poker and evolutionary biology

Props to Mr. Dawkins here.

Behavioral evolution dictates that males invest less in offspring (males of this species, at any rate) because the creation of offspring costs them less than the female.

It's like a poker hand - the female is the big blind, and no matter what the cards are there is an investment of time and energy into the child, in the form of the pregnancy term. The male is the dealer - he may fold at any point for no loss in terms of resources expended. This dictates classic behaviour - men seek physical relationships because it is expedient to invest as little and spread the genes as wide as possible. Females seek commitment because they stand to lose in abandoning offspring, and they stand to lose if a partner should abandon them. Men invest nothing from a purely reproductive standpoint (or almost nothing beyond the energy used to create the sperm, which is nothing compared to the burden of carrying the child).

This might dictate societal standards, which are largely females' play at evening the playing field - males are expected to invest in relationships more so than females, from a societal standpoint. Time and resources are expected from men. They are expected to make the move. This is a form of investment demanded by society, and the penalty for disobedience is ostracism.

just a little thought. I'm sure any real biologists could put me right on any salient points I misrepresented.

4.03 am, acerbic

I hope this isn't construed as an attack, but it probably will be by people too timid to formulate a response. So what's there to lose?

I am always provoked to philosophising whenever I go clubbing (which is maybe why I do it). It is one of the most pointless and empty activities available to my generation, which in a world thatincludes WoW and Facebook, is saying a lot. It's a meaningless parade of skin and glitter and the stench of a hundred frustrated guys crowding the dance floor trying to get some action.

Yet I go back. Some days for the music (because I dearly love hip-hop) and some days just to engage in the games that are played. There is an energy at work that's bigger than the crowd. It's the aura of consensual (and sensual) futility, at once frustrated with the pointlessness of the world at large and society's fulfilment-seeking subtext. It says - if the world of work and study is empty and the world of relationships is doomed to caricatured gestures signifying meaning but devoid of weight - then let us play. We embrace futility, but it must be fun. I think this is the rallying cry of my generation. It is nihilistic but not solipsistic - it rejects meaning but embraces the masses, the popular, the social animal. It accepts that the give and take of relationships is little more than a game played for one's own profit, but denies that two players may not both gain in the struggle.

I think modern religion places too high a premium on fulfilment. It places too high a premium on peace, which is another word for wretched contentment. Why not live empty? I need no cosmic justification for my own pleasure, and in every moment wasted I revel in the struggle.

adam

Wayne Shorter

I blew my $30 bucks of HMV vouchers on two Wayne Shorter albums -

'Speak No Evil' from the (I believe) post-messengers-pre-miles period, and 'Beyond the Sound Barrier' with the excellent Footprints Live! quartet.

I've heard more of 'Beyond the Sound Barrier', and it is proving to be highly enjoyable. Modern jazz at its best - challenging yet eminently enjoyable. This album is a good starting place for anyone looking to get into jazz after the 80s (we're all trying to forget about that decade - Dave Weckl's band and Chick Corea's shirts).

adam

music

><. The amount of work ahead of me boggles the mind. I'll have to get to it.

miles davis '80s

Two conceptually important recordings here - his two pop covers, one of Michael Jackson's 'Human Nature' and one of Cyndi Lauper's 'Time after Time'.

These recordings are by no means jazz in the traditional sense, but it's good to note that by this point Miles had pretty much given up on jazz. 'Let the white boys have it,' he said. I am one of those Miles-for-lifers though, and I don't reject his fusion, funk and later pop oeuvre. I personally think he stuck to his musical guns until the day he died, and these records are only proof of his all-encompassing vision.

There are naysayers who complain that Miles abandoned jazz for commercial music of disputable quality. I believe no such thing occured - if anything, the sheer quality that he imparts to the commercial music he performed in the 80s is a testament to his musical imagination. 'Human Nature' is played with a joie de vivre that is almost infectious, and his talent for understated romanticism takes him places on 'Time after Time'. Sure, it ain't jazz, but who cares? It is a pop record of rare poise and sensibility. And I'm glad he made it.

I've come down with some kind of sickness, and I'm not referring to the metaphorical sort. Yuck.

adam

ORD

what's there to say. So many things I could've been doing, yet I feel little regret. The most important thing I learned is to wear suffering like a crown - not to be bitter or hateful but to seek it out, and as Nietzsche said, to exult in your strength.

I don't feel any regret, but there's a good deal of anger left which I hope will help me catch up with what I've missed - my music, my friends and my studies. Yes, it was a time of anger. I've learned to hate efficiently, a life skill no doubt.

whatever. there's no use pontificating anymore - I have a life to get on with.

adam

the joys of chameleon

I had another go at 'Head Hunters' recently. I think I can pretty safely reaffirm my appreciation of this album - the Herbie's first go at getting funky, and what a go.

I'd like to use a phrase Robert Christgau used to describe Joni Mitchell's 'Both Sides Now' - 'beguiling logic'. That's what comes to mind listening to Chameleon, which sounds as modern as any of the electronic dance tracks you hear in clubs, only twice as kicking, and with that something special - that logical progression. At first I only heard the repetition, and it does go on - it's probably the longest iteration of AABA songform in the history of popular music (the A goes on for 4 minutes) - then I heard the slow, incremental, but fabulously satisfying development. Herbie plays the band like a keyboard here, never varying the drum beat or the two-note Clavinet melody (that IS the melody. not the horns!) or the envelope-filtered bassline. He just adds and subtracts layers at will. It's the horns sometimes, playing riffs, or its his keyboards howling.

There's something fundamental that Herbie grasped about funk here that I think could be missing in the music scene in Singapore. Nothing here (save the keyboard solo) is any kind of showboating. In fact, it's the exact opposite - five musicians in service of the groove. Personalities are laid aside (find me a drummer who'll play the exact same beat for 12 minutes at a go and I'll show you Moe Tucker, who didn't play funk unfortunately). Even Herbie's solo tinkles along at a relaxed pace, almost gloating in its relaxation. And that's the point. This is music for dancing, not for blowing or beating or getting faster. And Herbie shows his mastery of composition with a piece that never devolves into histrionics but slowly unfolds like origami over 16 minutes. I want to see that live.

adam

all the things that made me happy today (5th Feb)

1. Joy Spring (With Clifford Brown and Max Roach)

2. Having an actual conversation. That makes two in two days, a new record for these two years. Thanks Nick and Bo.

3. Realising that the cute Westlifer is the gay one. Aww. I used to have a boy-crush on him.

4. Looking up girl names to amuse myself. I think i'll name my daughter Karen.

5. Discovering Aaron Goldberg and realising he's coming here this saturday.

6. Writing, even if I'm not very good at it. Look at this, I wrote it a few weeks back.

7. The mind-numbingly hot girl at the club with the same name as my mother.

what is the name of the rose?

something sad and something still

motionless until the day it dies

and then fodder for the flies.

what is the name of the sun?

a bonfire slowly burning out

the last refuge of virgin light

and then gone in the night.

what is the name of the city?

shadows and light in etched patterns

it is bright with the morning's breath

it is a dance and a death.

what is my name?

I am a coffin, wide but not so long

filled with empires and desires

and sealed with a song