I admire the ideas of George Berkeley. He’s probably misunderstood. He probably didn’t think what he was saying was the absolute nature of reality in it’s precise form. He merely brought to the surface that you can be completely sane and logical and believe that the physical doesn’t exist (or more accurately, that the material world is created in the immaterial mind foremost thus being a byproduct of immaterial and its existence being a collective perception). He isn’t a contemporary man with knowledge of today’s technology or advancements, but I think his ideas (whether true or not) still hold up fairly well. I don’t hold onto his philosophy as the elite definition of metaphysics, but I have certainly incorporated a similar mindset into my not-so-concrete conception of reality that is compatible with my outlook on life.

My Morning Jacket tapped on Berkeley’s shoulder by bringing up some of his ideas into song, this one being called “Steam Engine.”

So I do believe, none of this is physical
At least not to me
So, I do believe
That anywhere it goes
It’s always with me
It’s not the dream
That makes you weak
It’s not the night that makes you sleep
But it’s a voice, and it’s a choice
To call you out, or stay at home
So, I do believe
None of this is physical
At least not to me
So I do believe
That anywhere it goes
It’s always with me
It’s not the beast, it’s not the sheets
So soft and warm, all over me
But it’s the touch, you need so much
To move around on this green earth
Take your money and your drugs
Take your money and your drugs
To anyone who wondered
What old Jesus meant to me
Take him out to go diving
In Red Patoka sea
The brain melts in the twilight
With the boar and moving trees
Your skin looks good in moonlight
And Goddamn those shaky knees
The fact that my heart’s beating
Is all the proof you need

We got ‘em
We got ‘em
We got ‘em
We got ‘em
[ad infinitum]

What I get from this is money and drugs can be taken as unimportant as they are physical. It’s not the night that makes you sleep, as you could sleep with any physical surrounding. Anywhere you go, your mental perception is always with you. The brain melts in the twilight with the boar and moving trees because the vision of the “external world” is captivating because we can sense it.

We got ‘em. We got the bits of the universe in our mind, but not necessarily in vivid consciousness [We are not the universe though; Pantheism isn't what is meant here]. We are finite and imperfect, so we will never fully understand it all. But a greater perceiver can.

July is certainly a trip. It’s a pronouncement of lingering summer. It marks the start of changes and getaways. It was like a prequel to a round trip vacation and the month has return to even more new explosions. You can insert some of your favorite party jams as well if you feel the need.

Lykke Li performing the song “Little Bit” in a minimalist setting. She possesses a rhythmic quality that compliments the pitch perfect voice. This is a unexpected find that is bound to become more popular as time goes on.

“All You Do Is Talk” by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. They are not black. I haven’t seen any motorcycles. I have no clue if this club is actually full of rebels. What I can tell you is that this song is mighty fine. Shown here is a quality version live. Grab Baby 81 if this sounds like sound you’d like more of. This is one of a few great songs from the album.

Shotstar

God Bless This Mess [m4a file (AAC). No video available.]

I’m going obscure on this one. Shotstar is one of those bands that weren’t much to shake chicken legs at, but they managed to create one song that stuck with me. They are a no-hit wonder. They no longer exist or have a following, but they were local so I can remember them. And I went to high school with a family member of one of the players. I saw them perform once, but I know they played often in the beginning of the decade. The song I’m showing you is what I consider the high point of the band. “God Bless This Mess” has a well-done production with some nice dynamics that make the melody pop. The rest of the album is nothing compared to this song. If this was released as a single, there would be more to imagine of how good they could have been.
Keep Reading the Rest…

The Sea and Cake is the name of an album, an artist, and also derived from a song “The C in Cake.” I’m not familiar with the song other than it being from an avant-garde indie band out of Chicago. If you asked me a couple weeks ago, I’d know nothing of all three. The album I never heard until I came across the entire thing streaming online. The Sea and Cake play a jazzy type of alternative music, maybe even turning into indie funk at times with a not-so-funky vocal thrown in. They give off a Yo La Tengo vibe, but they have a distinctive style that may fly well with curious ears. The oh so majestic Last.fm offers you listening powers to this album with handy streaming media. Start “Jackin the Ball” now.

The cool thing about this is that is stems all the way from 1995. That’s over a decade behind us and it still suits the sound that is around today. Ahead of their time is what I say, however cliche.

Listen to all 10 songs.

You will need some things to make this happen. If you have some stale bread and a clothing iron in your closet, you are halfway there already.

