BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!

Subject: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jan 02 - 11:34 PM

From the current on-line edition of Nature magazine:

Models of sexual selection generally assume that behavioural courtship displays reflect intrinsic male qualities such as condition, and that males display with maximum intensity to attract females to mate. Here we use robotic females in a field experiment to demonstrate that male satin bowerbirds (Ptilonorhynchus violaceus) do not always display at maximum intensity — rather, successful males modulate their displays in response to signals from females. Our results indicate that sexual selection may favour those males that can produce intense displays but which know how to modify these according to the female response.

I mean, this is scientific news? Anyone with the brains to rub two strings together has got to be aware of that!!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 16 Jan 02 - 11:38 PM

... and sting like a bee. Thass whah they cawls it de birds an' de bees.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: CapriUni
Date: 17 Jan 02 - 12:25 AM

Amos -- On a related note: A while back PBS ran a special series on evolution, and episode five was dedicated to the subject of sex and attracting a mate.

Toward the end of the hour, they interviewed one young scientist who is currently shaking up the scientific community with the scandalous idea that for humans, artistic creation is the equivalent of a peacock's tale: we only do it to attract a mate.

Well, duh! ;-)

(scroll down to the bottom of this page for either a Quicktime or RealPlayer clip of this.

I'd take this thesis a step further, myself. My feeling is that it takes more than physical fitness to successfully raise a kid -- in this day and age, or in any one. It takes creative problem solving. A good partner for this (or any other complex task, such as running a business together), is someone who shares enough of your values so that the two of you are not butting heads over every decision, but at the same time, thinks differently enough so that she/he can bring a different perspective to a problem.

Art can provide a good "sampler" of a person's problem solving skills...

Just my 2% of a dollar

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: Rolfyboy6
Date: 17 Jan 02 - 01:41 AM

"Well that's alright baby, I still got my guitar."

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 17 Jan 02 - 03:29 AM

Well, it never worked for me ... in fact, I married a woman with a tin ear where music is concerned. I wonder what that tells us...?<>br>
Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: Hrothgar
Date: 17 Jan 02 - 04:26 AM

Steve

The question is: Did you need to marry a woman with a tin ear? :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 17 Jan 02 - 05:19 AM

No, I married her because I loved her!

Steve

P.S. We stay together for the same reason; anyway, nobody's perfect.

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: The_one_and_only_Dai
Date: 17 Jan 02 - 08:27 AM

*ahem*

Jamaica?

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: WyoWoman
Date: 17 Jan 02 - 08:35 AM

Most of the male musicians I know -- at least those of the guitar variety -- said they originally learned to play guitar in high school or college to attract chicks. It works, of course, which is excellent reinforcement for the behavior. However, women don't offer the same explanation. I wonder if it's just because men are more honest about their motives, or if the motives are so much different...

ww

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: kendall
Date: 17 Jan 02 - 08:44 AM

I learned to play the guitar and sing because I love traditional music. 99 out of a hundred of the girls I grew up with went for trumpets, saxaphones, clarinets and freekin' drums.

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 17 Jan 02 - 02:06 PM

Hey Amos, what about drummers?

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: Jim Krause
Date: 17 Jan 02 - 02:43 PM

ww, I support your thesis. It was true in my case. Oddly enough, that was probably one of the best pieces of advice I got from Dear Ol' Dad. "Learn to play the guitar," he said, "and you'll always be invited to the next party." And meet girls, while implied was left unsaid.

And Kendall's statement is not mutually exclusive of the chich magnate effect that guitars have. And yes, it worked for me.
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: Mr Red
Date: 17 Jan 02 - 02:52 PM

What's the correct modification to technique for the "Sod off, wazzac" rejoinder?
so doff your cap?

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: CapriUni
Date: 17 Jan 02 - 06:02 PM

Well, as someone with a second 'X' chromosome, if there is a Y chromosome person to whom I am attracted, I might invite him to a poetry reading I'll be performing at, or (if it's online) try to post something extra eloquent to a forum he frequents.

So, yeah. I think it's the same, generally, for young women as young men, though their may be a sizable portion of women (particularly in their teens) who use fashion as their art form of choice. It is certainly more acceptable for women to wear bright colors and jewelrey as it is for men.

