348. How to Change Your Mind

Link to Table of Contents

How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan

Penguin Press 2018

P41-42 I am not always on the same page as the Dalai Lama, but he’s right here. Given a pantheistic metaphysic there’s nothing problematic about any of this. Having an experience like the one Bob Jesse describes is like leaving the theater to take a pee during a movie. (I really try not to do this and I also try to avoid making-of information for films I really like.)

P46 “Bob Jesse spent the early 1990s excavating the knowledge about psychedelics that had been lost when formal research was halted and informal research went underground. In this, he was a little like those Renaissance scholars who rediscovered the lost world of classical thought in a handful of manuscripts squirreled away in monasteries...” I really like this comparison. I also like that this was happening around SF at the same time I was at the peak of my coding career. So much is going on at the same time around here.

P55-56 Henri Bergson, I shouldn’t be surprised. HOWEVER, again, this is a metaphysical assumption. It is also possible that these experiences are MERELY creations of our minds/brains. That they are one of the possible states for our minds. Just as near-death experiences are simply that, and not a view to the other side, that we are capable of achieving “spiritual” states either with or without chemical assistance doesn’t necessarily mean that a reality outside the human mind is being revealed. In a way, these spiritual states are no different than dreams. Dreams do suggest a connection to a deeper reality (and a creative dreamer) but they do not prove that reality. P75 especially deals with this. After thinking about this some more, I really do think that people underestimate the significance of dreams and that these mystical experiences really add nothing new to what dreams already show in a less dramatic way. 

Also, consider the convincing stories our minds make up to explain something like Korsakoff syndrome. That we find the stories subjectively convincing doesn’t mean they are true.

Also, while Pollan is suggesting that the “magic” molecules cause mystical states of mind, isn’t it more reasonable to say that these molecules, along with near death experiences and other things, cause the mind/brain to generate these states of mind? If these “states” are simply something our brains do when stressed in particular ways, it’s harder to see how this is a window into something that exists beyond us. So I’m still at 50/50 odds.

I would think the Good Friday people, and others, would have trouble with Church dogma after their spiritual experiences. I wonder if this is ever mentioned.(No.)

P128 The questions about how psychoactive molecules developed with fungus is not really any different than how Capsaicin developed with peppers. Well, I guess it is different to the extent that capsaicin keeps animals away, but its effect on humans is encouraging. So did peppers plan this or was it just a happy accident. And if the latter, why wouldn’t it be the same thing with psilocin? Isn’t it more likely that psilocin is simply a failed toxin, something that was supposed to kill the person who consumed it but instead had an unanticipated effect on their brains/minds? Are all the similar but deadly LBMs just failed attempts at psilocin?

P161 This is interesting. That psychedelics turn off our normal filter so that we can see what we normally can’t. That we perhaps gave up the ability to see all this so that we could better handle life in the world. Ohhh... that suggests that this could be what is actually meant by Adam’s Fall. This is what we lost when we were kicked out of the Garden of Eden. Psychedelics return us to the Garden. Now I’m thinking this is a song lyric from the ‘60s. (Joni Michell’s “Woodstock”:

We are stardust, we are golden
We are billion year old carbon
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden)

And what if psychedelics reveal to us the reality experienced by the rest of nature? All but “Fallen” man? Could this be a possible explanation of The Fermi paradox? Could being isolated from nature be amazingly rare? Also, could this be why Autism and genius seem to be related? 

I knew this book would be more thought provoking than the last one.

Bergson and “The Perennial Philosophy” again.

P194 “Huxley and Hubbard and Osmond shared Leary’s sense of historical mission, but they had a very different idea of how best to fulfill it. The three were inclined to a more supply-side kind of spiritualism -- first you must turn on the elite, and then let the new consciousness filter down to the masses, who might not be ready to absorb such shattering experience all at once... But Leary and Ginsberg, both firmly in the American grain, were determined to democratize the visionary experience, make transcendence available to everyone now...” This is like Erasmus vs Luther and Calvin. Though Luther vs Calvin is probably even better. 

P214 Psychedelics as a Dionysian force undermining the Appolonian order.

First LSD trip: What’s with the eyeshades? Is this so you aren’t distracted by the patterns? Are people really blindfolded? I’m not sure if that would be easier or not? You would certainly be missing a lot.

P292 “Curiously, LSD has an even stronger affinity with the 5-HT2A receptor -- is ‘stickier’ -- than serotonin itself, making this an instance where the simulacrum is more convincing, chemically, than the original. This has led some scientists to speculate that the human body must produce some other, more bespoke chemical for the express purpose of activating the 5-HT2a receptor -- perhaps an endogenous psychedelic that is released under certain circumstances, perhaps when dreaming.” Or maybe humans have lost the ability to produce this chemical and that is why we are disconnected from the Logos.

P305 Individuation and the DMN.

P310 This is back to “the tree with the lights in it” from Pilgrim At Tinker Creek. Unfiltered experience.

P314 Not sure how autism works with this theory.

P317-319 This may be the best part of the book so far. How psychedelics increase entropy in the brain. I’d argue alcohol can do that as well, as in my insight into Patton and Petersburg.

P320-321 “The idea that increasing the amount of entropy in the human brain might be good for us is surely counterintuitive... entropy suggests the gradual deterioration of a hard-won order, the disintegration of a system over time. Certainly getting older feels like an entropic process -- a gradual running down and disordering of the mind and body. But maybe that’s the wrong way to think about it. Robin Carhart-Harris’s paper got me wondering if, at least for the mind, aging is really a process of declining entropy, the fading over time of what we should regard as a positive attribute of mental life.

“Certainly by middle age, the sway of habitual thinking over the operation of the mind is nearly absolute...
...

