JAZZ IN REVIEW: AUTUMN IN NEW YORK

JAZZ IN REVIEW:

MY FAVORITE INTERPRETATIONS OF “AUTUMN IN NEW YORK”

Autumn In New York is a classic Jazz standard that has been and continues to be performed by Jazz Icons since it was written in 1934.  Ask me and I will tell you they are all my favorites.  But if you press me to choose from the long, gorgeous list of interpretations I would say that top three were recorded by Billie Holiday in 1952, Luis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald in 1957 and Johnny Mathis in 1963 and those are just the vocal renditions…

The instrumentals I selected are by John Coltrane, Stan Getz and Oscar Peterson in 1960, Sun Ra in 1962 and a piano solo interpretation of the song by Mary Lou Williams around 1953-1954.

Let’s start with Billie Holiday.  The Holiday version I most love was recorded on Decca in 1952.  When I purchased the original LP I first played it in the tiny record store and though it was nearly packed with avid vinyl enthusiasts everyone stopped to listen to the haunting rendition that filled the room with a thoughtful, romantic and almost lugubrious magic.  What is more, Lady Day is soulfully accompanied by his majesty, Oscar Peterson… a magnanimous work and one of my favorites…  Funny but as she sings I retrace my steps through Manhattan during the many Autumns I have spent there and I must agree it is indeed a time when New York is most magical.  Spring in New York is beautiful but in spring ones heart begins to wander from the city and to other places returning in the fall when nature cannot compete with the starlit skyscrapers on a cold night or just at twilight.  People are just enjoying the city for the first time after the heat of summer, it is still a bit balmy but crisp… it is Autumn In New York!

TO LISTEN:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-_wbY55PMA

Now, when Luis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald were paired for this song, it was one of the most brilliant moments in musical history, it was 1957.  I do have the original vinyl and it is one of my most treasured recordings.  The pair make it seem as if New York became just one absolutely fabulous party come Autumn… and indeed they have so much fun singing together that you have to walk with them through Midtown Manhattan past Greenwich Village and all the way up to Upper Manhattan in an old convertible automobile just enjoying the sun on your face, the sounds and people of the metropolis…  Satchmo’s smoky horn and Ragtime voice are simply planets in perfect alignment; the universe has never been so complex and simple… Ella’s voice is liquid satin, elegant, gorgeous, warm as the robust colors of a fall harvest…  Together they do absolutely accomplish a pluperfect dialogue between man and woman. They craft a tranquil and fundamental kind of beauty that speaks to the most passionate nature of our humanity…

TO LISTEN:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byayfU1VzvE 

Johnny Mathis absolutely captures the transition from the soft and slow summer countryside, the Hamptons or Martha’s Vineyard and suburbs back to the magnificent grandeur of Manhattan.  Whenever I listen to his version I too come along on that energetic journey.  Eager to get the feel for the city again… the city missed… Manhattan!  Johnny Mathis’ voice pours so like pure silver that if anybody could convince you of the virtues of Manhattan in Autumn amidst the hustle and bustle of that romantic metropolis surely it would be him… For my part I will go.  His voice is so pastoral and wide-open like the fields of summer wheat a distinct contrast to the canyons of steel he invites us to but because he sings so wonderfully well we follow, I at least am thoroughly convinced, going back to New York will be the most delightful of triumphs!

TO LISTEN:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrD0uIDlFRs

Next stop are the instrumentals.  First of all is the version of Autumn In New York performed in 1960 in Dusseldorf Germany with John Coltrane accompanied by Stan Getz and Oscar Peterson. The technical perfection of these geniuses of musical performance is perhaps the most stunning to the senses, but to imagine, just imagine, that this rare ingot of mortal perfection has been captured and that we are able to hear it over 50 years later as if we were sitting down before these Gods of Jazz… well, it is simply unimaginable!  Whenever I listen to this I am reminded of the meaning of modernity itself! I have always thought that of all the arts, modernity was most effectively conveyed through modern music in the form of Jazz. To me, Jazz was the personification of the Bauhaus manifesto, to begin from zero and create a wholly new culture of beauty!  

