Ted Gioia's dubious ode to the survivorship bias in contemporary arts, courtesy of a canard from George Steiner (sometimes people have a good "why" based on a bad "what")

According to The Decision Lab, (I begin with a joke, that I am just running with the first search engine result here to go with an availability bias):

Survivorship bias is a type of sample selection bias that occurs when an individual mistakes a visible successful subgroup as the entire group. In other words, survivorship bias occurs when an individual only considers the surviving observation without considering those data points that didn’t “survive” in the event. 

Defined in this way, the entire history of music(s), regardless of style, form or genre, can be regarded as a cumulative exemplar of survivorship bias.  Keep this in mind for what you are about to read from Ted Gioia as he invokes George Steiner:

https://www.honest-broker.com/p/all-bad-music-will-eventually-disappear

“No stupid literature, art or music lasts.”

That’s a quote from literary critic George Steiner (1929-2020)—in his highly recommended book Real Presences from 1986.

I was shocked when I read that sentence. But pleasantly shocked.

Could it really be true that all the sonic detritus circulating in our culture will just magically disappear? It seems too good to be true.

There's a really simple reason for that.

Julie Roys reprints Sutton Turner's letter to John Lindell regarding Mark Driscoll

https://julieroys.com/former-mars-hill-elder-confronts-john-lindell-platforming-mark-driscoll/
The text of Turner's letter has been reprinted and the original is here.

At this stage in my life I don't particularly wish to re:tread all the chronicling of the peak and demise of Mars Hill I've done in the past but Turner's now open letter is worth noting as part of the record.

There's a dedicated page with a sea of links at Wenatchee The Hatchet now that you can peruse at your leisure.  Turner's publication of notes from the 2014 investigation are well worth reading if you haven't read those, as is his noting that 41 former Mars Hill pastors have publicly stated they regard Mark Driscoll as having not repented of the things he said and did in the late Mars Hill years.

The 10th anniversary of Mark Driscoll's Richard Nixon resignation moment is upon us this year, after all, and I have no qualms about labeling Driscoll's conduct as I have.  He was and is the Dick Nixon of megachurch preachers in my estimation.  If anything I am willing to cut Nixon slack I wouldn't cut to a self-described Christian minister.  People expected Tricky Dick to be Tricky Dick.  

I do want to get back to some musical posts (like finally discussing Ethan Iverson's piano sonata, for instance, and Matiegka's Grand Sonata II) but there's been lots of unexpected stuff this year, some of it not so great and some of it fun (like writing a ton of music)

So this post is, for me, pretty brief and absent analysis and commentary. 

metaskeptical skepticism, a haiku

I tend to doubt folks
who claim they're recovering
certainty addicts

Ourkouzounov: Paraphrases d’après un Prélude de Rachmaninov

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g_KmqM9nxE

From Atanas Ourkouzounov's newest CD, Paraphrases.

https://productionsdoz.com/en/product/9668-paraphrases-cd

in case you hadn't seen Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon's Heart

 and you didn't grab a copy on physical media ... 

another not-so-busy phase

 well ...

John Schneider plays Lou Harrison's "Round" on a microtonal guitar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyO_jB4ZT1Q

Manuel Barrueco played a few pieces by Lou Harrison this weekend for his recital at Benaroya Hall.  I haven't shared links to microtonal guitar much because while I admire and respect some microtonalist composers it's not my usual jam, so to speak. But when I hear things that sound fun I do like to share them. 

Maybe it's a lifetime of hearing blues guitar, jazz guitar, and rock guitar but microtonality on the whole seems more persuasive to me in guitar music than in keyboard music. Having said that I've certainly stumped for the string quartets of Ben Johnston ... but I was just saying microtonality comes off better on strings. ;) 

UPDATE

Ouch!  Didn't spell the guitarist's name correctly when I hit "publish".  Sorry about that. 

Ted Gioia on Charbucks ...

https://www.honest-broker.com/p/how-coffee-became-a-joke

Charbucks was on a downward slide decades ago.  I'm not a coffee drinker but I did some seasonal temp work with the double-roasting firm in the last century.  Even back then there were mutterings in the corporate culture that it was once a good place to work but the drive to get ever more profit rather than satisfy the existing customer base entailed cutting niche coffees and drumming up business by getting new customers.  Lots of people drink coffee but lots of people don't like Starbucks.  It was considered vaguely "mid" even back in the days of grunge to make the point anchronistically.

Back in the day one of my relatives warned former Mars Hill leaders that pursuing the Starbucks endless expansion approach to church planting and campus acquisition was adding liabilities faster than was reasonable.  My version was to say that expansion beyond the pace of sustained donor cultivation was going to blow up in their faces.  In other words, when the two of us made appeals to Mars Hill leaders on our ways out that they were cruising for a bruising we both appealed, negatively, to the example of Starbucks. 

If Ted Gioia has come around to the observation that Starbucks has made itself into a joke twenty odd years later, ok.  :)