Piper at the Gates of Dawn

One of the great advantages of present day entertainment is of course the unprecedented speed at which the internet and its corrolary applications provide us with extensive pastime. Although I am often a tad bit nostalgic when I think of or read up on older and simpler times, technology makes the lives of most people living in our affluent western society a lot easier. Just the other day proved an excellent example of this marvel of modern times.

So, I was idly browsing a variety of websites in search for a laugh, you-tubing here and there when I stumbled upon Pink Floyd’s quintessential debut album Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Despite having a fair number of their albums, for some odd reason I had never listened to this one before. Needless to say, I was dumbfound almost immediately. I now understand the widespread opinion of those music-bigots claiming that Syd Barret’s Pink Floyd eclipsed all later line-ups of the band.

The striking thing here is that I don’t even remember how I ended up at Pink Floyd. The internet seems to me like an enormous monster with interlocking tentacles. Once you’re grabbed by one of them you might end up anywhere. The routes one takes from a given starting point today will probably vary tomorrow, because of the countless mental connections associated with all things in life. It reminds me of a excruciatingly boring linguistics class I foolishly took the previous semester. The jist of most lectures was that various frames of thought could be blended into one entity. One can hop from frame to frame by sort of ‘blending’ different frames (that which we associate with certain words or concepts). Not only is it relevant to linguistics, but also to the way our minds think. Creative minds in particular are adept at making these connections and visualising them for their audience.

That’s why I like people like Erwin Panofsky whose theorem of disguised symbolism in western-European art makes use of that type of thinking. By thinking about what the paintings of the Flemish Primitives represent, the meaning of the iconography and the situation of it all in a cultural historic context he ends up with new perspectives. He’s most famous for applying it to the Arnolfini portrait (1434) by Jan van Eyck. A brief summary of his view can be found at Wikipedia.

I realize this is all a bit far-fetched, but that type of chain of thought also brought me to Pink Floyd. Somehow I think it's quite amazing, and at the same time it reminds me that luckily many things in life remain unpredictable. For me that’s reassuring, because I adhere the principle that we’re rational beings. The random factor enables me to keep supporting that idea whilst denying that we’re merely programmed organic creatures following our emotions and primal needs. Anyway... elaborating more on this gobbledygook would take me too far, and very likely my head would explode while writing it down.

In conclusion: Have I listened too much to Piper at the Gates of Dawn, is it the thrill of having finished my exams or the effects of this here ganja that makes me ramble on about these crazy thoughts? I don’t have a clue; probably all three combined topped off with an additional dash of sheer madness compelled me to write this all down. Anyway, for those poor souls who have never heard of the album (or worse, the band!), youtube offers salvation. Here’s a 10 minute part of the album. Don’t bother looking at the video that lame uploader decided to compile, it’s crap.