TO LISTEN:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc6CWfBgIt8

Second is the Sextet version performed by Sun Ra around 1962.  Now this version is absolutely celestial… as if Sun Ra with his intergalactic sensibility played not with instruments but with the very fabric of the heavens… Well, you simply have to listen… and if you dare to listen your will not be able to stop and you will find that you have been drawn into the crisp eloquence of instrumental sound…

TO LISTEN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxYFstZM_C4

Let’s not forget Mary Lou William’s piano solo of Autumn In New York.  It is the kind of fine piano recital piece that makes you sway in your chair ever so slightly.  This is a beautiful piece with an after glow reminiscent of Errol Garner but unique in its own right.  What I love about this version is what I love about all things that are simple and sweet, clear and easily digested, brief and yet memorable…

TO LISTEN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95hNRlFOgCk

The song Autumn In New York was also performed by many, many more amazing musicians and vocalists.  It was performed by Charlie Parker in 1946, Frank Sinatra in 1949, Charles Mingus in 1951 Chet Baker in 1954, Andre Previn in 1958, Shirley Bassey in 1971 and many more.  Not bad for a song that debuted in a Broadway musical called “Thumbs Up” in 1934.

Written by David Vollin

Administrator: For The Brothas Intellectual Salon

A GALLERY OF RELATED IMAGERY

THE COST OF OUR EXPERIENCE THAT LOVE CAN AFFORD…

THE COST OF OUR EXPERIENCE THAT LOVE CAN AFFORD…

ONE MAN SAID HE PREFERRED A LOVER WHO HAD ALREADY A GREAT DEAL OF EXPERIENCE WITH LOVE, WHO HAD ALREADY OPENED MOST OF ITS DOORS AND CLOSED THEM SAFELY BEHIND.  ANOTHER MAN SAID THAT HE MUCH PREFERRED A LOVER WHO WAS TOTALLY INNOCENT SO THAT THEY WOULD BE SPARED THE HIGH COST OF WHAT EXPERIENCE COULD AFFORD…

The first man was quite worldly, he had had many lovers and gleaned a mature and well-rounded perspective on human nature… The second man was also a worldly man, but unlike the first he had processed the pain of his experience as a negative… unlike the first man he had not interpreted life’s disappointments as stumbling blocks and used them as stepping stones.  He convinced himself that there was this sublime innocence which really did not exist in any man because no man is a virgin to the world in which he lives… The first man took each stone as it crossed his path preferring those which were smoothed round for wear, hoping that like him, they would easily roll along the path of life.  But the second man preferred the roughhewn splinters of stone for he imagined they would not so easily roll into every direction, directions he had once explored but begrudged of his lover now.  He wanted to be the one with all the know-how keeping his lover in a safe, tightly sealed cocoon of false innocence…

The first man met someone who nearly fit his desires, they were knowledgeable of the world, of loves pains and pleasures, they seemed to be confident in their understanding of the human condition and it appeared they had not become embittered in their search for meaningfulness in this life.  Theirs was a journey of mutual affirmation.  Both were eager to see what truths they shared, to determine who had lived with the most intensity thereby determining the absolute gravity of seniority.  There was a competitive tension between them as if they were two explorers seeking the same destination, vying for the trophy of first discovery.

The second man also became intimately acquainted with someone who closely fit his dreams, they had not the extensive experience in love and had scarcely has anything that could be considered a relationship save for friendships of the most platonic kind.  Like everyone, they had known the yearning and loneliness of life in the absence of any true experience with love.  Because they had not ever been hurt by love no bitterness had been extracted from it.  They had never ventured close enough, never delved deep enough into its essence to have any opinion about love one way or the other and in their innocence or ignorance as it were they were all the more willing to be led down loves one way path as a tourist is led through a treacherous mountain by a trusted guide.

