scott d. feldstein

Are there certain activities that define what it is to be a human being? I think there are. It’s not even necessarily that we are the only species on earth to do these things–although I suspect that’s often the case–but rather that we’re the best at it and that the activity itself shapes us into what we are.

Farming and animal husbandry. These are obvious. Lots of creatures on earth acquire food in other ways. But we do these like a house on fire. It’s who we are.

Tool-making. Ditto. Chimpanzees using twigs to gather termites notwithstanding, no other species living on the earth today even comes close to our abilities in this area. There’s just no comparison.

Speech. Again, pretty obvious. We speak to each other with a range of meaning and a depth of nuance that no other creature on earth even comes close to. We chatter away to one another all our waking hours and we even talk to ourselves. Related: writing.

Thinking. Thinking about other times and places; what others know and how they feel; and about our own mortality. Other species have some cognitive abilities, of course, but even a toddler could out-think them.

Here’s one that’s obvious only after you think about it: music. Is there another species which uses sound purely as a form of art? I don’t think so. In any case the sheer scope and variety of our musical endeavors is just not found in any other species.

All other visual arts. Dance, drawing, sculpting and everything related. Even photography, filmmaking, fashion and architecture are in this category. The dancing and nest-building behaviors of other creatures simply cannot compare.

Cooking. Seriously. Rudimentary and instinctual food preparation is not entirely unknown in other species, but we take the cake–after baking and decorating it.

There’s lots of things we share with other animals. That should be no surprise, as we’re a part of the naturally evolving life on this planet, not separate from it. Many species learn, adapt, care for their young, build homes, communicate with one another and have social hierarchies. But there are things that we do far better or far more prolifically than any of the other creatures on the earth.

Here’s a further deep thought. Do you suppose one could predict human happiness and well-being based solely on that individual’s participation in the above activities? Do you think someone could be truly unhappy if she habitually farmed, sang, wrote, painted, spoke and engaged in reflective thought?

Maybe they’re not just the things we do. Maybe they’re things we must do.

And I like you a lot.

Notice the low value on the Blend knob. Also the relationship between the Treble and Presence knobs. Level is set at unity gain. Drive is set to give some noticeable, warm OD. But I think the low blend knob prevents farty, blown speaker type sounds on low notes while still giving at buzzy, tubey warmth to notes in higher registers. It even sounds good with some slap. I think I may have cracked it.

What scares you? I mean really gets your heart pounding. Horror movies? Looking down from a great height? Flying? Guns? Disease? Death?

I’ll tell you what freezes my blood. Car accidents. I guess I just have a really good imagination. I find it easy to understand the great forces involved. How occupants get shaken like rag dolls. The shearing effect on your brain. How easily one can get seriously injured or killed. Cars at high speed frighten me. It’s the reason why I drive so carefully and–it has to be admitted–slowly. I’ve never gotten a single speeding ticket in all my life. It’s true. Not one. Nor have I ever been cited for any moving violation. Now you know why.

Pretty reasonable as far as fears go, right? The likelihood that we’re going to be in a serious auto accent are far greater than the likelihood that we’ll be the victim of terrorism, shot by a mugger or abducted by a serial killer. But that’s not all.

Flammable liquids scare me as well. Few things make my hair stand on end like the gas can in your garage. I guess you could add flammable gasses, too, because gas ovens, fireplaces and the propane tank on your grill scare me too.

Other things scare me a little. Scary movies can make me jump. Seeing large amounts of blood will set my pulse racing. But these are the things that my brain really zeroes in on. Just try to keep my attention while I’m lighting a gas grill, filling the tank on a lawnmower or merging into traffic on the interstate. Ain’t gonna happen.

Remember when I bought some excellent $65 headphones? I’m still loving them. They compared quite favorably to $90 studio monitor headphones. But how do they compare with even less expensive over-the-ear headphones? I avoided overpaying for the $90 set, but could I have gone even cheaper?

To find out, I compared my Sony MDR-V6′s to some inexpensive–but very well reviewed–Sennheiser HD201′s.

The verdict? The Sennheisers did sound great. I recommend them for people on a budget. But I can easily tell the difference between them and my Sonys. The Sennheisers have a decent bump in the bass response, but the clarity of the mids and the crispness of the highs make my Sony’s really shine in comparison. Even wannabe audiophiles will appreciate the difference.