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: GUEST,Claymore
Date: 17 Jan 02 - 06:32 PM

Actually my SO is the PAO for the University of Maryland, which sponsored the study. I include the press release only to warn you of fembot, which, when you see this thing, is a carrier class female, and still almost twice the size of your normal female bower bird. But momma's got some moves.

I've asked her if we can come up with a Seven of Nine look-a-like to test guitar players. We'll call her Folkbot and begin testing the above theories...

Sensitive Guys Get The Girls In The Bowerbird World

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - Courtship displays of male satin bowerbirds on stages they build and decorate in the Australian forest rate as the flashiest in the animal world. But University of Maryland researchers have discovered that it's not enough for a courting male to have great taste in décor and some showy dance steps to wow the ladies. It turns out it's the sensitive guy who gets the girls. Using a robot female bird dressed in alluring feathers, a research team from the University of Maryland discovered that the most attractive satin bowerbird males are not the guys who just put on the most intense display of masculinity in the mating ritual, but those who also can respond to female moods. In a paper to be published in the Jan. 17 edition of the journal Nature, Gail L.Patricelli and Gerald Borgia show that the fellows who have the most conquests are the ones who can adjust the intensity of their mating dance if the female signals that she is uncomfortable. "The male satin bowerbird puts on a very intense mating display, which is important for wooing the female," said Patricelli, who designed the experiment for her doctoral dissertation with Borgia, a biology professor at Maryland. "But if it gets too aggressive and threatening, it also can startle her. Our experiment showed that the preferred males were those who could give a highly intense display but who could tone down the intensity to avoid startling the female. "The less successful males either didn't pick up on the female's signals and were scaring her, or they were not displaying intensely enough." The team's discovery reveals a new characteristic in understanding how males in polygamous species attract females. "In pair-bonded species, males and females collaborate to rear young, so it's been expected and demonstrated that courtship involves reciprocal communication," Patricelli said, "but in species such as the bowerbird, in which the male has many mates and no role in raising the young, it's been assumed that communication during display was essentially one way - the male saying 'Mate with me.' "Our observations of bowerbirds, that male display is very aggressive and that females are often startled, started us thinking in a different way -- that females might be threatened during display, and, for the benefit of both, females should signal their level of comfort with the males' display. Our experiments supported this view." To determine the finer points of bowerbird sexual prowess, the Maryland team built a remote-controlled, realistic femme fatale that could mimic the movements of a real female satin bowerbird. Called a fembot, the remote-controlled flirt gives off all the subtle signals a male needs to figure out if the lady is interested. The fembot turns her head, fluffs her wings, tilts her beak and can assume the mating stance, a slow crouch with a tip. "We wanted to control the signals given by females during courtship," said Borgia, who has been studying the bowerbird for 22 years. "Females have fewer moves than the male in courtship, so we could realistically duplicate the female's behavior with a mechanical bird." Gregory Walsh, the University of Maryland mechanical engineering professor who, with his students, designed and built the robotic beauty after watching videotapes of the birds in their Australian habitat said "It was tricky but not terribly difficult. Robotics takes a lot of inspiration from nature. We built a sheet metal skeleton, and a taxidermist did the bird's exterior. We inserted a small computer to control the bird. Of course we called that the 'bird brain.'" The bowerbird courtship ritual is well suited for introducing a robotic love interest, because, for one thing, it's easy to tell where mating will take place. Males in almost all of the 19 bowerbird species, found in Australia and New Guinea, begin the mating season by constructing elaborate bowers, or courting areas, to attract females. The satin bowerbird female, a gray-green bird about the size of a turtle dove, cruises the neighborhood, checking out the bowers, and when she sees one that interests her, she steps inside. The iridescent purple male architect of the love nest then launches into a raucous song and dance, jumping, ruffling his feathers and singing, even imitating the calls of other birds. If he gets the crouch from the female, he knows he's scored, and mating takes place. Sometimes a female will visit the bower several times before she consents. The actual consummation is as quick as a ruffle of feathers, and the female is off to lay her eggs and hatch her young. Once she has found a good man, the female may return to his bower each year as long as he is sexually active. Patricelli carefully snuck a fembot into bowers scattered along Wallaby Creek in northern New South Wales, Australia when the males were away from the sites, hid the remote control wires under leaves and waited for the Casanovas to appear. From a hidden blind, Patricelli operated the controls to send four different courtship signals, including consent. A video camera recorded the action. The feathered robot was so accurate in its movements that more than one lothario attempted to mate with the fembot, but it took several years to refine the fembot into her current svelte size. "Our prototype was a big, healthy girl, because she was radio-controlled and had a lot of machinery hidden in her gut, " Patricelli said. "We switched to wires, which slimmed her down a lot." The debut bird was a hit in the bower, however, said Gregory Walsh, "In the trials, two males were fighting over her and knocked her head off." The bowerbird is the only male bird in the world known to use interior decorating and landscaping to prove his manhood to the female, according to Borgia. Different species construct different styles of bowers, from the satin's upswept 2-walled stick construction to a 6-foot wide dome-style bower built by a New Guinea species. Borgia's research has shown that the more refined and decorated the bower, the more successful the builder is in the mating game. The top male satin bowerbirds are even clever with landscaping. Many of the species lay out colorful lawn ornaments of seeds, feathers and bright plastic baubles, such as clothespins, in neat arrays around the bower. "The males can't wander far from their bowers," said Borgia, "because other males will steal their gear. The satins especially like to steal the blue parrot feathers." The 36 cameras that Borgia and his team of graduate students maintain in Wallaby Creek through the mating season have shown that attention to detail in the construction of a bower pays off for the satin bowerbird. "One very successful male who had a good bower mated with 25 females over one 2-month mating period," said Borgia. "He mated with nine females in one day. But that's the exception. Most of them don't land a female mate at all. The sexiest guys get all the mates. "Like humans, bowerbirds have evolved a high level of intelligence, but each species has come to this point with a very different set of ancestors," said Borgia. "The example of bowerbirds has led some to suggest that in humans and bowerbirds, intelligence may have been driven by competition to show off to the opposite sex." The study was funded by the National Science Foundation. #

