THE NEXT 100 YEARS

"MUSIC, DON’T JUST LISTEN TO IT, EAT IT"

Prognostication and Predictions about The Future

by

The Audio Auracle

&

Why I Am Having A Sex Change Operation

&

How To Get a Free Copy of My New $99 Book

by

Dr. Harvey "Gizmo" Rosenberg

Writing this, my last article for Positive Feedback of the 20th century, has been torture because I want this to be an accurate gesture of thanks for the existential treasure I have gathered from membership in the PF community. Dave Robinson’s courage is a rare commodity in our tepid and timid world of American audio journalism, and I am grateful that he has encouraged me to howl by the light of a silvery moon. Those of you who have opposed my campaign to expand our tribal imagination have helped me fortify my resolve, and I am grateful for your narrow-minded view of the audio arts. Being a brain damaged rebel with bat hearing aint easy, but I stick to my guns on this point: the frontier of the audio arts is not new circuits, but our expanding imagination about music. Are you ready for the second century of the audio arts; the youngest, least understood, yet profoundest art form?

THE RISE OF BROTHERHOOD

Boring-ness is the cholera of our audio tribe and the Internet is showing no mercy for the rancid attitudes that are holding on for dear life amongst audio magazines, manufacturers and retailers. Have you noticed those incredible shrinking audio magazines?

Whenever an orthodox power structure is overthrown there is chaos, and that is exactly what is happening in our tribe. Not long ago there were "tribal judges/fathers/monarchs", who made judgments, and we, their audiophilic subjects/children, because we needed to be obedient, we obeyed their commands. Now, because of the Internet, we have grown up and don’t need any authority to tell us what music pleasure is worthwhile. The "monarchs" of audio journalism are being dethroned by this democratization, as our "power transaction" has shifted from father/son to brother/brother. These transactions are richer in information, freer, more intelligent, more entertaining, have more integrity, and this is the most important point,...have authentic emotional content. Is it puffery to assert that PF was as pioneer in this movement towards community? Because of this "power-transaction shift" an unparalleled diversity in the audio arts has emerged, Our cyberspace brotherhood is now the leadership of the audio revolution, and most audio manufacturers and retailers are paralyzed by this shift to higher IQ transactions. It is YOU, the hi-IQ gifted listeners of PF, and your insistence on the elevation of the audio arts, that I celebrate in my last article of the 20th century for Positive Feedback.

One of my favorite musicmaniacs, Yogi Berra, once said, "Predictions are very hard, especially about the future", and he is right, but that doesn’t mean I can’t try to make predictions.

THE RETURN OF THE GIFTED DUMB BRUTE

I will start, at the most obvious place, by using a quote by Aaron Copland about the gift and art of listening.....

"Listening is a talent, and like any other talent or gift, we possess it in varying degrees. I have found among music-lovers a marked tendency to underestimate and mistrust this talent, rather than to overestimate it. The reasons for these feelings of inferiority are difficult to determine. Since there is no reliable way of measuring the gift of listening, there is no reliable way of reassuring those misjudge themselves......The gifted listener.... without theories and without preconceived notion of what music ought to be, he lends himself as a sentient human being to the power of music. What often surprises me is the basically primal nature of this relationship. From self-observation and from observing audience reaction I would be inclined to say that we all listen on an elementary plane of musical consciousness. I was startled to find this curious phrase in Santayana concerning music: "the most abstract of arts," he remarks, "serves the dumbest emotions." Yes, I like this idea that we respond to music from a primal and almost brutish level- dumbly, as it were, for on that level we are firmly grounded....That is fundamentally the way we all hear music-gifted and ungifted alike-and all the analytical, historical, textural material on or about the music heard, interesting though it may be, cannot---and I venture to say should not---alter that fundamental relationship."

Never confuse the ownership of audio gizmos with listening talent. Never confuse the lowest level of musical experience, analysis, with the capacity to surrender to the music, to become it. My old psycho-analyst Hal, used to remind me.."Men analyze to avoid feeling".

