Tag: Sound of Silence

Neon God

” People bowed and prayed, to the neon god they made” (Sound of Silence now inducted to

the American Museum as Classic American Sound to be preserved).

Meanwhile, we spend an average 8 hours per month on Facebook, “the cathedral they made” (same amount of time people attend church services).

Twitter is not addictive. Facebook is.

Via the latter, we learn about people and companies, and the company they keep.

Those “likes” and snippets keep trickling in, like rain drops that Pavlovian-condition us to salivate.

Facebook works well with Youtube. One-two punch.

The video link is right there, ready to be viewed.

While Twitter is like a news feed, Facebook has become our trusted source of recommended entertainment and enlightenment.

Family photos and commercial photos both pop up indiscriminately.

It’s all in the pipe, and we open the floodgate, willingly without reservation (after all, we “friended” them in the first place).

What in the beginning resembled child’s play now commends global attention and respect (our next Steve Jobs).

It’s like a Casino, Cathedral and Community theater all in one.

While Ebay might be the largest bazaar, Facebook has become the Neon God (the Bubble of our own making) to which people bow and pray.

The platform has become the prophet.

The medium, the message.

8 hours a month, forever and ever, world without end.

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2095516,00.html

In restless dreams I walk alone…. and the voices of the prophets are written on subway walls, Facebook walls, and whisper’d in the Sound of Silence.

Simon’s Sound of Silence

“In restless dream I walked alone” this time, w/ out Garfunkel.

Two moments of silence descended upon two reflecting pools.

It was so eerie that ten years ago, of all things, Matt Lauer was interviewing a Howard Hughes biographer when the TODAY show got interrupted.

I don’t think viewers ever follow up on the bio after that morning:

Sound of smoke.

Sound of stress.

Sound of silence.

Silence, ten years ago, was deafening.

More like being speechless. Same freeze-framing the day President Kennedy was shot.

Even for those who made a living by commentating and improvising.

“Ten thousand people maybe more”.

People talking without speaking.

People hearing without listening.

Simon remains one of a few voices from the 60’s, who traveled far to Africa,

to enrich his repertoire.

The globalization of music.

Continuing Music Education (George Harrison and the Sitar opening act at Concert for Bangladesh).

Over the span of 60 years, more Americans have turned warriors without borders, might they be in Europe, Pacific, SEA, M.E. or South Asia.

The names which are now etched into the 9/11 memorial represent a diverse pool of country origins.

First, we have to be able to trust strangers.

Then, we do business.

Finally, we party and share the grief.

Besides English as lingua franca, we got music. We got Rock and Roll, soft or hard.

Then we got Sound of Silence.

In the decade since, I have been more aware every time I fasten my seat belt, before take off.

Hundreds of air passengers, strapped in for known and unknown destiny.

Like the Hockey team from Russia.

Even the last survivor didn’t make it.

Flight 93 passengers took destiny back in their own hands.

The hijackers got hijacked in a 9/11 twisted plot. Then, rescue workers needed to be rescued.

No crescendo for an already stress-filled morning.

We wanted to get back to book reading and book reviewing.

We wanted our loved ones to come home.

Le Monde headlines the next day was “We are all Americans“.

If there were Twitter, our chosen top tweet would have been

“We’re all first-responders”.

In restless dream, I walked together.

Simon and Garfunkel: twin talents for Twin Towers.