The first couple navigated through the many tests they had each created to sift through the many lovers of past and relationships now worn as suits of trusted armor against the assault of spurious love.  For them it would come down to knowing when to end their joust combining forces to seize the prize of each one for the other… and then go together to share the great feast that is life.  For them the test would be to discover if they had truly satisfied their passions and if not if they could explore the balance of their passions together…

The second couple walked out onto the tightrope of life with a deliberate imbalance… could one man suffice to satisfy what surely must be the inevitable human curiosities of love in one so innocent, so ignorant of pleasure and pain.  Could his ideal lovers innocence remain fortified outside of the presence of his more mature lover, could he resist the flirtations of forbidden pleasure and if he even once failed would his lover forsake him for another whom he deemed to possess a more desirable innocence? Would innocence one day begrudge experience?  Would the second man gradually build his love-ignorant lover up to his level or seek to perpetuate his innocence?  For the second couple the test of faith would require constant calibration of the unbalanced forces holding them in sublime equilibrium…

Truth is, there are an infinite number of possibilities for both couples and no rule or theorem is valid as a means to predict any outcome when it comes to love.  Outside of our comprehension of the universal mysteries of the human condition love is at best a titillating guessing game…  the key is not to let love sour into bitterness… we are not entitled to receive the love we desire but we are blessed whenever we are allowed to experience it for however long it might last… Just because we are loved does not mean we have received love, we must know how to recognize and honor love in order to be able to receive its gifts…  It may be that because we have misunderstood love, failed to recognize and honor love we may not receive it until many, many years after it has gone…  this is why love is often preserved as a fond memory… we only truly see its beauty after we have had time to muse upon it and experience its opposite… Love is brilliantly contrasted in its absence but only if we can perceive its colours…

Written By: David Vollin

Administrator: For The Brothas Intellectual Salon

A GALLERY OF IMAGES

ON THE CYBERSOCIALIZATION OF HUMAN SEXUALITY: AND THE SOCIOCYBERLICIOUSNESS OF LOVE…

FORWARD:

Were it not for  the three revolutionary hallmarks of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century: The Sexual Revolution, The Technological Revolution and The Civil Rights Revolution respectively, I should not be writing this article save perhaps as a science fiction essay.  I am also amazed at how well the fusion of  technology Hip-Hop, cinema and sexuality has worked out in the coining of some freshly minted nomenclature which I have presented in the title of this article as, "Sociocyberliciousness", a concept which in my opinion is central to the subject of internet communication and social media in general including the hyper-reality of popular culture.  I find the first quarter of the Twenty-First Century to be fascinating if not only because for the very first time in all history as we know it human culture is simultaneously upended and uploaded.  The primary feature that critics of society and civilization are tracking is the logic effect of it all; they are all watching to see if anything essential to classical human civilization has been lost in translation as it is photographed, photocopied, scanned,  uploaded, downleaded, activated and assimilated into modernity. Prior to the twentieth century humanity enjoyed a rather anonymous existence outside of birth and death records.  Today every aspect of our lives is being silently tracked and even predicted by some sort of computer program.  The summation of this virtual dossier has come to define us as human beings although it consists of little more than a random collection of statistics and assumptions.  How close they come to quantifying the reality of the human being, the human spirit and soul, how near they come to realness is the geat question of our day.  As a commentary on popular culture and especially internet-infused popular culture I have proposed a humorous but i feel, culturally relevant replacement for the nonexistent nomenclature of society, simply coined as "Sociocyberliciousness".  Sociocyberliciousness is a term waiting for a more intensified definition but in the meantime quantified by likes, and hits, and followings, by credit ratings and lines of credit, by virtual shopping carts, personality profiles, passwords to virtual societies, by frequent flyer points, timeshares, email coupons and a seemingly endless field of data.  Like everything else in twenty-first century society Sociocyberliciousness is a hybrid of concepts derived from a broad range of human culture.  Let us say for the purposes of this article, we can define it as the quantity or condition of desirablity within an internet driven popular culture as assessed against a broad range of economic, social and political variables. Sociocyberliciousness has roots in the all American tradition of Mid-Twentieth Century Disney and the term, "Scrumpdellyicious", as well as Late Twentieth Century Funk culture in the tradition of Funkadelic who coined such whimsical terminology as: 

"Psycho alpha disco beta bio aqua do loop".  

