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"NUTS"

Remember this famous line from the history books?

From Wikipedia:

quote:

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If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it most likely is a duck.

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If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is any of a variety of wild or domesticated swimming birds of the family Anatidae, characteristically having a broad, flat bill !!!

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World wide 'common usage' of the singular word 'American'
Has come to denote those from the U.S. of America.
Exclusively. Not even including Canada.
Canadians don't call themselves 'Americans'...

I have lived on 3 continents,
it has been the SAME everywhere.

Being born in pre-USA north america on one level DOES,
connote being from one of the Americas certanly.

But dictionary's always list the primary
common usage definition 1st.

Most of his life Ben Franklin was a British Colonial American.
In he last few years* he certainly was an American,
ie citizen of the U.S. of America.

Parsing parsing, always parsing.

quote:

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a contrariness to harmonic reasoning

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This is not exclusive to the steelplayer of course.

Harmonic reasoning is what allows new music to be composed,
and old music to be analyized and understood.
often as a doorway to new forms and compositions.

Some delve in and explore,
others repeat the work of those who came before,
relatively un-questioningly.
Many take a path betwixt.

But deciding NOT to look between the lines / and notes,
for their reasonings is self-limiting.

*edit

[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 24 October 2006 at 12:54 AM.]

We were talking about the 18th century, not the 21st, so it doesn't matter that most people today use "American" to mean something associated with the land mass between Canada and Mexico. But there are plenty of people who don't. As I was standing by James Joyce's grave, a Swiss asked me where I was from. When I said "America," he told me that I wasn't from America but the US.

The primary definition is not the entire definition. You use two definitions: "Most of his life Ben Franklin was a British Colonial American. In he [sic] last few tears he certainly was an American, ie citizen of the U.S. of America." Are you saying that he was not an American in the colonial period because he became a citizen of the US later? Again, he was both. The two are not mutually exclusive.

You admit that "America" means what you don't want it to, and then say it doesn't mean what you just said it does on the grounds that it also means something else: "Being born in pre-USA north [sic]america [sic] on one levl [sic] DOES, connote being from one of the Americas certanly [sic].

But dictionary's [sic] always list the primary common usage definition 1st."

Bill must be laughing his colon off. He lives in Pittsfield, which is near the center of the American Renaissance. Just west of him are homes of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edith Wharton. He is even closer to the home where Herman Melville wrote most of Moby Dick. And from Pittsfield, he can see Mt. Greylock, which in winter reminded Melville of a white whale, and where in summer he went climbing with Evert Duyckinck. To the east of Bill lies Concord, where he has undoubtedly visited not only Walden Pond, but also homes of Hawthorne and Ralph Waldo Emerson. And he has undoubtedly been to the Boston area where Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor lived, both of whom were born in England and died in America before the revolution, and both of whom are included in American lit.

To repeat, "Find one book by any competent historian that says that 'American history' doesn't include the colonial period. In fact, find one that says 'American history' doesn't include the pre-Columbian period.

And find one competent writer who can even come close to Bill except as comedy."

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"I drink to make other people more interesting." -- Jack Nicholson

[This message was edited by Darryl Hattenhauer on 23 October 2006 at 11:05 PM.]

Start here. And then let us know what you think.

Axtell, James. The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America.

Baldwin, Neil. The American Revelation: Ten Ideals that Shaped Our Country from the Puritans to the Cold War.

Bercovitch, Sacvan. The Puritan Origins of the American Self.

Bloch, Ruth H. Visionary Republic: Millennial Themes in American Thought, 1756-1800.

Brown, Richard D. The Strength of a People: The Idea of an Informed Citizenry in America, 1650-1870.

Canup, John. Out of the Wilderness: The Emergence of an American Identity in Colonial New England.

Greene, Jack P. The Intellectual Construction of America: Exceptionalism and Identity from 1492 to 1800.

