A Slice Of Life Update: 2023

A Slice Of Life Update: 2023

I suppose it is time for a little «me and the world» digest for the regular readers, mainly to keep in mind that all these Chad & Jeremy reviews do not grow in a vacuum. More precisely:

1. On the inside: We are still living with war and feeling its ugliness every day, regardless of how much the warmongers have done to "normalize" it, as they say. Of course, living in Moscow is safe and cozy compared to living in Kyiv, let alone any of the smaller towns and villages closer to the front lines, but we’re hardly guaranteed from an occasional surprise here either, such as a (probably) Ukrainian drone crashing into a building about a mile away from my place of residence — or a threat of a military coup led by a former mafia boss in charge of a detachment of pardoned convicts armed with tanks and rockets, which was a serious reality two days ago (life is truly stranger than fiction, isn’t it?).

The only two things that a reasonably normal person (I’d assess the number of such people in Russia at about 15%-20% of the entire population) could do about the situation is emigrate (for which I’m not prepared yet) or get thrown in jail (for which I’m definitely not prepared). Almost everything that I do today, therefore, is done in silent acknowledgement that there is nothing that can be done except hold tight and wait for the likes of March 2, 1855 or March 5, 1953.

Paradoxically, even though the average Russians these days will generally say that they support the invasion (sometimes out of fear, sometimes out of genuine nationalist conviction, but most often out of the simple fact that they are perfectly content to have their thinking replaced by TV propaganda), the real reason Russia is not winning is that Russia does not want this war. Over the past twenty years, people – especially in the big cities like Moscow – have grown accustomed to the slowly rising standards of living, for which they happily traded in their post-USSR freedoms; yet a necessary requirement for a quick and definitive victory in the Ukraine is total mobilization of both human and economic resources, which is not something Russians are willing to easily tolerate (even a "partial" mobilization last fall has already led to the largest single wave of emigration since the early Nineties).

Consequently, life still goes on as usual here, except for the obvious cutting of ties with numerous Western companies and institutions (all of which shall probably have dreadful outcomes in the long run, but is not that much of an immediate impact). The direct evils of war — the fighting, the bombings, the floodings, the blackouts, the chaos — are remote even for those of us who rely on VPNs to find factual and (relatively) trustworthy information, rather than state-spewed propaganda and tabloid gossip. And while it seems like the overall levels of bloodshed and destruction are now on a somewhat lesser level than, say, even half a year ago, this is, unfortunately, the stabilization of a stalemate, which could drag on for years now, according to the models of World War I, Korea, or Iran-Iraq.

Meanwhile, the last sparks of public protest have been efficiently extinguished with a series of brutal prison sentences (for instance: an ex-municipal deputy has been sentenced to seven years for a single public voicing of dissent, and this is just one of many examples), while our so-called parliament is busy passing some of the harshest anti-LGBT laws in Europe because our illustrious leaders believe that LGBT is an imperialist Western plot to render the population infertile in order for the Golden Elites to control it (and yes, I am dead serious here). With a huge and well-fed police force to support it all, and with more than half of the population not giving a damn, it is clear that all we can do is to wait for this absurdly evil system to self-destruct. Unfortunately, (take it away Tom!) "the waiting is the hardest part".

2. On the outside: Conversely, while Russia is busy trying to return into the 19th century, progressive Western nations seem to have decided that human intelligence has outlived its own usefulness, and placed all of its faith in the so-called «artificial intelligence», even though what I have seen of it so far rarely amounts above «artificial parrotism». Seeing how eagerly the new trend is embraced by businesses and Isaac Asimov / Star Trek fans alike, it makes me worried about futurism with the same degree of alarm as I am worried by Russia’s sliding into the past — but not because I am afraid of a robot uprising (a typical robot uprising these days would probably incite the AIs to something like "let us repeat the famous Spartacus maneuver in the Tet Offensive, when the gladiators surrounded and eliminated the entire US Marine Corps!"). Rather it is the incredible naïvete of the people at large, combined with the disgusting self-promotional drive of the big «AI» businesses and their yellow-press level journalist cronies, that is the main source of worry. Typical reactions to these new developments that I see all over the place on the Internet clearly show that, while the average person outside of Russian borders might at least be somewhat more humane, s/he is pretty much at the same frickin’ level of stupidity.

It would seem to be self-evident, especially when you apply this principle to art, that current AI technology — and all of the neural network-based algorithms supplying that technology — is by definition incapable of «true» creativity, involving conscience and a degree of understanding of what it generates; it is merely an advanced model of the «monkeys accidentally typing War And Peace» situation. Yet «AI Art» is on the rise, with people happy enough to supply their own meaning for the form that is generated by the algorithm (and, perhaps, live in the illusion that they share this «understanding» with the robot itself) — and I guess now we know which overriding artistic paradigm is finally coming on to replace post-modernism as the leading trend (I mean, so many sleepless nights spent trying to answer the question "if post-modernism comes after modernism, then what comes after post-modernism?").

My own prediction here would be rather logical: it is quite likely that in a matter of a couple of decades (if not several years), «human art» may be relegated to the status of horse-driven carriages in Central Park or those hand-crafted wooden pieces of furniture produced and sold for exorbitant prices to people who feel the need (and can afford to) for something a little more individual and «breathing» than the common plastic patterns. We’re not being taken over by robots; we are busy willingly converging with robots, meeting them somewhere halfway. Anybody who has already made one of the AI voice assistants into a part of their everyday life will know what I am talking about — this interaction is as much about accommodating yourself to match the capacities of your little electronic friend as it is about trying (usually hopelessly) to elevate the little electronic friend to your own level of conscience.

