Concerts and Such

Alongside of 3,999 people, I got to see Mumford and Sons last night. It was quite spectacular. Most people were obviously fervent fans and had memorized the lyrics to just about every song. The crowd had an amazing energy and vibe to it. Lot's of people were singing and just having a blast. Thankfully, the people around me were quite melodic in their singing. A very fun, solid concert. I'd go into greater detail about what went on, but I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise.

I do, however, have two complaints. First off, whether you're with your significant other or with a friend, there is no need to talk throughout most of the concert. Honestly, I don't care to hear your commentary on every song and the arrangement of the band members. Nor do I care to hear you explain to your significant other what instrument the musicians played at the end of every song. Second, I do not care to watch the concert on your iPod or camera. I mean if I wanted to watch it on some screen, I could just buy a DVD and hang out at home. It's really not necessary for you to tape the entire concert is it?

At any rate, if you have the chance, check out Mumford and Sons. Give it a listen.

[A suggestion for future concerts: Perhaps, we should have general admission coordinated by the height of the people. Ideally, the general order would allow the short people to be given priority to enter the concert venue first. I'm guessing this group would generally consist of Asians. I wasn't that short at this concert, but I did notice a few people that were just a few inches below the average height...]

A Quote!

Another useless fact that doesn't get you any farther in life, but you'll probably remember it...

"Unbelievable as it may sound, that keyboard layout was designed in 1873 as a feat of anti-engineering. It employs a whole series of perverse tricks designed to force typists to type as slowly as possible, such as scattering the commonest letters over all keyboard rows and concentrating them on the left side (where right-handed people have to use their weaker hand). The reason behind all of those seemingly counterproductive features is that the typewriters of 1873 jammed if adjacent keys were struck in quick succession, so that manufacturers had to slow typists. When improvements in typewriters eliminated the problem of jamming, trials in 1932 with an efficiently laid-out keyboard showed that it would let us double our typing speed and reduce our typing effort by 95 percent. But QWERTY keyboards were solidly entrenched by then. The vested interests of hundreds of millions of QWERTY typists, typing teachers, and computer salespeople, and manufacturers crushed all moves towerd keyboard efficiency for over 60-years." - Diamond, Jared in Guns, Germs, and Steel.

For the record, this book is not about keyboards...

Passion

Being passionate about your work does strange things to you. It's one thing when you don't really care about how your work reflects you, but when you do, things are wildly different. My work has become exciting in a strange way. Whereas most of the work I was given before was done to a degree that I knew would be sufficient, the work I do now, I'd like to think, is definitely done to the best of my abilities.

On the other hand, it's taught me something about who I am. Clearly, it's good when I don't put out my all - as it shows me in a light that isn't positive. Somehow, I have to motivate myself to do my best despite the fact that what I'm doing isn't what I'd want to be doing. I need to train myself to be able to give forth my best in whatever I do.

On Procrastination

Just an interesting quote I found online while reading this article (Later by James Surowiecki) in the New Yorker:

"The philosopher Mark Kingwell puts it in existential terms: “Procrastination most often arises from a sense that there is too much to do, and hence no single aspect of the to-do worth doing. . . . Underneath this rather antic form of action-as-inaction is the much more unsettling question whether anything is worth doing at all.” In that sense, it might be useful to think about two kinds of procrastination: the kind that is genuinely akratic and the kind that’s telling you that what you’re supposed to be doing has, deep down, no real point."

Salesman Pete

I've come across this video that's pretty entertaining. So here it is:

Salesman Pete from Salesman Pete on Vimeo.

Driving and Relationships

Having begun my job in Orange County, I've done one thing a lot and that is drive from point A to point B. It's pretty fun, I must admit. I've learned a lot though when driving. It's that you're given this sense of trust to have a vehicle by your family, your community, and ultimately the government. If you go out and do something stupid, it's your fault and you will have to pay for it through trust and, of course, money. At the same time, you give other people on the road your trust that they won't do something crazy that may cause you or anyone else any harm. However, you do look out and make sure that they aren't doing anything crazy. I think that's similar to the way that I see my friends and family.

I'm given this amount of trust that I do treasure and I hope that it never grows sour. I trust them and want to be a part of their lives. At the same time, if they are doing something strange, I'll be there to see what's going on. Hopefully, it will be help that is welcomed.

On Art and Critics

I recently read a great article about a critic - Greil Marcus - that wrote books about musicians and their songs. His style of writing is a little different from what you'd expect. He tries to get into the songs and feel them. His article was truly fascinating.

On his style of writing, Greil Marcus says, "To trace anybody's work, what they produce, what they put into the world, what you or I respond to, to somebody's life, their biography, is utterly reductionist. It's simply a way of protecting ourselves from the imagination, from the threat of the imagination."

A great quote that I found was this: "John Irving, the novelist, once said to me, "You know why that is? It's because people who don't have an imagination are terrified of people who do." I don't know if that's true, but we live in culture of the memoir, where we're not supposed to believe anything unless it's documented that it actually happened. Never mind that most memoirs are more fictional than novels. We want that imprimatur: "This really happened. This is really true." You can respond to it. You can feel "okay" about being moved by it. Whereas with art, whether music, movies, novels, painting, ultimately, to be moved by art, by something somebody has made up, is, from a certain perspective, to be tricked. To be fooled. You made me cry, and you just did it like you hypnotized me. I love that. Not everybody does"

If you have time, you should definitely check it out. Van Morrison's Moments of Disbelief