* View video of the fembot and the satin bowerbirds on the web. Contact Ellen Ternes, 301-405-4627, [e-mail] for the website address.

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: CapriUni
Date: 17 Jan 02 - 07:41 PM

Argh!! I wrote: "It is certainly more acceptable for women to wear bright colors and jewelrey as it is for men."

That should, of course be "than it is for men."

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: GUEST,Amy Sue
Date: 17 Jan 02 - 07:57 PM

I married a keyboard player and we met at a "piano bar" 20 years ago (they are all karioke now). I didn't know then that my garage and living room would be full of electronic equipment. Oh, well, he is really cute too!

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: Wolfgang
Date: 18 Jan 02 - 05:35 AM

Amos, you remind me of one of my seminars when a student once said that all the results of experiments I had told them so far could easily have been predicted by any person with just a bit of wit.

O.K., I said, maybe you are right, but I'd like to know and for the rest of the hour and the next hour I switched to another mode of presentation. I told them exactly what was done in an experiment and why it might be interesting and stopped before the result part. I asked them to predict the result and give a confidence rating for that result to be true. Without a single exception, they were quite confident to predict correctly, but they never did agree in what to expect.

I let them discuss the result each time before telling it and it was quite an interesting discussion for them and for me. They never did agree even after an open discussion about what the actual result would be. Each time, at least one of them predicted the actual result, often the majority backed this result, but sometimes the small minority did win.

In short, that's why we need empiry to find things out. It definitely would be cheaper to pay airchair philosophers and monday morning quarterbacks to predict results instead of making research. The problem is, they are only reliable and highly confident after the fact.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 18 Jan 02 - 01:47 PM

Hee hee, that's chick MAGNET, not MAGNATE, I assume?

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jan 02 - 03:44 PM

My dear Wolfgang:

I understand completely, and the older I get the more I respect the empirical principle which you defend, In fact, I did not mean to attack it, particuarly. My only complaint about it is the nature of extrapolation of the results and the language into which it is cast; I have no argument with empiry (which does not appear to be an English word but definitely should be if not).

An empiric, interestingly enough (the noun for which empirical is the adjective) is defined as:

1. One who is guided by practical experience rather than precepts or theory. 2. An unqualified or dishonest practitioner; a charlatan.

in the 4th Edition of the American heoirtage Dictionary, which adds:

ETYMOLOGY: Latin empricus, from Greek empeirikos, experienced, from empeiros, skilled .

