Ken's Blog

As I am reading through Jimmy Webb’s brilliant book Tunesmith, I am learning all sorts of wisdom — not just about writing songs, but about so many social constructs around songs that I never before thought about.

For example, he points out that composers for the soundtracks of Hollywood movies long ago invented a musical shorthand for Indigenous people in the Americas. Such people were invariably introduced, whether in dramas or comedies, by musical sequences consisting of base notes moving together in parallel open fifths.

Meanwhile, he points out, the same composers developed a different shorthand for people from East Asia — sequences consisting of treble notes moving together in parallel open fourths¹. By now I am sure you have heard both of these motifs many times.

What’s interesting — and disturbing — here is that these two remarkably similar musical motifs really have little to do with the actual people being caricatured. They are musical shorthands invented by White people to immediately evoke a cartoon version of “the exotic other” for an audience of White people.

Why is such a similar pattern used in both of these instances? Do parallel open intervals possess some intrinsic quality which to White folks suggests “Exotic other people who are not like us”?

1) Thanks to DB Porter.

The acronym XR used to refer to “Extended Reality”. But more recently I see that it is referring to “Cross Reality”. The general idea, as I understand it, is that Cross Reality is an overarching term that describes all of the possible ways to “cross” things that are virtual (like computer graphics) together with things that are real (like physical objects and other people).

So the term Cross Reality, or XR, is meant to encompass Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR). I can see how it is useful to have a single term to talk about the entire larger topic.

On the other hand, the word “cross” itself has multiple meanings, which can lead to some confusion. Part of me sees the term “Cross Reality” and just thinks “The Gods are angry.”

“He not busy being born is busy dying.”

      — Bob Dylan, 1965

When you travel around the world, you can’t help but notice that many cultures have a unique language of abstract visual patterns. These patterns show up on pottery, fabrics, walls and many other surfaces.

Korea, China, Indonesia, Japan, various parts of India, different indigenous nations in the Americas — each has a distinct visual language, with its own mathematical underpinning. There are sometimes connections and influences between the patterns of one culture and another, but each culture’s family of patterns is unique and instantly identifiable.

I wonder whether there is a universal visual language of such patterns. Perhaps some unifying mathematical framework could tie them together, describing each unique cultural variation within the context of a single unifying theory.

I realized only this week that one of my favorite songs of all time, Paul Simon’s America, contains no rhymes at all. If you don’t believe me, you can listen for yourself.

I’ve been listening to this song for most of my life, and yet I have never noticed that before. It seems like an odd thing to never have noticed.

I wonder what other great songs contain absolutely no rhymes (even internal rhymes). Given my experience with America, I don’t think that I’m the best person to come up with a good list.

Today I suddenly realized that I had been playing the same song over in my head for about an hour. And that is a startling thing to realize.

I guess on some level I had been aware that it was happening, but other things were going on, and so somehow I hadn’t really noticed. But then when I did notice, I became conscious of just how long that same tune had been playing non-stop in my head.

I wonder how common this is, the sudden realization that you’ve been harboring an undetected earworm. Maybe there is something in our brains that tries its best to protect us from this knowledge, lest we go mad.

If that is the case, then maybe we experience a lot more earworms than we ever realize.

Today somebody explained to me that good architecture requires three things: nature, beauty and spirituality. He showed me some great examples to back up his thesis.

It is clear to me that he is absolutely correct.

Today I was in a crowded department store. I had trouble keeping track, through the crowd, of the location of the person I had come in with.

One problem was that the aisles with all the stuff were taller than my companion, and I don’t have X-ray vision. Wouldn’t it be great, I thought to myself, if I had a pair of glasses that simply showed me the location of my friend, right through those aisles.

I learned today that in South Korea the number thirteen is not considered unlucky. Elevator buttons do not jump mysteriously from twelve to fourteen, because thirteen is just another number.

On the other hand, hospitals in South Korea do not have a fourth floor. Apparently, the number is four is associated with death. Not really where you want to be in a hospital.

So I assume that hospital evevator buttons jump from three to five. Which presumably solves the problem.

Except I wonder whether the people on the “fifth” floor of the hospital are just a little nervous.

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that “privacy” in a world where XR glasses replace SmartPhones will be contextual. There won’t be a single concept of privacy, but rather multiple concepts, depending on where you are.

In particular, it might become illegal to walk around in public without your XR glasses — or even to remove them momentarily.

We already have this in many ways. For example, when you are home, you are free to walk around without any clothing. But don’t try that nearly anywhere else.

In a similar spirit, I think there will be situations where it will be considered inappropriate — or even illegal — to remove your XR glasses in public. In some contexts, people will start to assert their right to not be seen as they really are. You will only be allowed to see them through the filter of XR glasses. This is something I have been thinking about for a while.

I know this doesn’t sound natural. On the other hand, there is nothing natural about social constructs around privacy.

It is, after all, perfectly “natural” to walk around without clothing in public. It is also illegal, and liable to get you locked up.

Social norms form around whatever allows a society to function. And a society that relies on the power of “XR glasses for everyone” will inevitably develop different social norms.

The future concept of privacy might end up being startling different from our concept of privacy today.