Summary. If you want excellent, flat-response headphones get the Sony MDR-V6 set. If you’re on a budget and still want good over-the-ear headphones, try the Sennheiser HD201 set. I see no reason to pay top dollar for the Sony MDR-7506 model, however.

Since getting back into music six months ago, I’ve played with several different ensembles–basically anyone who would invite me to a rehearsal. So far, the only constant of my adventures has been my good friend, songsmith and guitarist, Adam Wrass. I have now, however, found another home for my musical pursuits: Endless Blue.

It’s an exciting project to be part of. It can be a viscerally rewarding thing to make honest, rootsy rock music with nothing but attitude, poetry, tube amps and wooden drumsticks. But it can be another thing entirely to engineer a piece of aural shock and awe using modern studio magic. Endless Blue is the latter.

“Trip-hop” may or may not be a familiar genre to you, but I think everyone can appreciate the artistry of both the performances and the post-production wizardry that goes into producing pieces like this and this.

(Pro tip: if you have good headphones, now’s the time. This soup’s so chunky you could eat it with a fork–but use a spoon to get every drop. Seriously.)

Here’s their 2011 EP, Unfriend, on iTunes. Check the previews. My current favorite is “Losing Me.” See what you think.

EB isn’t a gig-every-weekend type band. They record, they publish–and they do a small number of live gigs every year. I’ll let you know, obviously, when the next one is on the horizon.

My musical life is taking off just as I hoped it would. I can’t wait to share more recordings and gigs with you as time goes on.

One night back in the early 80s I was wandering the Summerfest grounds and found myself walking up to a stage where R.E.M. was playing. Free. Like on the 93-QFM Rock Stage. Maybe they were touring to support Murmur, Reckoning or Fables of the Reconstruction, I’m not sure. I barely knew who they were at the time, but I think about it now and marvel: I saw them before they became huge. And boy did they ever.

I covered one or two of their songs in various bands over the years, but I’ve never been a huge fan of R.E.M. Still somehow or another I find myself in possession of two of their albums: Green and Automatic For The People. Green especially is a fantastic album. I can put it on and sit mesmerized for 40 minutes, never skipping a track. Fantastic stuff.

Anyway, they just recently called it quits after 31 years. Can’t say I blame them. That’s a long time to do anything, even something you love. And they did leave us all with an amazing body of work to appreciate.

Medicare. What is it? Is it not government health insurance for senior citizens? Because last time I checked, that’s what it is. That’s kind of it’s definition. Government health insurance for senior citizens.

When someone offers a plan to eliminate government health insurance for senior citizens, they are truly proposing to end Medicare.

See how that works? Pretty simple. Furthermore, pointing this out is not a lie. It is the truth.

The fact that their proposal would have taken years to fully eliminate government health insurance for seniors, allowing some folks to be (no pun intended) grandfathered in, is irrelevant. The fact that the government would distribute vouchers for senior citizens to subsidize the purchase of private health insurance is irrelevant. The end result is that government health insurance for senior citizens would be eliminated. Ergo, Medicare would be eliminated. Ended. Killed. Curtains, kaput, finito.

You know I’m delving into the world of music again. I’m involved in a couple of different projects right now. Here’s a taste of one of these projects, a trip-hop group called Endless Blue.

My TV has speakers but they’re pretty awful, as you’d expect. Remedying that situation is proving a difficult proposition.

First, I simply refuse to spend hundreds of dollars on “entertainment center” speakers. I do not want their 5.1 surround sound, and their music-listening quality is often doubtful, given the size of the drivers. I tried a cheap set of such speakers, the JVCs I bought a while back, and they’re pretty thin sounding.

The other option is to try and use speakers designed for desktop computers. They can be had in 2.1 configurations (left, right and a sub) and are dirt cheap. Problem is most of them still don’t sound good enough and some of them are too muddy for watching television and movies. I think it’s the case that they weren’t designed for the output levels that a television provides.

Here’s what I’m thinking now: powered studio monitor speakers.

They have their own power, so even a headphone-out-level audio could still work. They’re undoubtedly good drivers and have fine frequency response. They don’t make you string audio cable all over your home. They don’t cost hundreds of dollars. And they aren’t inexplicably tied to another component such as a blu ray player. Seems perfect, right?

I’ll let you know when I get around to testing this theory. Lots of other things to spend money on right now, but I’m going to try this. Life is too short for crappy audio.