In Electricity We Trust

[JeffD]

Bill Graham's article is very thoughtfull. In a way it is an elogy to my profession (electric power engineering), and I am glad to be celebrated, and appreciated.

And you're welcome. :)

But there is a bigger thought - that we all live in the time we live in, not any other. We can mentally, and even physically pretend we live 100 years ago, but the reality of our present day is the richest.

The old time musicians many of us celebrate were living in their own time, like we are in ours, and I can only imagine what they romantically looked back to.

We can honor the past, but few of us would really want to go back, and if any of us were able to actually go back, there is a good chance we would come forward as soon as possible, screaming and yelling perhaps, as soon as we bumped into many of the medical, technological, and social inconveniences we have eliminated in the last several generations. Certainly we wouldn't want to have to do much of the back breaking physical work that was common to our grandparents and great grandparents generation. Or watch helplessly as folks died of things easily prevented and cured today.

We can honor the past, and take from the past that which is still good and still has value, but we have to live now. And in all of the romance that surrounds our love for accoustic music, it is good every now and then to appreciate the advantages of the present.

This forum for example.


Thanks Bill, for an excellent column.

[mandocaster]

Nostalgia can be pretty overwhelming. It can be applied to everything.

[Stephen Lind]

it's all been going downhill since that dude put strings on his stick:grin:

[John Jenkins]

you're absolutely right. thinkin' too much of the past won't get you where you need to be in the present-which-leads-to-the-future (can you hyphenate words that long?). the past is certainly important, as we all need to remember how we got here to begin with....if you throw that out the window, well, it ain't easy standing without a foundation below ya.' it's all too easy to remember the good stuff and conveniently forget about the bad.

if i could go back, however, i'd certainly give the dude with strings on his stick a ~:> sandwich. he'd probably like that.

[LateBloomer]

I had the same sort of thoughts (although not nearly so deep) as I drove in six lanes of stop and go traffic last week. I was listening to some Old Time and Bluegrass and thinking of the irony between what my ears were hearing and what I was driving through...... old and modern collide.

[JeffD]

A real good example of holding too hard to the past - if you have a vintage instrument with its original case, it might be a good idea to get a new modern case - as it provides better protection than the original case. Don't discard the original case, certainly, but it might not make sense to use it.

[TonyP]

My dream(fantasy?) started waaay before I even played music. And it had more to do with self sufficiency than nostalgia. I got I didn't want to live like my grandparents lived when they were young with no electricity. But I knew that there was a way to live that was better than we were living at present.

But it really came home to me watching some PBS shows where they get volunteers to recreate a specific time/place in history. Being a settler on the East Coast, a cowhand in the 19th Century Southwest, etc.. Like my Okie grandpa who came to Ca. during the Dustbowl/Depression would say, "that broke you of suckin' eggs" and said there were no "good 'ol days".

My reality and present dream has been made more and more real by the advances in technology. We could live basically as good, but not in these wasteful stick build McMansions they crank out like pizza's in their ticky tacky pseudo gated commmunities. Not with poorly designed appliances that have not made that great of changes since the 50's. Not with cars that get marginally better gas mileage than the 60's, and still run on gasoline. Much less, incandescent light bulbs that are essentially the same as Edison first invented.

The real nostalgia that was spoken of is for a wasteful recent past. Consume like there's no tomorrow, but cheaply enough it doesn't bust us. Well, anytime it's in corporations hands, it's just like dope dealers.....sell it to ya cheap until you're hooked. Then bleed you dry.

The other side of the coin of reality is I have a friend, who he and his family have been off the grid for 25yrs. They had no choice, they loved the area, could afford the land, but it's still 20mi beyond where the power/telephone service is. And if not for the solar panel out back, you'd never know it. His is not an small hovel. It's bigger than the house we rent. It's all quarried stone that they dumped from when they did the blasting for a local dam. He made the house in stages over years. All while working in his profession as a plumber, and his wife as a teacher. He's also an acoustic musician.

