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PholkTales: Miscellaneous

He's Statler, I'm Waldorf.

We represent the crude ridiculousness of social criticism, in all forms, on all levels. We bring to light through exaggeration, the shear pointlessness of evaluating one another's tastes and sensibilities, whether it be in an antagonistic manner or in one more sympathetic, gentile, or otherwise agreeable. We represent a self-recognition of the frailty of our normal cognitive processes, the filtering mechanisms, the genetic and behavioral patterns through which we view the world and communicate with one another.

We subjugate our prejudices by minimizing their control over us through laughter.

Steve and I touched briefly yesterday during a phone call on a number of related Phishy topics, no need to tell you how badly we bashed them unrelentingly. Just envision two elderly yentas, placing their hands on either side of their faces, going "Oiy, vhat a band, vhat a vaste!", and you probably understand most of what went on.

But basically, it's a lot of fun to banter about Phish because they're really quite unique. We talked about how Phish, and maybe more directly, Trey, had lost their compositional focus, both in the structure of new songs, and in the performance of the older ones. And that the loss in focus is directly related to the reduction in time practicing and working on the music together, which in turn is ultimately a barometer of desire.

Sure they're still decent at stepping upon a stage and grabbing a basic chord structure to jam on for several minutes for sure. But the strength of those jams is always conditional upon the strength and execution of the composition. Otherwise the music decays to mindless freeform dribble, spotted only with occasional "tricks", to wow them in the back row.

[Left turn] It's stroboscopic, Steve. That's the word I was looking for.

When you watch a spinning bicycle wheel, or the hubcap of the car along side of you, the faster the interval of changes in the light reflected back from the wheel, the more distortion in our perception of the actual movement. At inter-stimulus interval between 30 msec and 50 msec, the perceived pattern of the movement begins to change, until what you should see as a very quickly spinning wheel going in one direction, is perceived as a wheel slowing down and actually beginning to spin in the opposite direction.

Phish employs an audio stroboscopic "technique" as well, compositionally in songs like Sparkle and First Tube, but most often inside super fast ending sections of jams as in Antelope. The band accelerates the tempo to a frenzied pace for several seconds and holds it there until our ear/mind accepts the concept of the acceleration. To achieve a perceived increase in speed, they stop running with it altogether and begin to "tap" the rhythm at intervals instead. Something like running with a merry-go-round (do they even have these in playgrounds anymore?) faster and faster until you get it going, and then you stop and stand along side, pushing it once every cycle from a stationary position.

[Right turn] Ever think about similarities between Phish songs?

Our contempt for the structure of First Tube prompted a follow up criticism that First Tube is merely a reworking, or possibly a natural evolution, of the song Buried Alive. There are many pairs of Phish songs that seem to have some structural/emotional connectivity over the period of Phish's development. Some that come to mind right off the bat (but I'm sure there are more) are: Taste --> Limb By Limb Possum --> Get Back On The Train Ghost --> Sand Sparkle --> Piper If I Could --> Waste

There's another pair that may only be similar in key, but which I can't hear without the other coming to mind. Like the "Hood" that's shouted after "Harry", I've begun to hear both of these songs whenever I hear one of them.......but it's just a personal lunacy:

I can't spare a moment for the dog faced boy Home on the train

I won't lend another hand to the worm girl of Hanoi Why'd you send my monkey on a train?

Don't deplete my oxygen for the guy who's turning blue The day that you arrived, My sleeping monkey is revived

But ask me, and I'll do anything for you But you sent him home on the train

btw has anyone figured out who the worm girl of Hanoi is? Also, let me know if it's wrong to expect Phish to play as well as they did on the Antelope ->Tweezer Reprise (4/3/98) every time they walk onto a stage?

In the meantime, say goodnight, Statler,

- Bill