How do we get the public into deeper and dumber levels of music pleasure? How about reviews about musical beers? Shouldn’t Stereophile or Ultimate Audio be doing critical review of massage oils? Should journalist describe their favorite pagan music rituals, rather than listing their mounds of reference equipment? What is the best way to scratch your butt when listening to music? Are there ways of farting, belching, or lice picking that enhance the music experience? What about snacks? Any suggestions?

"MUSIC, DON’T JUST LISTEN TO IT, EAT IT"

Anything worthwhile is worth eating, is an obvious truism about life, and the above is The Triode Guild’s new slogan, because if you are just listening to music, you have missed the point. Music is food and is meant to be eaten. Our passions are our nourishment, have been, always will be. Feeding our bodies is cool, but if we don’t feed our souls we die of spiritual malnutrition or become a twisted evil violent animal. Music is food for the soul and the quality of food we eat is important, because WE ARE WHAT WE EAT. Eat junk food or junk music, and our soul turns to junk. Eat quality food and quality music and our souls fly... you know these truths to be self- evident.

Does this mean that we are cannibals at heart? Yes, humans were cannibals for most of our four million year evolution, and we finally stopped eating each other, as a source of protein, about 40,000 years ago, probably because human flesh causes really wicked flatulence, and that can be lethal in caves, especially if you are sitting near the fire. The thing that shocked the Spanish Conquistadors, when they swooped down over Mexico in the 16th century, was how widespread Aztec cannibalism was, with hundreds of thousands of humans ritually slaughtered and eaten every year.

Our cannibalism has also infiltrated the language and metaphor of love, because what is the highest expression of love....." Sweetheart, would you like me to eat you, after diner?" Why is whipped cream such an essential ingredient in love rituals? Forgive this intrusion into your Puritanical soul, but humans have always connected the nourishment of their body with the nourishment of their soul...so.... MUSIC, DON’T JUST LISTEN TO IT, EAT IT...and make sure you only eat the highest quality illusion....illusion is essential nourishment for the human soul.

Now you know why I insist that newbies to audiodementia eat something juicy while they are getting into the audio arts as a way of experiencing the total physicality of music. Based on the emails I receive most prefer mangos or foodstuffs that have a similar texture and taste.

YOUR SHINING ASCENDS

Inside each of us is a music structure. It is a diamond, and for the gifted listener, it has thousands of facets. Each of these musical facets has been polished onto the surface of our musical diamond by a profound musical experience. One facet we all have, no matter our life experience (even those who listen to transistor amps), and it is our first facet, is the heart-beat of our mother.

Indians living in the Brazilian forest have thousands of musical facets that they have acquired from listening to plant’s music. This quote from Wade Davis’s, (the famous Harvard ethnobotantist) book, One River, makes the point, (page 176):

"How do they tell them apart?", I asked Pedro (an Indian living in the rain forest)

"They say you must prepare the plant at the right time of the month. Then, once you come under its influence, you can distinguish the varieties based on the tone of the songs that each one sings to you on the night of the full moon."

Many of us have the music of our cars or motorcycles faceted into our diamond. Others have the ocean, wind and earth as musical facets. As we grow and open to the thousands of dimension of music reality, more and more facets appear on our diamond, and with it, the brilliance of our diamond increases, because these facets reflect off of each other.

Your musical diamond is completely unique, and this is the most important point....your musical diamond reflects your entire life experience, and that includes every aspect of your being, from your parents, to your pets, to your experience with love, despair and every other human emotion. The reason I suggest building your own audio equipment or playing with tubes is because these activities are facet multipliers.

For those of you who have trouble making contact with your metaphoric self, please don’t be impatient or be hard on yourself. Everything worthwhile takes time, and if you need some spiritual support try wearing an "Elvis" sequined jump suit and then stare at yourself in the mirror for a while. Behold your shining beauty.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL RESPONDS TO ROBERT HARLEY

Because Joe Campbell is so metaphoric he reads all of our great audio magazine on the potty up in the Happy Hunting Ground, and after reading the August issue of the Absolute Sound and the editorial written by Robert Harley, Joe sent me this message by cherub:

Dear Dr. Gizmo,

Please ask the Priests of the Absolute Sound Temple to read page 180 and 181 of my book, Reflections on the Art of Living, so they can expand their imagination about the audio arts.