“Reading Robin’s paper helped me better understand what I was looking for when I decided to explore psychedelics: to give my own snow globe a vigorous shaking, see if I could renovate my everyday mental life by introducing a greater measure of entropy, and uncertainty, into it...”

This, I think, is related to why time seems to pass quicker when you are older. Too much order reduces friction so you just slide by with nothing to really hold on to.

P322 “In both physics and information theory; [I hope he comes back to this... (no)] entropy is often associated with expansion -- as in the expansion of a gas when it is heated or freed from the constraints of a container. As a gas’s molecules diffuse in space , it becomes harder to predict the location of any given one; the uncertainty of the system thus increases...

“... Judson Brewer, the neuroscientist who studies meditation, has found that a felt sense of expansion in consciousness correlates with a drop in activity in one particular node of the default mode network -- the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), which is associated with self-referential processing...”

So the DMN has a PCC.

P324-25 Again I’m noticing exceptions with regard to the autistic. Autistic children are famous for their spotlight focus. For example when observing grains of sand. Not sure what to make of this.

Going back a bit, the increased entropy and additional neural links of the brain on psychedelics may also explain why synesthetes tend to be more creative than normals.

P326 I love Gopnik’s experiment where 4 year olds score better than adults. Because they think outside the box.

P327 “‘Their thinking is less constrained by experience, so they will try even the most unlikely possibilities’; that is, they’ll conduct lots of high-temperature searches, testing the most far-out hypotheses. ‘Children are better learners than adults in many cases when the solutions are non obvious’ or, as she puts it, ‘further out in the space of possibilities,’ a realm where they are more at home than we are...”
...

“‘Each generation of children confronts a new environment,’ she explained, ‘and their brains are particularly good at learning and thriving in that environment. Think of the children of immigrants, or four-year-olds confronted with an iPhone. Children don’t invent these new tools, they don’t create the new environment, but in every generation they build the kind of brain that can best thrive in it. Childhood is the species’ way of injecting noise into the system of cultural evolution.’ ‘Noise,’ of course, is in this context another word for entropy.”

So much to add to this. First there’s that story of children creating new languages. This ties in with that as well, as they are open to breaking all the rules that they don’t understand to get something that works.

Then there’s the negative consequence of people living longer and being more removed from the cultural context they grew up in. Or the adult immigrants who never adjust to their new home. Perhaps we may need for all the older people to step aside and let the kids find a way out of the mess we are currently in. Because in my experience, even the people doing psychedelics are not really doing anything helpful. Of course this was also the notion behind “don’t trust anyone over 30,” and my Burkian conservatism doesn’t much care for that. 

What would be the psychedelic equivalent of Maxwell’s Demon? I really have no idea, I may be too old. Of course the Demon would be reducing entropy so it would be like a stroke that wiped out all but a few neural paths. Though really an extreme form of OCD like Joey Ramone.

Damn it, he didn’t return to information theory entropy. So... if increased entropy in a message meant that it was more open to interpretation, then Goethe’s Faust and strange movies where the director is trying to confuse you would be the equivalent of psychedelics. Rather than meaning being hardwired, the receiver would be able to free associate and derive whatever meaning they pleased. Again, Faust. Goethe would love this.

P334 They protest too much about the unscientific quality of psychedelic research on mental health issues since there is no objective scientific basis for any of these conditions. You can’t confirm a diagnosis of depression or addiction with a blood or other test. They are subjective conditions. So “applied mysticism” is a rather apt means of treating them.

P347 “...Here we bump into one of the richer paradoxes of the psilocybin trials... its effectiveness seems to depend on a mystical experience that leaves people convinced there is more to this world than science can explain. Science is being used to validate an experience that would appear to undermine the scientific perspective...” 

I don’t think that is particularly true. Or no more so than many quantum experiments that demonstrate results that violate common-sense. Also, having a mystical experience doesn’t necessarily prove a mystical reality. 

P356-7 Now this is weird. Patrick’s death is the first actual death I’ve run into that sounds like the ones Dostoevsky wrote in The Brothers K. And his slipping away while she was out of the room is so true.

P382 To me that the depression effect is not as long lasting makes perfect sense. People facing death are otherwise “balanced” but dealing with a particular problem. People with depression -- and chemical dependencies -- probably have long standing issues that contribute to the depression. It’s not surprising that they would need more than one experience. That their highly ordered entropic state needs to be repeatedly disturbed.

The sign of a good writer, this next is exactly what I was thinking, “Yet the fact that psychedelics have produced such a signal across a range of indications can be interpreted in a more positive light. When a single remedy is prescribed for a great many illnesses... it could mean that those illnesses are more alike than we’re accustomed to think. If a therapy contains an implicit theory of the disorder it purports to remedy, what might the fact that psychedelic therapy seems to address so many indications have to tell us about what those disorders might have in common? And about mental illness in general?”

This is all the more true as Western Medicine has no idea what mental illness is, how to identify it, or how to treat it. This, in particular the bit about the DMN, actually offers science a chance to spot a mental health problem and even test to see if it has been fixed. This is offering science as much as it offers the patients.

P389 Describing the spiritual aspect of the psychedelic experience, “...The predictive brain is getting so many error signals that it is forced to develop extravagant new interpretations of an experience that transcends its capacity for understanding. 


“Whether the most magnificent of these stories represents a regression to magical thinking, as Freud believed, or access to transpersonal realms such as the ‘Mind at Large,’ as Huxley believed, is itself a matter of interpretation. Who can say for certain?...”

301.Rambling, mostly

Link to Table of Contents

Dentist

Just had my second and last cleaning at the world’s worst run dental office. Originally my appointment was a month ago, but the dentist was ill, or something, so no one was there and no one ever responded to phone calls. A week later I dropped by and found the dentist returned and scheduled an apt for today -- only she says it was for last Thursday -- and since all I have is the note I wrote, we will never know if I simply misunderstood her (she has a strong accent) or if she confused it. In any case, she fitted me in and I’m fine for the next six to eight months. 

