Re: [crazy_music] Digest Number 38

Yesterday I turned on digest mode so I only get one onslaught per day
instead of a dozen... so it might start to look like I'm late to every
scuffle...

Somewhere along the line yesterday McLaren wrote:

> For instance, in Hawaii prior to the arrival of Europeans, marrying one's
> sister was looked upon as a perfectly respectable and reasonable thing to do.

Eh!? I'll buy the idea that descriptive music theories aren't worth much,
and that people who say "tuning X is unpalatable" for any X out of context
are wrong... But you'll need to prove the statement above. I'm not
convinced by a bald assertion. Incest taboo -- of one kind or another -- is
pretty pervasive all over the world. There are notable known exceptions in,
various time-space loci, which usually involve royalty ("marrying-in",
anthropologically speaking, can be seen as a means of conserving wealth and
power, and is not engaged in by "normal" people in any society). I assume
you have documentary evidence to back up this claim?

Now... McLaren also went on a pretty long tirade about bullies and bullying.
Looking in from the sidelines here, I have to say that his tactic of
massive uploads and extended verbal rants is nearly indistinguishable from
bullying -- especially the tone of vehemence and accusation. It's a classic
tactic on these internet mailing lists, for someone to "win" an argument by
the volume of their postings and drown out everything else by their shouting.
That's what it looks like to me. (Somewhere out there, someone coined a
law about this mail list phenomenon, but I can't put my finger on it.)

Maybe Monz and others who know McLaren might see this all as evidence of his
sense of humor. But as yet, I can't see that. Much of it looks like more
bullying and unwarranted ad-hominem attacks, and I have a hard time spending
more than a few minutes with most of his postings. More brevity and less
character bashing would do much to help me see whether his points are valid.
Nobody else around here, even at their harshest, seems to appear as quite
such a bully as the one person who's so loudly decrying the behavior. Where
have I heard that before?

Thanks to Margo Schulter for her continuing pacifism. She quotes Erv Wilson:

> 1. ERV WILSON'S ADVICE: "Talk about what you're doing, not
> about what you're not doing."

To that, I would add: talk about what you're doing without talking about
what others on the list are or aren't doing. I'm sorry I have to single
McLaren out, but the posts have been annoying because they have so much
apparent wrath and are so voluminous.

What I've been doing lately is working, actually. Last week I wrote a play.
I may write some music for it. If I do, it'll be in some low ET like 8 or
9...

Rick