I for one, am grateful, but I'm also irritated by the direction this whole paradigm has taken. Fact is, yeah, the majority of us don't have to do backbreaking work. But, our brothers from south of the borders do it for us. I see them everyday out in the fields in the brutal heat and cold. Fact is people die everyday of TOTALLY curable diseases because pharmaceutical corporations hold patents on the drugs that would save them, but the price is out of their reach. Fact is, millions die because of patents on grain and market speculation. Fact is at the turn of the 20th century 1 in 32 died of cancer. Now the gov. expects 1 in 2 of men, and 1 in 3 women to get cancer in their lifetimes. At that time heart disease was literally unknown. Diabetes was not a plague like it is now.

At our little local bluegrass festival this last weekend the topic came up, because we're all boomers, of taking care of our parents. And how it's horrific consequences on our lives as more medicines are applied, how their health and mental state quickly deteriorate. How dementia and cancer, or both, are always the diagnoses. And we're all now the elders. Who woulda thunk?

I don't mean to disparage Bill's article, it's a good 'un. But, in this age of amnesia, the true history is just as elusive as the simple life we pine for. How many know of Nikola Tesla, and his true place in our electric lifestyle? Read Nikola Tesla, A Man Out of Time. Not only did he make the 40 patents that gave us the 20th Century, he, not Marconi, was the true inventor of the radio. His patent was previous to Marconi, and won the court case in '45. He had a radio controlled model submarine at one of the World Fairs in the 1890's! And for Tesla, he didn't want corporations to have the monopoly on electricity. He saw all monopoly's as evil. His grand plan was to use the earth as a giant capacitor and supply the whole world with power and instant communication. All you would need is a receiver, no wires. Just think how that would have revolutionized modern life. Just for starters, electric cars wouldn't need batteries, and there would be no grid. He was never allowed to finish his work, and died a pauper, unknown. But a hero to his fellow Serbians. And meanwhile, most people think of Edison, who, if he had his way, we'd be using DC, instead of AC. Just Telsa's life story is indicative of how the American Dream has gone astray, and how the same players, or their relatives, are still at work. Keeping the American Dream one of wanting more than most can attain.

[Keith Erickson]

It's amazing how much free time we have to sit and complain about modern technology and the "evils" that it brought upon us.

Modern technology such as a electricity has given man kind the leasure to hang out on the Mandolin Café and discover the beauty of the mandolin and old time music. I don't see what all of the lamenting is all about.

100 years ago, transportation was a horse and buggy. I wonder what the pollution was like in New York City with all of that horse dung in the streets?

100 years ago life wasn't so easy. My grandmother is still alive and well and she doesn't look back with nostalgia. Sure she talks about the dances that they use to attend and she was a big fan of Bill Monroe, but she spends a lot less time working to feed herself today than she did almost a centure ago.

If you want to give up your electricity, go right ahead but don't stand in my way of enjoying the Mandolin Café and all of the modern amenities that modern technology the rest of us enjoy :mandosmiley:

[first string]

Not sure how long a life this thread will have, as it will inevitably lead to a somewhat politically tinged discourse...That said, I have to agree with Tony. I think there are benefits and liabilities associated with the current state of our society. And as much as nostalgia for the past can be naive, triumphalism about modernization can obscure the very real costs of the unsustainable lifestyles many of us live. Costs which I fear our children will pay for, and which (as Tony pointed out) people from less affluent backgrounds are already paying for. If this post has stepped over the line, I won't be offended if Ted or Scott need to remove it.

To bring it back to music, one thing I think we can we all agree on, is that music can provide some relief/solace from whatever it is that ails you.

[JEStanek]

While discussing global economics, manufacturing ills, corporate evils, western consumerism and modern cars may be very real concerns and intersting discourse; let us keep our discussions 4 course related as these topics are clearly beyond the posting guidelines. Here is an official warning to the thread.

http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=34446&d=0

Jamie

[mandocrucian]

It's amazing how much free time we have to sit and complain about modern technology and the "evils" that it brought upon us.

Modern technology such as a electricity has given man kind the leasure to hang out on the Mandolin Café and discover the beauty of the mandolin and old time music.