Joe, Who Art in Heaven

So I quote Joe, which may give you a new insight into the audio arts:

"A sacred space is any space that that is set apart from the usual context of life. In the secular context, one is concerned with pairs of opposites; cause and effect, gain and loss, and so on. Sacred space has no function in the way of earning a living or a reputation. Practical use is not the dominant feature of anything in the space. You do not have anything in your sacred space that’s not of significance to you for the harmonization of your own life. In your sacred space things are working in terms of your dynamic-and not anybody else’s....

I think a good way to conceive of sacred space is as a playground. If what you are doing seems like play, you are in it. But you can’t play with my toys, you have to have your own....."

And they meet by the river. The past, present and future were all there in that moment, and they listened to the river sing, "Follow Your Bliss, Follow Your Bliss". The Ancient One, the Guildmeister sat naked on the river bank and listened as dragon flies danced from sparkling 300B to sparkling 300B, with the perfume of magnolia and solder flux hanging from the trees.

What is the meaning of this poetic passage? I wrote this for young men who should use me as their model of spiritual piety. When you invite a date over to your house, just whip out this issue of PF, some beer, salsa, corn chips, and point to the above passage and say.. ."It is time for us to do a musical meditation of great piety". Women respond very positively to wholey men. Be sure to put a little dab of solder flux behind your ear.

THERE IS ONLY ONE MUSIC, AND IT IS YOU

There is no music "out there". Out there, is only noise, and music is only created when it enters our being, and by that I mean our wholey being....not just our head. Or, to say it another way...when the noise enters our music diamond and is reflected off the thousands of facets that are in us, the noise is transformed into music.

A quote from, Dr. Karl Pribomb, neurophysiologist, Sanford University, author, Languages of the Brain ( which appears in the book, The Holographic Universe, by Michael Talbot) goes further down this path...

Was it possible, he wondered, that what the mystics had been saying for centuries were true, reality was maya, an illusion, and what was out there was really a vast, resonating symphony of waves, a "frequency domain" that was transformed into the world as we know it only after it entered our senses?

As you know, for decades, the intellectual foundation of the audio arts has been audio engineering, whose authority is based on the measurement of "noise distortion" with test equipment, because IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO MEASURE MUSIC, because, again, that phenomenon, like love, only exists within the soul of a human....noise fills concert halls...musical ecstasy fills people. These noise tests litter the pages of audio magazines. What is the relationship between music quality, which can only exist in us, and noise distortion measurements by test equipment? What is the intellectual validity of audio engineering orthodoxy that is terrified of confronting the most fundamental paradox of the audio arts? Is audio engineering why audio progress has become retarded, my dear Lenin? Do we need a new audio science? Do I need more electric shock therapy?

WHY I AM HAVING A SEX CHANGE OPERATION

We are raised in a society where we are all good little moma’s boys, so when we grow up, our wives and girlfriends can easily make us feel guilty about having "those ugly machines" in the living room. True enough, we are all victims of the industrial holocaust that shoved our souls into the incinerators, but at least men are rebuilding their spiritual center by creating a sacred music space in their home.

Clearly, the frontier of women’s spiritual revitalization, in the next century, is the audio arts. Because my intuition tells me that there is going to be a grand revitalization of women’s spirituality I predict that women will flock to the audio arts, and join their men in celebrating the mystery of life in their living rooms rather than celebrating Martha Stewart. It naturally follows that the divorce rate will decline, American families will grow in strength, and because women are once again in touch with their sacred center, they will begin their own private journey on the path.

One of the best books written by women for women, commenting on how women have become disconnected from their spiritual center is The Great Cosmic Mother, Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth, by Monica Sjoor and Barbara Mor. What could be more loving and responsible than to encourage the women you love to rediscover her authentic primitive self, and begin faceting her diamond?