My usual dentist, the one who did my expensive crown, has a wonderfully run operation, so she only does exams and actual dental work. She delegates the routine cleanings. My dentist for this year does the cleanings herself in this stunning office on the eleventh floor of SF’s premier medical building -- the one I can see out my kitchen window. None of this makes any sense to me.

Something else that perhaps does make sense to me, is that neither this dentist nor my usual hygienists have much praise for my teeth and gums. Over the years I have improved and improved my dental self-care until my gums and teeth are as problem free as one could wish -- though this dentist did mention I could do something about my tea related yellowing. Fine. I’m adding that to my list. But that’s neither here nor there when it comes to the health of my mouth, or the profits of the dentists. I conclude that they are not actually that pleased to see that I’ve done everything that’s been suggested, so that professional intervention is not required. She didn’t even bring up the usual X-ray topic. Since I think trouble free teeth are not all that common, you would think a grudging, “congratulations, there’s really nothing much here for me to do” wouldn’t kill them. If they ever start giving me pamphlets on the alleged dangers of fluoride use, I will know what to think.

Dream

It’s a huge, multi-floor bookstore. But getting from floor to floor is nearly impossible because there are a variety of options but they are all like rides and take time or are physically challenging.

There are also holographic “characters” that are always roaming the aisles. Authors or characters from books. Animals too. And they can interact with each other -- not sure if you can ask them questions, probably not. I had dream deja vu with this place. But this time it occurred to me to wonder how creepy it must be for the staff when there are no customers, only holograms in the store.

Oddly, this dream started with me at a laundromat that had suddenly decided to not provide dryers anymore. There was a bit in between that I can’t even explain. And the transition to the bookstore is equally inexplicable.

The last time I was in Moe’s bookstore in Berkeley I did have a problem navigating their, not that big but multilevel store, because the floors are not as all accessible from one staircase, as you would expect.

The Bank Cafe 2.0

I learned today [actually some time ago now. I've been sitting on this.] that they are planning a major remodel of my Bank Cafe. The sidewalk outside is already boarded off. Apparently this will happen in sections with the Peet’s remaining open until almost the end, when that part of the space is transformed. According to my informant, behind the Peet’s counter, the mezzanine will be extended -- currently it is only about 30% the size of the ground floor. That will involve heavy steel structural work, so this isn’t just tarting up the decor.

I’m surprised the new bank is willing to invest so much in this odd idea of the previous ownership. These “third space” places are a swell idea but I can’t imagine how they make any economic sense. 

In the past week or two the bean bags -- which used to furnish the stadium seating area -- have disappeared. I assumed this was because “undesirables” were frequenting them, but perhaps it was just in anticipation of the coming construction. There is a semi-permanent indigent in residence here. She mostly just sits in the same spot near the door, with her bags, and looks into space. Occasionally, if I’m sitting close enough, I’m aware of her talking to herself, but mostly people don’t sit that close -- unless they have head colds or there’s nowhere else to sit. There is also full time security here now, which didn’t use to be the case.


Today's addition
I'm deep into blogging The Magic Mountain now, which requires room for book and computer and, if I'm at it long enough, access to an electrical outlet. All things I can find here at the Bank Cafe. 

That last sentence above "Today's addition" is interesting, the "didn't use/used to be" part. Normally I judge these questions by ear, the way I judge when "an" or "a" should preceded a vowel -- the rule is not always a good guide. "Used" sounds a shade better to me, in this case, but I looked it up and saw that "use" is preferred. If I hadn't already written this paragraph, I think I would have probably altered the sentence, before publishing, to "There is also full time security here now, which wasn't always the case."

I'm finding the dialectical nature of the juicy parts of TMM particularly hard to blog. I'm not trying to capture one set of ideas but two, or perhaps three. Our two professors are making their respective points but also trying to score off each other. They say things in the heat of argument that they might not entirely mean. And then I have to keep in mind what kind of game Mann is playing.

This is a wonderful review of Western thought on subjects of the ultimate importance, but Mann is also saying something about Europe in the first decade of the 20th century. But is he also saying something about Europe in the third decade of that century? At times I think he must be. How could you be writing this in Weimar Germany (and not Goethe's Weimar Germany) and not incorporate what you see happening around you? It's all more obvious in Doctor Faustus, when he was safely writing in Pacific Palisades.

Yesterday the official high temperature for SF was 84F. I don't recall the temperature exceeding 80 at any other time this summer, and tomorrow is the equinox. I'm still hoping for, counting on, an Indian Summer, but it looks like yesterday was our regular summer. And I didn't seize that day. I went to the gym in the morning and ran an errand in the afternoon. I was over dressed because I've given up listening to the weather forecasts since all we've gotten this summer has been sweater weather. I should have gone to the park. Or something. I will try to seize the next warm day. 

Planning is well under way for Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, coming up in about two weeks now. I'm all signed up for my usual shifts. I've floated a revolutionary new idea for getting all the heavy glass bottles off the fields -- don't really expect anything to come of it for this year, but wanted to get the process started. (Also, that part of our process takes place after i go home for the day, so this won't affect me directly.) 

My boss made the sound decision of passing on greening Fleet Week, which, once again, falls on the same weekend. That means the team we used for Fleet Week last year will cover the night operations while our regular crew will cover the days. If it weren't for the fact we've lost so many of our regular people, this could mean we might really get ahead of things during the event, leaving less to do after -- usually there's a crew sorting what's left over for several days after the end of the concert. But that isn't true of the trash from my area, which is almost all sorted by the time I leave. If we can manage to do the same everywhere, we could be finished at the end of the concert, as with most other events. 