All things must pass! But here's a few tune suggestions for you to play in the meantime on your mandos OMs, tenor banjos, etc.

"Turn around,
go back down,
back the way you came,
Can't you see that flash of fire ten times brighter than the day?
And behold a mighty city broken in the dust again,
Oh God, Pride of Man, broken in the dust again."

"Pride of Man" - Quicksilver Messenger Service (actually written by Hamilton Camp, but the QMS version is so superior)


Ecosystem collapse, insect plagues, crop failures, mass extinctions, droughts, more and more tornados and hurricanes, power outtages, looting, martial law, gestapo, economic collapse, famine, end of health care, tropical disease pandemics, dying oceans.........the return of Gozer (Dec. 2012)......:))

(Hot stock tip for the future: Soylent Green Inc.)

"And so castles made of sand slips into the sea, eventually" - Jimi Hendrix

(so enjoy it while you can) (or, IF you can, knowing that it's all going to crumble away.

"If the sun refused to shine, I don't mind, I don't mind
(Yeah) If the mountains ah, fell in the sea
Let it be, it ain't me.
'Cause I've got my own world to live through and uh, huh
And I ain't gonna copy you. "
- Jimi Hendrix ("If Six Was Nine")

Niles H

(oh yeah... and don't forget Tom Waits' "Earth Died Screaming" :mandosmiley:

[TonyP]

I think Bill's articles are great. The thing I love about them is the fact they tie all our lives together. Not just music, but, how there's an underlying current that is really the common ground. His articles, to me, point out how interconnected things really are.

I certainly am not deriding technology, quite the contrary. I feel sometimes we are held in thrall by the disinformation we are fed like we need more nuclear, and wind and solar are not viable. Or there is only one way to live.

And truly, I owe my present life to the mandolin, and Bluegrass music, and the internet. There are certainly detractors here too of the genre. But, it's my community, and directly ties me to a past that would be totally gone for me. Where else but a Bluegrass festival could I take my kids when they were small, let 'em run free to hang with other kids? While I get to sit, pick and visit with people I never would have been friends with or even met. We are in no way of the same background, social status, or political views. But the music makes us all one, and gives us a respect for each other that plain 'ol political affiliations would never allow. I made my first post not as a political statement, or decry technology, just to respond to Bill's article, and the OP's. It's too bad if that's seen as political, but I guess that's part of the whole too :)

[Scott Tichenor]

I'm going to expect no further topical matter taken beyond the posting guidelines, which some of the comments above are clearly wading into. Allow those that wish to discuss this to do so, leave the other unrelated hot-button matter out of here. An article on one man's thoughts doesn't need to be fodder for a discussion of the state of the problems of the world.

[CES]

But I just bought a Mandobird and amp, and my wife actually enjoys my highly distorted version of "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring" better than the acoustic version!! Mannnnnn....:disbelief:

Listening to "Man of Constant Sorrow" on my laptop at work as I type...ah, the irony of it all :)

[tkdboyd]

As with all things, moderation is important. Unless I am in an electric chair...?

[Eddie Sheehy]

Nostalgia used to be a thing of the past.... now it's the way of the future....

[man dough nollij]

Nostalgia used to be a thing of the past.... now it's the way of the future....


I dunno, Eddie. In my opinion, they just don't make nostalgia like they used to. :popcorn:

[Jim Rowland]

TV's "Unplugged" was never unplugged at all,even when Robert Fripp had his guitar class play some exercises. Of course,it became less and less unplugged as time went by. There has to be a mic somewhere and the attendant attenuating. A jam or parlour gig is about as good as really unplugged gets.
I saw a show once where the McCourey band counted off a tune and lit in,but someone had forgotten to hit the switch. It sounded like it was coming from the next holler over.
Jim

[JeffD]

As has been pointed out in many other threads, we today live in a golden age of luthiery. The instruments today are as good and in some cases better than they ever were, certainly more consistently good, and we can patronize individual artists making instruments to their vision, or a vision shared by luthier and client.

I wouldn't trade this present golden age for any point in the past.