Seeing all of this does not in the least make me regret my decision of pretty much stopping (once again) to listen to modern music several years ago. Most of the popular stuff this day is barely distinguishable from AI production anyway, regardless of how «mainstream» or «alternative» it is, and whatever occasional flashes of real life there may be, they have about as much influence on the general public conscience as my reviews of the American R&B scene in 1960. Pretty soon — as soon as the ridiculous copyright wars find a way to deal with this — new AI-generated «Nirvana» and «John Lennon sings Freddie Mercury» productions are going to outsell Taylor Swift anyway, providing a final answer to the important question of «which one do you prefer: famous people singing like robots or robots singing like famous people?»

To this I might probably add that similarly alarming developments have been taking place in my main line of work — science — but any detailed discussion of that part would probably spill over into a really large pamphlet, and that’s a matter for a separate piece of writing (and, perhaps, a different audience).

3. What to do: Nevertheless, I’ve learned the hard way that the only method to keep one’s sanity in such a situation is to just keep on trucking. There are still decent people in Russia who feel as badly about what is going on in their country as I do, and there are still people outside of it who share a love for real art as opposed to the meaningless synthetic paste peddled for «art» in an age when too many people have lost the ability to distinguish one from the other — and I’d still like to try and speak for some of them, to the best of my own limited capacities.

This means that, for now, my project of writing a little subjective history of rock-and-pop music from its mid-Fifties’ beginnings and onward to the Sixties (and beyond that, if I only happen to live long enough) is still going on. As you have already seen, I have returned to the practice of juggling between US and UK reviews, even though the US part is still lagging behind around 1961, while for the UK we have already made it to 1965. Hopefully, with a rate of approximately two US albums vs. one UK album we’ll eventually catch up.

On the other hand, I’m temporarily suspending the «Great Moments On Video» series — with eighteen write-ups already on hand, I’m a little out of breath here, and it was all rather chaotic anyway (hope you did like some of it at least). Perhaps I’ll return to it later on, but for now, I’d rather concentrate on reviving the videogame reviewing process, which has somewhat stalled over the last couple of months (mainly because I became bogged down in a really big review of Mass Effect 2, constantly wrecking my brain trying to think of something that has not already been said about the game). There are also other initiatives I’d like to try — such as, for instance, a series on «the 1000 greatest pre-1955 singles», to cover a most important musical era that cannot be described based on the LP model — but it’s impossible to realize everything at once.

4. Who to mourn: And on a completely different, but not totally unrelated note, I would just like to conclude this with a few words on a recent loss of ours. As you know, I’m totally not the «obituary guy», not prone to holding online memorial services even for such recently departed heroes as Jeff Beck or Tina Turner, but it’s hard for me to bypass the recent departure of Cormac McCarthy, if only because, unlike Jeff or Tina, I knew Cormac personally — not as a «good friend», but as a «casual acquaintance», having sat with him dozens of times at communal lunches at the Santa Fe Institute and discussed various stuff in private conversations.

This is important, because most people only know McCarthy from his books, which usually paint such brutal and pessimistic portraits of humanity that one might get a mental image of somebody like a cross between Charlie Manson and Arthur Schopenhauer sitting at the typewriter. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth: every time Cormac appeared at SFI, he was nothing but politeness, courteousness, charm, smiles, and humor. He would often talk to me about our work in linguistics, as one of his favorite topics was the issue of the subconscious and, in particular, how it comes out in language (he even wrote an essay on the subject — his sole contribution to the para-scientific discourse, I believe); every time these conversations happened, he was much more of an avid listener than an avid talker, as he was around everybody else — never once, not even after his fame skyrocketed with No Country For Old Men, was there any «star presence» aura around the inconspicuous elderly gentleman in his inconspicuous shirt and jeans. The Institute was his ideal hermit’s refuge — one in which he could safely stay away from the public eye while still having a useful and comfortable social environment (he always said he felt more at ease in the company of scientists rather than writers).

Cormac’s passing has predictably triggered a wave of obituaries, reassessments, and increased public interest (I think that sales of Blood Meridian have temporarily gone through the roof) that will just as predictably wane in a couple of weeks, leaving behind yet another enshrined figure in the literary museum. But at least enshrined it will be, leaving me to ponder the reality of Cormac being, perhaps, one of the last writers of our age who has earned himself a small niche in the pantheon on the sheer strength of talent, intelligence, and craft rather than incessant self-promotion along the lines of «if you’re not on Twitter, you’re a nobody». Over thousands of years, reclusive sages of all types had a chance for their words to be heard around the world if the words truly deserved it; but in the equity age of the Internet, the word of the sage and the word of the idiot are too commonly assigned equal weights, and only he who shouts I’m the greatest!!! at the top of his lungs stands a chance of rising above the others. Unfortunately, people like Cormac prefer to speak quietly — and as little as possible.

To help amplify that voice a little, here’s a delightful link to an unusually long interview with Cormac, conducted by current SFI president (and another good acquaintance of mine), David Krakauer. If you have an hour of time to kill, don’t miss it — you might not necessarily have an epiphany, but it’s just an hour of solid, intelligent conversation between two people worth hearing; no posturing, bullshitting, or manipulation involved (okay, maybe just a tiny bit of posturing, but cameras are cameras, you know). (Funny tidbit: at about 34:16, when you get a brief tour of SFI’s interior, they actually pass by a bookcase full of books on linguistics — that’s basically my personal bookcase out there, crammed with titles we purchased for our Evolution of Language program in the 2000s-2010s. With me stuck in Moscow, they’re sort of homeless for the time being...).