Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

Do you remember years back when Sandy Patti had to give up her awards because she admitted to an extra-marital affair? As in all else, grace seems to be missing from their concept of Christianity.

My family is watching a movie so I can't listen to the song, but I shall endeavor to do so on the morrow.
 

That is so cool!
Made me think of Godspell and the song Day by Day - which to me says it all.

By the way - did those little doohickeys that made the big hole in singles fit the little peg in the turntable have a name?
They used to fascinate me as a small child....
 

Michael English, too. Others. It's all just crazy.
 

I think they were called "doohickeys."

:-)
 

I remember SP and the scandal - and I made sure to use one of her songs on my son's birth announcement - I was so upset that she was being shunned by all the Christian book and music stores - that would have been 15.5 years ago.
 

Ya know, the bouncy tune sort of masks just how cool, and deep, "Put Your Hand in the Hand" is:

Key lyrics:

Take a look at yourself
And you can look at others differently.

Ev'ry time I look into the Holy Book I want to tremble
When I read about the part where the carpenter cleared the temple
For the buyers and the sellers were no different fellas
Than what I profess to be
And it causes me shame to know we're not the people we should be.
 

Karen: Wikipedia's entry on "Gramophone record" refers to it as a "spindle size adapter" and a "snap-in insert." It's also called a "45-rpm insert."

Whoa. It also, like, IS the Isle of Man Symbol.
 

Wow, I'll have to look that up.
 

You know, sometimes reading something sparks me thinking about things that hadn't entered my mind in years. Take that snap-on spindle (I'm with ER - it should just be called "doohickey"; the word should refer to something specific) - I hadn't thought of that since I stopped listening to 45s, in 1978 or so. Yet, here I am, remembering fondly the very careful way I had to put it on and take it off our old Sears record player (the one on that particular model was not interchangeable with other models, having some kind of fitted piece with the spindle; my mother was always terribly afraid I was going to destroy the entire house when I put that thing on and took it off).

While I am grateful for the advent of compact discs, we did lose something of our childhood when we tossed out all the bulky hi-fi equipment. That, and as my reading on the history of rock-and-roll reminds me, the invention of the 45 helped spark that particular cultural revolution.

Ah, memories.
 

One final thought on all things disc-like and spinning. I was given this particular bit of information many years ago in an altered state of consciousness, and even all these years later, it is a conundrum that continues to fascinate me.

Sit and watch a record spin. The turntable upon which it sits is spinning at 45 rpms, or 33.3rpms. Watch the tone arm as it move down the disc. The closer it gets to the spindle, the smaller the circumference of the circle it traces. The laws of physics dictate that the disc is spinning faster the closer to the center of the disc. Yet, how is that possible, when the entire turntable is mechanically controlled to spin at a certain speed?
 

ER said:
"The coolest thing I have ever seen on the 'Net"

What were you on when you watched this? The last time I watched a record turn and turn and turn, I think it was because of Jack and Coke.


GKS:
"Yet, how is that possible, when the entire turntable is mechanically controlled to spin at a certain speed?"

MTYRWTK (More than you really want to know):
It doesn't matter when the recording device and the playing device are working at the same ratio of distance to speed. On any vinal record that is what is happening. One inch along the track (grove) has the same data for both and 50 inches along the track as the same data for both even though the track at one inch is moving slower than the track at 50 inches.
Therefore the point on the grove is gaining speed as it was recorded but the same point on the playback grove is moving at the same speed so the viberations per second are not variable.

GKS, want some deep theology, not that buble gum stuff from Rock n' Roll? Try Emmylou Harris's

"The Pearl"
O the dragons are gonna fly tonight
They're circling low and inside tonight
It's another round in the losing fight
Out along the great divide tonight
We are aging soldiers in an ancient war
Seeking out some half remembered shore
We drink our fill and still we thirst for more
Asking if there's no heaven what is this hunger for?
Our path is worn our feet are poorly shod
We lift up our prayer against the odds
And fear the silence is the voice of God
of God
of God
And we cry Allelujah Allelujah
We cry Allelujah
more.....