It strikes me as highly amusing that we have taken a noble root meaning both "experience" and "skill" and bent it to imply dishonesty or charlatanism!!

But in any case, the "skill" called for is not only the ability to isolate experiences from which to learn, but also to identify what should be known from such experiences. It is plainly evident in normal human experience that two people can learn entirely different things from the same experience!! Wisdom in framing the conclusion is the hardest part.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 18 Jan 02 - 04:10 PM

Amos, I don't think I understand anything you're saying.

Your words, identify what should be known from such experiences. are particularly bothersome because they sound subjective. (Perhaps it's just the word "should.")

And Wisdom in framing the conclusion is the hardest part. If we are talking about the Scientific Method/Empirical Principle, then defining the right question is the essential part, the conclusion is pretty much a done deal resulting from whatever the question is.

Perhaps we're just confusing the semantics of people study with natural phenomena study.

We probably agree on incorrect extrapolation of results...I would be interested to see a legitimate researcher guilty of that.

And if you have any more comments...wait 'til Wolfgang is back to help me here (out on this limb). *BG*

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jan 02 - 04:45 PM

Mary:

Apologies for being confusing.

Being subjective is not easily avoided even by those who are practicing a scientific discipline. If you look at the report above, for example you will find it riddled with terms which seem highly anthropomorphic -- such as "attention to detail", "aggressive", "alarmed", "sexiest guys", "steal", "prove his manhood", "checking out", and so on. I appreciate this is just the reporters effort to make the expeirment interesting to a lay audience, but the point I would like to stress is that an isolated experimental series provides a set of facts, only, which is the truly empirical and objective aspect; but te minute those facts are interpreted in an effort to provide meaning to them, subjectivity is inevitable. The ongoing clarification of further and different experimentation often serves to dispel subjective processes which prove too biased -- such as the caloric theory, or the belief in humours and tides in the blood. But paradigms, the mental frameworks on which we hang our experiences for meaning, are not facts, but mental or spiritual creations. I think the aim is usually to name those frameworks which will be the most universal, provide the longest and best explanation, explain the most facts, and (perhaps) even support the best or widest application in some pragmatic way (such as healing or supporting inventions or what have you). If you choose the wrong conclusion, it makes it hard for other fields and other experiments to be lined up and compared with yours. What you say about naming the wrong problem is also a major piece, perhaps the obverse of the same coin. The problem is not with facts but with their use and interpretation.

That's all I meant to say.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 18 Jan 02 - 04:57 PM

I'll try to take a look at the Nature article. It sounds like someone is overstating and misrepresenting a study here. Gotta go now...

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 18 Jan 02 - 06:07 PM

OK, you caught me taking a peek before I go out to buy milk and bread before the big snow storm hits in a few hours. I thought you were referring to the medical journal, Nature. But it looks like it's the magazine I found at nature.com. hmmmmmmmm

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 19 Jan 02 - 10:11 AM

Wyowoman said:

Most of the male musicians I know -- at least those of the guitar variety -- said they originally learned to play guitar in high school or college to attract chicks. It works, of course, which is excellent reinforcement for the behavior. So did I. But I found a problem: When my arms were around the guitar, they weren't around the girl! The transition was a puzzlement!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jan 02 - 07:57 PM

Dave --

Put the guitar down slowly, one hand at a time. Easy....easy...put your hands on the girl and bend over slowly....there ya go.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: Genie
Date: 19 Jan 02 - 08:59 PM

What Wolfgang said.

Amos and Mary, You're right about the dangers of premature extrapolation (sounds frustrating, doesn't it?). One thing that irks me (or amuses me, at times) is people's tendency to point to our similarities to or differences from "animals," as suits their agenda. The mass media very often irk me by making absurd generalizations from inadequate data. (I know they're only trying to sell soap, but they do a great disservice to the public by broadcasting idiotic conclusions.)

Dr. J.

BTW, I've never felt that singing, playing guitar, painting pictures, or any other form of artistic expression (except dancing and figure skating) got me anywhere in terms of attractingmen. It only gives them an ice-breaker if they're already interested. Dunno what other females of the species have found.

