Pavarotti, Nessun Dorma and the Meaning of Wow

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever." ~John Keats

I was in a conversation recently with some people talking about the question, "When was the last time you cried?" and at the moment I couldn't remember. It's harder for men, I think, and though the release of a good bawl feels good, it doesn't seem like something you make happen at will.

And you know how it is when you can't remember where you put something or you can't remember a name, so it was that I left that conversation trying to remember... when did I cry last, a really good cry?

A few days passed and it came to me. A number of years ago I was listening to a CD in my car, to this song by Pavarotti, Nessun Dorma. There is something powerfully emotional about beauty.

That Pavarotti was a sensation is an understatement. One only needs to recite the accollades of his career, spanning from 1961 to two years ago this month. Perhaps his Guinness Book of World Records for Most Curtain Calls can be seen as telling. 165!

Of the song itself, the title means "None Shall Sleep." It is an aria from the final act of Puccini's opera Turandot. In the opera, Turandot is a beautiful but cold hearted princess. Her beauty is such many a man has desired her, but to win her heart they must answer three questions or be beheaded. It's a high risk game to fall in love with a beautiful cold-heart maiden.

The one who sings it is Calaf, "the unknown prince." Calaf has answered the questions but she recoils at the thought of marrying him. Calaf' puts a riddle to her... she has to guess his name by dawn. If she succeeds, she may behead him. If she fails, she must marry him.

Against this backdrop we hear the theme music rise... and Pavarotti sings.

Nessun dorma

Nessun dorma! Nessun dorma!
Tu pure, o Principessa,
nella tua fredda stanza
guardi le stelle che tremano
d`amore e di speranza!

Ma il mio mistero è chiuso in me,
il nome mio nessun sapr"!
No, no, sulla tua bocca lo dirò,
quando la luce splender"!
Ed il mio bacio scioglier"
il silenzio che ti fa mia!

Dilegua, o notte! Tramontate, stelle!
Tramontate, stelle! All`alba vincerò!
Vincerò! Vincerò!

Here is a YouTube video of Pavarotti performing this fabulous piece. I found it especially amusing that it has Spanish subtitles. The English translation follows.


Nessun dorma

No man will sleep! No man will sleep!
You too, oh Princess,
in your virginal room,
watch the stairs
trembling with love and hope!

But my secret lies hidden within me,
no-one shall discover my name!
Oh no, I will reveal it only on your lips
when daylight shines forth!
And my kiss shall break
the silence that makes you mine!

Depart, oh night! Set, you stars!
Set, you stars! At dawn I shall win!
I shall win! I shall win!

Lack of Civility Gives Us Something To Talk About

Anyone with an ear half open to D.C. politics is aware that Representative Wilson behaved badly when he shouted “You lie!” during a recent speech by President Obama earlier this month. What most people do not comment on, because we forget our history, is that Representative Wilson was not the first congressman from South Carolina to behave badly on the floor of Congress.

In May 1856 South Carolina Rep. Preston Brooks demonstrated less than model behavior by assaulting Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner with a cane while he sat in the Senate Chamber. The beating was so severe that Sumner was blinded by his own blood and passed out whereupon the South Carolina representative continued to beat him.

When the Wilson story first broke what got my attention was the implication that this, rude behavior, was something new. In the back of my mind there is a U.S. News and World Report article from the 1980’s about America’s “epidemic of rudeness.” If you do a Google search on the phrase “epidemic of rudeness” you’ll find 354,000 web pages on the topic.

One editorial on Wilson’s behavior seemed to justify it by saying the Democrats did it, too, when they booed remarks by President Bush during a speech in 2005. Since when is my bad behavior justified because someone else behaved badly?

There were so many good articles on this topic that I wanted to cite, but will limit it to two. The first is from a website assembled by the Rude Busters.

Let’s face it: the Golden Rule is tarnished...
Common courtesy doesn’t exist anymore. Civility, manners, and politeness are nostalgic memories. We’re more mean-spirited than ever.

At concerts, in the air, in supermarkets, in business dealings, at sporting events, everywhere, people are selfish, angry, rude and crude (doctors are even being cited for rudeness in malpractice suits). And former President Clinton convened the National Commission on Civic Renewal, after citing a “toxic atmosphere of cynicism" back in 1997.

The media has been taking notice of our bad manners and bad attitudes and some of the statistics, insights and suggestions are politely offered here for you to access:

In a July 18, 2000 report, researchers confirm we’re in the midst of an anger and rudeness epidemic. “Going postal” – there’s even a catchphrase for our hostility and uncivil behavior. This USA Today piece by Karen S. Peterson helps us understand what contributes to today’s short tempers....

