> John Adams wrote:
>
>> I've tried a time or two to subtly taunt you into discussing the Gang
>> of Four song from _Land of the Free_ which contains the "include
>> myself out" line. I don't think they were just alluding to the Samuel
>> Goldwyn quote. <snip> I'll take one more shot at it--it seemed to me
>> that parts of album were as much about inner-head withdrawal as their
>> earlier career was not. You think?
>
> Hmmm. Could you be more specific than that? "We live as we dream
> alone" seems to be about the struggle between alienation and the urge
> to connect, and peppered with "Heart of Darkness" quotes too. But what
> else did you have in mind?
I was thinking of "Of the Instant": http://lyrics.duble.com/lyrics/G/gang-of-four-lyrics/gang-of-four-of- the-instant-lyrics.htm (this looks like a good but incomplete site for some GoF lyrics.) Along with these inward-turned lyrics, you've also got a very spacy track--neither hard-edged nor rhythmically driving. An unusual song for them, to say the least.
> Love the Y2K and peak oil thing. Google serendipity! One of the
> traditionalists' arguments against electronic texts used to be that
> you couldn't stumble on stuff in the library on the shelf next to what
> you were looking for. That was just proved wrong!
Here's a paradox: The better you are at crafting efficient searches, the less serendipity you get. I don't think the argument carries on this ground--as you point out, we have a counter-example right here--but I would say that traditional research techniques are likelier to give unusually serendipitous results, given the wherewithal to carry them out.
Of course, that's a high barrier to entry--funding research is tough!--so perhaps the electronic search gives better serendipity for more people in most situations.
All the best,
John A