Reflections on management and music: Saku's blog

I want to share a couple of quotations which I have encountered during the last few days.

On how to write about music

Richard Cook is probably one of the best writers about jazz. He has co-written the magnum opus of jazz on CD, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD. I have been reading his book Miles Davis: On and off Record. I find the book enthralling in its level of detail concerning Miles's classic (as well as many not so classic) records. One particular passage caught my attention in the bus this morning. Cook writes about the track "Surrey with the fringe on top", on the album Steamin' with the Miles Davis Quintet:

"Davis's exposition is gorgeously down. Coltrane charges in, again sounding as if he had been loitering at the back of the studio, and twists and cargoyles his way through a meaty solo. Red is all felicitous bounce in his turn. Chambers and Jones pursue their paces without faltering. One could almost say it is a routine the five men have already settled into, and that they would indeed take more obvious creative progressions on the later session: but what a routine!"

I had to listen to the track on my iPod the very minute I read that passage. Man, why can't I write about music like that?

On the language and power

Philip K. Dick, one of the masters of science fiction shared this snippet of wisdom about language (in Westfahl, G. (ed.) Science Fiction Quotations):

"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."

Well put, if not that surprising to a researcher of discourse. The phrase 'must use the words' is particularly illustrative. How many words do we come up with ourselves and how many of them are imposed upon us? Nietsche, Foucault, Wittgenstein, Orwell and a few others might have some further insight into this.

On the disposition of dwarves (and Viriconium again)

M. John Harrison in his book Viriconium, has a wonderful psychological description of a character called "Tomb the Dwarf". This short, laconic phrase manages to convey so much meaning in such few words:

"He was, as he had put it more than once, a dwarf and not a philosopher. Events involved him utterly; he encountered them with optimism and countered them with instinct; in their wake he had few opinions, only memories. He asked for no explanation."

Now, that is the proper way to use semi-colons.

A couple of hours in the sun with my new wide angle zoom

Yesterday we were lazing on a sunday afternoon at a beach nearby. The sun was shining and spring was in the air. They had even opened the beach terrace café! I had the chance to play around with my new 10-20 mm wide angle zoom.