Reuben Navarette, Jr. in a CNN commentary wrote:

There are many people out there, in all walks of life, who think they're more significant than they really are. Plagued with an exaggerated sense of self-importance, they feel entitled to do whatever they want, whenever they want to do it no matter whom it hurts.

The self-centered rarely think about the consequences because they're too busy claiming what they see as their rightful place in the spotlight. And when they're criticized for letting their narcissism get the best of them and face the wrath of their colleagues or the disapproval of their fans, they might apologize. But, even then, they often don't do a very good job of it because their heart's not in it.

Dylan's lines from his song License to Kill (Infidels, 1983) reference this pervasive narcissism.

"Now he worships at an altar of a stagnant pool
And when he sees his reflection, he's fulfilled
Oh, man is opposed to fair play
He wants it all and he wants it his way."

And his later Oh Mercy album likewise reiterates the theme with a song titled "The Disease of Conceit." This is at the root of our bad behavior.

What I like about the Rude Busters article cited above is that instead of just pointing fingers at culprits out in the public square they bring it back down to our own level. I can't change what Joe Wilson did or even how he behaves tomorrow, but I can own what I say and do today in my own sphere.

Rudeness takes many forms. And many people practice downright rudeness daily. So here’s something to keep in mind: a rude encounter is remembered for a lifetime. Let’s think about how we want to be remembered -- and maybe try to be worth remembering.

I agree.

Q

"Imagine what a harmonious world it could be if every single person, both young and old shared a little of what he is good at doing." ~Quincy Jones

79 Grammy nominations, 27 Grammys… yet still not entirely a household name. What’s with that?

When Michael Jackson’s Thriller hit the scene, it might have been Jackson’s name on the marquee, but without doubt Quincy Jones, his producer/arranger, helped put him there. In fact, his whole career has been one of cheerfully adjusting the spotlights that shone on other performers, to put them in their best light.

We all remember the charity performance of superstars assembled for “We Are The World”, but few recall that it was Quincy Jones who produced and arranged the assemblage of superegos, and made it work. Who among us does not recall the shocking In Cold Blood, yet few know that Jones produced the score that set the tone.

Q, The Autobiography of Quincy Jones, is an anecdotally rich portrait of a creative genius and good natured soul who made good in America against heavy odds. If you want an inside look at the black experience mid-century, read Q. If you want an ringside seat as the jazz scene came to full flower, read Q. If you want up close and personal stories about what it takes to rise above circumstances and achieve success beyond one's dreams, this book reveals that, too.

I only have one Frank Sinatra CD, the Quincy Jones produced L.A. Is My Lady. The arrangements are stellar, making it possible for the elder statesman crooner to shine. Jones is the catalyst, setting the stage, the mood, the lights, never drawing attention to himself but serving to make every moment count. I was listening to it last as I tried my hand at painting the pictures of Jones here.

Here’s a little serendipitous note: the night before I was watching Rear Window, the Hitchcock thriller starring Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly. Few know that it was Princess Grace (Kelly) who introduced Quincy Jones to Frank Sinatra in 1958 in Monaco.

In the fifties Jones played with nearly all the greats, from Lionel Hampton to Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Ray Charles. The second half of that serendipitous note is that I am currently watching Ray, the biographic overview of one amazing musician, and in an early scene the two cross paths in Seattle.

It’s a brief encounter here in the film, but in the book , Jones makes it out to be a significant moment for him. His desire is to make music, but to some extent he’s unsure of his prospects. Suddenly, this blind kid (and Ray was just a kid, not even 16) shows up in town, having crossed the country from Alabama, knowing no one, yet establishing himself in a foreign community. At this Quincy Jones wondered what was holding him back.

Quincy Jones has been part of our lives in ways we didn't even know. Today, let’s give a big hand to da man. Thank you, Quincy Jones, wherever you are, for your perpetual optimism and style.

Five Minutes with Keith Erickson

I can't even recall the first time I met Keith Erickson. He is a quiet force who doesn't draw attention to himself. Yet somehow he's drawn together a team of extraordinarily smart people, wizards of programming and technical understanding. Erickson is president of Saturn Systems, a Duluth firm with a growing influence. Four centuries ago they might have been burned at the stake because of the magic they can perform, though today it's with code rather than incantations.

Erickson arrived in Duluth at age five and evidently stayed for the duration, picking up a Bachelor of Computer Engineering at UMD in 1987. After bagging his Masters of Science, Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Iowa in '89 he returned to Duluth and began his career.

He's not only a really fine man, he's also a Dylan fan, so he get's high marks from my corner of the world. I asked if he'd let me pick his brains for a few minutes related to entrepreneurialism and technology today.