To thedalliance of this term lets add the 1980's confection, "Bubblelicious" chewing gum and of course Snoop

Dog's original 1992 creation, "Bootylicious" made famous by Beyonce in  2001.  Internet culture posses the

unique ability to create a hyper-reality across time and culture, it approaches what Einstein envisaged in his

theory of relativity as a point of sublime timelessness or as quantum physicists suggest, a pseudo-tachyonic

existentialism.  The computer, and therefore the entire effect that this tool has had on both man and his

environment whether viewed from a microscopic or  macroscopic perspective is all about the human

experience lending itself warmly to the existentialist purview of the state of humankind in a cosmic reality that

he increasingly finds he cannot either comprehend or subdue.  Therefore, use this article as a crash course in

futurism written in the dialectic stylization of a new and yet undefined virtual culture expanding into the void

of perpetual cyberspace...

ON THE CYBERSOCIALIZATION OF HUMAN SEXUALITY: AND 

THE SOCIOCYBERLICIOUSNESS OF LOVE…

Because there are exceptions to every rule, internet dating, sex and romance included, the savvy of modern men must manage the option to virtually simulate or physically initiate social and/or sexual interactions as an alternative to an hermetic existence.  Should you venture to publish an opinion that it is impossible to find internet love, warning against the potential hazards, that premise will be challenged by dozens of brothas testifying that they successfully found love in cyberspace…

Internet socialization as a whole is more suited to younger men who have grown up immersed in a culture dominated by the computer.  Many mature men struggle more with cybersocialization in part because of a personal cultural lag including the probability that many of the men they desire to meet are only available through some sort of cyber-media.  We are smack in the middle of a huge sociocultural shift where centuries of traditional human customs are being uploaded and reformatted to suit the computer dominated twenty-first century.  The novelty of this not so new phenomenon detracts from the tried and true methods which some men might agree never really worked for them anyway.  Without a doubt the internet opens a broader domain of possibilities including the down side of this expanded range of options.  Life, it seems, is always a balancing act!

Perhaps one of the first rules of the game of cybersocialization is that there are none, not yet at least because they are literally being invented!  The volatility expressed by the transient morphology of modern technology necessitates that it will take some decades for any stable form of “Protocol” to be established, if ever. 

At the end of the day after spreading one’s self out over a multiplicity of cyber-sites  and profiles whether the pictures, stats and other fine details are accurate or not, there must come a time of reckoning where the virtual image has to stand up to the real McCoy!  Many of our frustrations with online dating, for example, stem from the fact that there is no alignment among cybersocial offerings indicating the individual we have encountered is heavily invested in the cyberization of themselves.  This is where our human instincts must take over and I can tell you that long before anyone ever imagined there might be a computer the discrepancy between human instinct and human nature presented one of the most formidable challenges to successful socialization.  So while the computer has afforded mankind more social options it still cannot solve the fundamental problems in human nature which obstruct the synergy of practical, human interaction on every level.  It might be argued that cybersocialization actually fertilizes and propagates dysfunctional caveats in human nature and socialization which might be more easily filtered out and identified under traditional face to face conditions.  Therefore, persons who hide behind a virtual façade may be thought of as having cyberized themselves beneath a cloak of unverifiable properties.  Now, I have already warned against speculation on the phenomenon of cybersocialization so my challenge is to stay my own vanity and leave it to history to be properly vetted out.  Let me say only, since I daren’t resist, the very obvious… that every man must fend for himself, evaluate for himself! In spite of the many testimonies proclaiming sociocyberlisciousness let me caution every gentleman that all which glitters in cyberspace or elsewhere on the common street where we live, is not gold!

Written By David Vollin

Administrator: For The Brothas Intellectual Salon

Look for more articles of this nature at: www.forthebrothas.blogspot.com 

GLOSSARY:

1.       CYBERSOCIALIZATION:  Of or relating to the process, state or quality in which the traditional methods of tactile human socialization have been replaced by virtual means of communication on all levels in internet culture.

