)
    17. Jazzanova - Fedime's Flight - Kyoto Jazz Massive mix
    18. Minus 8 - Badman & Throbin - Gábor Deutsch Lovely Vocal (Compost)
    19. Kimbu Kimra - Raise The Dead - Atjazz mix (Compost)
    20. Hacienda - Nightflight (Infracom!)
    21. Slow Supreme - Flesh (Jazid)
    22. Chateau Flight - Prism (Versatile)
    23. The Menheads - Gui Bassa Ritmo (Vienna Scientists)
    24. Snowboy - Oya Ye Ye - UFO mix (Ubiquity)
    25. The Black Science Orchestra - Uptown (Afro Art)
    26. UFO - Somewhere - Restless Soul Moontime mix (Brownswood)
    27. Tutto Matto - Take MY Hand (Tummy Touch)
    28. Makoto - Extensions Of Life (Earth)
    29. Buscemi - Ramiros Theme (Lowlands)
    30. G Force & Seiji - Naturally (Laws Of Motion)
    31. Decoder & Substance - Heat (Moving Shadow)
    32. Tim Hutton - Beenafool - The Nextmen mix (Pias)
    33. Mescalito - Snetence Deferred (Tummy Touch)
    34. Jill Scott - Love Rain (Hidden Beach)
    35. DJ Shuriken - Psyked Up Muzak (Compost)
    36. 24-Carat-Black - The 24-Carat-Black (Harmless)
    37. Sheeba - Jungle-Fever (Cobalt)
    38. Jerzy Milian - Choreographic Sketches (Muza)
    39. Art Konik - Hum (Comet)
    40. Spinning Wheel - Listen (Spinning Wheel)
    41. Kifali - R.A. (Hi-top)

    Tour dates:

    11.11. Budapest, Sziget Events Hall: FREEE 5. Birthday Party
    28. 11. Budapest, Merlin Theatre
    29.12. Budapest, Trafó: New Fusion
    30.12. Budapest, Trafó /w Lee'n'gum

    ***********************************************
    Keyser & Shuriken weekly newsletter

    If you don't want to get this newsletter, just write an e-mail for us.

    Contact: E-mail: keyser.shuriken@freemail.hu; Phone: +36 20 9329279

    Thanks for the support: Anna @ Acid Jazz; Paul @ Afro Art; Paul @ Blow Up;
    Manu & Eric @ Comet Records, Rainer, Michael & Kaisa @ Compost Records;
    Zeljko @ Cosmic Sounds London; Vlado & Mario @ Couch Records; Christian @
    Klein Records; Iain @ Grand Central Records; Andrea @ Island Blue; Andre @
    Jazid Club & Records; Jazzland Records; Jürgen (Jazzanova) & Sonar
    Kollektiv; Nicola & Filippo @ Fez Jazz/Schema; Gak Sato & Rocco @ Right
    Tempo; Nat @ RhythmLove; Marcus, Oscar & Reini @ Spinning Wheel Records;
    Oli & Sammy @ Stereo Deluxe; Alex "Reggie" @ Straight Ahead; Ali @ Switch;
    Gilles (worldwide); Hannes & Flow @ Twentysomething Tunes; Laszlo @ UCMG
    Hungary; Yonderboi & Trevira Modern, Ambi & Amorf Ördögök; United Future
    Organization & Kaori; Nik @ Universal Jazz; Werner @ Uptight; Pita @
    ParaRadio; Gilb-r & Didier @ Versatile/Future Talk; Rune & Dag @ Voices of
    Wonder; Tom (Les Gammas crew); Eddy & Dus; Tosha (Pencilbrain); Enrico Riva
    (LEA); Alan Brown (aka Cukipapa); Martin Antibalas
    Respect: all people @ Tilos Radio



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