Beethoven

No one can dispute that Ludwig van Beethoven was the greatest musician of all time. In fact, musical experts are the first to exclaim "Yes! He was!" when asked. Beethoven was not merely good, he was revolutionary: Ludwig carried us from one stage of knowledge (Classicism) to another, wholly new one (Romanticism). His effulgent compositions are ineffable.

I'm not well-versed in classical music despite having an ancestor, Johann Hummel, who was a famous composer. Taught by Mozart, Johann Hummel was a contemporary of Beethoven's. He played at Ludwig's memorial service. 

Beethoven was born in a small German town. A child prodigy at the piano, he soon moved to Vienna which was then music's world capital. Ludwig gained immediate fame as a pianist and started composing complex works. His compositions were initially traditional but later evolved with innovation. 

There are two things everyone knows about Herr Beethoven. First, the most well-known notes in music history are: Da Da Da Dumm, Da Da Da Dumm. These notes open Beethoven's Symphony No. 5. When I was a teenager somebody made a disco version of the symphony using these notes; it was a big hit ("A Fifth of Beethoven" [1976]).

The second commonly-known fact about Ludwig is his struggle with deafness. He began losing his hearing in his late twenties; it got progressively worse and plagued him during his thirties and forties -- the period of his greatest productivity. Deafness didn't interfere with his composing which he did by hearing music in his head but it did socially isolate him. For as long as he could, Beethoven hid being unable to hear, feeling it was shameful. When he couldn't hide it any longer he retreated from society and became very lonely. Ludwig suffered terribly for the rest of his life.

When Beethoven realized his deafness was worsening and unstoppable, he reached a crossroad. He hiked into a remote forest, thought deeply about his plight and wrote something called the "Heiligenstadt Testament." Essentially it is a suicide note. Framed in the form of a 10-page letter to his brothers the document explains why, if he kills himself, he did so. In it Ludwig expresses profound despair. Afterward Beethoven returned to town, stored the document with his private papers and kept it for the rest of his life. It was found prominently in his top drawer when he died at age 56. Nobody saw the document during his lifetime.

I understand what Ludwig described. I wrote a similar document myself two years ago while struggling with my blindness. Sharing Ludwig's shock at having one's life unexpectedly upended I grok the misery he experienced in the wake of such tragedy. Beethoven chose, as I did, to stay alive so he could share his extraordinary gift with the world. He believed he had a destiny for his musical genius. Ludwig stayed alive despite intense physical hardship because he found purpose in advancing humanity. Scholars say Beethoven wrote music "for future generations."

Recently I decided to deepen my knowledge of Beethoven's work. After watching several documentaries I purchased a boxed set of his entire oeuvre. There are 80 CDs in the box. Eighty! The box itself is over a foot long. It is beautifully decorated with paintings of Ludwig, scholarly analyses of his pieces and comprehensive listing of all compositions. Listening to the music I discovered gems not popularly known but extremely entertaining. They excite one's senses and stimulate one's mind. An example is his Piano Concerto No. 2 which he wrote when young and re-wrote several times.

Give Beethoven a listen. You'll be glad you did.

Good News

One of the largest, most prestigious places for glass art is the Corning Museum of Glass in upstate New York. The Museum was founded in 1951 by the Corning glass company and has an amazing collection. Located in the bucolic Finger Lakes region, Corning has multiple attractions including a hot studio where you can watch glass art be made or participate in the process yourself. I've visited the Museum four times.

The Museum just acquired a work from Anja Isphording, one of the artists in my personal collection. Anja's work explores nature in a way that appeals to me. Pictured here is a piece I acquired two years ago.

For an artist, having your work in a museum is a serious vote of approval.

My Baseball Hero

I'm writing this for myself since I doubt any of you share interest in the subject -- baseball great, Manny Ramirez.

After a lengthy period of arrant uninterest I got back into baseball due to Manny Ramirez. What lured me back wasn't Manny's phenomenal ability at the plate; it was his unorthodox rejection of boring tradition. The phrase "Let Manny Be Manny" captures the man's eccentric, sometimes bizarre behavior. Manny was a sharp slap to the face of traditionalists in baseball -- which is almost all followers of the sport. Manny's violation of the sport's norms appealed to me. Intensely. Game recognizes game.

In the 1990s and 2000s Manny was the most feared hitter in pro baseball. With Big Papi (David Ortiz), Manny led the Boston Red Sox to two world championships. In one campaign they came back from a 3-0 series deficit and defeated the Yankees in remarkable fashion. That was a feat never accomplished before or since in MLB history. 

In 2008 the Red Sox traded Manny to the LA Dodgers and I followed him there. That's what began my love of the Dodgers. Manny had his own section of fans who cheered his antics in left field. I was spiritually among them. 

The catalyst for my remembrance of Manny's career is an announcement this week, by Manny's agent, that he wants back into the sport as a hitting coach. While it'd be a smart move for any team to hire Manny in such capacity it's unlikely to occur. Baseball's traditionalists (and perhaps some of you) still hate Manny for his wild eccentricity. What I love about Manny is HIS TALENT WAS UNDENIABLE -- so even his harshest critics can't dispute that plain fact while clutching their pearls and railing against Manny's behavior. For years critics said Manny would "destroy baseball" but, as we know, it still exists.

Ecce Manny!

