Re: GG: Voyager

["T W" <WaverijnConcerts@hetnet.nl>]

Dear all,
>I think we get Gould and Mozart and Faulkner and Pynchon and Theresa
Stratas and >Newton and Paganini and Billie Holiday as special gifts from a
source beyond and >independent of simple molecules.

It would be a comfort to believe this, but by saying this, I believe one
simply underestimates human capabilities. What about certain autistic people
who know phonebooks by heart? Are they a 'gift'? Or -in better words- are
they 'gifted'?
I'd almost say: "Isn't everybody gifted?", but I won't.
As far as I can see, it has everything to do with the fact a specific place
in the brains is more or less developed. Recently they found out that the
"mathematical part" in Albert Einstein's brains was far more developed
compared to other people.

But I admit: Listening to Gould (&Bach!) does sometimes makes me think it's
all too inhuman to be made by human, but then again: such a feeling, or
thought is still a neuro-chemical process after all....

Cheers!

T W,
the Netherlands



-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Elmer Elevator <bobmer@javanet.com>
Aan: f_minor-og@email.rutgers.edu <f_minor-og@email.rutgers.edu>
Datum: vrijdag 9 juli 1999 10:15
Onderwerp: Re: GG: Voyager


    How dare you turn this thread from cheap meaningless and stolen jokes
into something serious?
    But ... that little hint of Gould's being a visiting alien ...

    Where does ethereal genius like Gould's and Mozart's come from?

    Can any of us be so "scientific" that he or she would reply, "Although
we may not yet have a perfect scientific explanation for such things, they
are certainly all eventually entirely explicable at the biomolecular, even
the genetic level." ?

    I think we get Gould and Mozart and Faulkner and Pynchon and Theresa
Stratas and Newton and Paganini and Billie Holiday as special gifts from a
source beyond and independent of simple molecules. That's as far as I'm
willing to go here; I'm not saying there's a benevolent Santa-Claus-like God
who tosses these wonderful things our way by occasional whim and caprice.
Would that these spectacular gifts were so easily explained even by
theologians.

    But when I consider how minor an influence colleges are to spectacularly
moving writers, how minor an influence conservatory seems to me to have been
to what Gould eventually made of himself ... Mozart blossomed into genius at
barely kindergarten age ... I don't think the answer will ever be scientific
or materialistic or even psychological. I think we'll always be gratefully
teased and mystified that such people occasionally live among us. I think
scientists who even ask these questions are wasting everyone's time. Part of
the thrill is in never being able to know where the next Caruso will come
from, or when. Abraham Lincoln came from an illiterate squalor and poverty
we today can barely imagine.

    On another recent thread ... any engineer who deliberately cut out The
Hum from newly reissued Gould CDs ... this is an Evil Person. Simple as
that. If there's any possibility that the more Gould we get, the less Hum
... well, Save The Hum!

    Of course Gould communicated his love and mastery of this music through
his fingers and feet ... but the childlike thrill of what he was
experiencing that he communicated through The Hum ... I can't begin to
describe the electric thrill it sent through me the first (and all
subsequent) times I heard it. We can rarely read another's soul ... but when
I hear him Hum ... this is a Happy, a Transported guy.

    Bob

    "Anne M. Marble" wrote:

        From: Elmer Elevator <bobmer@javanet.com>
        >finally, there on the computer screen in front of the excited
scientists, was:

        <Snipping alien symbols>
        >SEND MORE CHUCK BERRY

        Are you sure they didn't send the message, "We want more songs from
        that guy who hums..."? I have this strange fear that if the aliens
        come to earth, they're going to try to steal my Glenn Gould albums.
        :->

        There was an anthology of stories speculating what would happen when
        the aliens came in contact with Voyager. What would they think of us
        after seeing and hearing that gold disc? Though I can't find the
        anthology, I'm sure the stories range from, "Wow, what great
music..."
        to "Call the Postmaster, somebody sent us naked pictures!!!" And
dare
        I mention a possible plot line? The aliens whisper in amazement, "So
        that's the planet Glenn decided to land on!" (Just kidding, just
        kidding!)