Comments on: Instrument Geeks

By: Gordon

Gordon — Fri, 18 Apr 2003 21:26:30 +0000

Short, terrified pants and a watch with an emergency break. I loves me some Sharper Image.

By: Jessica

Jessica — Fri, 18 Apr 2003 04:56:40 +0000

Way.
I didn’t mean to accuse you of saying “primitive.’ You said “evolved,” which is, you know, the other side of the coin for warfare economy types.

You know, when I read this story the first time I pictured you going through the day in short, terrified pants. With cargo pockets. ;-*

By: mig

mig — Thu, 17 Apr 2003 18:49:28 +0000

I didn’t say *primitive*, I just said I felt as out of place as if I had been wearing a penis sheath. Believe me, someone wearing a sheath would be out of place in the Karajan Center.

Coincidentally, just last week an anthropologist friend was showing me raw documentary footage he had filmed a few years ago in Irian Jaya. Talk about a society trashed by missionaries.

“Primitive” is a word I would use carefully, or avoid using. One thing my friend told me, though – many of the communities there are totally screwed now because the missionaries forbid them to wage war, and they had war-based economies. Not only the warriors are out of work now, so are the spear-makers and everyone else.

War-based economy: you have to admit that’s primitive.

By: kismet

kismet — Thu, 17 Apr 2003 14:32:50 +0000

there’s a trick to helping instruments work into better sounds faster as well… put them in front of a stereo. It sounds odd, but the music will cause the same vibrations in the heart of the instrument that happens when playing it; granted, you aren’t going to play the instrument all day long (because, well, you have to at least stop every once in a while to eat, pee, sex it up, etc), but this way the silly little instrument is tricked into thinking you’re doing so :)

Kim

By: Jessica

Jessica — Wed, 16 Apr 2003 21:36:09 +0000

That was a lovely story.
But: never underestimate the sheath clad folk. Primitive, schmimitive. Who do you think is going to cure cancer? (OK, so it’s probably going to be the !Kung. Woe unto he who believeth in Western cultural superiority, for he is destined for the pot. Or maybe just traffic jams and acid rain. But still.)