Important Knowledge

Listening to great thinkers can educate us not only with knowledge but visions of the future. For much of "the future" is already here; it's just unevenly distributed. Many people don't know things yet despite their existence. 

Tom Wolfe paid close attention to everything. His careful observations gird and illuminate his writing. During the last two decades of Wolfe's life (2000-2018) he became convinced that neuroscience (study of the brain) would soon revolutionize the world.

Wolfe was right, but in an unexpected way.

Artificial intelligence (AI) will change life dramatically in the next decade. We've all heard this prediction but few of us grasp what AI is, where it came from and what it's going to do.

An excellent primer on these subjects was just delivered by Prof. Geoffrey Hinton, an early AI researcher who was recently awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. Prof. Hinton's explanation appears on Jon Stewart's weekly podcast (available on YouTube, etc.).

AI grew out of research Prof. Hinton and others commenced in the 1970s. They were studying how the human brain works and wondering if they could get a computer to mimic it. Obviously, at the time, computing power was rudimentary. Hinton, et al. developed valuable insights into the process of learning. They took lessons from human biology and abstracted them into potential mechanics. Essentially they discovered how a brain learns things and then applied that process to machines. Their discovery radically breaks from traditional computer science whose model simply instructs machines with rules to follow. No traditional computer, using the latter approach, can ever LEARN; it can merely compute.

Prof. Hinton posited in the 1980s that a machine could learn if taught how to learn and then set free to do its magic. The model -- a human brain -- reveals the learning process. Using a "neural network" the brain (or AI computer) contains trillions of individual switches that can be turned on or off. The probability of switches being turned on can be increased or decreased by what other nearby switches are doing. Once enough switches turn on, simple knowledge is obtained. As more switches are turned on, deeper knowledge is reached. But how can computers learn to do that?

By working backward. By taking actual known knowledge and reverse engineering a machine's neural network with better probabilities. Hinton realized -- in a eureka moment -- how the process of learning can be replicated in an inanimate machine.

This revolutionary discovery was knee-capped in 1986 by two things: inadequate computing power and insufficient material (known knowledge) to feed machines. Since then, of course, computing speed has increased exponentially. And content (material used to feed computers) was solved by development of the Internet.

Now Hinton's discovery, foretold by Tom Wolfe, is possible. And the race is on. Billions of dollars are being spent by dozens of large corporations to build AI machines. They differ mostly in what the computers are fed, not the computers themselves, since everyone can use the same advanced machines. AI programs differ in what their input is and how they consume it.

So that's where we are. Any questions?

Learn About Tea

It's surprising how often we don't know what we're eating and drinking. Take tea, for instance. Do you know the difference between black tea and green tea? Do you know what oolong tea is?

All three teas are created from the same plant (Camellia sinensis). Teas differ only in how they're made.

Green tea is produced from fresh tea leaves that haven't been oxidized. Oxidation is a natural process that exposes tea leaves to air. The process determines tea's color, taste and caffeine content. Black tea is made by crushing leaves to enhance oxidation. Oolong tea is made by wilting leaves in the sun and slightly bruising them to create partial oxidation.

All three teas have small amounts of caffeine. Black tea has the most (47mg/8oz); green tea the least (29mg); and oolong tea somewhere in between (38mg). When you compare these numbers to the caffeine in coffee (96mg/8oz), you see they all have much less caffeine. Coffee has exactly twice the amount of caffeine as black tea and three times the amount of green tea.

All three teas have major health benefits. They ward off heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and brain degeneration. Many studies have conclusively documented these benefits to which generations of Japanese tea-drinkers will attest.

Care for a spot of tea? How do you take it?

Blues Music

Tonight we enjoyed blues music performed by talented guitarist Toby Walker at our favorite bookstore (The Next Chapter LI). In addition to prodigious musical ability Toby is an amusing raconteur with many funny stories.

Before the concert we devoured large lobster rolls at DJ's Clam Shack. I refuse to admit Summer is over; tomorrow will hit 80 degrees here.

Am I Dead?

I hope this isn't too weird or mystical for you.

During my hospitalization I died -- technically -- twice. In medical terms I "coded" and doctors told Robin I was gone. Only extreme medical interventions shocked my body back to physical life.

I mentioned before that I was suffering from ICU delirium during most of my stay which altered but didn't eliminate my perceptions. I perceived but interpreted things differently. I even had conversations with people in the real world (Robin, nurses) but our words meant different things.

There's a concept in Tibetan Buddhism called "bardo." It means the interval between death and re-birth. After you die, your consciousness remains active, wrestles with karma from past life and prepares to get re-born into a new body. An unusual writer (Amie Barrodale) just published a novel ("Trip") that explores a woman in bardo. The main character has post-death experiences and they're weird. Seriously weird. For instance, someone she's talking to has arms made of smoke.

Now don't take this the wrong way, or call 911, but life since my aforementioned deaths has frequently been odd. At times I believe I'm half-dead, half-alive. My consciousness -- or soul, if you're comfortable with that word -- is floating around like a crouton in cosmic soup. Actually many people feel today's surreality (politically, socially) is unprecedented and inexplicable. Perhaps you too are all dead and floating in bardo.

Nobody knows what reality is or whether consciousness survives death or if there's an afterlife (Heaven/Hell). We can ponder whether humans have souls and if "reality" even exists, but that discussion won't find resolution. We can only follow our impressions of the noumenal (or numinous, if you lean that way) and guess what's happening.

Verstehen?