That isn't entirely possible, because some trash will continue to be generated (or collected from the grounds) as the concert facilities are taken down. But that's minimal and manageable. I'm told it was much better on Monday last year than in previous years. It would be easier to build on that if we had the same people working the fields during the day.

Not sure what it says about me that HSB is the high point of my year -- and I don't mean the music. The most frustrating thing (so far) is that the two new acts I was excited to see were going to performing this year are both at stages in the most distant other meadow. I can't even recall the last time I was in Lindley Meadow. Usually the acts I like are at the stage in Marx Meadow -- and I could in theory slip over there to listen for a few minutes (would never actually happen) -- but Lindley is a decent hike. My only hope is that Chris Thile and/or Ani DiFranco will join someone else on the Banjo Stage. And that I will be where I can hear that stage at the time.

More likely I will be behind the food vendors struggling with the urge to kill them.

Speaking of an urge to kill... Last week, when I did my laundry, I noticed the dryer was making a loud, bad belt, sort of noise when it started up. No one reported this to me. I called and it was repaired just short of a week later, when I next needed the dryer. Then, the very next day, I noticed the ceiling light at the top of the stairs was out. Again, no one reported this and I only noticed because I was watering the poor plant on the 2nd floor. I could easily have gone a week or longer without noticing that light was out. How hard is it to leave a note on my door?

I briefly considered replacing that ceiling fixture with an LED alternative (why does "an" sound better there?), since it is actually above the stairs and the hardest fixture to get to. And according to my notes, the fixture is thirteen years old. But replacing the fixture is a two person job -- me to do the work and someone else to record my last words if I fall off the ladder and down the stairs -- and my local (and otherwise well stocked) hardware store still doesn't carry that kind of fixture. I would have had to order it online. 

Okay, this is why writing (rambling aimlessly) is actually useful. It occurs to me as I type this, that while a fixture with an LED "lamp" that can't be replaced, as is the norm in the kind of fixtures I have in mind, will last longer than the florescent ring tube in our current fixture, the fixture itself will not last nearly as long. An LED fixture might last thirteen years -- depending on the number of hours per day it is on -- but our current fixture will probably last much longer. And replacing the tube is not really that hard -- compared with replacing the fixture. I just saved myself a nasty piece of work.

This just in: My boss took the Fleet Week gig, too. So it's going to be the usual shit-show.

Gumps

There must be a name for this, but I don’t know what it is, and maybe I don’t want to hear it. I’ve never purchased anything at Gumps or Shrieve & Company or Britex Fabrics, I’ve never even browsed the jewelry store, but these are some of the few remaining grand San Francisco retail names and I was pleased to see them all clustered, as of this year I believe, at the same end of this block of Post Street as the Bank Cafe. But now Gumps has announced bankruptcy and is having an “everything must go” sale. It’s not even like I’m going to score a bargain at the sale -- there’s nothing there I need or want (or have room for). 

This means another grand old SF name is gone and it will be another vacancy on the block, just when it was close to being fully occupied. “Sad,” as the Orange abomination would say. What I will miss most is the wonderful fragrance that has always blown out their front doors. Not sure if it was something they added to the HVAC or simple the scent of various very expensive things, but it has been something I’ve looked forward to for years now on our increasingly malodorous streets. I do think about it every time Murasaki writes about how great Genji smells. 

272. Still trying to become a better person

Before I resume A History of Europe...

Why I "green"

Of the many reasons I "green," the most difficult for me is the one I learned (again) this past weekend. The main reasons are that it's "good" work, in the Buddhist sense, and it both gets me out of the house to events I would otherwise never see, and it keeps me in good physical shape. These are the reasons that easily come to mind. But the other reason is just as important, if more difficult for me to remember.

I have a list of things I need to have with me when I leave the house for a greening gig. At the top of that list I've written in the largest letters, "CHILL." What I have in mind here are the annoying recycling scavengers and the annoying food vendors, two groups that make our work harder than it has to be. But there's yet another group that I need to chill about, and here's an example from this past weekend at Cinco de Mayo.

This one, dip-shit, event attendee decided the place to eat his lunch was sitting right next to one of our eco-stations with the pizza box holding his food actually resting across two of the eco-station box containers (landfill and compost). Not only was his pizza box blocking me from cleaning out the station, but the chair he was sitting on all but blocked me from approaching the eco-station. To get past him, I had to lift the almost full compost bag I was carrying over him and his pizza. He took exception to this. And he was right, I was being an ass-hole. 

This is a prime example of a situation where I should just chill. It isn't that important and, as satisfying as it was, my actions were unprofessional. Fuck-wittery will always exist and reacting to it doesn't help. I can blame the fact I was running late for my lunch break, but regardless, this is something I need to work on. 

Otherwise, the event went smoothly. My favorite crew chief was working the event so, at the end, I felt fine taking over my end of the street and directing the others in closing down our stations. With anyone else I would have needed to clear it with them, but J___ and I are always on the same page with things like this. I had the busier half of the event, yet we wrapped up first and then helped the others shut down the other half. And thus more recycling and compost was diverted.

Tomorrow, back to Pirenne... I'm almost sure.

P.S.

I'm still procrastinating, not sure why. Anyway, last night I had another dream that featured one of my parents -- not my mother, which would have been appropriate since tomorrow is Mother's Day. There's certainly nothing surprising about frequently dreaming about your parents, but what is a little uncanny is when you wake up, or semi-wake up, and remember -- have to reestablish in your mind -- that they are actually dead. I'm sure this is devastating for parents who have lost their children. 

