Hypnagogic Creativity – Keith Richards on Writing Satisfaction When Asleep

GROSS: You have a great story in your book about how you co-wrote – well, how you got “Satisfaction” started. You co-wrote the song with Mick Jagger, but you originated it and you didn’t know you were doing it. Can you…

RICHARDS: I wish all the songs would come this way, you know, where you just dream them and then the next morning there they are presented to you. But “Satisfaction” was that sort of miracle that took place. I had a – I had one of the first little cassette players, you know, Norelco (inaudible) Philips – kind of the same thing, really. But it was a fascinating little machine to me, a cassette player, that you could actually just lay ideas down, you know, wherever you were. I set the machine up, and I put it in a fresh tape. I go to bed as usual with my guitar, and I wake up the next morning, I see that the tape has run to the very end. And I think, well, I didn’t do anything, you know. I said, maybe I hit a button while I was asleep, you know? So I put it back to the beginning and pushed play. And there in some sort of ghostly version is (vocalizing) I can’t get no satisfaction. And so there is a whole verse of it. I won’t bother you with it all. And after that, there’s – I don’t know – 40 minutes of me snoring.

https://www.npr.org/2022/08/29/1119640101/fresh-airs-summer-music-interviews-keith-richards

Then came “Satisfaction,” the track that launched us into global fame. I was between girlfriends at the time, in my flat in Carlton Hill, St. John’s Wood. Hence maybe the mood of the song. I wrote “Satisfaction” in my sleep. I had no idea I’d written it, it’s only thank God for the little Philips cassette player. The miracle being that I looked at the cassette player that morning and I knew I’d put a brand-new tape in the previous night, and I saw it was at the end. Then I pushed rewind and there was “Satisfaction.” It was just a rough idea. There was just the bare bones of the song, and it didn’t have that noise, of course, because I was on acoustic. And forty minutes of me snoring. But the bare bones is all you need. I had that cassette for a while and I wish I’d kept it.

Life
Keith Richards

ICE Killings in Minneapolis – Obama and Clinton on

Two Democratic former presidents on Sunday condemned the scenes in Minnesota after Alex Pretti was killed this weekend, framing the tragedy as a pivotal moment that calls Americans to “speak up” and take action.

Former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama called Pretti’s death a “heartbreaking tragedy” in a statement.

“It should also be a wake-up call to every American, regardless of party, that many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault,” the Obamas wrote.

“Over the course of a lifetime, we face only a few moments where the decisions we make and the actions we take will shape our history for years to come. This is one of them,” he wrote.

Clinton said “the people in charge” are lying to the public and telling them “not to believe what we’ve seen with our own eyes.”

Clinton and Obama urge Americans to ‘speak out’ and take action after Minneapolis shootings
The statements from the Democratic former presidents said the shooting of Alex Pretti is “a wake-up call” and a moment that could shape “our history for years to come.”

Close Reading Kafka, with ChatGpt

“Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one morning. Every day at eight o’clock he was brought his breakfast by Frau Grubach, the cook, but today she did not come.”

Annotation: where description collapses into self
1. Apparent fact – but already contaminated
“Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K.”
This sounds like explanation of an external situation. But notice: No evidence. No witness. No uncertainty marker except “must”. This is not world-description. It is K.’s assumption. The world has not yet been described at all — only K.’s defensive inference.

2. Moral assertion posing as fact
“for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one morning.” Key phrase: “without having done anything wrong.” Arrest is an external event. Innocence is an internal claim. Kafka fuses them grammatically, as if innocence were observable. The “world” here is already being narrated from inside K.’s self-justifying consciousness.

3. Routine as psychological anchor
“Every day at eight o’clock he was brought his breakfast by Frau Grubach.” This is a real-world habit. But its function is psychological: K. defines reality by routine. Normalcy is his measure of legitimacy. The description is telling us how K. stabilizes his sense of self.

4. The disturbance (pure projection)
“but today she did not come.”
Objectively: someone is late.
Subjectively: A violation
A threat. A sign that order has broken. Kafka gives us no external confirmation that this matters. The importance of the event exists only in K.’s inner framework.

What we learn
About the world:
Almost nothing verifiable. Only actions stripped of motive
About Josef K.:
He equates innocence with order. He treats routine as legitimacy. He assumes accusation requires malice. He experiences authority as intrusion, not structure.

The world is opaque. The self is over-exposed.

