February 5, 2016

James Taylor loves his echo chamber.



It's literally an echo chamber. "Echo chamber" is usually figurative. Here are some examples from the NYT archive which I've bunched up, without links:
Americans Attracted to ISIS Find an ‘Echo Chamber’ on Social Media... the bars, restaurants and other haunts of entrepreneurs can be an echo chamber... The Trouble With the Echo Chamber Online... “We’ve seen too many Republicans who live in the echo chamber of the mainstream media bubble,” Mr. Cruz said.... [Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia] confessed—not in so many words—to living in a conservative echo chamber... With his us vs. them invective and his refusal to denounce hate-filled speech from some of his supporters, Mr. Trump is an echo chamber for certain corners of the far right, as evinced by his popularity with white nationalists and the so-called alt-right movement of mostly online activists.... But CNN may be setting up an echo chamber as it covers bloggers who are blogging about what they are watching on CNN....
Also in the NYT, I ran across a piece about an art project by Harry Shearer called "The Silent Echo Chamber" — "video of celebrities and politicians sitting silently in the minutes before appearing live on television."
Video loops run on nine flat-screen monitors that are hung like portraits along three walls. There is a disquieting sense of being at the wrong end of the telescope: the stars you have watched silently for years are silently watching you.... Confronted with silence, whether from a Pinteresque pause or an unreturned “good morning” from that smoldering Irene in sales, we tend to invent an explanation, and it’s no different here. Why, one wonders in the glow of the screens, aren’t these pundits pontificating?
That was back in December 2008. There were 4 examples, including this, of Hillary Clinton.

35 comments:

mccullough said...

Hillary looks so forlorn in that clip. A violet by a mossy stone

n.n said...

The cavernous depths of the Fourth Estate are especially vibrant reverberation closures.

Fernandinande said...

I never liked James Taylor, so I bet he thinks he can tell the difference between his box and digital effects; at least he's not scamming others, like Neil Young.

Old school: Construction Of A Live Echo Chamber

rhhardin said...

Voice with room echo is fine in stereo but hard to listen to in monaural. Ppodcast advice: use curtains, blankets, pillows, rugs to deaden the room.

Tim Blair recorded outdoors, unfortunately under the flight path of Sydney airport though, for his podcasts.

Virgil Hilts said...

My wife (in her 20s) was driving down the highway and a James Taylor cassette started playing. She realized at that moment that she really did not like James Taylor's music any more; she pressed eject and threw the cassette out the window.
After she told me this I realized that I too no longer liked or could listen to James Taylor.

Laslo Spatula said...

The Best Echo Chamber ever?

Robert Blake slapping the back of Phil Spector.

I am Laslo.

Bob Ellison said...

Turntables, vinyl, quarter-inch, vacuum tubes.

I give up. These people can't be taught.

Bob R said...

"I never liked James Taylor, so I bet he thinks he can tell the difference between his box and digital effects"

I think that you can tell the difference too. The problem I have is that the people who are most convinced they can hear the difference at guys in their 50's and 60's with severe hearing loss at 3-5kHz and tinnitus 24/7. Women in their 20's with pristine hearing can't tell the difference.

I still believe. And I can hear the bell from the Polar Express 24/7.

LYNNDH said...

Literally is way over used. It should be "actually".

Bob Ellison said...

Let's do a triple-blind listening test. I know one guy who could maybe win that contest.

Michael K said...

I like James Taylor and have several of his albums. I know he is crazy but that doesn't stop my enjoyment of his music although I don;t listen as much as I used to.

FullMoon said...

Seems kind of tame for the ruffians hanging around AA.

madAsHell said...

Doesn't he have an echo chamber in his head?....and why are we mocking it?

Guildofcannonballs said...

American Digest just had a great essay about love, lost.

Any echo chamber worth its salt brings discord.

The point is: is this the point, or is there no point?

etc., if "etc" means "over and over again."

If not, then I don't know.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Anybody look at a light switch lately?

These cocks, down (but still hard as plastic) get "turned on" like the lights, literrally.


So I blame all law professors, judges (mostly past but present still), and lawyers, most especially the unemployed fakers.

Y'all thought, as you were taught, the "ploy" was working; only "stiffs" do that, you ignorant sacks of unimaginable decency/morality/Godliness. I BELIEVE NOT ONLY YOU BUT IN YOU.

Chuck said...

They cut an echo chamber into a floor and an attic at the old Motown studios on Grand River Avenue in Detroit. It's still there, and is a really fascinating tour when you visit the area:

https://soundcloud.com/johnkannenberg/reverb-chamber-motown-museum

David Begley said...

Taylor lost me when he sang "You've Got a Friend" for the Iran appeaser John Kerry.

Guildofcannonballs said...

One of the greatest things I read this year, I don't read books anymore yo, as a vice-signaller epic, was the great Chip Ahoy's description of Jesus' message.

Really beautiful in its own way, not that I would know if it's blasphemy or what that means or if I would react differently than I am now in the linkage had I known something I now don't.

"Jesus himself did not say, "Look, guys, what you're doing is all wrong. You've all got everything wrong." No. He described something compellingly lovelier than the life that they're living. He showed them another way to regard God and to have a personal relationship with God. He did that by entering their temples and comporting with the religion they have and showing a more beautiful more personally satisfying approach from within it."

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=717986195212622043&postID=4391377443845858221

Guildofcannonballs said...

I wish Martin Fox and Chip Ahoy and others weren't chased away, and I take solace I didn't physically chase anyone, so even though I called the host a racist cunt it's cool, ya know, it's cool, after the huge disappointment that other's whose ego simply must be involved, even though they always said...