There is a period of time, in these situations, when your mental assertions do not seem particularly convincing, given the evidence of the dream you are still coming out of. You think, could I be wrong about this? Which is the dream? 

I remain grateful that in my dreams my parents are always the people they were, not what they had been reduced to at the time they died. Dostoevsky, in The Brothers K, insists that people become most themselves as they approach death. I have yet to witness this. But even if that actually happened, would you want to remember people in your dreams the way you had known them all your life, or the way they had been for a brief time just before death? 


And here are some random photographs. First the Salesforce Tower. Not sure if they are entirely finished inside, but this is the way the exterior is going to look,

Then something I've noticed in the past but never had my camera with me to capture. See if you can figure out what this is,

Below should be easier to make out,

And below here it should be even more obvious,

Someone really did a good job removing every last bit of paper from the fliers and other items stapled to this post.

233. Formation of Cities

Link to Table of Contents

Pirenne continued 

A History of Europe by Henri Pirenne
University Books, first published 1938 but written during the Great War

It is hardly surprising that I keep going back and forth between Pirenne and Braudel, as Pirenne influenced the Annales School of social history. According to Wiki, Pirenne's ideas about the linked rise of the Bourgeoisie and of cities, has survived best when it comes to his academic reputation today. 

What I think is interesting is that I remembered Pirenne more than Braudel. (At least I think this is true. I still haven't found other parts of what I remember about the markets, so it may have been a mix of the two authors.) I suspect one reason for my preference for Pirenne is that his books are based on his lectures. They are a literary version of an oral tradition. No one would sit through a lecture of Capitalism and Material Life. Even I would consider that cruel and unusual punishment. 

I'm going to continue and read a chapter or two about cities, but I may try to get my hands on a copy of Pirenne's Medieval Cities. The final chapters of this book are about the Renaissance and Reformation, extending into the middle of the 16th century. That may be worth a quick re-read.

I thought I could just skim the chapter on cities... wrong.

The Formation of the Cities
I. The Episcopal "Cities" and Fortresses
p215 A society in which the population lives by the soil which it exploits, and whose produce it consumes on the spot, cannot give rise to important agglomerations of human beings; each inhabitant being tied, by the necessities of life, to the soil which he cultivates. Commerce, on the other hand, necessarily involves the formation of centres in which it obtains its supplies and from which it sends them forth into the outer world. The natural result of importation and exportation is the formation in the social body of what might be called nodes of transit. In Western Europe, in the 10th and 11th centuries, their appearance was contemporaneous with the renewal of urban life.

...almost invariably these sites were already inhabited when the afflux of merchants restored them to renewed activity. Some -- and this was the case in Italy, Spain, and Gaul [within the old Roman Empire] -- were already occupied by an episcopal "city"; others -- for example in the Low Countries and... [outside the borders of the Roman Empire] were already the site of a bourg -- that is a fortress... But neither the "cities" nor the bourgs presented the faintest trace of urban life... they contained nothing that resembled a bourgeoisie...

p216 It was in the "cities" of Northern Italy and Provence... and in the bourgs of the Flemish region, that the first merchant colonies were established... in the 10th century... ...in the 11th century... in the "city" as in the bourg, the merchant colony was beginning to play the leading part. The immigrants dominated the old inhabitants just as the commercial life of the place dominated the old agricultural life, and the opposition of these two interests gave rise to conflicts and necessitated expedients by force of which... a new order of things was elaborated.

p217 If we are to understand this phenomenon of the formation of the middle classes, a development so pregnant with consequences, we must try to realize clearly the full extent of the contrast which existed... between the old population and the new. The old population, consisting of clergy, knights, and serfs, lived by the soil, the lower class working for the upper classes, who, from the economic point of view, were consumers who produced nothing...

In this tiny, changeless world the arrival of the merchants suddenly disarranged all the habits of life, and produced, in every domain, a veritable revolution. To tell the truth, they were intruders, and the traditional order could find no place for them. In the midst of these people who lived by the soil, and whose families were maintained by labors which were always the same, and revenues that did not vary, they seemed in some way scandalous, being as they were without roots in the soil, and because of the strange and restless nature of their way of life. With them came not only the spirit of gain and of enterprise, but also the free laborer, the man of independent trade, detached alike from the soil and from the authority of the seigneur: and above all, the circulation of money.

p218 It was not only the work of the merchant that was free: by a no less astonishing innovation, his person also was free. But what could anyone really know concerning the legal status of these newcomers, whom no one had ever seen before? Very probably the majority of them were the children of serfs, but no one knew this for certain, and as their condition of servage could not be presumed, they had of necessity to be treated as free men. It was a curious result of their social condition that these forebears of the future bourgeoisie did not have to demand their liberty. It came to them quite naturally; it existed as a fact even before it was recognized as a right.

This passivity of the Medieval Establishment is a little surprising. And returning for a moment to Pirenne's assumptions about origin of these Free Men, wouldn't it make at least as much sense to think that some at least of them were the superfluous sons of the gentry? Wouldn't that better explain why the Establishment let them be? But then they didn't just let them be, they sold or rented accommodations in these proto-cities where transactions like this must have been an unusual thing. Yes, they had ready cash, but in the kind of stable and conservative local economy Pirenne has described, housing these "new men" would require some local initiative (enterprise) or a profound need for cash.

All this would make more sense if these "new men" were, at least assumed to be, the sons (if only the natural sons) of the gentry. This would not have upset the proprieties of the day. And who did own the land the cities grew onto?

