The envelope formerly known as the envelope

I was watching a morning news show last week with an interview with Prince, or whatever his name his now. You know, Prince. I'm assuming they asked him about the Janet Jackson thing at the Super Bowl and the conversation edged into artists "pushing the envelope." They were speaking specifically about sexuality on stage or in videos, something Prince used to be known for. As he was speaking they would show some short clips of videos from today's hit songs. This is when he was asked, "what would be pushing the envelope today?" He said, "today not pushing the envelope would be pushing the envelope." Wow. I guess I should be making videos. I could do that. That got me thinking about my new guitar amplifier. It has twelve digital "signatures" built in. They digitally mimic the "envelope pushing" sounds of the rock guitar. The distortion, phase-shifter, flange etc., they all started with artists pushing their equipment to places it wasn't meant to be. And now, it's just a click away. So, in art, mimicking the pushing of the envelope isn't the same as actually pushing the envelope. I think Prince was right.

Popular posts from this blog

A warm spring night

Back on the veranda, I sit. Contemplating a June without Science Camp. That's right, Science Camp will be officially called off tomorrow due to lack of attendees. In retrospect, I should have seen it coming. The first few years, we were blessed by two significant factors. One was
Read more

You see, it's like this...

My sister asked me after a recent blog entry, "What's up with you Christians and Evolution anyway? What, God can't do Evolution if he wants to?" (I paraphrased) I don't know. I have talked to all kinds of Christians about this and there are many, many different viewpoints. I'd have to say that most folks that I know are not "bothered" by evolution. That means they don't think about it much or it doesn't collide with their faith or something along those lines. However, I do tend to hang with a few fundamentalists here and there and run across my fair share of Darwin as the Devil stuff. As I stated in an earlier blog entry, I think that I've been prepared to talk to people about this subject. So many times I don't actually offer an opinion of my own. During a discussion one night, a friend was becoming agitated at my line of reasoning and Annette jumped in to say, "He's just playing devil's advocate." The friend respon
Read more

I don't want to jinx it but...

Image
If you're going to pitch to Albert Pujols and if he's going to pop up, then you'd better catch it. I don't know why you'd pitch to Albert Pujols but... The past two years I've expected the Cardinals to win and, well, you know... So, I figure this year no one expects they can win; so, you never know.
Read more