EN: When did you first become interested in computers, programming and technology? Who or what were your influences?
KE: I was always interested in electronics and technology, as far back as Junior High. The first time I considered programming was in about 1982 when a friend loaned me a Timex Sinclair computer to experiment with. My first real experience with computer programming and device control was through my experiences with the Computer Engineering program at UMD (1984 - 1987).

EN: Not everyone has an entrepreneurial mindset. What were the drivers that led you to take this kind of risk and start your own tech business?
KE: After living in Southern California for two years following graduate school, my wife and I decided to return to Duluth in 1990 to raise our young family. I was fortunate to have worked for a small defense contractor in Santa Barbara that was amenable to allowing me to contract with them, for a time, after I moved back to Duluth. This was definitely a risky move as my initial contract was only worth $7500 and there were very few technology jobs in Duluth in the early 1990s to seek if the contracting gig didn’t work out. However, with the support of my wife, our families, and colleagues in Santa Barbara, I was able to make it work, gradually increasing the scope of the business over the next several years. This was well before routine Internet communication was standardized, and the arrangement required significant travel.

EN: How many employees do you have?
KE: 28; 21 in Duluth and 7 in Charleston, SC. Also 3 full-time contractors.

EN: What is the key to attracting smart, talented people?
KE: Provide a positive, ethical business culture, do not micromanage your employees, respect their expertise and abilities and demand respect in return, pay competitive wages, offer interesting and challenging work, be willing to delegate responsibility. Above all, have the confidence to surround yourself with people smarter than you.

EN: How has the current economic meltdown affected your business?
KE: Surprisingly, it has actually had a positive effect on our business. Our focus on rural outsourcing and technical excellence has allowed us to position ourselves as a lower cost alternative to metro area consulting firms. At the same time, it has allowed us to communicate a message a technical excellence and customer service not available from foreign outsourcing firms. Finally, the current economic situation has provided us with a strong pool of high caliber job seekers. Two years ago, it was very difficult to find qualified personnel; today, the situation is reversed. So to summarize, the current economic meltdown has helped us obtain new customers due to our marketing efforts; at the same time, we are better able to service these new clients because of readily available technical talent. As a result, we have been experiencing growth during this time of national economic difficulties.

EN: Saturn Systems is a software and engineering technology firm in Duluth MN on the cusp of the trend toward rural outsourcing. What does “rural outsourcing” mean and why is it popular?
KE: "Rural outsourcing" describes a contracting arrangement whereby companies outsource certain work (in our case, IT and software engineering) to small contracting firms located outside of major US metropolitan areas. Saturn Systems is one of the leading rural firms in the country. We have actually been performing this service for our entire existence - it is only recently, however, that it has been given a name. We also refer to this business model as "Offshore to the North shore" (our regional tag line) and "Outsource to America" (our national tag line, trademarked in MN).

I wouldn't say rural outsourcing is 'popular'; only because it is still very much small scale. Most rural outsourcing firms are smaller than Saturn. A rural outsourcing firm needs to be able to attract professionals that want to live in the area, and the rural location needs to provide top qualify educational opportunities. While Duluth definitely fits the bill, most other ‘rural’ locations throughout the country do not.

EN: Do you have a personal life philosophy?
KE: It varies, depending on which Dylan song I'm listening to at the time.

EN: Favorite book of the past year?
KE: "Playing for Pizza" by John Grisham.

EN: That's pretty funny. I enjoyed it, too, and wrote about it here.

To all: If interested in more information about Saturn Systems here's where to find it.
Thanks, Keith, for your time and willingness to share. It's all good.

Internal Time Consciuosness

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
~ T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton

This morning, as with so many others, I woke a few minutes before my alarm. Yesterday, when I woke there were eight seconds left on my alarm and I marvelled at this strange and fascinating phenomenon of time consciousness and our internal clocks.

Today it brought to mind one of my philosophy professors at Ohio University, Dr. Mikunis. The first essay we studied was Kierkegaard and the Leap of Faith. I remember sitting at a table dissecting the concept with Dr. M and other students.

My second year at O.U., this being 1971, I lived in the co-ed Experimental Dorm on the South Green. I believe it was an attempt by the school to pander to the laxity of the times while simultaneously devising a way to keep students in school in order to collect tuition. (Speculation.) One feature of the Experimental Dorm was this: students could develop their own class curricula if they could get a professor to sign on as sponsor.