Kolodny, Annette. The Land before Her: Fantasy and Experience of the American Frontiers, 1630-1860.

Landsman, Ned C. From Colonials to Provincials: American Thought and Culture, 1680-1760.

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"I drink to make other people more interesting." -- Jack Nicholson

[This message was edited by Darryl Hattenhauer on 23 October 2006 at 11:20 PM.]

Lovell, John Jr. Black Song: The Forge and the Flame; The Story of How the Afro-American Spiritual was Hammered Out.

Scheurer, Timothy E. Born in the USA: The Myth of America in Popular Music from Colonial Times to the Present.

Shaw, Arnold. Black Popular Music: From the Spirituals, Minstrels, and Ragtime, to Soul, Disco, and Hip-Hop.

White, Shane, and Graham White. The Sounds of Slavery: Discovering African-American History through Songs, Sermons, and Speech.

Gatta, John. Making Nature Sacred: Literature, Religion, and Environment in America from the Puritans to the Present.

Gilmore, Michael T. The Middle Way: Puritanism and Ideology in American Romantic Fiction.

Gould, Philip. Covenant and Republic: Historical Romance and the Politics of Puritanism.

Madsen, Deborah L. Allegory in America: From Puritanism to Postmodernism.

Ruland, Richard and Malcolm Bradbury. From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History of American Literature.

Wertheimer, Eric. Underwriting: The Poetics of Insurance in America, 1722-1872.

One town south of Concord.
And location of the 3rd less heralded battle of the revolution.
Some mile or so from Walden Pond,
but closer to Whites Pond,
the Sudbury Minute and Militia met the British forces,
looking for their local arms cache.
Deacon Haynes, aged 80, was shot from the saddle in a fussilade,
aimed at his irrascible one man charge.

Certainly these fighters could have been pessimistic about the out come.
But they still defended their homes.

The one apparent theme in the above liturature,
is that it all pertains to events devolving around, what became the USA.
As part of the US American's experience and developement.
While I don't doubt events from other regions are also mentioned,
in their relation with this context.

In Europe I met few resembling your Swiss interlocuter.
The prototypical "Ugly American",
is NOT Canadian nor Mexican.

It seems we will disagree on what seems, to me,
to be the predominant common usage of the term.
That is the definition and context brought to mind
by your original post on Franklin.

If we had LOST the war,
it might all be phrased MUCH differently.

So much for topic drift...

If Bill has made us think,
choose our words with care,
and have disputations,
then I suspect that he has gained
his desired end. Topic drift or not.

[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 24 October 2006 at 01:15 AM.]

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Pervading deleterious pessimism is a profound encumbrance to progress in musical terminology.

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The awareness that a great interest in American History, once delved into, will most assuredly yield information that will attest to details that we may not be aware of. For those of us who may have only vague notions of early American modes of punishment in prisons, I strongly encourage all to attain accounts of the copper mining prison near Hartford, Connecticut. It is a copy of the old Newgate Prison in England. The written accounts are a must for those who often are beset with a longing to probe the past for how everything came about. The Newgate Prison in Connecticut,no longer in use, reflects the early thinking processes, of a shameless mode of punishment. Small wonder that negativism has carried over into the 21st century. All of this is interrelated with our entertainment standards and musical development.

I visited Old Newgate Prison in CT a couple of years ago, and also 50 years ago when I was a little kid. It was revolutionary era prison... underground. The prison was actually an abandoned copper mine, a series of dark, damp tunnels, and the prisoners were chained to the walls of the tunnels. There was a prison yard with a few buildings, and access to the prison was a hole in the ground with a long wood ladder. That was the old mine opening, and the prisoners would descend the ladder into the dark, bleak, wet tunnels and be chained down there. Every once in a while prisoners were allowed to climb up the ladder and see the sunshine. Talk about pessimism!