To these characteristics of the merchant colony... another must be added: the rapidity of its growth. It presently exercised, upon the surrounding region, an attraction compatible to that which the modern factory exercises over the rural population. By the lure of gain, it awakened the spirit of enterprise and adventure that lay dormant in the hearts of the domainal serfs, and it attracted fresh recruits from all directions... the merchant colony... provided employment for a host of workers -- boatmen, carters, lumpers, etc. At the same time artisans of every kind came to settle in the town. Some of them -- bakers, brewers, shoemakers -- found an assured livelihood there, thanks to the constant increase of the population. Others worked up the raw materials imported by the merchants, and the wares which they produced swelled the export trade. In this way industry took its place beside commerce. By the end of the 11th century, in Flanders, the weavers of woolen stuffs were beginning to flock from the country into the towns, and the Flemish cloth trade, being thus centralized under the direction of the merchants, became what it was to remain until the end of the Middle Ages, the most flourishing industry in Europe.

...neither the ancient "cities" nor the ancient bourgs could contain within the narrow circumference of their walls the increasing influx of these newcomers. They were forced to settle outside the gates... Like the original "city" or bourg, the new town was itself a fortress: it was called "nouveau-bourg" or "faubourg" -- that is to say, outer fortress, for which reason its inhabitants were known, from the beginning of the 11th century, by the name bourgeois. The bourgeoisie underwent the same development as the nobility in this medieval society, which enjoyed, thanks to the abstention of the State, [?] the advantage of complete plasticity. Before long its social function had transformed it into a juridical class. It is obvious that the law and administrative measures then in force, which had come into existence in the heart of a purely agricultural society, could no longer suffice for the needs of a merchant population. The formalistic apparatus of legal procedure, with its primitive means of proof, bailment, and seizure, had to give way to simpler and more expeditious rules. The judicial duel [Blogger won't let me make a link today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_by_combat], that ultima ratio of the litigants, appeared to the merchants the very negation of justice. To ensure the maintenance of order in their faubourg, which was swarming with adventurers and jailbirds of every kind, such as had hitherto been unknown in the tranquil environment of the ancient Bourg or "city," they demanded that the ancient system of fines and compositions should be replaced by punishments capable of inspiring a salutary terror: hanging, mutilation of every kind, [I wonder if Foucault wrote about this?] and the putting out of the eyes. They protested against the prestations in kind ["feudal law : a rent, tax, or due paid in kind or in services"] which the collectors of tolls demanded before they would pass the merchandise that the merchants were exporting or importing. If it happened that one of their number was recognized as a serf, they would not suffer his seigneur to reclaim him. As for their children, whose mothers were necessarily almost always of servile condition, they refused to admit that such offspring should be regarded as servile. Thus the encounter of these new men with the ancient society resulted in all sorts of clashes and conflicts, due to the opposition of the domainal law and the commercial law, of exchange in kind and exchange for monetary payment, of servitude and liberty.

p220 Naturally, the social authorities did not accept the claims of the nascent bourgeoisie without resistance. As always, they endeavored first of all to conserve the established order of things: this is to say, to impose it upon these merchants, although it was in absolute opposition to their condition of life: and as always, their conduct was inspired as much by good faith as by personal interest. It is evident that it took the princes a long time to understand the necessity of modifying, for the merchant population, the authoritarian and patriarchial regime which they had hitherto applied to their serfs. The ecclesiastical princes especially displayed, in the beginning, a very marked hostility. To them it seemed that commerce endangered the salvation of the soul, and they regarded with mistrust, as a criminal derogation from obedience, all these innovations whose contagion was spreading from day to day. Their resistance inevitably led to revolts. In Italy and the Low Countries, and on the banks of the Rhine, the War of Investitures provided the bourgeois with an occasion or a pretext for rebellion against their bishops; here in the name of the Pope, and there in that of the Emperor. The first commune of which history makes mention, that of Cambrai, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrai] in 1077, was sworn by the people, led by the merchants, against the Imperialist prelate of the city. 

We just this week marked the historic Battle of Cambrai during the Great War. The first coordinated experiment in armored warfare by the British Army -- and successfully countered by the German Army.

Dreams

This morning (last night) our landfill and recycling were picked up. This means that I was sleeping "on alert." I woke at 5:15 with the first noises out on Powell and went out to investigate. I awoke again around 5:30 when our usual scavenger was going through the toters in our alley. I woke again at 6:00 to haul up our recycling toter and to clean up most of the mess the scavenger made of my neighbor's trash. And I woke around 7:00 when the trash was collected, and then hauled our toters back down into the laundry room. 

All this to say that my sleep -- and dreams -- were often interrupted which caused me to recall them more than normal. The first dream I remember I was driving by a cluster of four small houses I had seen articles or videos about. They were at the end of a long road on the edge of the ocean. I was surprised, cruising by, to see actual people lounging about in the two that were most open to view. I was both pleased to see that people were actually enjoying these curious houses -- they seemed to be either reading or napping or just lounging about like dogs -- but also afraid I was being intrusive, so I headed back the way I must have come. A couple hundred yards down the road, however, I came to the point where the road cascaded down from the ridge above. There was the merest hint of a road. Or half a road as most of the roadway had eroded away. Since there were no other cars down there, I concluded that it was somehow possible to defy the laws of physics and race up the impossible road. Unfortunately, again, my car was both under-powered and running poorly. I was trying to get in position to try to get up the slope when I segued into the next dream. 

I awoke from that dream walking down a street in what I recognized as the Mission district here in SF, though I saw nothing to give me a specific street or block. I think I was carrying laundry. I didn't think I had blacked out because I remembered the dream so clearly (do people with multiple personalities dream when they aren't in control? I think not.) I was concerned that I had been sleep walking to this random point in the city. As I walked along trying to get oriented, a crazy person cruised by making me feel vulnerable since my hands were full. In response (?) I tried to pull the car I was now in (same under-powered beast) out across and into traffic. Since in my dreams my brakes and transmission never work properly, I ended up rolling helplessly into an oncoming car.