2.       CYBERIZATION:  The process within internet culture by which a person invents a virtual personality to the degree that it no longer bears any resemblance to who they really are.  When a person has successfully crafted an alter-ego in the form of a spurious online persona they have been cyberized.

3.       SOCIOCYBERLISCIOUSNESS:  The the quantity or condition of desirability within an internet driven popular culture as assessed across a broad range of social, economic and political variables.

THE UNSPOKEN AND UNKNOWN TRUTH ABOUT ANABOLIC STEROIDS…

THE UNSPOKEN AND UNKNOWN TRUTH ABOUT ANABOLIC STEROIDS

Like everything else in our world human beings will always find a way to abuse things that have been designed to be helpful when properly administered.  Anabolic steroids which are simply synthetically manufactured testosterone were designed for the purpose of enhancing and intensifying the rate and quality of muscle growth.  In the real world they have enjoyed decades of successful application.  In spite of the miraculous medicinal success of steroids they have been demonized for reasons which are more political than practical.  For anyone interested in knowing more about anabolic steroids the question is not whether steroids are safe to use, rather it is when America is going to catch up with technology, take an intelligent look at how this drug is already doing miracles for the human body and support an intensified effort to develop and make available and legal more steroid-based pharmaceutical and grade products for recreational and clinical use. 

For athletes, anabolic steroids offer one very clear and irresistible promise, to allow them to jump higher, swim and run faster, lift heavier, and to achieve a greater level of endurance in competition.  Aside from the obvious medicinal applications as a medicine to rehabilitate people who have had severe atrophy due to accidents or disease the obvious application of steroids is to allow humans to achieve physical performance levels far superior to those capable given the normal levels of testosterone produced by the body.  It is not hard to understand why testosterone has gone the way it has gone because human nature is always focused on perfecting itself and this drug appears to be capable of providing athletes with superhuman physical capabilities.   Testosterone has also been linked to the aging process and its use in older men has successfully compensated for the bodies automatic drop in production as we grow older accounting for a renewed vivacity.   

Jesse Owens an American victor in he 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany

Politically, anabolic steroids are one of the greatest threats to the delicate sense of self-esteem embodied in the concept of nationalism.  During World War II the Nazis sense of ethnic superiority were stung by Black American athletes who defeated them in The Olympic Games.  Instantly after the fall of the Third Reich, during the cold war, The Olympic Games became a global hotbed for racial tensions awakened by Nazi Germany and transmogrified into athletic battlefields peopled by the communist and capitalist regimes who fighting as bitterly as if gold and silver medals were nuclear missile strikes!  

The 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany were intensely racially charged 

We know today those athletes from Communist China, and from the U.S.S.R.  experimented with steroids to achieve athletic superiority on the road to The Olympics and so did American athletes.  In order to achieve some modicum of order, to create a level playing field, steroids, which threatened to give one nation an unfair advantage over the rest, had to be demonized and made illegal on a global level.  Genetic engineering is one of the less discussed hallmarks of the cold war between the 1930’s and today but it played a huge role in world struggle for chemical and biological dominance.  Experimentation with steroids was just an offshoot of the larger cold war mission to manufacture a superior human being who could defeat his political adversaries intellectually as well as physically.  Athletes were truly the guinea pigs of unscrupulous cold war nations to determine if the trillions of dollars they had invested in secret genetic research had paid off.  In spite of its cryptic and undistinguished progeny anabolic steroids now comprise a vast range of uses in everyday products and medicines helping the world’s population manage sickness and injury. 