Today there is a large stairway leading down to the prison so visitors don’t have to climb the ladder. click

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"colony of Connecticut acquired the property as
a place of confinement for prisoners;
a primary assumption was that productive mining could be
achieved by the prisoners in order to defray the
expense of their confinement..... "

"Like copper mining, nailmaking proved
unprofitable. The state of Connecticut embarked
on a series of prisoner industries in an effort to
make the prison self-sufficient. Cooper, cabinet,
shoe, and wagon shops were added
and a man-powered treadmill for grinding grain was installed
in 1824
within a new four-story stone cell-block.
All of the prisoner- produced commodities were
sold to the public, which visited the facility in
fairly large numbers. "

I am reluctant to sugar-coat The Old Newgate Prison. The most refractory prisoners were chained to the walls, far below ground level. One prisoner was bricked in on all sides, save a small opening for food and water. George Washington sent one of his most incorrigible prisoners to be held there. The copper taken from the mine was sought after for its high quality. It was desired for making quality coins. One prisoner who was kept below ground for many years, could not adjust to life above ground. After his release he begged to be returned below ground level. He did so, and lived there until his final day. A prison for the imprisonment of women was built there, above ground, on the premises. Choose an early publication at your library, that reports the severity of the conditions as they were many years ago. Libraries contain voluminous accounts of the first state prison in America. This is the last of topic stray on the subject of Old Newgate Prison.

[This message was edited by Bill Hankey on 24 October 2006 at 11:51 PM.]

It is part of their thinking process to
stay together in different modes of motion.

Same goes for fish schooling.

People in some ways imagine thay THEY have
risen above these basic survival strategies,
when in reality we observe them in use daily.
Army and team organizations, waiting in line at the store,
and othe group activities.

If the same modality is observed in creating a great band;
or mutliple individuals in an orginazational body,
then excessive pessemism can be the undoing of this orderliness.

One pitiful pomme putrefies the passel...

One person deciding from pessimism,
to not be on top of his game any given night
lowers the over all standard of the show.

Deciding that bit of extra practice,
or succumbing to fear of failing,
prevents that extra bit of precision,
or invention, or excitment on stage,
then all including the audience suffers.

I can't do more than I think I can,
so no sense trying.

I can't learn this,
so I won't and we won't play it.

I can't play like J.D. or Paul's track here,
so I won't even try to play it close.

I can't see how I can do it,
so I won't try... then I can't fail!
Others think I can; but what do THEY know,
I know I won't make it,
it's their problem if they think I can.

I don't understand why this TAB is different than that tab,
it isn't my copedent, so I won't try to make it work.

Musical notes and pedal steel are incompatible, everybody uses TAB,
so there MUST be no choice.

I remember leaving a bluegrass band,
because they ALL thought there was
no point in writing new songs in bluegrass style,
since the BEST had already been written.

Pessimism, is not trying to move ahead,
only repeating the easy course of
what has gone before,
or less.

More or less....

quote:

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Argumentation cannot suffice for the discovery of a new work,
since the subtlety of Nature is greater many times
than the subtlety of argument.

-Francis Bacon

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It would be interesting to realize the absolute potential of your wide range of logic in its entirety. Your ambitious writings most certainly are indicative of a pioneering strategy to educate the inert constituents, who tend to follow the path of least resistence. It has been a pleasure contemplating your writing skills. For certain, it demonstrates your freehearted and abundant relish for the good life.
Thanks David...

As FDR said ;
The only thing we have to fear is fear it'self -
nameless, unreasoning, unjustified, terror
which paralyzes needed efforts to convert
retreat into advance
FDR First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933

Someone else said ;
Snooze you lose.

No grand eloquence, but viable.

And to paraphrase DaVinci ;

Learn a lot about many things,
a little about everything,
and be very, very good at a few things.

As research, I've done some searches on some of Bill's early posts and found that his current style grew over time. Early posts were as straight forward as anyone elses.

(I hope Bill Hankey will translate the above into more proper Hankeysian).

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