Garage in one photo has shown more beauty than me in tens of thousands of words of ... me.

I started this venture to see if I was as political and rabid as the anti-Bush crowd, what the Harvard educated, along with his children, Dr. Charles Krauthammer, coined (with cause) BDS as in Bush Derangement Syndrome.

I am.

Smilin' Jack said...

"James Taylor loves his echo chamber."

Ah, James Taylor. The gateway drug to Glenn Campbell.

There were 4 examples, including this, of Hillary Clinton.

Most sincere, honest, and moving speech she ever gave.

Ipso Fatso said...

James Taylor is absolutely one of the worst singers ever.

Yours In Christ,

Ipso Fatso


I am not Laslo

rhhardin said...

I wish Martin Fox and Chip Ahoy and others weren't chased away

You can find Chip Ahoy posting always interesting stuff over at Lem's Place.

rhhardin said...

A case of female genital mutilation (FGM) is reported in England every 109 minutes new figures show -- however experts warn this could be the "tip of the iceburg."

That's an amusing stirring of a dead metaphor.

source.

tim in vermont said...

I used to be a fan. I learned to play guitar from his songbook with tabs. I even hung out outside the fence at Boston Commons, when we couldn't afford tickets, to hear him sing. I was jealous when my brother, who lives near him and was also a huge fan of his early work, said he sometimes saw him around town, in the hardware store or wherever.

Now he just seems like a twit to me and I turn off his music. But to pretend he doesn't have an excellent voice is kind of over the top.

rhhardin said...

Ignore lefty politics. Talent is talent.

I like Mexico and Taylor and Carly Simon when they obviously liked each other.

JCCamp said...

I have always thought James Taylor - and his ilk - pampered, self-absorbed (mostly) rich kids ('summers on Cape Cod'), addled by too many drugs, surrounded by similar, self-congratulatory message 'artists', slumming with the proles. I found his music boring and stilted then, and still do now. That John Kerry thing in France was a self-parody, a superficial and meritless gesture, except neither recognized it as such, because they both hold themselves as such monuments to civilization. Kerry went back to wind-surfing or something involving fancy gear in pastels, and Taylor to his novel echo chamber.

Which is rather ironic, the point of the OP I'm sure.

And although I'm sure there are similar clips for most politicians, the video of HRC is pretty funny. it does bring to mind Ronald Reagan extemporizing in a similar situation about "We begin bombing in 5 minutes." What a card.

Sydney said...

Oh my goodness, I thought that was Junior Soprano.

jr565 said...

a safe space is an echo chamber. That's what the modern left wants. An echo chamber. No voices permitted but their own and the echos of their own. Colleges should be ordered around such spaces.

jr565 said...

rhhardin wrote:
like Mexico and Taylor and Carly Simon when they obviously liked each other.

I actually like Taylors guitar work a lot. He has some intricate finger picking going on. But listening to that it sounds like he had go to riffs that he used in a lot of his songs. Because those are almost the same guitar lines that can be found in Something in the Way.

Nichevo said...

Guildofcannonballs said...
I wish Martin Fox and Chip Ahoy and others weren't chased away, and I take solace I didn't physically chase anyone, so even though I called the host a racist cunt it's cool,


No, Guild, you don't get knocked off of this site for saying mean things about Althouse that aren't true. You get kicked off for saying mean things about Althouse that are true.

Fernandinande said...

rhhardin said...
Ppodcast advice: use curtains, blankets, pillows, rugs to deaden the room.


Yeah, there is plenty of lousy audio on podcasts, but most important: keep the mic close to the source; if using a video camera, use an external mic, not the camera mic.

Bob R said...
The problem I have is that the people who are most convinced they can hear the difference at guys in their 50's and 60's with severe hearing loss at 3-5kHz and tinnitus 24/7.


Probably the best people to test hi-fi would be 10 year-old Amish kids.

A great example of those old guys might be the people endorsing Young's "Pono" nonsense (scroll to "testimonials"). Or the editors of "Audiophile" and their gold-braided cables (etc) that sound so wonderful until they do an ABX test and find out they can't tell the difference between the $5000 cables and 16 gauge extension cord wire.

Or this delusional comment:
Bob Ellison said...
Turntables, vinyl, quarter-inch, vacuum tubes.


One can model, quite exactly, the effects of the echo-chamber room with a convolution reverb. (or here). The finger-snap at the end of the video makes a decent "impulse".

walter said...

Blogger David Begley said...
Taylor lost me when he sang "You've Got a Friend" for the Iran appeaser John Kerry.
--
Yep. A fine career moment..slumping over a drooping mic stand, abruptly ripping out his cord at end trying to flee the stage only to be brought back by Kerry.
Maybe Altparse can delve into his desire to put the echo chamber underground.
Another element are the quite advanced digital reverb/echo tools (see Lexicon etc) with far more flexibility.
He will get variations of one echo at best...

Leigh said...

Hillary seems self-conscious about her blinking. Blinks are significant but I can't remember how -- too many mean something? Or not enough blinking means something? In any event, her blinking looks peculiar.

ken in tx said...

My family had a 65 Oldsmobile that had a built-in reverb in the radio. The rear speakers were deliberately offset from the front ones. It made everything sound like it was in a school gym. You could turn it off or on.

Etienne said...

The new style Kevlar bullet-proof vests have been know to make your eyes water. Something about the packing material they are shipped in, that gets absorbed.