The Wonderful World of Greg Karber

OK—some days even bloggers get a gift. Mostly it’s uphill, you know—not every day has a British prince hitting baseballs with a bunch of blacks kids in Harlem, or a Venezuelan dude becoming director of the LA Phil.

So how likely was it that I’d strike it rich three times in a row? Because that’s what happened, when a gentleman who has now gone viral, Greg Karber, dropped into my day with his brilliant idea: give Abercrombie& Fitch clothing to the homeless.

Damn, why are everybody else’s ideas better than mine? No wonder he goes viral; it was an idea someone just had to think of. A & F, as you may remember, has decided that they only want cool people in their store, and in their clothes as well. So they don’t donate defective merchandise to people who might need it, they burn the clothes.

Douchebags, is what Karber calls them, and it’s an assessment that’s pretty hard to challenge. What’s wonderful, however, is the sheer ingenuity of Karber’s scheme, as well as its interesting twist: doing well by doing good.

Doing well because his video has gotten 1, 263, 997 hits on YouTube. Oh, and it was uploaded on May 13, 2013. So it will be interesting to see—writing a post usually takes an hour or so; how many hits will he have had by the time I finish this thing?

Well, it has to be said, Karber needs no help from this blogger—he’s made it! Yup, he’s doing the 15 minutes of fame. Take a look at this clip, and tell me he’s not wonderful….. 
  

Right, so what else has the guy done? Well, you can check out his website, which with breathtaking logic is called http://www.gregkarber.com .

Do it and you’ll see a guy who’s clearly done his work. Take a look at the clip below, which has been taken from his Greg Carber Video Show.

Nor is this enough for the imaginatively fecund Karber / Carber. Here he goes into the tantalizing world of the Ouija board…

The supernatural seems to be a common theme in—oh, what the hell, let's call it the—oeuvre of Karber. Take a look at the clip below....



Of course, every guy has a serious side, so that's why Karber had to do the koan of the day....



Lastly, there's this fascinating clip of the number pi.



Right, and here's what Karber says about it....

1. What is This?

225 Digits of π is a mathematic auralizer, a system by which the digits of π are converted to music. The piece was conceived and created by Amin Osman and Greg Karber.
You can purchase it on iTunes.

2. The Structure of 225 Digits of π.

The digits 0-9 were mapped to two octaves of a pentatonic scale.
We chose the pentatonic scale for three reasons. Firstly, each octave contains five notes, so the digits may be mapped evenly onto two octaves. Secondly, since the pentatonic scale lacks semitones and tritones, its pitches can be played in almost any arrangement without creating dissonance.
Thirdly, as this wonderful performance by Bobby McFerrin illustrates, the pentatonic scale seems hardwired into our brains. A fundamental scale for a fundamental number.
We chose the key of A and assigned the digits as follows:

0 = A2
1 = B2
2 = C#3
3 = E3
4 = F#3
5 = A3
6 = B3
7 = C#4
8 = E4
9 = F#4

However, while using the pentatonic scale removes dissonance, it also eliminates tension. As such, we added a bassline which followed a simple chord progression:

F#m F#m
D D
F#m F#m
D D
A A
F#m F#m
E A

This contextualized π's melody and gave it a dynamism which did not exist on its own.
We additionally mapped the a spectrum of colors to each of the digits, as follows:

0 = 
1 = 
2 = 
3 = 
4 = 
5 = 
6 = 
7 = 
8 = 
9 = 

A pastel spectrum was chosen for the same reason as the pentatonic scale: we felt it would produce less dissonance and be more pleasing to the senses.

3. Why π Fascinates Us.

π is, of course, most well known for expressing the relationship between the diameter and the circumference of a circle.

C = πd

However, this is not the only occurence of π. It recurs in several fields of mathematics, from statistics to number theory, often in situations where the connection to circles is difficult to fathom.
The most striking of these, perhaps, is this version of the Leibniz series:

This series sums so slowly it takes 300 terms before it is accurate for the first two digits of π. To calculate 10 correct decimal points of π would require five billion terms.
So get out your calculator.
Early mathematicians believed π to be rational, meaning they thought it could be represented by one whole number divided by another. Sometimes these mathematicians claimed that π equaled 22/7. It doesn't, but 22/7 is accurate for the first two digits, and that's close enough for almost all ancient uses.
You only need about 40 decimal places of π to calculate the circumference of the known universe to within a margin of error of about half the diameter of a proton.
The digits of π are thought to be random. However, no proof of such randomness exists. (If you could prove it, you could get a lot of attention and probably a number of new Twitter followers.)
If π is random, then its infinite length means that every finite pattern that could possibly exist exists within it. This has some mindblowing consequences. For example, let's say that we assigned each letter of the alphabet to a two-digit number:

A = 01
B = 02
C = 03
...
X = 24
Y = 25
Z = 26 

Assuming randomness, every single possible string of letters would be represented somewhere within π. This would include the Declaration of Independence, the lyrics to Gungnam Style, and the complete works of Shakespeare.

4. An Unfinishable Symphony...

While π never ends, "225 Digits of Pi" does. (Obviously, it ends after 225 digits.) However, this does not necessarily have to be so.
Through procedural generation, the digits of π could be determined on-the-fly by a computer, which could assign the digits to tones automatically (eliminating the very tedious project of individually entering notes). Then, the bassline, beat, and other assorted instruments could be cued to enter and leave based on a few simple rules.
If the rules were clever enough, they could retain musical dynamism indefinitely, so that the piece could -- thereotically -- go on forever...

What a guy—hunh? He does all this cool stuff, and he's funny too. Damn, and guess what?

Abercrombie & Fitch is at 1, 488, 103....

Shacked Up, Worse Luck....

Well, if that’s what I’m doing, shouldn’t it be more fun?

Oh, sorry, I forgot you just dropped in to my morning. Which was supposed to start, by the way, by looking into the interesting issue of providing rape kits for Native Americans. Instead it began—discounting the hours between midnight and three, when I was engaged in jellybean-seeking behavior—with Mr. Fernández informing me that Smith, the cat, was in the back bedroom.

Right, got him out, and discovered that there was a pile of wet t-shirts on the stovetop. So I figured that out: we’ve been having rain, which leaks through the roof into the third floor of the building and then into the second floor of the building where we live and then onto the pile of clean white t-shirts. (And why, computer, if jellybean and stovetop are now one word is t-shirt still hyphenated?) OK, put the wet t-shirts in the laundry hamper, addressed a few improving words to Smith, and started about the work of the morning, which is, of course, coffee.

But not before hearing anguished and very loud screams, apparently in English. And it did sound as if the man was shouted “I AM GAY,” and a woman was saying, in Spanish, “se cayó,” or “he fell.” Presumably she was on the telephone, talking to whatever authority it is who deals with alleged gay falling bodies.

Well, that seemed to need investigation, but I was too decaffeinated to get up and walk around the corner (though I say this with no pride). So I did what any other lazy or spineless person would do: looked it up on the Internet.

There, of course, I got distracted, though I haven’t lost track of the rape kits for Native Americans, nor should you. But it seemed important to read about Abercrombie & Fitch (just FYI, the computer has no red squiggles for the last two proper nouns, but try writing Chausson, Messiaen, or even Gonoud—what a world, hunh?) Abercrombie & Fitch have come right out swinging—they don’t want ugly people in their stores. Nor, for that matter, do they want fat people in their clothes, so they settle that by simply not making anything larger than medium. Oh, and want to work in Abercrombie & Fitch? Better look the part, because otherwise forget it.

That, of course, set me wondering, since I spent seven years attempting to pass as a human resources person. Can you get away with that? Especially in Puerto Rico, which has strong, some-would-say-absurdly-protective laws? And what happens when a young and dazzling Abercrombie & Fitch salesperson, his brain inflamed by the alluring shirtless men on all the shopping bags, spends a weekend drooling and guzzling chocolates? He comes in on Monday with zits blazing across his face—is he fired? Sent home, or to the dermatologist? Set to work in the back room?

None of this, of course, is sufficiently important to devote an hour to, much less the 497 words I have spilled. What I really meant to tell you about, beyond the rape kits for Native Americans, is that our old nemesis, Phyllis Schlafly (YES!—both names got the red squiggles! At last!) is still kicking.

If you don’t know Schlafly—and no, computer, I’m not adding her; that would be a form of self-pollution—I congratulate you. You are young, and probably working at Abercrombie & Fitch. Let me describe her social views as that of a lady just stepping out of her cave.