Crowd Admires Burning Building – Thomas De Quincey Quote

But perhaps the fire may be confined to public buildings. And in any case, after we have paid our tribute of regret to the affair, considered as a calamity, inevitably, and without restraint, we go on to consider it as a stage spectacle. Exclamations of—How grand! How magnificent! arise in a sort of rapture from the crowd. For instance, when Drury Lane was burned down in the first decennium of this century, the falling in of the roof was signalized by a mimic suicide of the protecting Apollo that surmounted and crested the centre of this roof. The god was stationary with his lyre, and seemed looking down upon the fiery ruins that were so rapidly approaching him. Suddenly the supporting timbers below him gave way; a convulsive heave of the billowing flames seemed for a moment to raise the statue; and then, as if on some impulse of despair, the presiding deity appeared not to fall, but to throw himself into the fiery deluge, for he went down head foremost; and in all respects, the descent had the air of a voluntary act. What followed? From every one of the bridges over the river, and from other open areas which commanded the spectacle, there arose a sustained uproar of admiration and sympathy.

On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts
Thomas De Quincey

Does Amazon Search Suck Now or What? – Google AI on

does amazon search suck now or what?
Google:

Yes, many users and reports suggest Amazon’s search quality has declined, becoming cluttered with irrelevant ads and sponsored products, making it harder to find specific items, with some blaming strategic choices to prioritize ad revenue. The shift prioritizes paid placements over organic, relevant results, leading to user frustration, while some find using advanced search filters or external search engines helps.
Common complaints about Amazon Search:
Ad Overload: The top results are often sponsored listings, even for exact product searches, pushing genuinely relevant organic results further down the page.
Irrelevant Results: Search terms can bring up a mix of unrelated items (e.g., Halloween decor when searching for Christmas lights), creating “noise”.
Algorithm Changes: The search engine sometimes alters search terms or hides well-selling products, frustrating sellers and buyers alike.
Decline in Quality Control: A focus on infrastructure and third-party sellers has led to a “disorienting mess” with less discernible quality.

Three – Alternative / Niche / Lesser Known / Specialized – Search Engines

https://marginalia-search.com/
Explore the Web
Prioritizes non-commercial content
Tools for both search and discovery
Find lost old websites

https://www.mojeek.com/
Looking for different results?
Value your right to privacy?
Trying to escape big tech?

https://wiby.me/
Why Wiby?
In the early days of the web, pages were made primarily by hobbyists, academics, and computer savvy people about subjects they were personally interested in. Later on, the web became saturated with commercial pages that overcrowded everything else. All the personalized websites are hidden among a pile of commercial pages. Google isn’t great at finding them, its focus is on finding answers to technical questions, and it works well; but finding things you didn’t know you wanted to know, which was the real joy of web surfing, no longer happens. In addition, many pages today are created using bloated scripts that add slick cosmetic features in order to mask the lack of content available on them. Those pages contribute to the blandness of today’s web.

Staying Warm at a Chicago Bears Game

How to stay warm and comfortable at Soldier Field on Sunday?
byu/WashTemporary1710 inAskChicago

Adz100087
Lifelong season ticket holder here! Layers are obvious and important but should be well thought out! I’m a female so I will give you what I wear: Tank top, then long sleeved thermal top, then a hoodie over that top, then a down vest followed by my winter down coat. For my legs, I went on Amazon and purchased fleece lined leggings which I wear with sweatpants over them. If you’re a guy I’m sure they make them as well. Long underwear, etc. Jeans over the leggings are fine as well! I recently purchased heated gloves on Amazon as well and although they’re not a godsend, they’re great paired with hand and feet warmers you get at Walgreens! For my feet I do tube socks and then I wrap tin foil over my toes (yes seriously) followed by Saran Wrap (it keeps everything in place) and sometimes another pair of socks over, sometimes not. Cardboard used to be the trick here, but soldier field banned it recently. All of the above and a beanie hat get the job done! I don’t bother with scarves although it won’t hurt! See you Sunday! BEAR DOWN!

quats_and_bac0n
Also, a face gaiter is such a game changer if there’s a bit of wind. You can pull it up and down as you want and it makes a huge difference for your nose.