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jan 02 - 09:20 AM

Ai>In short, that's why we need empiry to find things out. It definitely would be cheaper to pay airchair philosophers and monday morning quarterbacks to predict results instead of making research. The problem is, they are only reliable and highly confident after the fact.

(As a veteran of these practices, sir, I can assure you that every time Courvoisier is introduced into the equation, the degree of perceived reliability and confidence goes up dramatically. Somehow these stellar results never get exported, which is a great loss to the confidence of scientists everywhere.)

You are quite right, Wolfgang. It is terribly easy to look at a hard-earned result which also happens to align with personal experience, and claim the result is obvious. But your classroom approach is admirable in dispelling the erroneous ex post facto nature of that attitude. Very sobering. So to speak.

:>)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 20 Jan 02 - 03:21 PM

From my lab work in resin research, we often jokingly predicted the results of our tightly controlled experiments to be the most preposterous result. Too often this was the case. It seems that even in the "highly predictable" world of chemical behavior (hardness, chemical resistance, flexibility) our reasoning took us down a path leading to the wrong prediction (undisputable outcome of an experiment). Even though our thinking was "correct," we might not recognize the relative weights (importance) of different competing processes. Then there was always the "hidden" factor which we were not aware of. Explanations after the fact could be rather fanciful, and sometimes a phenomena would not be understood (in our minds) until a year later.

And this was in studying physical phenomena. That's why I'm always so skeptical in people-studies. It seems to me that they are so much more complex, thus so much more that we don't know. About the only studies I have much faith in are extremely narrow and tightly controlled, which seems to me a bit unrealistic, just too much room for error. But that's just from my perspective...On top of this, some reporter tries to "explain" it to us. I saw the outrageous things PR people said about cut-and-dry resins. I can only imagine the inaccuracies in reporting about people.

And Dave, didn't you ever drive a straight-shift car and shift with your left hand (so your right arm was free for other things)? *BG*

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: CapriUni
Date: 20 Jan 02 - 04:02 PM

From Mary in Kentucky (almost typed Tenkucky, but I shooed that typo gremlin away just in time ;-)):

"Then there was always the "hidden" factor which we were not aware of. Explanations after the fact could be rather fanciful, and sometimes a phenomena would not be understood (in our minds) until a year later.

And this was in studying physical phenomena. That's why I'm always so skeptical in people-studies."

Absolutely! (And I've even extend that to behavioral studies of any species, up to a point.) Each life is unique, and is full of variables that no outside researcher could control: memories, fears, dreams, the annoying nickname you were teased with in grade school, etc. The only one who knows all the variables in your life is you, and really, the only reliable "experiments" you can do is to live your life, take risks, and learn from your mistakes... That last one is the real doozy, though, isn't it?

But (if I may be so bold) isn't that what Amos's main point was, in his opening post -- that what the scientists learned (or thought they learned) through trying to do a controlled experiment, and tinkering with robots or puppets, or whatever that fembot was, folkies trying to get the girl by actracting her with art have learned through years of living.

Just another 2% of a dollar...

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jan 02 - 05:29 PM

Thanks, Capri -- a great relief to feel understood!!

Another interesting thing about people studies is that human minds are highly creatove and plastic. They adapt themselves instantaneously to changes in situations, and can concoct whole scenarios with complete conviction in memory.. Therefore, using the normal standard of material experimentation is not likely to produce a good rate of progress. One alternative is to abstract measures that do reflect human experience, as Maslow sought to do and just identify changes within that fraework regardlessof individual content. It is still a slippery slope to try and use physical norms of experimentation with life in any of its many headstrong and highly creative forms...

A

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 20 Jan 02 - 06:53 PM

I think we probably all agree here. I didn't mean to imply that there should not be experimentation on human activity, just cast a critical eye on the experimental design, the ones doing the research, and especially the reporters. I couldn't get to the original work at the site mentioned above, so anything else I say about that experiment is third hand speculation. (Besides, I don't understand all the protocol used in human experimentation.)

Amos, I just reread you statement, using the normal standard of material experimentation is not likely to produce a good rate of progress. I don't think the experimental protocols are the same (in natural sciences and behavioral sciences), similar probably, but still with solid foundations. I think most researchers are aware of the pitfalls in transferring a method of research in one area (like physical science) to another (like human behavior) and thus define their studies carefully.