In spite of the politically driven, negative image given to anabolic steroids it continues to be used daily by millions of people around the world.  In America, we see the struggle athletes must fight to be able to legally use these sports enhancing drugs to do what they are paid to do in the first place… To Win!  It is my opinion that genetic engineering which includes the responsible use of steroids is rather the wave of the future.  The use of steroids and steroid-derived products will increase rather than decrease as we move further into The Twenty-First Century.  Steroid use will become commonplace and humans will not even remember when or why it was once banned.  After all steroids were invented as a tool to enhance athletic performance so it is only logical that we use them as originally intended.  Who creates something so potentially miraculous and then says, “You cannot use this”?  The whole case for making steroids illegal is political,   that is why so many people ignore the spurious warnings created to tap into the fear and guilt mindfuck manufactured by the same governments that created steroids in the first place.  We know that these governments secretly experimented with and continue to covertly refine them in hopes of developing some super-drug able to make some super human in the future, the cold war has never really died.    This contradiction bankrupts the government in its attempt to convince Americans that steroids are inherently physically harmful and morally evil therefore justifiably illegal.  Where did morals come into this equation in the first place?  We are talking about a goddamed athletic performance drug not something that will turn its user into a demon?  I’m so very lost by this argument that I finally decided to go the way billions of other people around the world have and ignore it altogether. 

Politically driven propaganda has caused the use of anabolic steroids to be demonized not because they do not work safely and effectively when properly administered but because they do not support the idealised image perpetrated by a government that manufactured them in secret and became embarrassed, having to save face when it became an issue of global concern.  Instead of admitting its development and experimentation with steroids as part of a larger genetic engineering program and initiating negotiations for some kind realistic understanding of anabolic use among athletes America chose to get on the global bandwagon while continuing to do extensive research with steroids.  Today the real reason why steroids are banned is shrouded by lies and fear intended to cover up the role America played in the development of that substance.  Many Americans are honestly not operating on an informed level when it comes to steroid use, relying on absurd myths such as the shrinking of the male scrotum or the intensification of aggressive behavior.  Like the pornography industry in America, homosexuality, and a host of other precious and taboo issues about which Americans are in denial, the actual number of steroids users would startle you, its big business and the government knows it!  So while the average American may deny use of anabolic steroids the reality is that there is a high likelihood they will use it, are using it or have experimented with it in the past.  Of course this does not make it legal or healthy.  

Example of false anabolic gimmickery

The point of this article is to expose the reason why anabolic steroids are illegal in America which has nothing to do with whether it is truly safe, we know it is safe, (or we hope it is), because everything from our asthma inhaler to the thousands of over the counter pharmaceuticals we use on a daily basis are derivatives of some kind of steroid.  The question is not whether steroids are safe to use, rather it is when America is going to catch up with technology and take an intelligent look at how this drug is already doing miracles for the human body. 

Let us dispel the myth of the shining American athlete who is above using sports enhancing drugs in order to achieve an edge over the next guy… isn’t that what sports is all about anyway?  Being the fastest, strongest, biggest you can be?  Who wants to pay to see a scrawny pip-squeak who has the same abilities you do?  Americans want to see a picture that is larger than life, a freak show… and that is what entertainment is typically all about anyway!  Nobody is more in denial about this than our own government.  America may not have invented steroids but during the cold war they quickly got on the genetic engineering bandwagon and have never jumped off.  Why not end the hypocrisy created by investing billions of dollars in genetic engineering programs hidden from the taxpayer and then pretending that it is a practise of such paramount immorality and perilous danger!  If Americans want to pay to see athletes who do not use sports enhancing drugs let them demonstrate this at the box office, otherwise my money is with the big boys!  The government should not be passing moral judgment about private and recreational sports events anyway.  If The Olympics were privatized then governments would not have a say in them to the extent they presently do.  I conclude that the Olympics maintains a standard of human mediocrity rather than excellence and that it is time for one that pushes the physical limits like never before allowing the safe and responsible use of anabolic steroids as a means of catapulting sports performance into the next century! 

David Vollin

MY FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF A GENTLEMAN…

MY FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF A GENTLEMAN…

I am always astounded when I discover that a gentleman is well groomed and goes out of his way to have a pedicure, manicure and regular sessions at a men’s grooming salon or that he retains a regular barber who pampers his face and hair at regular appointments.  Many men are so meticulous they groom themselves and have amazing collections of facial and body scrubs, masks, salves, creams and other elixirs.  It is almost inevitable that these men also have extraordinary collections of colognes and fragrances. 