And for a gut wrencher about the loss from abortion try her "My Baby Needs a Shepherd"

"My baby needs an angel
She never learned to fly
She´ll not reach sanctuary
Just by looking to the sky
I guess I could have carried her
But I didn´t even try
My baby needs an angel
She never learned to fly"

And for a real trip into the old testament, King David, and yesterdays affairs try Lenard Cohen's "Hallelujah"

"Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah"


Well, those are my theological musical contributions....
 

The Okie name for the 45 record hole inserts was "spiders". I remember being pissed at RCA when they came out the big holet 45rpm because they wanted to make more money and have their own unique system to make more money and make the 78 rpm's obsolete so they could make more money, so they came out with their own spindle adapter post and 45 rpm players and to be cool you had to have one so they could make more money.
 

Leave this pop Christian stuff behind and come join me at the rehearsals for Handel's "Messiah." We've been working on it since August -- just three pieces from the work so far.
 

GKS: "The laws of physics dictate that the disc is spinning faster the closer to the center of the disc. "

Speaking of theological and 45 rpm records,watch the record and try this thought experiment. If you cause an explosion in the cosmos and it moves spiraling outward from the spindle point at the speed of light, then the particles or waves of the explosion as they move out in a linear manner are moving away from each other faster than the speed of light, but nothing supposedly can move faster than the speed of light, fiction, not withstanding.
 

Handel=eggshell
 

Doc, I do understand the practical effects upon the grooves. I was speaking more of the weird business of actual physical spinning. On the whole light-spinning thing - aagh! My brain isn't that big.

Love Emmylou Harris and Leonard Cohen.

The class uses music the kids are familiar with, and listen to, rather than forcing them to appreciate stuff they may not like. Why is that so difficult to understand?
 

Want to second drlobojo's recommendation of Leonard Cohen's "Halleluja" but with one caveat: find the version sung by k.d. lang (there are several videos of it on YouTube). Her voice is magnificent.
 

Re, "Why is that so difficult to understand?"

Nobody said it was hard to understand. We're just talking about music. And stuff.

Re, speed of the disc: Would it depend on where one on the record one measured the revolutions per second? Maybe not.
 

For my money, the best version of "Hallelujah" is by...Tim Buckley's kid who also died young...Who only completed one album named 'Grace'...Whose name I completely forget. Sorry.
 

Jeff! Jeff Buckley.
 

I agree. I like the K.D. Lang version, but Jeff Buckley does it better. I remember hearing it on "The West Wing" when CJ's FBI boyfriend was gunned down in a Store robbery.

By the was GKS, I used to use poetry and songs to teach geography.
The meanest I ever got was when I tried to have my class analyse "The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerld" and answer basic questions about it, like "What was the witch of November?" They couldn't hear what was there.
 

GKS :"I was speaking more of the weird business of actual physical spinning."

Now I have to understand what you are saying.

The spiraling in to the center, by using a cutter mounted on a screw device?

Or?
 

ER: "Re, speed of the disc: Would it depend on where one on the record one measured the revolutions per second? Maybe not."

Nope, the speed of the disc would be constant, but each groove from the outside in towards the center would be a smaller circle than the preceeding one so that the distance traveled per each circle would be smaller as you move towards the center of the disc. Thus the needle would be traveling at a speed much slower near the middle of the disc than it would be at the outer edge of the disc but the rpm of the disc would be constant. But as stated because the recording and the playback are correlated to the same size circles with the spiral the music's frequency that goes in comes back out the same.
I'm now at the point where I am having to explain this to myself.
 

Well, even scarier is I think I understood that.
 

Oh, I remember the version from West Wing! It was really good, and completely fitting with those scenes.

And while I still think I like kd's version better, I'm very glad to have Buckley's name so I can check out the rest of the album.
 

OK, here's how popwerfvul that song is. I didn't know what it was was called, and I didn't know hwo it was by, but I remember being moved greatly by it in West Wing. Cool.
 

You know, Doc, you just spoiled a reminiscence of my days of altering my mood. I understood your explanation, too.

Science wins out over drugs, once again.
 

"Science wins out over drugs, once again."

Naw, science are drugs. Work out that physics problem and you'll be altered alright.