Next scene, I am on a gurney in a hospital
(?) corridor. I seem to be paralyzed. The hospital person is saying, "There's one more thing we can try" when that dream ends.

The next scene, and I'm pretty sure this was after one of the interruptions listed above, I am a passenger in a car driven by my father. I don't know what we are talking about, but, when we come to a cross street, the driver appears not to notice the car ahead of us and just plows into it full speed. I am unhurt. There was a whole other, confused, section after the second accident, and that I have lost. Which is too bad as there was something in there that I found interesting. I assumed since I was remembering all this earlier stuff, I would retain the end as well. Wrong.

All four settings were completely different. In two I was by myself. In two I was with a number of other people. None of it was particularly disturbing in the context of the dream.

I don't understand why I couldn't have dreamed that I was beating in the head of our annoying scavenger with a rock. That would seem to be both possible and a relatively healthy way to work out stress and aggravation. 

127. Time in dreams

Previous - 126. That problem of evil

Space & time in dreams

I had an interesting dream this morning that might be related to a new Crash Course series I'm watching on Myth. Or at least my writing about the dream is related to that. 

They started, exactly where I would have started, with Creation Stories. They're not finished with the topic -- they've only covered some stories from the Fertile Crescent and the Americas, nothing so far from South Asia or the Far East. These stories tend to start with chaos or water or, in one case mud, and then a god shows up to convert the chaos into Earth. The Greek versions are a bit more metaphysical but in general these myths exist not so much to explain "existence" as the place where they lived. And this includes the Genesis story. Since this sense of "creation" is rather more limited than what I'm interested in, I guess we have to go easy on them for not explaining where the gods came from, or the seas or mud or chaos.

I was impressed that they ended the episode with The Big Bang story. In many ways this secular creation myth is very similar, and not any more satisfying from a metaphysical perspective, than the other stories. How that plasma suddenly came to be is as much of a mystery as what the Jewish god was doing before "Creation."

Anyway, my dream. I was listening to the radio news until the radio shut off less than 10 minutes after the hour (I have a new morning routine I'm still testing, with my radio coming on just in time for the better national news episode, and then shutting off, a bit after an hour, when I should get out of bed. Or that's the plan.) Less than ten minutes after that I woke up needing to pee -- my true morning alarm. So I know that the dream I had took less than 10 minutes in awake time. 

I was walking down the street shopping or window shopping, can't actually remember the details, but then ended up going into a cafe for a meal and sitting at a counter. I was sitting at the corner with a prissy little man to my right facing perpendicular to me. As I was finishing up my meal -- again I don't recall much of the meal itself -- a large man carrying a burger on a plate and a glass of beer sat to my left. As he was sitting down, a waiter came up behind him with another glass of beer and I thought that doesn't look promising, and was glad that I was about to leave. Oddly, the waiter leaned over me to give the beer to the guy on my right. I don't recall paying, but as I was about to leave I decided I should use the bathroom (I did need to pee) and walked to the back of the cafe just in time to see someone enter the only restroom. I stood awkwardly near a couple of busy tables waiting my turn. As I waited, the rear door would occasionally open for a minute and I could see out into the hotel -- the cafe was in a hotel, it seems -- and I had a perfect view up the hotel's grand staircase, which doesn't make much sense if you try to draw a floor-plan. I glimpsed a handsome and well-dressed woman, flanked by two exemplary children, approach and then ascend the stairs. I recall being impressed by her perfect form in quite high heels.

I then got access to the bathroom but don't recall actually using it (possibly a good thing) and then I walked through the cafe again and was about to exit through the front door onto the street when I realized I didn't have my backpack (I almost always carry one) and I couldn't recall if I had it when I came in or not. I walked over to the counter and the entire area had been cleared, but there was a black bag on the floor under the counter. I picked it up, but it clearly wasn't mine. I then noticed that it was only one of about four black bags, some quite large, all sitting where the prissy little man had been. I wondered if he could have walked away without them (they blended in very well) and I wondered if someone had noticed my backpack, so I stood where he had been sitting waiting for a waiter to come by. Instead the prissy little man, irate looking, came walking toward me -- but behind the counter? -- obviously thinking I was messing with his stuff. I ignored this and asked if anyone had noticed my backpack... no one had, so I left. And that's when I woke up.

In our dreams we create space and time. We then build a set for our stage and populate that set with a cast of characters playing elaborate roles. We create small or grand plays and we do it not in "real" time but outside time or possibly in the interstices of time. In any case it happens faster than anyone could describe it.

If we are indeed gods as we sleep, is it any wonder so many people can't help prolonging and augmenting that state with opiates and the like? (At least that's my understanding of what taking opiates is like, and also the reason I've been so determined to avoid them. Not out of strength but from acknowledged weakness.) 

Next - 128. Well, Everything Is Well

56. Fleet Week + Dreaming

Previous - 55. Medium

A brief vacation (film reference)

Yesterday with the Blue Angels roaring above me, it occurred to me that this could well be the last greening event of this season, and that I should try to get out of town. Some people would go to their house in the country, but I'm not "some people." I'm at the Barnes & Noble in Emeryville. 

This area is a step above Generica, but only a step. The quick bus ride over the Bay Bridge is always fun -- my chance to see how the demolition of the old Bay Bridge is going. (Slowly.) I picked the best three architecture and design mags off the rack, but the selection here isn't as good as it was at Borders, so it's more design and decorating. But first I need to catch up on the weekend.

Fleet Week

Saturday was hot. We only had a half dozen or so hot days this summer, and that was one of them. I was roving the fenced in and tented VIP areas (less shade than you would think) but returned to our dumpster base for bags and to drop off hazardous waste -- half full Sterno cans, and lots of them. And to refill my water. On one visit I noticed that two people were there sorting in the sun when we had a tent for shade sitting in it's bag. I quickly sold them on the idea of setting up the tent, and then finished my water break in the shade. This passes for the wisdom of age in these pathetic days.