I vaguely remember some philosophical arguments about the traps of 20th century people and their perception of objectivity. As best I remember, the arguments are hard to follow because everyone is using different definitions. (That's why I usually don't bother to argue with anyone other than myself. *BG*)

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: GUEST,Genie
Date: 20 Jan 02 - 08:57 PM

Amos and Mary,
Not to deny the complexity of the human psyche or some wise individuals' ability to 'know' from their experience what a well-controlled study might demonstrate, but "common sense" is not as common as some think.
E.g., common sense still tells us that eye witness evidence is the soundest basis for judgment in criminal trials--to the point where our judicial system still gives it greater weight than "circumstantial" evidence and maybe even forensic evidence. Yet when eye witness judgments are tested in well-controlled studies, they turn out to be very unreliable (subject to distortion from many of the same factors you've mentioned as accounting for the complexity of us humans).

This illustrates why it's unwarranted to poo-poo scientific results when they "prove the obvious." What is "obvious" is not always right.

Genie

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Jan 02 - 09:24 PM

This thing about using the guitar to attract girls...

Well, in my case, it was certainly not the original reason for becoming a folksinger, it was more of an additional afterthought. You can use any form of accomplishment to attract the opposite sex, and people do, of course.

But the reason I took up guitar, singing, and songwriting was simply that I admired certain folksinger/songwriters more than I did anyone else in the world, and I wanted to be like them and do what they did. Simply that. Attracting girls was a secondary notion, albeit an appealing one.

I also wanted, like Joan Baez, to change the world! No kidding. I have settled for just working on changing myself, a little bit at a time. That's a hard enough job as it is.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: Wolfgang
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 06:58 AM

It's always a tiny bit unfair to post on a Friday evening (my time) and then to walk away from my computer until Monday noon. Many good thoughs from all sides for me to read.

As one who has done empirical research all my adult life I know a lot of responses to my work. When it was still about some radiation properties of Li-8 nuclei, my pet hate question (actually it was not meant as a question, it was rather a comment) of lay people was 'Who cares?' Then I moved to fields on which lay people had their own experiences like memory and now the two extreme poles of reactions are "That's true, but I knew it all along from my own experience" or "It can't be true for my own experience is different". Between 'true, but trivial' and 'wrong' are not many possible reactions for some critics.

But, of course, even if 'who cares' or 'didn't we know that all along' is rather meant as a comment than a question, a good scientist in my eyes has to responds as if it was actually a question and has to respond in a way that can be understood by anybody with a bit of wit.

The press reports about research are a completely new theme...

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Hell, Any Folkie Knows That!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 12:02 AM

Also, most of the folksingers I was initially most inspired by were themselves....girls! (or women, if you prefer)

Thus it would hardly seem that I would see doing folksinging as a means of "getting girls", given such influences. Rather more a means of emulating their magnificent creative accomplishments as best I could...

(I'm referring to Buffy Sainte-Marie, Joan Baez, and Judy Collins, in particular...at that time.)

Later (for me) Dylan came along, of course. I got to know him, in fact, by listening to Joan Baez cover his songs. Joan did a whole lot to win Bob acceptance back then.

For me, folk music was a combination of impassioned social idealism, good taste, intelligence, and artistic expression that could hardly be matched in any other field except serious literature, and music is more outgoing than literature.

I was far more concerned about political/social issues than virtually any other teenager I knew in Skaneateles, New York, which was the very heartland of braindead small-town American conservatism...and probably has still not graduated out of the 50's mentality yet to this day. The only thing they lacked was a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. The only exception I knew to that state of mind around there was Larry Gurevitch, who loved Dylan and the Doors and was a true radical. I haven't seen him in 33 years. I hope you are doing well, Larry.

"Getting girls"? Naw. That was why teenage guys joined rock bands, I think...which were virtually an all-male preserve in those days. I despised rock bands when I was in my teens, but finally got to like some of them later, in my twenties.

I thought (at the time) that the way to get girls was to be deeply idealistic and totally honest! Man, was I naive or what???? :-) My love life as a teenager was comparable to that of Robinson Crusoe, minus the possibility of even his Man Friday as a last remote hope for some intimate form of human contact.

But I sure enjoyed the music! Thank you, Buffy, Joan, Judy, Bob, Ian, Sylvia, and all the rest!

- LH