Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup makemicromusic apology and so-long

Typical non-tuning type yahoo list spoiler:

This email contains multiple sentiments.
No pun intended.

If it seems too springloaded, this is a bit unusual, most of this BETTER AND
WORSE should have all been said a number of months ago. If you need a map,
the contrast is more or less paragraph by paragraph. This wasn't written in
order. Enough with the disclaimers. This probably doesn't belong on any
one list but I'm not going to bother cross posting the response. It started
here, it ends here.

Bottom line: what THIS POST has to do with MAKING MICROTONAL MUSIC, is the
ceasing of stagnant means and the motivation through confrontation which by
the end will yield my own, and hopefully someone else's. Anyone who can't
handle a little dissonance, go play Chop Sticks in 19 all day. As in music,
so in life, so we begin:

On 2/27/02 6:44 PM, "paulerlich" <paul@...> wrote:

> musicians,
>
> it has just come to my attention that i've hurt a friend of mine with
> my remarks here -- this person just sent me an e-mail.

Was it me? I'm not aware if it was. I'm sure even you know about my lapses
in consciousness by now. Either way it's a relief. Because either I
blacked out and told you off, or I can start feeling like I'm not the only
person you antagonize.

***** remembering back *****

On 5/23/01 3:34 PM, "Paul Erlich" <paul@...> wrote:

> When sitting in front of a computer screen, though, I tend to be more
> interested in "cold, hard facts" . . . that's the mindset that I have to be
> in, anyway, most of the time I'm in front of the computer. I suppose I've
> compartmentalized my personality somewhat.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

I've remembered this, quoted from your passing on the opportunity to join
the [spiritual_tuning] group. It wasn't long after this that you created
the tuning math group which, if you remember, you created specifically to
get me off the tuning list. And then every so often you started telling me
where to go, tuning math, meta etc. I don't know if you were really
conscious of any of this.

I mean it's not like you live in the woods and don't have a phone or
internet service or an unknown address because you're afraid of the
government and have to have someone bring you your posts on a diskette
disinfected by three virus checking programs and then criticize everyone who
tries to specialize in any study just so you can proclaim yourself as a
composer when in reality you're so wrapped up in your own paranoid ego you
don't realize your music sucks, now, is it?

No. It's absolutely not. You're not like that at all. You're very well
into the city end of this society. You have interests in specific topics,
you have a good vocabulary about it, your music is good to listen to and you
have a high sense of individuality. Keep that thought.

> well, i'm truly sorry to have caused any injury. i only had the
> interest of truth and the best interests of the microtonal community
> in mind -- but i crossed a line i should not have crossed.

Best interests. Maybe try to remember there aren't exactly TUTORS in this
realm. Pretty much everyone is busting their ass one way or another.

Well it's alright. That's why I agreed to offer up my private definitions
to the public dictionary so I wouldn't have to strain through any more
semantics battles.

That's pretty much why I stopped posting last year. Don't worry, Paul, it
wasn't *only* because of you. Some of it was a few other people. Some of
it even had to do with problems I have reading.

I mean really, imagine if you can, working completely on your own with
little or no academic resources, finding mathematical ideas you want to
share with other people, trying to explain it only to have heads scratched
for weeks until finally someone finds the benevolence to proclaim OH THAT,
that's {some 20-letter name} which we stopped talking about four years ago.
After the exasperation, it's still pretty alienating.

Not all of us went to Harvard, you know.

> as a self-reprimand, i will refrain from posting to this list until i
> have actual pieces of music i'd like to present to you all.

Really why didn't you post something for 22 day? At least you inspired a
bunch of people. Spontaneous inventing of an occasion is a fairly good
leadership quality. Have you ever done any conducting?

From before when I said hold that thought. If you don't have a lot of
problems with sleep, you can use 22, specifically, to make yourself more
productive. Playing a lot of 31 is like this posting endlessly. It *is*
good practice to talk and talk a lot. The spirit of productivity is
something you have to fight for to attain through 22. As far as the whole
"wasting time" thread, that's just it. All the conversation doesn't
completely *waste* time, but there is much more productivity to be had. Why
don't you write more? Why don't you have more music that other people can
readily listen to? Or, like me, do you simply have a backlog of things you
*have* written trying to find the easiest way to let people listen to them?

> i love you all and you know where to find me . . .

Yes, on YOUR tuning list. Oh by the way PLEASE send me a private email with
nothing more than the email address of the group I should have posted this
to. I miss being shooed. Makes me feel so outclassed, like the stubble
under the blades of a Monday morning razor, desperate to go back OVER the
bridge to Brooklyn and ask for a KAWFEE rather than strolling in SoHo
looking for a latté.

But again, truth versus hurting someone... There are people who consider
themselves "brutally honest", who will tell you the truth even if it hurts.
That's not particularly compassionate, and people who do that tend to not
care. There are also people who construct upsetting sets of realistic data
in such a way as to SPECIFICALLY upset other people. There are people who
lie to themselves and others almost indiscriminately so as to *never* "hurt"
anyone. So what's left? It's difficult to collect exciting information
while not upsetting people along the way.