Sunday the weather was already starting to change. When I arrived there were wisps of fog flowing through the Golden Gate, and at the end of the day there was a wall of fog. Still warm enough at mid-day, though. Today it was actually cold in the morning and we are expecting our first real rain since April by the end of the week. I can't wait.

People here either love or hate Fleet Week -- and by "Fleet Week" what most people mean is the Blue Angels' air show. I've always enjoyed the show but now that I've worked in the area with the best view for several years, I don't even watch that much of it. A large part of that is that I'm busy working. The Angels are the final act in an hours long show and that's our cue to get things wrapped up and ready for when the crowd starts to leave. 

The other reason I don't watch that much is that planes zooming about get's dull after so many viewings. I paid more attention to the F-22 demonstration because a plane with vectored thrust can do all sorts of new and unusual things. In a way, the low pass by the United Airlines 747 (an event sponsor) was as impressive as anything else. The perfect combination of Big and Loud.

Dreaming

I set my alarm unusually early this morning but I was already awake when the alarm went off. I had just startled myself awake from a great dream. Dreams never cease to amaze me. What woke me up was wanting, in the dream, to email a friend about what a great art gallery I was visiting.

Except that it wasn't an art gallery but rather a long narrow room lined with all sorts of displays. There were books, there were various collections of things, there was what I can only describe as a framed gif, only it was upside down. But what I especially liked were these framed, sculptural things each painted in one color. Often the art in my dreams is more detailed and convoluted than I can imagine creating myself, but these pieces were quite simple, like a half dozen pieces of wood lined up and placed in the frame and then all of that painted a medium green -- far from the color I would choose. And yet somehow it was totally compelling. I even backed up in my progression around the room for a second look.

Now, if you are imagining this at all, you've got it wrong. For one thing, all this was just inches above the floor, not centered on the wall. And I was somehow moving (gliding) along the floor taking all this in. It was like I was lying on a wheeled stool and pushing it along with my feet and hands, though no actual stool was visible in the dream. So that childhood fascination with being close to the ground was probably part of the appeal. 

I suppose if you are David Lynch and you have a really interesting dream, you make a movie out of it; but for the rest of us the frustration of great dreams is knowing that you can't return to them. At least I never have been able to.

Baseball

I would love for my SF Giants' to win another World Series, but at dinner today I became aware that it's possible to have a World Series with the Boston Red Sox facing the Chicago Cubs and that would be really cool to see. I don't have any particular attachment to either team, to be honest, but they play in the oldest, most famous stadiums in baseball. If the Giants have to lose I would hope it would be in the interest of such a historical match-up. Time will tell. 

Next - 57. Why?

4. tl; dr

Previous - 3. Change

Dream

I don't usually feel old. But I just woke up from a dream that makes me feel really old.

In the dream I was riding around in a car with a bunch of people (after a storm?) and idly writing computer programs (?!). At the very end I was getting kind of excited about rediscovering clever things you could do in the second language I learned -- which was natural language so you could guess the syntax, for the most part. Just as I was waking up I thought, "Wait. I can use copies of the technical books I wrote about that language to remind myself of exactly what you can do."

But then I realized HyperCard wouldn't run on any of my current machines... then I remembered the Mac from the late '90s I have in storage, but that's doubtful, too. And I don't have a monitor for that machine (not really sure about this). I have one of the early Mac laptops from the early '90s, but the hard drive died on that machine years ago. I was regretting (again) not saving my original Mac, but even if I had, that wouldn't help unless I also had a hard drive to go with it. This got me thinking about just how primitive that first wonderful Macintosh computer really was and about Bill Atkinson -- one of the original Mac team who was also one of the co-creators of HyperCard. (See also HERE ) I met Atkinson and his wife, Sioux, at a Mac software event (at Cañada College) in (probably) 1987-8. He was really interesting to talk to and I had an immediate crush on her. I always hoped I'd run into them again but never did.

Then I remembered that she died recently.  Someone I only remember as a young woman from 30 years ago.

Music, old

In today's paper there was a column by a writer who is probably around my age (I'm guessing) about not knowing -- or putting on his iPod -- any music since 1980. I'm guessing he was exaggerating (writers do that) but this is something that bugs the hell out of me. I mean people my age who don't know more recent music. I've even written about this before in my other blogs.

But tonight I clicked on one of those playlists YouTube assembles for you based on things you've listened to in the past, and I couldn't help noticing that much of the music collected there was in fact old -- but covered, either by Glee or Sid & Susie. (Not sure where the Aurora songs came from, but I'm sure YouTube had its reasons.) Why is it better (in my eyes) when old music is covered than when you simply hear the original 40 or 50 year old versions? (There's another factor that I won't go into that could also explain this, having to do with something Glee -- or Santana -- and Sid & Susie -- well, Susie -- have in common, but that would be beneath me.) And this leads us to a discussion of...

Covers

Covers are recordings of previously recorded music. "Cover Girl" by Shawn Colvin is a wonderful example of covers and the three "Under the Covers" albums by Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs are my favorite examples of covers, though Glee takes the cake (odd term). 

Here's something I think a lot about but don't know what to think about: Are close covers (this is my terminology for covers that are very close to the original -- Naya Rivera excels at close covers) better than covers that emphasis the vocal characteristics of the cover-er -- Susanna Hoffs is the queen of this, in my biased view. Naya's version (or parts) of "We Found Love in a Hopeless Place" by Rihanna and Susanna's "Who Knows Where the Time Goes" are good examples of what I mean.

Next - Transbay Transit Center