PopcornyColonel
I was with you on all of that until you got to the cardboard. Can you explain that? Can you also explain why it’s been banned? And why didn’t you mention the peppermint schnapps, by the way?

emondropcloth
the cold comes up through the sole of your shoes when you stand on cold concrete for hours — cardboard acts as an insulator/buffer

Formal-Paramedic3660
Insulated coveralls. Dickies or Carhartt.

ceilchiasa
Go to REI and tell them you’re climbing Denali…buy whatever they tell you minus crampons and an ice axe.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskChicago/comments/1qc71xz/how_to_stay_warm_and_comfortable_at_soldier_field/

Restaurant Manager as Revelation

His favorite was the manageress of the restaurant, a handsome blonde with a very sweet motherly smile, about thirty years old. Bergmann approved of her highly. “I have only to look at her,” he told me,” to know that she is satisfied. Deeply satisfied. Some man has made her happy. For her, there is no longer any search. She has found what we are all looking for. She understands all of us. She does not need books, or theories, or philosophy, or priests. She understands Michelangelo, Beethoven, Christ, Lenin—even Hitler. And she is afraid of nothing, nothing.… Such a woman is my religion.”

The manageress would always have a special smile for Bergmann when we came in; and, during the meal, she would walk over to our table and ask if everything was all right. “Everything is all right, my darling,” Bergmann would reply; “thanks to God, but chiefly to you. You restore our confidence in ourselves.”

I don’t know exactly what the manageress made of this, but she smiled, in an amused, kindly way. She really was very nice. “You see?” Bergmann would turn to me, after she had gone. “We understand each other perfectly.”

Prater Violet: A Novel
Christopher Isherwood

How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?

How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?
byu/oh_bruddah inJokes

 

Halcione
How many Freudian psychologists does it take to change a life bulb?
Two. One to change the bulb and another to hold the penis, I mean the father, I mean the ladder.

MaxwellzDaemon
How many hipsters does it take to change a lightbulb?
It’s some number you probably never heard of.

GdoubleWB
How many philosophy majors does it take to change a lightbulb?
Doesn’t matter, they never change anything.

Grunge – History of Term

1: one that is grungy
2: rock music incorporating elements of punk rock and heavy metal
also : the untidy fashions typical of fans of grunge

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grunge

JONATHAN PONEMAN I read the expression grunge many, many times in music journalism before Everett True used it. Everett took the word from the Sub Pop mail-order catalog description of Green River’s Dry as a Bone that Bruce wrote: “ultra-loose GRUNGE that destroyed the morals of a generation.”

MARK ARM The word grunge was tossed around a little bit here and there well before I ever used it. Steve Turner picked up this ’70s reissue of a Rock ’n’ Roll Trio album, and the liner notes talk about Paul Burlison’s “grungy guitar sound.” That was written in the ’70s about a ’50s guitar player.

Grunge was an adjective; it was never meant to be a noun. If I was using it, it was never meant to coin a movement, it was just to describe raw rock and roll. Then that term got applied to major-label bands putting out slick-sounding records. It’s an ill fit.

JACK ENDINO None of us is entirely sure about who used the word first. I saw it in a Lester Bangs record review in Rolling Stone in the ’70s. Mark Arm had used the word in the early ’80s.

Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge
Mark Yarm

From the introduction:

First, let’s get that word out of the way. Grunge. Yes, this is a book about grunge. The term that bedeviled and, let’s face it, benefited (at least temporarily) many a Seattle rock musician in the early to mid-1990s. I cannot count how many times, when I described to an interviewee what exactly it was I was working on, I’d get back, “I hate that word …” And here they would go one of two ways: spit out “that word” grunge or insist, “I don’t even like to say it,” as if uttering that one syllable would somehow validate a now decades-old coinage. (For a thorough, yet inconclusive, probe into how grunge got its name, see chapter 17.) Others reacted to the term thusly: “rubs me raw,” “a marketing tool,” “it’s all just music,” “fuckin’ concocted bullshit.” And this: “When I see the word grunge, especially on books, I kind of go”—and at this point, the guy I was interviewing made a rather convincing vomiting sound.

Benefit of the Law for the Devil – Man for All Seasons Quote

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060665/quotes/?ref_=tt_dyk_qu

A Man for All Seasons is a 1966 British historical drama film directed and produced by Fred Zinnemann, adapted by Robert Bolt from his play of the same name. It depicts the final years of Sir Thomas More, the 16th-century Lord Chancellor of England who refused both to sign a letter asking Pope Clement VII to annul Henry VIII of England’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon and to take an Oath of Supremacy declaring Henry Supreme Head of the Church of England.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_for_All_Seasons_(1966_film)