Tag: Jacques Brel

A Bit of Art for Value Pluralism

In line with my learning from art project, I try to always think of a set of works of art that are helpfully related to content I develop (or delve). This is to get more out of art than we naturally do. And it can help improve one’s understanding. The task is actually quite difficult, because most brains (including mine) do not naturally index art in this way (but I believe one can deliberately build such indexes in our brains).

Here are a few works of art that came to my mind on the topic of my recent blog post, Psychological Hedonism meets Value Pluralism: An Integrative Design-oriented perspective – CogZest. Continue reading A Bit of Art for Value Pluralism

Homage to Jacques Brel on the 40-year Anniversary of His Death

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40 years ago tomorrow, on October 9, 1978, at 4:10 AM, Jacques Brel passed away. Wikipedia describes him thus

[Brel] was a Belgian singer, songwriter, poet, actor and director who composed and performed literate, thoughtful, and theatrical songs that generated a large, devoted following—initially in Belgium and France, later throughout the world. He is considered a master of the modern chanson.

To give an example of the impact of this grand man, there are 1,400 different recorded versions in 52 different languages of his “Ne me quitte pas” song.

Here are just a few of the things that I admire about Brel:

Continue reading Homage to Jacques Brel on the 40-year Anniversary of His Death

Why Is A Christmas Story — The Musical — So Hilarious? Inside Jokes, The Mating Mind and Mental Spaces We’d Rather Not Explore

“You don’t mean to say that this charming, clever young lady has been so foolish as to accept you?”
Lord Caversham to Lord Goring in Oscar Wilde’s, An Ideal Husband

“Evolution is an examination with two papers. To succeed demands a pass in both.”
Steve Jones, Darwin’s Ghost (p. 76)

The Arts Club of Vancouver’s performance of A Christmas Story—The Musical had me in stiches. But why?

A Christmas Story—The Musical
Continue reading Why Is A Christmas Story — The Musical — So Hilarious? Inside Jokes, The Mating Mind and Mental Spaces We’d Rather Not Explore

Meta-painting & Science of the Human Mind: An Epistolary Response to Lam Wong’s 21 Elements

Preface

This epistolary essay was written in 2014 (with some later updates) as a response to Lam Wong’s 21 Elements: Relation, Perception and Meaning painting exhibition of Sept. 2014 in New Westminster. I blogged about the exhibition prior to writing this essay.

In 2014, Lam Wong’s 21 Elements: Relation, Perception and Meaning book was published. That book contains photos of all the paintings in his exhibition. A chapter of 21 Elements, written by Lam, which includes pictures of several of the paintings from his book, are available in this PDF.

Photos of the paintings from 21 Elements are available on Lam’s website.

A version of the essay below appears in the second edition of 21 Elements, published in 2022. That’s a limited edition print.

A version of the essay below, interleaved with photos of the paintings, will appear in Discontinuities: Love, Art, Mind. The letter reflects many of the themes of Discontinuities, including, of course, affective epistolary communication.

Contents

  • Attentively developing expertise through time
  • N-ary relations in art and meta machinery
  • Perception: The construction of conjectures
  • Rational faith and love in the dark
  • Language of cognitive-affective mind
  • Perturbance: Loss of control of mental processing of motivators
  • Attachment, acceptance, love and happiness
  • Universality of affect
  • Using visual art to improve ourselves
  • Consciousness, the great integrator (or integration)
  • To the tune of Kevin Shield’s Goodbye

Meta-painting & Science of the Human Mind: An Epistolary Response to Lam Wong’s 21 Elements

Shadows of shadows passing. It is now 1831, and as always I am absorbed with a delicate thought. It is how poetry has indefinite sensations, to which end music is an essential. Since the comprehension of sweet sound is our most indefinite conception, music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry. Music without the idea is simply music. Without music or an intriguing idea, colour becomes pallor, man becomes carcass, home becomes catacomb, and the dead are but for a moment motionless. Edgar Allan Poe

Dear ______,

I had the pleasure of attending, on several occasions, Lam Wong’s 21 Elements: Relation, Perception and Meaning exhibition and of discussing his art with him. As a result, I am moved to share my reflections with you.

Continue reading Meta-painting & Science of the Human Mind: An Epistolary Response to Lam Wong’s 21 Elements

Emotion as Perturbance, Draft of ACT in Three Acts (Performed)

I was asked to assemble a service for Beacon Unitarian. I accepted and decided to meet several constraints, some of which are mentioned below.

As I said in my last post, I am trying to relate (a) acceptance and commitment therapy/training to (b) H-CogAff (a theory of affect). This is to better understand mental phenomena and to develop new solutions that promote well-being and cognitive productivity (including “meta-effectiveness”, the skills and propensity to use knowledge to become more effective.)

So, I decided to create a service entitled Emotion as Perturbance: A Draft of ACT in Three Acts to informally present the perturbance theory of emotion in combination with acceptance and commitment therapy/training and the work of Jacques Brel. That allowed me to pursue several CogZest projects in one Zest of Brel production.
Continue reading Emotion as Perturbance, Draft of ACT in Three Acts (Performed)

Jacques Brel Wrote as He Lived

In a television program recorded in the 1960’s, Jacques Brel, describing himself as an ordinary guy, spoke about his method for hatching songs. He revealed that he worked as we know he lived, standing up!* Le Grand Jacques even showed us the desk at which he wrote his songs—giving us a glimpse of his small apartment.

Actually, Brel said most of the work for his songs happens away from his desk. The idea of a song “walks around in one’s head for 4, 5 or 6 months”. That’s “incubation” in cognitive psychology lingo. “When, one day, it is very ripe, like a fruit one picks it. And then one writes it.” All very matter of fact.
Continue reading Jacques Brel Wrote as He Lived

An Evening to Celebrate Camaraderie with the Zest of Brel

This evening, we are resurrecting the spirit of friendship of the Grand Jaques Brel, one day before his 83rd birthday anniversary (April 8, which falls on Easter Sunday this year).  I am hosting an intimate Celebration of Camaraderie with the “Zest of Brel”.
Continue reading An Evening to Celebrate Camaraderie with the Zest of Brel