There was a certain seriousness among some student/professor relationships in this regard, though I remember some professors would nod an O.K. to anything proposed. The class I developed, with eight or ten peers, was a class on dreams. Each week one of us was to present a paper on dreams and dreaming from a different point of view. One student presented Freud, another presented Edgar Cayce, etc. We even brought a guest presenter from Washington, D.C. one week. The last class Dr. Mikunis presented his views.

Dreams had always been a fascination for me from my earliest years. In seventh grade I decided to start a "dream diary." It seemed that my dream life was more interesting than my day-to-day existence, and less predictable. I remember my first recorded dream had Tim Conway in it, from a TV show that was popular at the time.

All the way through high school I kept up with this diary, extensively developing the ability to recall up to four or five complete dream sequences.... not at first, but over time.

Dr. M changed all that. He presented to us the ideas of Husserl and phenomenology in such a manner that it seemed my dream life was no longer relevant. What is relevant, he said, is the "now" experience. My dreams last night were part of the past by the next morning, hence they had no importance.

Truth is, Husserl's concepts about phenomenology and the consciousness of time are difficult to grasp and might have been misunderstood. As I review some of Husserl's ideas today, I note the concept of retention, that things may be past but are retained in the present by our memory and consciousness, and may thus have present relevance after all. If this were not so, nothing we experience, including the understanding of a basic sentence, would make any sense. This sentence that I am writing making sense only in the context of the fuller blog entry here, which if you lived totally in the now, the only thing you would know is the very last word word word word what whoa where go uhmmm now

None of this explains what time is or what dreams are, or why when I go to Las Vegas my internal clock is still on Central Standard Time so that I wake at 4:00 a.m. no matter what time I crashed the night before.

Husserl's writing is a bit dense, so for more on Edmund Husserl's musings on The Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness this is a good starting point. I'd share more on this, but I've run out of time!

Remember, today is the first day of the rest of your life. Make the most of your present as you prepare for the future.

Irving Kristol, RIP

“If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain.” ~Winston Churchill

I’m trying to make a few remarks about Irving Kristol who passed away this past week. Kristol is one of the pre-eminent names in the neo-conservative movement. Some went so far as to call him the Godfather of Neoconservatism.

It should be noted that conservatism is not a homogeneous worldview. There are numerous subgroups within the conservative perspective, chief of these being neoconservatives, theoconservative and paleoconservatives. Pat Buchanan is representative of the latter, a view that desires to return to the Founding Fathers in all their Constitutional glory, to maintain or reinvigorate his interpretation of the worldview that was dominant during that time. Even the theoconservatives are split between the Neuhaus intellectuals and the report card politics of the Religious Right.

Irving Kristol was from neither of these camps. Rather, he was global in his thinking, and conservative by dint of having been immersed in liberal idealism he could not stomach the bi-products of these idealists, chiefly exemplified in Stalinism and later the Sixties radicalism of the New Left

Adam Bernstein’ s Washington Post obituary/tribute to Kristol began in this manner: Irving Kristol, 89, a forceful essayist, editor and university professor who became the leading architect of neoconservatism, which he called a political and intellectual movement for disaffected ex-liberals, like himself, who had been "mugged by reality," died Friday at Capital Hospice in Arlington County.

Kristol himself had been a Troskyite in his youth and a believer in the socialist dream. (I myself liked Leon Trotsky for a spell while in Junior High School because my first name is likewise Leon, which led me to do an essay on his life at the time.)

I find it interesting that many significant voices in the conservative movement were once liberal and socialists. Kristol and neoconservative Norman Podhoretz cited George Orwell’s disaffection with communism as a start point for this movement. (Much more can be said in that regard.) In point of fact, many people who came late to political awareness with regard to beltway politics had no idea that some of the leading conservative voices during the Reagan era, such as Jeanne Kirkpatrick and William J. Bennett, had once been liberals.

Citing Bernstein again, Mr. Kristol and many of his followers were dubbed neoconservatives. It was a term introduced by social critic Michael Harrington to describe the rightward turn of onetime liberals such as Mr. Kristol, whose extraordinary political odyssey had taken him from Depression-era socialist to anticommunist Cold Warrior and Vietnam War hawk.

Although Harrington's use of the term neoconservative was not intended as a compliment, Mr. Kristol embraced the name and became its widely accepted godfather. An Esquire magazine cover story on him in 1979 helped legitimize Mr. Kristol as the leader of a full-fledged movement, even as he downplayed the idea that such a formal faction existed.

Despite the move from left to write of many influential writers and thinkers this past century, the Churchill quote at the beginning of this article is not entirely accurate. There are writers and thinkers whose "mugging by reality" drove them right to left. I think here of David Brock, author of Blinded by the Right, who was a conservative insider during the Clinton years.

