Away at Sea
September 6, 2010 by Joe Kloc
While I’m at Mother Jones, I’ll be doing most of my blogging there. Old music here; and science here.
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I’m a fellow at Mother Jones in San Francisco and a former contributing editor for Seed magazine. This blog is where I write about all the science, literature, history, and old music that I can't quite find a way to put anywhere else. You can check out my published work here.
Songs for Your Bluesday: Preservation Hall
March 16, 2010 by Joe Kloc
FREE SONGS FROM PRESERVATION HALL or WHEN TO CAPITALIZE “JAZZ”
On Preservation Hall’s website, they capitalize “Jazz” only when referring to “New Orleans Jazz.”
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Since the 1960s, Preservation Hall in New Orleans has been dedicated to preserving the lazy, easy, sound of old New Orleans Jazz that, according to the venue’s website, has “lost much of its popularity to modern jazz and rock and roll.” This compilation of songs, streaming for free online, was recorded at the hall by a collection of singers, from Louis Armstrong to Tom Waits to Yim Yames, all backed by the Preservation Hall band.
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Songs for Your Bluesday: “St. James Infirmary Blues”
March 9, 2010 by Joe Kloc
121 RECORDINGS OF THE “ST. JAMES INFIRMARY BLUES” or WHAT A 500-YEAR-OLD HOSPITAL FOR LEPERS AND LOUIS ARMSTRONG HAVE IN COMMON
I recently came across an archive of “St. James Infirmary Blues” recordings that should make for some good Bluesday listening. It’s got everything from Cab Calloway to Josh White to Dave Van Ronk to The White Stripes. But before you dig into the over 100 recordings in the archive, it might be worth knowing a bit about the long history of this American standard.
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Townes Van Zandt’s Jokes
March 1, 2010 by Joe Kloc
BETWEEN PLAYING EVEN HIS SADDEST SONGS TOWNES VAN ZANDT ENJOYED TELLING A GOOD JOKE. THE QUESTION IS, WHY DID IT WORK SO WELL?
“There were these two drunks having this argument outside a bar,” Townes Van Zandt said towards the end of his 1973 set at the Old Quarter in Houston. “They’re arguing as to whether that object up in the sky was the sun or the moon. This other drunk stumbles out of the bar and one of ‘em walks over and says, ‘Buddy will you help us out? We are having an argument and we can’t decide who is right… Is that the sun or the moon?’ [The man replies:] ‘aw I don’t know man, I ain’t from this neighborhood.’”
When I listened to Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas1 for the first time last week, it wasn’t the music that surprised me. Townes’ set that night was like most of his sets: woeful songs about wandering, loneliness, drugs, booze, and heartbreak. What struck me was the jokes and anecdotes, like the two drunks arguing about the moon, that he told so casually throughout the somber performance. Immediately following the moon joke is “Tower Song”2: “The end is coming soon it’s plain / A warm bed just ain’t worth the pain / And I will go and you’ll remain / With the bitterness we tasted.” I’d call his jokes out of place among sad lyrics like these if it weren’t for the fact that, for some reason, they work quite well.
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Psychology, Religion, and The Good Thomas Merton
February 25, 2010 by Joe Kloc
A RECENT STUDY ABOUT THE PSYCHOLOGICAL UNDERPINNINGS OF RELIGIOUS FAITH ILLUSTRATES THE DIFFICULTIES FACING SCIENTISTS WHO TRY TO BATTLE BELIEF ON ITS OWN TERMS.
In a study1 published in the January 8 online edition of Psychological Science, researchers at the University of Waterloo looked at what they called the “psychological underpinnings of religious faith.” They found that students who were made to think about ideas related to disorder and randomness in the world were more inclined than their peers to believe in God or a similar nonhuman entity. According to the researchers, the findings suggest that “belief in supernatural sources of control, such as God and Karma, may function, in part, to defend against distress associated with randomness.” In short, when our sense of order in the universe is threatened, we start thinking about the supernatural.
Undoubtedly I’ve already lost more than a few readers with the phrase “psychological underpinnings of religious faith” and the suggestion of a “nonhuman entity” similar to God. But for those of you still with me, I think a closer examination of the study actually articulates a fundamental limit to many of the arguments that attempt to convince Christians of a psychological basis for religious faith.
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