How serious is my commitment to supporting women’s spiritual rejuvenation? I have made an appointment to have a sex change operation with the same Swiss doctor that performed by bat ear transplant. This will be my greatest contribution to our tribe. Nothing is more difficult than changing our attitudes towards the audio arts, and I hope this act of courage inspires you all. Do you remember the movie Tootsie, starring Dustin Hoffman? A bald, sixty year old, short, pudgy, cigar smoking female thermionic techno-shaman, is exactly the right role model young women need to excite their imagination about the audio arts. Quite frankly, it is time for me make a major change, I have been a major dick head for too long....and I am ready to experience 300Bs from a completely different point of view...if you know what I mean?

WAL-MART WILL SELL MY HABPR MK II™ FOR ONLY $4.99

Thanks to you my Hydraulic Audio Butt Plug Remover MK II has been selling like hot-dogs at baseball games. I have received thousands of emails from satisfied audiophiles who attest to its effectiveness in changing their attitude towards listening to music....they are dancing in their living rooms for the first time. Those of you who sent them as gifts are also thrilled. Because of the increasing demand, and because there are still hundreds of thousands of uptight audiophiles in America, I am now making the HABPR in Hong Kong, so they can sell at Wal-Marts for $4.99. Be sure to buy a dozen and give them to all of your friends who are analyzing stereo images.

AMERICA’S MOST POWERFUL AUDIO UNION WILL SPLINTER

A NEW FASHION TREND IN SPEAKER DESIGN BEGINS

And now for some jogulation of your gizmological meta-context. I predict this is the next big business op:

As you know, the largest and most powerful union in the audio arts is the UNITED FEDERATION OF MONKEY COFFIN MAKERS: UFMCM. Almost anyone can join this union because it requires no skill, but there are also strict membership rules which are enforced by the Monkey Coffin Police: MCP, There is RULE 4: All speakers must be four ohms because they will play louder with transistor amplifiers in dealer showrooms. There is RULE 84: speaker should be on average 84 db efficient so that consumers will have to buy 1,000 watt amplifiers to make them sound dynamic, making dealers happy. As you know...break a union’s rules and you will dance with cement shoes at the bottom of the bay. How powerful is the MCP? Why I am I the only one discussing this subject?

I want to make an analogy to what was happening in Detroit 20 years ago, when the idea of making small cars with robots was laughed at by the UAW. The UFMCM has also lost its way, and I am suggesting that very soon there will be a rebellion and a new union will be created : AMALGAMATED MONKEY COFFIN FABRICATORS : AMCF whose members will only make the right speakers for tube amplifiers. The leadership of this union will form a strategic alliance with Japanese monkey coffin makers because of their skill at doing the right thing. This is just like Toyota and General Motors forming a joint venture to manufacture small cars.

To help in this difficult transition I am offering two forms of assistance:

(1) Any member that splits from the UFMCM and joins the AMCM will get my design services free of charge. Let me be more specific: I think the next big fashion trend is speakers covered in fake monkey fur...in all sorts of bright and wild colors...and I will help you design your own unique fashion look....and..(2) .any of your who do the right thing will be invited to the White House to smoke a cigar with me.

SETMI™

Once again I have been contacted by music extra-terrestrial who have revealed its plan to me. As you know from my previous article, higher forms of musical intelligence is already encoded in our DNA, and this alien intelligence is not "out there" but in each of us, waiting to emerge in our ever-mutating form. There will be soon be a great increase in babies born with six fingers on each hand. This genetic mutation will accompanied by very long finger growth. This means by the year 2020 there will be a new generation of musicians who have expanded music making skills. Have you ever heard the piano played with twelve very long fingers? Or can you imagine the sound exploding from a Stratocaster when twelve long fingers are burning up the bridge? And yes, because of this, a new family of instruments will be invented. And this is only the beginning.

A MIND BLOWING PREDICTION

The reason this prediction will come true is because absolutely no one else thought of it, but it is right under our noses, and it will be made possible by computers, and will completely transform America’s music culture. While everyone is trying to make contact with aliens in outerspace,,,, very shortly we are going to be able to communicate with a very musical alien intelligence. We are going to communicate verbally and musically with dogs.