One of the first things that catch my eye is a well groomed gentleman.  I love when a gentleman walks by and leaves his handsome scent lingering in his wake, it makes me want to follow behind to complement him.  I love to see that a man’s facial hair, if he has any, is neat and clean, that he has  taken time to condition it and oil it, that he has taken special interest in his presentation and is confident, not vain, about his appearance.  A man’s skin and nails are also very important elements of his overall grooming.  I like a man who maintains a healthy, masculine look that has a bold but reserved handsomeness. 

Next I look at what a man is wearing from head to toe.  A gentleman should always be neat and cleanly dressed whenever he steps outside of the door.  A man who is truly handsome does not need any particular brand of clothing to look good in his clothes and to make a statement about his personal style because his apparel suits his personality and it is clear that it is an expression of him rather than he of it.  A gentleman always knows what apparel complements his manhood best.  A gentleman takes time to compose his wardrobe and is confident when he leaves out of the door, he does not make torturous or vain public demonstrations to adjust his clothing, he leaves out handsome and composed and remains confident whilst he is out and about.  I never judge a man by his clothing; I always try to look beyond his clothes to see his personality.  I have always had a great deal of disdain for men who deliberately understate themselves, going out of their way to appear bucolic, unsophisticated, ghetto, or poor as a vanity to deceive others, as a means to invoke a prejudiced reaction.  Such men are excited by tricking the eye so they can, in their minds eye, proclaim their affluence as a rebuttal, this vain, immature and ungentlemanly show of conceit is never sexy or manly.  A gentleman is proud of what he is and makes no show of it nor deceives others with the intent of “amazing” them to serve the benefit of his own vainglorious aggrandizement. 

The final touch of a gentleman’s grooming is his personality.  A man’s personality adds the final dimension of handsomeness and manliness to his overall presentation.   Character, charm, charisma, confidence, congeniality, manners, etc., are not commodities that can be obtained in a men’s grooming salon nor in fact can they be purchased at all, they have to be learned and practised until they become an integral part of a gentleman’s personality.  As all things are, a gentleman’s personality is something that must be groomed and built up over time.  

Written By D. Vollin

MUSINGS OF A LONER CAMPING OUT FOR LOVE

MUSINGS OF A LONER CAMPING OUT FOR LOVE

I thought I was on love’s tip

i thought I was standing on the tip of love

i felt as if I was elevated above the pain and circumstances

suffered by the seekers of…. (love)

but I’d lost my grip,

My status was at love’s base

my heart was buried at the base of love

when I fell beneath the casual dates, mates, and other sexual affiliates

victims and casualties of…. (love)

i could not save face,

But I climbed up to safety and O’ did I regroup

making a warm encampment on the bright side of the mount, (and oft I’d shout)

contented only to glimpse its gilded hide, to bless it’s beauty “gainst” the sky

to cheer on young explorers and warn those too old to count

for I’d retired from love and happily sequestered myself from its loop…

i’d found contentment as a loner camping out upon loves stoop…

By David Vollin

GETTING OUR INTELLIGENCE BACK; A Candid Look At Evolution

ON THE HISTORY OF LEARNING IN HUMANS…

Whilst conversing with an old colleague of mine about, of all things, ADHD, it occurred to me that we humans may have completely overlooked an obvious feature in our physiology that might change the way we theorize our genetic evolution.  Casting my own theories of ADHD aside, I found myself developing an amazing theory on human evolution itself!  As I understand it, the one of the accepted practises for treating ADHD is to literally “Slow-Down” the brains rapidly firing thought process to allow an individual to focus on a singular task.  This elusive focusing ability is typically induced by administering chemical medication that, (at least in theory), will slow down the brains meanderings allowing the patient to “Sojourn” at some particular juncture in their musings in time to process all the many details associated with whatever it is they muse. 

Skull of Homo-Australopithecus, Circa 3.2 Million years old. 

