Slicer's Slivers of Being

Mellow but not yellow: lessons in love and grammar

The second last post touched on English grammar; the last post looked at behaviour. Here's a song fitting for both.  Sometimes mellow packs a punch...

 

Loving, sex & teenage boys... hormones govern moral behaviour?

The article linked to below is billed "The Science of Good and Evil." Slicer reckons it's mistitled but it's par for the course when looking for an eye-catching headline. It features an interview with Paul Zak, discussing the subject of his book "The Moral Molecule."

Zak's proposal strikes Slicer as overly simplistic (attributing complex behaviours and/or physiologically-governed processes to one or two chemical mediators is pretty much always a mistake)... but his findings are very interesting. Slicer also prefers his own nickname to Zak's "Dr Luuuuvvv...."

Have a listen here and see what you think.

 

Infinitives & Infinity... and a glaring omission from Starfleet training.

Before we get to infinitives and infinity, we should cover affinity. Slicer is a sucker for objects bearing his name, or his function. Whether it's a precision instrument for shaving bacon, or a cool guitar pedal, he feels a compelling urge...

 

He has posted before about pizza (a recording of an embarrassing phone call) and now has the opportunity to link it with another 'indispensable' tool. The precision of this one is highly dependent on how well it's used. Slicer did laugh out loud at the unabashed nerdiness of this latest trinket for sale over at Space.com, and also the ongoing tolerance, nay celebration, of the split infinitive:

Whilst vigorously resisting any nerd-like tendencies himself (:-D), Slicer still has fond affection for the original Star Trek series of his youth, and in adult life he has an ongoing passion for better understanding of the universe (or multiverse, if it exists), and the challenge of grappling with infinity. From the time of his own childhood to that of his kids, it seems that the attraction of "to infinity and beyond" still holds sway (for both children and adults).  Slicer has often been struck by some areas where science fiction of his youth has become science fact as an adult - orbiting space stations, interplanetary travel (OK, not yet manned), flip up mobile phones & solid state data storage being some examples. As C S Lewis wrote, “Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”

 

However the writing has to be good, and prophetic. It must be believable. One place where Gene Roddenberry & Co slipped up badly was the regular addition of a guy or the girl that you'd never seen before to the membership of a landing party visiting a potentially hostile planet. As if the fact that you hadn't seen them before wasn't a big enough clue as to their eventual fate, they always wore a red jersey.... and in all those lectures they had to endure at Starfleet Academy on interspecies etiquette, Klingon body language, and phaser safety, no-one thought to tell them, "DON'T PUT ON THE RED SHIRT!" It would seem that such practical training could have made a substantial difference to crew mortality when they went to "explore strange new worlds." Whilst technologically advanced, they're clearly not all that bright in the future...

 

The nice folks over at Space.com have ingeniously turned this flaw into a merchandisable feature, complete with the appropriate text font:

As they point out on the site:
"The Red Shirt is a sci-fi idiom for the anonymous, the expendable, the smoking boots behind a boulder.... Just don't stand next to us when you wear that thing."

Slicer thinks the Space.com  folk might be forgetting the distinction between fiction and reality - There is another reason why your mates (if you have any) might avoid standing near you if you go out in one...

If you buy one, best treat it like the pizza slicer - keep it the drawer and only bring it out as a novelty to make people laugh... and laugh with you rather than at you.

And with that important life lesson delivered, Slicer hopes that you will indeed "live long and prosper."

"Now the Rainman gave me two cures..."

"...The one was Texas medicine

The other was just railroad gin."

The guys at Bacon Wizard have more than 2 cures:

One of them's Bloody Mary, and another'd blow up the whole dam railroad..!!! (you might need to blow up the pic to read the labels...)

 

But, even better, they do a really good dessert. Behold the debut of their cupcakes. You think you know what you need, but they know what you want:

On the Virtues of Mac.

Before Gaga there was Gris-Gris; before the Lady's cranial decoration there was Dr John's headwear. Here's a combo of his celebrated New Orleans piano, unique vocals.... and a few of his hats.

 

The good doctor, aka Mac Rebennack, knows how to have a good time musically, and if yesterday (29th April) at Jazzfest 2012 is anything to go by, Springsteen likes his company onstage. Altho' the bootleg recording's a bit rough, there's somethin he got ...

  

A joyous occasion for sure. Here's another, in the company of the late lamented Clarence Clemons and the very recently departed Levon Helm, alongside Joe Walsh, Ringo & Nils Lofgren on another New Orleans classic
 



But lest ye think he's always happy and celebratory, Slicer would point out he has also sung of the ills of the world, challenging "Why?" "Where are you, God?" like the psalmist, or even "why have you forsaken us?":
 

 "It's a helluva world down here... I just want you to tell me what to do, God"

He has touched on economic excess, disease, and their relationship. So what's the good doctor's prescription? Evolution or revolution?? His latest album asks is revolution the final solution?

 

"Let's all just pray on it right now...." 

While we're waiting for him to get an answer, and we're wondering what that revolution might look like, what oppressive regime needs overthrown, and what or who should succeed it, Slicer'll leave you in the meantime with Mac's collaboration with the King of the Blues in which he confesses uncertainty about some things ("sometimes I wonder just what I'm praying for"), suggests a diagnosis ("Everyone I know only loves themself") and, whilst he doesn't seem too sure himself of the cure, he clings to a strong sense of the prospect of a better future:

  

Slicer's convinced guitar-playing like BB's is guaranteed a place in that better world.

Bring it on.