This will take all of the anger and bitterness out of not being able to communicate better with women. For decades audiomaniacs have been desperate to communicate with anyone who will understand their passion, and you know nothing beats a friendship with a dog. Men will be happier, women will be happier, but most importantly men and dogs are going to enjoy a whole new kind of musical creativity, because once dogs learn how to communicate with us (because of computers) they will immediately want to learn how to compose music. This should be obvious to you: dogs are too smart to be intellectual, and will prefer to express their wisdom through music....and dogs have much better listening skills than humans. Judging by the musical genius of the Tennessee Coonhound and the wolf, there will an explosion of musical creativity, and it shouldn’t surprise any of us if dogs started their tube audio business. Soon men and dogs will be playing together in new rock groups and producing new sounds. Can you imagine a bunch of hound dogs playing and singing, "You Ain’t Nothing But a Hound Dog?"

I am sure Dave will be the first editor to put gifted dogs on PF’s editorial board. And perhaps that is the key to revitalizing audio journalism. Will there soon be an audio journal just for dogs called, The Absolute Boner?

THE END OF THE BEGINNING OF THE TUBE REVOLUTION

The modern thermionic revolution has survived its critical first stage, and was durable enough during this twenty year period to withstand the virulent attacks from the solid state megaliths. Tube consciousness is expanding because of the Internet. More new directly heated triode tube designs are on the way, because your artistic demand is growing all over the world. Very soon Sony will be debuting its first line of tube electronics...to save face. I applaud Mc Intosh’s about face and their continued effort to use tubes to revive their good name. More and more "tube hot rod" shops will open. Tubes will soon be, once again, very Main Street U.S.A. This is a tremendous affirmation of the Guildmeister’s faith in you. Are you ready to buy tube amplifiers at Wal-Mart?

I AM FLUSH WITH EXCITEMENT

POTTY PUBLISHING PRESENTS:

THE FREE $99 BOOK: UNDERSTANDING TUBE ELECTRONIC II

Many audio newbies need a simple to understand, non-technical, treatise on tube circuits. In 1984 I published my first book, Understanding Tube Electronics, A Study In Natural Harmonics Audio. This brilliantly written, runaway best seller, won the prestigious Jivaro Literary Guild Award, The Edsel Literary Achievement Award, and was on the New York Times Best Seller List for sixty weeks straight, not!

Understanding Tube Electronics II is now available, and it is the first book of my new Internet Publishing Company: POTTY PUBLISHING...and it is more thrilling than Brain Surgery Self-Taught. My instinct, at first, was to do something different: write the book about the unique virtues of tubes on papyrus, clay tablets, or on the back of black silk Victoria’s Secret panties, but Dave The Brave suggested I offer it free of charge to readers of Positive Feedback via A FREE DOWNLOAD via the Internet..... even though I was going to charge $99 for this brilliant thermionic speculation. Go to the Positive Feedback web site, or www.enjoythemusic.com to download the book. That is the good news. But here’s the deal...you can have it free, but you must promise me that you will read it you know where.....no cheating..remember there is audio Karma.

The bad news is that encrypted into the book is a new form of hypnotic code, which will virus your mind, and make you into a Teenage Tube Mutant Love Slave, which will be the name of my first romantic novel, to be quickly followed by my first trash novel written just for California musicmaniacs: Transistor Zombie Surfers From Hell Must Die. I feel very confident that Potty Publishing will be very successful and soon buy Peterson Publishing.

Ride Free, Right On, and Write On.

Dr. Gizmo: drgizmo3@earthlink.net

Reporting from the Nth Dimension of Music HyperSpace™

 

Back to The Triode Guild©               Back to Meta-Gizmo™   

e-mail Dr. Harvey "Gizmo" Rosenberg: drgizmo@meta-gizmo.com

Copyright© 2004      Meta-Gizmo.com and Dr. Harvey "Gizmo" Rosenberg      All rights reserved.
All the material contained within the above articles may not be reproduced without his express permission.