Wrapping up.

In consumer mode, I would rather you try thinking about all I'm telling you,
maybe not all at once since, as I said, some of this should have been
brought up last spring when it wasn't sitting in here rotting for months.
Picking this post apart point by point, given the shape of it, I would
consider a personal attack on my not being able to organize and communicate
effectively. That's if you're feeling defensive.

Otherwise there's really no need to apologize for anything.

Hey now that I think of it, this is why I didn't do anything for 22 day. I
get the feeling I'm not allowed to use 22 because it's "your thing". Having
used the term enough lately, this is one of those hyper alpha wave
cognitions that lodges in my logic process.

Not everyone is conscious of 100 percent of their own behavior. Story of my
life. Responsibility is just a matter of accountability with an offering of
amends. But again, there you go again, again. SELF REPRIMAND??? Paul
speaks, Paul orders, Paul makes mistake, Paul sends Paul away into a
timeout.

Instead of just running away why don't you stick around and just try to
learn how to keep that balance between truth and respect? It's hard,
BELIEVE me I know. What's even harder is participation. That's a very
serious word. There are a lot of things people do, opinions held, macro
activities and attitudes, rehearsed responses, to keep from putting their
own guts on the line. And why? Because again, in the quest for knowledge,
some people get hurt inadvertently.

As for the post from last May, that was included as a sort of token insight
into why I didn't get *completely* bent out of shape from you pushing me
around last year. Really, I thought, who is this guy and where does he get
off breaking up all these lists and ORDERING people not to post so much
because he has to read the group at work?!?!? In between thinking... "hey
why don't YOU get up to speed and YOU invest in a better computer system if
YOU want to participate in this PUBLIC FORUM..." I thought... This just
doesn't really seem like that same 22 guitarist I met November 2000.

Just so you know, for what it's worth, just to recast myself in not so much
my own compartmentalization, but my own perspective(s): I have a lot of
personal and interpersonal problems, some from circumstances beyond my
control and some just the same as anyone else's, that altogether make it
very difficult for me at times to understand what's going on around me.
I've done a lot of work on it and in the last few years I've made a lot of
progress. I'm living on a lot of borrowed time and I'm starting my life
over after two near fatal stress related heart attacks and other factors I
don't need to get into, "again" or "here". I don't expect to be coddled for
the diversity of certain elements of my plight. But outside of the
occasional nervous facetiousness I pretty much have to be told to knock off,
I'd like to have at least the respect I'm due for the amount of effort I
HAVE exerted in my work.

There are times when I wish I was in a wheelchair or I was retarded so
people could IMMEDIATELY see there's something majorly wrong with me. I
don't expect anyone to screech to a halt for me, but in the process of
feeling like I'm being passed at double speed, that's when *I* withdraw and
excuse myself. Not so much the "self-reprimanding" you said, with me it's a
lot more self-destructive. My lack of esteem comes from literally and
precisely the first derivative of my progress curve with respect to time.
After 6 months of Tiger Schulmann's Karate, losing over 30 pounds and seven
inches off my waist, I feel like I'm doing nothing despite everyone EVERY
DAY coming up to me and telling me how much better I look AND how much
better I'm doing, why, because I'M NOT DOING MUCH MORE TODAY THAN
YESTERDAY!!! And the same has ALWAYS been true with me, microtonally etc.

Which could maybe bring you and me down to a one-time non-recurring
exchange:

DO YOU have some kind of problem with me?
----------------------------------------

The closer you and I get to one-to-one exchange, the more you really seem
not to. The closer you and I get to a public space, well, frankly (!?) I
start feeling like I'm being humoured while we're all waiting for someone to
find my name on your invitation list. The sole exception being, the fact
that you mentioned me in passing a few weeks ago which ironically enough
brought me BACK to posting frequently.

I'll tell you one thing, Paul. If you are AT ALL jealous about ANYTHING in
my lack of formal education that I might be able to do that you can't, I'm
telling you right now YOU DO NOT want to know what I had to go through to
get where I am mathematically, musically, psychologically or anywhere
between those. It was NOT something I think I would have chosen and it's
MUCH MORE a function of damage control than any kind of gift or talent.
This is why I get so passionate in such a pre-repressed manner.

As a final taper, in lieu of the fact that all people, when overwhelmed,
tend to exaggerate their pain, just let me assure you I'm really not trying
to rip you a new one here. If anything, I should have found a way to talk
to you sooner about how you made me feel before it got to such an elastic
testiness. I WANT YOU to start focusing more on functionality, sentiment
and productivity. See if those elements don't give you more perspective.

Yeah we love you too Paul. Don't be so snooty.

Tomorrow I'm going to try to write something retroactive for 22 day. And
that's what it took for me to be able to say this.

end

apology and so-long

🔗paulerlich <paul@...>

🔗Orphon Soul, Inc. <tuning@...>