Why on earth anyone would want to slow down a literally transcendentally prolific thinking machine is the subject for another discussion but let me say that perhaps our society may want to catch up with these “Complex” thinkers in order to achieve a quantum leap in human evolution or to at least regain one now lost to evolutionary antiquity.  Is it not the goal of humanity to someday achieve a high level of intellectual prowess enabling us to process an infinite array of data simultaneously similar to the functions of a computer?  Perhaps we need to closely examine the workings of those minds which clearly work faster than most human brains and not as a clinical exploration of some potential disorder, rather as a link to our intellectual future!

Using a jaded and as yet unproven model that asserts genetics is an evolutionary process I will attempt to briefly explicate my theory for you.  It is a well-established belief that humans do not use a significant portion of our brain.  If the theory of genetic evolution is true, that is, that organisms evolve to address specific needs, then at one point if may be we humans did utilise 100% of our brains.  If this theory is true then what catastrophic event now lost in the chaos of what we do not and may never know about human evolution might have caused us to forget the simple process of thinking and have to undergo the millennia’s long process of re-learning to utilise our brains?  

Image of Homo Zinjanthropus, Circa 600,000 years old.

Can science prove that the four distinct compartments that comprise a cow’s stomach evolved simultaneously or did the stomach evolve to accommodate a much more primitive model in prehistory?  If so, if we are to believe that simple one celled animals one day climbed out of the belly of the primordial seas  evolving into gargantuan dinosaurs then surely we can imagine a much simpler humanoid having a much smaller brain, perhaps the very size of that portion which humans use today, evolving an increasingly larger brain out of necessity to store all the processes of daily life.  But what happened then?  Is it typical for organisms to evolve organs that are unreasonably larger than their needs?  Is there some genetic rule of thumb that says, “Evolutionary updates to physiology generally comprise a ?% to ?% range above that needed to perform the task that induced the change?  For instance, a mother’s womb is highly flexible to accommodate the variable range of infant volume but it is never two or more times the size necessary to perform the task efficiently.  So goes the human brain.  If genetic evolution is true at all then at some point we humans utilised more than 10% of our brain capacity!  It makes no sense for an organ to evolve with a 90% deficiency built in and there is no other precedent for this example in any organism unless it is an organ that has devolved for some reason.  

What are the reasons for devolution?  Well if an organ has been replaced by another process it will gradually be allowed to go dormant and shrink until it no longer exists.  If an organ is just not being utilised any more due to some external factor that did not previously exist such as a social or physical catastrophe affecting the organism’s environment it would trigger a devolutionary response.  If we examine the skulls of prototypical humanoids do we find larger or smaller skulls?  If the human brain is only utilised up to 10% of its capacity then at some time we forgot virtually everything we ever knew!  Let me repeat this in order to deliver the shock value it truly deserves… “AT SOME TIME WE HUMANS LITERALLY FORGOT EVERYTHING WE EVER KNEW RETAINING ONLY 10% OF OUR INTELLIGENCE”!

Image of Homo-Zinjanthropus.

If this theory is not authentically food for thought then what is?  Are we humans a devolved organism that suffered some catastrophic event which thrust us into a perpetual dark age?  Because of the inability to know the specifics of our evolutionary history and our cosmological history this is a topic that cannot ever be known short of an “H. G. Wellsian” time machine and that is not presently going to happen outside of a Hollywood dramatisation!  So for now I will hold to my own private theory on the evolution of human thought and intelligence, that we were much more intelligent at some remote time in antiquity, that our knowledge was lost through some unknown preternatural or deliberate event and that now we struggle to recapture what intelligence was lost at a time far from our reckoning.  Let me say about ADHD treatment, that slowing down the brains processes does not appear to be a promising means by which to recapture our former intellectual glory!  Slowing down the brains ability to think is, in my opinion, an attack on the expansion, history and evolution of learning in humans!

A Modern Human Skull

Written By David Vollin

Administrator of these Intellectual Salons:          

THE EBONY ROOM GENTLEMEN'S LOUNGE at:  www.ebonyroomgentlemansclub.blogspot.com 

FOR THE BROTHAS at:  www.forthebrothas.blogspot.com

Dr's, Mr. and Mrs. Leakey Holding Zinjanthropus' Skull.