Cooking Supplies:
-iron (it’s not made for cooking but it works)

Ingredients:
-cheese
-bread
-tuna fish
-mayo
-aluminum foil (remove before consuming)

Do what you need to do to create the goodies in between the bread. This includes mixing up the mayo and tuna fish. Have a layer of cheese in between the tuna and bread. Be sure to have cheese-to-bread contact on both sides or else the cheese will have difficulty melting. Wrap sandwich in tinfoil. Notice there is no need for oil or butter.

Put iron on hottest setting and let it sit on top of the foil for 5 minutes. You may want to peek inside before the 5 minutes to make sure it is getting cooked properly. Carefully turn the half-melt over to singe the other side.

The final product will sure impress your hungry friends, the debt-ridden neighbor, and the people you know who have a fear of stoves. If you are higher maintenance, you can throw some garlic, celery, or chopped spinach or tomato in the mixture before ironing. If you like to keep things simple, convert your grilled cheese into ironed cheese.

It’s that time to not really have a specific time to roll out with this monthly playlist.

The downside of user videos is the sound isn’t so crisp. This My Morning Jacket song tingles down to the center of my body. So much energy. This song echoes my recent blog post about language:

all that I wanted to say / words only got in the way

Pure sonic quality for a daydream. This is the Walkmen beautifying a song written by Mazarin. “And another one goes by…”

My Morning Jacket returns with a slow touching ballad. There’s Just One Thing about his voice that I don’t think I possess quite yet.

The Cure smoothly enters the scene after the somber MMJ song. “Pictures of You” is one of my favorites from the Cure. The lyrics are a bit dark, but the melodic compatibility is phenomenal. It’s very easy to sense the feeling in what the imagery reveals.

It may appear I am sinking into sorrow by now, but bear with me. It’s not what it seems at all. In fact I see glee in these songs. And to hear the downtrodden somehow made me feel more comfortable. My playlist has Paul Westerberg performing “These Days” live instead of its author Jackson Browne. The video is a top-notch recording.

Should’ve Been In Love by Wilco. No video! Just a preview… And I think I ended up with a lot of consistency on this mixtape because the sound and messages flow really well together.
Keep Reading the Rest…

Does knowledge derive from reality or its disparity between conflict? Or even as a denial that they are polar opposites? Does knowledge come from perceptions?

“To be is to be perceived or to perceive”

George Berkeley came up with this, meaning that something only exists, in the particular way that it is seen to exist, when it is being perceived by an observing subject.

This invites wild variations of perception from the norm to be equally real. Hallucinations don’t exist. Drug experiences are not fake experiences. It is obvious that if you are hallucinating, you are perceiving something only you recognize. It is a real experience though. You are actually witnessing the episode. Your eyes capture all the information, but but perception creates transformations.

If you were blind, deaf, mute, and without scent and tactile abilities, would you be able to receive knowledge? It doesn’t seem too possible. But does that mean that perception is the cause of knowledge? Maybe not. The only thing left without the senses is a brain with learning potential. Even if there are instincts embedded in the senseless person, using instinct seems an impossible feat. After all, the five senses themselves are instincts; no empirical knowledge is required before the empirical tools of sight and touch can be used.

If you look at feral children, you will find that they have limited knowledge. Or if they do, it can’t be expressed except by evidence of survival skills.

This suggests that we learn from others. If a person is to remain alone, they have no external ideas to obtain or to link with their own internal ideas. It would seem that a nexus of perception and inner contemplation of perceptions develop understanding. With only perception, there is no way to record what has elapsed.

Society is just as capable of destroying internal ideas as social deprivation is for inhibiting external ideas. A collective group can downplay ideas important to the individual and suppress perception. Mowgli Syndrome is on one end and Herd Mentality is on the other.

Language is meaningful. So what?

Meaning is to have purpose, intention, or significance. To signify is to be a sign to express or represent ideas or knowledge. Language can have meaning. But is there actually meaning in the previous sentence?

What is Language?

Language is transmission of thoughts and ideas through arbitrary symbols of speech, writing, and behavior. Is it comforting to know that exchange between the smartest living organisms is based on pointless movements, utterances, and scribbles? Different regions assign values to these symbols and each individual contributes a permutation in value. The symbols then are used to represent a form. The forms are then combined to reflect a motive or relay information. The information then is directly assigned to a unique situation. So language is faulty for arguing a particular instance (composed of many values) with generic rules (through assignment of consistent global traits).

Communication Methodology. I break it down like this, although they probably aren’t rigidly divided:
Idea > Formulation > Delivery > Capture

Idea. This is a mental sensation. Some may call it an activated neural network. Some may see it as a product of thinking. It is difficult to not have ideas. People will say “I can’t think,” but the implied meaning is “my thinking is on a primitive level- at colors or texture, that don’t advance our conversation” or “my ideas are nonfunctional- I am consumed by irrelevant data” or “I fail to remember the complete account.”