She almost single-handedly killed an amendment, back in the seventies, that seemed pretty innocuous—it would have granted equal rights for women. I know—I can hear the collective gasp of horror from the blogosphere, but relax, it didn’t happen. Schlafly, who got an MA from Radcliffe and her law degree from Washington University, stepped right up to the plate, and pointed out the errancy lurking behind those seemingly innocent words.

It was all, she said, a plot by the homosexual agenda—guess we know who that is!—to convince us all that homosexuals were normal and let them get married. Now then, you—product of a degenerate age—may in fact think that homosexuals are normal and should get married, but Phyllis, dear Phyllis, is standing firm. As she did forty years ago, when she succeeded in getting five states that had ratified the amendment to unratify / deratify / disratify / you-know-what-I-mean the amendment. It was wonderful—in the sense of to-be-wondered—the arguments that spewed out of her. Stay-at-home moms would be denied social security! Women would be drafted! Public unisex bathrooms!

Well, she killed the ERA, she and her rabble-rousing crowd, and she’s still at it. And in a way, it’s comforting that she’s still around, still as ridiculous as ever. What would it be like, waking up to a world where Schlafly gets up on the podium, waves the flag, and roars out her support for marriage equality? Would I want this woman for a friend?

At any rate, she has now made it clear for all of us—tradition holds that sodomy is worse than rape. This, presumably, would mean “illegitimate” rape as opposed to “legitimate” rape—a concept propounded by Todd Akin, and vigorously defended by Schlafly.

And now she’s urging the Republican Party to stand firm, not to give an inch, hold their ground! Yes, Minnesota—that seething cesspool of sin—is poised to become the twelfth state to approve marriage equality, but that doesn’t faze Schlafly: she’s faced bigger bullies on her block than that before.

And the old, lovely voices are raised again. Here’s Dobson:

“Homosexuals are not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage, Dobson said at a 2004 rally in Oklahoma. “It will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth.”

Next comes Sandy Rios:

“They are clamoring for gay marriage,” said Rios of LGBT activists. “Of course it isn’t just gay marriage, it’s instruction, explicit instruction in public schools, it’s really I think the rape of our children’s innocence.”

How about Tony Perkins?

The month of June is Gay Pride Month. Now, I have not yet seen where they have declared Adultery Pride Month, I have not seen where they have declared the Drunkenness Pride Month.

I could go on, but why bother? What really concerns me is not this ridiculous woman, but her son John, who is gay. Oh, and living at home with Mamma, or at least was in 1992, when he was outed. And, in a lukewarm way, he defends his mother’s positions, saying that she is doing good work, and stating that "efforts to convey the (Republican) Convention and the platform and speakers as bigots and gay bashers is (sic) completely inaccurate. The concept of family values should not be threatening to gays and lesbians. Most gays and lesbians have good relations with their family, as I do."

And Schlafly says the same thing: “We deeply resent the insinuation that we have treated homosexuals unkindly personally,” Schlafly and her friends wrote. Oh, and she said something else: homosexuality "is not a big subject around (the Schlafly family)."

I’m very sure it’s not. It’s one of the oldest forms of repression—a refusal to talk about it. And it leads to certain crazy places, such as this quote by John Schlafly:

John Schlafly, asked if he supports his mother's signature issue of the week -- a constitutional ban on gay marriage -–stopped for a moment to collect his thoughts.

"I think the traditional definition of marriage has served our society well, and it shouldn't be changed," says John Schlafly, choosing his words slowly. "That was the law in every state, and still is except for certain court decisions. I don't see why there's anything wrong with it."

"It doesn't prevent gays from living their personal lives any way they choose," he said quietly, "Gays have all the same civil and political rights as everyone else. The rights guaranteed by our Constitution."

It’s from an anonymous source on a website—I have no way of knowing if indeed John Schlafly did say it. But I was going to bemoan my fate, I who have shacked up these thirty long years with Mr. Fernández. Who called, just as I was starting this post, to ask me what I wanted for dinner. “Pizza,” I said, of course. “Wrong, you want fish,” he returned. Right, so I got that out of the freezer. Then Mr. Fernández went on to tell me the wet t-shirts would rot in the hamper. Right, so I started the laundry.

Then I wrote, “Well, if that’s what I’m doing, shouldn’t it be more fun?”

I was feeling put-upon, I admit it. But just now it occurred to me, and I’m over it.

That gay falling body?

Think it was John Schlafly.