Essentially history is ever in the making. Whoever wields power at the moment has an opportunity to influence. That influence can attract or repel based on the consequences of actions and ideas. The part that Winston got right is that things do not forever remain the same, and neither do people.

CyberLink • Version 4.0

SHORT STORY MONDAY

"Technology... is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other." ~C.P. Snow

Today's story is another incomplete nub of an idea from my files. The original was developed in the mid-1990's, long before the Matrix series of films, but after the emergence of the World Wide Web. I was influenced, in part, by William Gibson's Mona Lisa Overdrive. Like the story Golem Terrorists of two weeks ago, it is but a beginning, a setup. Based on the reference to the slumping economy, I must have updated a few details in a re-write possibly around 2002 or so.

CyberLink • Version 4.0

From its inception, the WEB Interlock Corp. sparked headlines. A front page story in the Wall Street Journal announced the departure of West, Ellison and Bierce from Microsoft in August ’98. Cover stories in the computer mags filled in the details. Cutting edge software was the name of the game. The charismatic William West masterminded the coup, knowing fully the attention WEB Interlock would gain by combining Rath Ellison’s visionary technosis with the hyper-psychic creativity of Mason Bierce.

WEB Interlock became the first to develop a primitive form of the Hyperlock Central Series. Hyperlock Central gave users a direct eyegate capability via the patch refractory system, allowing Game Players direct graphics capabilities without the use of a terminal. Photos of the introverted Bierce and a cosmic looking Ellison appeared on the covers of Newsweek, TIME, and a half dozen other consumer magazines. William West had likewise become a fixture in the news.
Then the troubles began. It was the usual conflict between marketing and R&D. A slumping economy after the turn of the century and overly aggressive marketing goals brought internal strife to the company, with discordant accusations focusing chiefly on the reluctance, or inability, of Ellison and Bierce to bring new products to the marketplace in a timely manner.

Ellison’s concerns for safety and proper testing of the dynamic new technologies were perpetually dismissed by West.

“We’re missing opportunities! We’re losing ground!” the red-faced West shouted at his twin development heads. He ignored the rising popularity of such games as DaggerBlade and FlexoSpike, knowing that for WEB, innovative pioneer technologies were all that mattered. His fame required this single narcotic.

Ellison felt betrayed by the accusations. No one could say for certain what Bierce was thinking.

Then the unthinkable happened. A Korean company released its NerveLink program, a patchcord device that enabled a direct spinal linkup with the Net. The total package included a variety of games as well as business and military applications. While the programs and games were uniquely Korean, every other NerveLink capability was identical to research designs Bierce had been developing for more than a decade. Two weeks later, Mason Bierce packed his brain with enough chemicals to eliminate all of pre-history and died of a cerebral implosion.

The effect on Rath Ellison was this: while he remained an active and visionary force in the direction of WEB Interlock’s R & D efforts, he adopted a passive aggressive posture in regards to interdepartmental politicking. If the company wished to damage its long-term credibility by rushing products to the market and taking absurd, unnecessary risks, Ellison after stating his position but once would retreat to permanent silence. “The spirit of Bierce is in control here,” he observed in one of his more lucid moments. “W.E.B Interlock has determined to self-destruct.”

Ready or not, by the end of the year Ellison gave West what he wanted. The ultimate, as far as technology was concerned. "It's called BioShell Dropout," Ellison said.
It promised even more than NerveLink. It enabled user's to drop themselves into the Matrix. There were certain problems in the initial phase of development. Users who dropped out of their bodies often never came back, lost in Cyberspace. As luck should have it, the key to success proved to be found in the mythological story of Theseus, who entered the labyrinth to kill the Minotaur, and returned, saved by Ariadne's thread. The missing ingredient, for which W.E.B. Interlock immediately purchased universal Patent and Trademark Rights, was a product called "Ariadne's Thread."

All would have been well, but for the ten to fifteen guinea pigs who had been dropped into the Matrix and left for dead. Disembodied entities, conscious minds in Cyberspace, eager to return to the flesh and bloodness of the living, but locked out -- or locked in, depending on your point of view. Nine of these banded together to form a dark constellation of terror within the Net, wreaking havoc and performing all kinds of villainy until it be possible to gain their release. [The others who disappeared in the Net were never heard from again, and for this reason it is unknown exactly how many there originally were. The Nine we know because they identified themselves as The Desperadoes of Orion and released their names via obituaries which were repeatedly dropped into e-mail slots in all the major newspapers, with entirely fake life histories, addresses, etc, but the same names... Over and over again they kept up this charade of dying.]

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

A small collection of original stories which I have penned can be found here at my personal website.