Formulation. This is a process of converting ideas into an expression. It seems possible that at times, we might not know what we mean. Or we do intend a meaning but will say something that has deeper meaning than it had to begin with. A third alternative is having a meaning but the language used explains less than it had in mental conception, which is a legitimate problem of language.

Delivery. This is the transportation of language. In speech, there are numerous dynamics that will alter its delivery. I’m writing more about this in another post.

Capture. This is how the delivery is taken. Perception is dependent on how it is presented and the awareness and capacity of the recipient. The main study of this topic is psychology and how the mind receives said stimuli.

Is meaning contained in its components? Can a unit of anything describe a complete notion?

Does a conversation deliver a meaning? Understanding could be something we touch the surface of but never have a concrete hold on. And tack on a deterioration of memory recall and understanding distances itself.

Does a sentence carry any meaning? It may come closest to reflecting an idea, whether it is grasped accurately or not. The more that is said (or wanted to be said) will more than likely not carry a vivid meaning.

Does a word carry any meaning? No, but may come close to defining pieces of an idea.

Does a letter carry any meaning? In it’s alphabetical form, probably not. But letters are words (I and a in English)

And what about grammar symbols? Question marks suggest a new twist on intention. Commas command a quick pause to form barriers and group words.

Words, sentences, letters. These are what cut-ups are made of. Cut-ups make words play with meaning. You can shuffle phrases or words and still be coherent. Implication here is that words and sentences are more important for a potential meaning. Letter-based cutups are less likely to be decipherable words when jumbled.

Possessive syntax divergence. Philly’s cheesesteak. Cheesesteak of Philly. Without much convincing, the variations carry a different effect on meaning. This is what Spanish forces as a lack of direct grammatical possession without an article.

A thought not my own, but relevant:

I now feel that the differences between the two are analogous to the differences between Metaphors and Similes.

The Twilight Zone is more direct like a metaphor,
and The Zone of Twilight is less direct; thus carrying a weakened emotional effect, seeming to focus more on the concept “zone” than the concept “twilight”.

More chimes from others…

I’d forever talk to you, but soon my words, they would turn into a meaningless ring.

-Bob Dylan on the problem of infinite lexical self-reference. There is only tautological meaning.

Explaining things by the past is a refusal to explain them at all. All you are doing is postponing the explanation.

-Alan Watts on history not creating a meaning.

Do words have definitions? Commonality implies effectiveness. Words evolve. Some words die and others get reworked or definition shifts, even constantly. Have you seen Old English? Try reading it. That is what we once knew as English. I struggle to make out the original meaning without having a decent grasp of the former usage of them. Even the authentic Early Modern English of Shakespeare can be a challenge, although it is more recent.

A seemingly more important question is Does meaning have language? Language is the communication that wishes to store meaning. Meaning doesn’t require language. The mental processes that create thoughts don’t rely on articulating concepts outside the mind to have the perfect meaning within it. But by all means, all this doesn’t stop me from attempting to convey my own meta-meaning-of-meaning of language.

Round two of the monthly mixtape. I’m still behind and that is alright because I am spreading these out.

“Break My Body/Hold My Bones.” Those few words get trapped into my earbanks. This song is about as gritty as it gets this month. Here’s a live version.

I have SXSW to thank for this song being available for free download. Nothing quite life-changing, but pleasantly atmospheric.

“What’s the World Got in Store” by Wilco – music clip
Surprisingly no media to go with this one. Working hard? Feeling tired? Regardless, you gotta wonder.

My Morning Jacket has masterpiece material. This-geetah doesn’t have any official videos, but this seems to be the only fan recording you can actually make out the audio of. Poor quality; tremendous sound though. Wish I could have seen them live.

Coming off the Bootleg Series is “If You See Her, Say Hello.” This is the, the, the defining recording of this song. Stripped, but more complete. Powerful lyrics. This version would qualify as my favorite song if it were pressed onto Blood on the Tracks. It puts me in silence.

Beck. “Guess I’m Doing Fine.” A crisp live performance. Speechless.

Press My Face Up to the Window
to See How Warm It Is Inside
See the Things That I’ve Been Missing
Missing All This Time

Practically all of the album Stereo by Paul Westerberg fits in my monthly playlist, but I won’t bore you with the best thing that never happened. Here’s some of the clinching lines and a few videos to wade in…

If you can’t get me now
I don’t want never

if you need someone
to tell everything you’ve done
then lie to me
i’m the one who can still pretend

Keep Reading the Rest…