Meta and Meta

As Thyself

Thanks for sharing, Mr. Burgess. I want to say the feeling is mutual. But that would be so...un-Christian.

Fat People Got No Reason To Live

You've probably heard by now about yet another reason not to be fat: Being fat increases global warming.

Apparently, though, that information is an unnecessary condition for the popular loathing of fat people:

[In] a famous study in the 1960’s in which children were shown drawings of children with and without disabilities, as well as a drawing of a fat child. Who, they were asked, would you want for your friend? The fat child was picked last.

Now, three researchers have repeated the study, this time with college students. Once again, almost no one, not even fat people, liked the fat person. “Obesity was highly stigmatized,” wrote the researchers....

Man. Things must really be rough for fat atheists.

Eagleton's Caliginesis

Shorter Terry Eagleton:

Richard Dawkins' critique of popular religious belief fails because he does not take seriously certain obscure conceptions of God that only a vanishingly small minority of religious believers themselves take seriously.

UPDATE: See also Pharyngula.

Studio Log

NASVHILLE, TN--In the studio tracking some demos for the album--which reminds me of a story from our first studio experience in Nashville, just a couple of years ago...

NASHVILLE, TN--So we hit the studio in the a.m. for basic tracks on a new tune. Because we've done a fair amount of preproduction rehearsal we can usually get a lot of nuts and bolts stuff out of the way before the producers show up.

We actually finish up the basic tracks on the first song in short order, at which point we decide to record a mock version to play for our invigilators when they came in. The key of course was to do something ridiculous but plausible.

The idiom is highly rock-inflected country, the song is something of a ballad. So naturally we have the keyboardist start out with some tinkly rainfall type parts on the intro. Meanwhile, the acoustic guitar player embarks on some aimless triadic movement, with the drummer tagging along with a bit of random cymbal lashing. Come the verse, the drummer begins comping with an almost-absurd tom-tom figure, somewhat reminiscent of Cream's Sunshine of Your Love.

So far, so good.

When we get to the prechorus the keyboardist starts bashing out big, lounge-ready add-9 chords in the style of the pulsing thrusts of Le Sacre du Printemps (sans sforzandi, of course--think Manilow meets Stravinsky). Naturally, I respond on my Telecaster with some hackneyed-as-can-be stock blues licks.

The drummer leads us in to the Chorus with a fill straight out of Marilyn Manson, and I transition into an off-beat figure playing 6-note sus 2 power chords. I don't know what the hell the other guys are doing, but the result is pretty much a tune sounding right out of Spinal Tap.

So now right about now you're saying to yourself, "I thought he said plausible," and, well, you're right--we may have lost sight of that criterion. At all events, it worked. We assembled in the control booth and took care of other housekeeping until the first producer showed up, at which point we played the mock track for him for about a minute, and then asked the engineer stop it right after the first chorus (we hadn't recorded much more than that). I then asked the drummer if he didn't think the fill coming out of the chorus might not be a bit more "active" (as if that nit was the most conspicuous problem with the track). The drummer acted as if he was going to go back in and punch the fill and we all just cracked up.

At which point the producer became noticeably more . . .relaxed.

. . .

I'm pretty sure the only reason the ruse worked is because the producer was trying to avoid looking at us during playback as much as we were trying to avoid looking at him. (None of us could hold it together the whole time, and I myself was weeping with suppressed laughter.) I assume much the same reasoning explains why it worked on the other two producers as well. Whatever the case, we have their reactions on video. Maybe some day I'll be able to share them.

Incidentally, all those minutes of studio time are recoupable. As the studio recording imperative goes, waste absolutely no time, or else waste all of it.

Fear and Death

Death (in the sense of being dead) is nothingness. But then nothingness isn't something we haven't "experienced" before. So death's no big deal. It's life you really have to watch out for.

It Came To Me In A Dream

Epiphanies are unreliable.

Authentic Spirituality

If spirituality has any meaning at all, it is cultivating a sense of communion with the world as it really is.

Krauthammer Really Is An Idiot

From his WaPo editorial:

It is clear that one of the reasons we have gone an astonishing five years without a second attack on the American homeland is that the most dedicated and virulent jihadists have gone to Iraq to fight us, as was said during World War I, "over there." [Emphasis mine.]

Okay, what the f---? Does Krauthammer really think that if al Qaeda had viable cells in the U.S. they would divert them to the "front line in the war on terror" in Iraq? (Man, that would be some kind of flypaper.)

And, for Heaven's sake, how many years was it after the proto-Qaeda attack on the WTC in '93 that Islamic terrorists mounted a successful attack on the American homeland? Eight-plus (nine, if you round up). Is that an "astonishing" duration to which Krauthammer has ever adverted his readers?

My God, he really is an idiot. Or just thinks you are.

One-Line Atheology

If this is the best of all possible worlds, what is heaven supposed to be?

Not That There's Anything Wrong With That

Conservative hacks continue to show a breathtaking inability to distinguish homosexuality and pedophilia: "Are these Democratic critics of Mr. Hastert saying that they now have more sympathy for the Boy Scouts' decision to ban gay scoutmasters?"

Harrumph! And let's ban heterosexual women from teaching in public schools while we're at it!

Can I just say? You people are brilliant.

(Via TPM.)