Welcome to Letters from Quotidia Hologram 5. Smart people come in all shapes and sizes, don’t they? Most of us would consider ourselves pretty smart if, say, we were smarter than 90 percent of the human race. And if we were in the top decile of income distribution, most of us would consider ourselves well-off.
But then there are those who are really, really smart and those who are really, really rich- who occupy the top 0.01% of intelligence and income. If you have an income north of US$7 million every single year and assets worth more than US$110 million then welcome to the .01% Club. It’s harder to be anything like as precise about IQ. The validity of the very concept has been called into question.
There is no close correlation between IQ scores and achievement, broadly conceived. Similarly there is no lock with ethical behaviour or morality. Teenage thrill-killers Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold possessed intelligence at the top of the scale and the Milwaukee cannibal Jeffry Dahmer, and serial rapist and murderer Ted Bundy were also highly intelligent. The less said about them the better, as also, the avaricious and amoral Tech Bros. But the Tech Bros will figure in the first new song of this post!
However, there is no doubt that we are indebted to those highly gifted men and women who have used their brilliance to the advantage of humankind. Albert Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci spring to mind. Sabrina Pasterski, a Cuban-American prodigy aged 33 has a marvellous life story which is worth delving into, but for this post I am particularly intrigued by her research in the field of theoretical physics that posits that the universe may be a hologrammatic projection: that everything that exists from the smallest particle to the largest celestial object could be encoded on a two-dimensional template.
Now, don’t ask me to explain the mathematical underpinnings, or anything else about this theory. I regularly find difficulty in reconciling my bank statements to my advantage! I spent how much? On What? Oh, right…I remember, now. What I will set before you, is that this Letter, Hologram 5, is encoded on a two-dimensional template- which is the screen glowing before me and it will project into cyberspace when I press the appropriate button. What dimensional shape it ends up, who can tell? While this doesn’t put me up there with the 0.01 percenters-it’s something!
Also, this Letter is, hologrammatically, linked closely to Letter 100 posted on 1st July 2021 and reposted just over a year ago. It’s title, Dumb, is at the other end of the spectrum from the prodigies discussed in this Letter- numbered 305 in the sequence. But sometimes the spectrum bends into a horseshoe shape and the two extremes end up rather close together. I think the old song, Dumb, which I include here, and the new song, Smart, demonstrate the truth of that observation. FirstDumb, then Smart. [insert songs]
Why do I persevere with these Letters? After all, most of the pandemic podcasters, as well as the painters, quilters, crafters and bakers have resumed a normal life! After I retired twelve years ago, I started a blog where I stated as a rationale, “Quentin Bega was born in the middle of the last century and then stumbled into the present one with something more to say and sing about.” And every time I thought I had reached a terminus, I still had more to say and sing about.
Last year, I attended an exhibition, Cezanne to Giacometti, in Canberra at the National Gallery of Australia, featuring a who’s who of the luminaries of the Modern Art movement, including Picasso, Matisse and Braque. A wonderful and impactful event. But the artist who impressed me most deeply? Paul Klee. So, every time I am tempted to sit back and read a book, do a crossword and maybe potter about in the garden as the sum total of my remaining life, I recall that Paul Klee, when confronted with approaching death from the autoimmune disease, scleroderma, reacted by creating 1253 drawings and images in 1939, including numerous images containing children.
One of these, Ein Kinderspiel, Child’s Play, provides the inspiration for the final song of the post. I quote from the essay accompanying the artwork in the exhibition catalogue, now, “The girl in Child’s Play is floating over a farmyard with fragmentary symbols in black paint…Klee suggests that life merely leaves its traces in the sand…life with all its desires for love and freedom passes away and is dispersed by the winds…Art…plays an innocent game with its subjects. Just as a child at play imitates us, we also imitate at play the forces which created and create the world.” I use that last sentence of the essay as the chorus of my song.
I have quoted before, the following lines from the great Immortality Ode by William Wordsworth, but they are particularly pertinent in this context: The well-known line, The child is father of the man; is part of the epigraph of the poem, which begins, /Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:/The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,/Hath had elsewhere its setting,/ And cometh from afar:/Not in entire forgetfulness,/ And not in utter nakedness,/But trailing clouds of glory do we come/From God, who is our home:/Heaven lies about us in our infancy!/Shades of the prison-house begin to close/Upon the growing Boy,// Ignore this boy crying Wolf! In future, I’ll just keep writing “until life, with all its desires…, passes away and is dispersed by the winds.” [insert song]
As a postscript do you remember at the end of 2025 Time magazine’s person of the year? The image on the cover was of 8 Tech Bros and Sistahs supposedly sitting on a steel girder high above Manhattan, aping that famous 1932 photograph of construction workers having their lunch break on a steel girder- for real! They were building the Manhattan skyline, representing, it could be argued, the pinnacle of human achievement at that time. Does anyone else register the savage irony? The architects of AI as builders of anything human? Seems to me they represent the very antithesis of what humanity is all about. ‘Nuff said; I’m in my old man shouting at clouds phase. It will pass, as will all things, but until next time when, God willing, we meet again in Quotidia- do, please, take care.
Dumb (words and music Quentin Bega)
Here it comes again, a song without an end
The words don’t mean a thing except to say I am
Just someone any someone singing into space
No sense of discipline I’m generally off my face
Dumb doo doo dumb dumb doo doo dumb doo doo dumb
Dumb doo doo dumb dumb doo doo dumb doo doo dumb
Here it comes again, a play without a spark
With characters so vile, don’t meet them after dark
The language of the sewer masquerades as art
Short-circuit energy there’s movement but no heart
Dumb doo doo dumb dumb doo doo dumb doo doo dumb
Dumb doo doo dumb dumb doo doo dumb doo doo dumb
Here it comes again, a painting with no point
The only thing that’s clear- its purpose, to anoint
A no-talent hopeless dauber dragging in a buck
If you’ve got sensibility, you’re out of luck
Dumb doo doo dumb dumb doo doo dumb doo doo dumb
Dumb doo doo dumb dumb doo doo dumb doo doo dumb
Ooh, you’re dumb, you’re so dumb
Here you come again, bringing in the new
That quality is crap, there’s only points of view
If I could understand you I would pin the lie
The chorus of this song’s the sum of my reply
Dumb doo doo dumb dumb doo doo dumb doo doo dumb
Dumb doo doo dumb dumb doo doo dumb doo doo dumb
You’re so dumb…you’re dumb….dumb
Smart (words and music Quentin Bega)
Int: Cmaj7 Dm7 Em7 Dm7 Ver: C F-2 G7 Am G7 F Chor: Bb Eb-2 F Eb F Eb Dm7
Tell me again how you reached the top of this vast pile
Tell me again how you remained humble all the while
You vanquished the opposition showed them what was what
How clearly, they’re inferior and clearly you are not
Tell me again how you achieved this on your own
Tell me again how you deserve a golden throne
If only your true worth was seen your joy would be complete
That would put the icing on your enemies’ defeat
Show me your etchings! You want to show me the view
Wine me and dine me and seduce me too
I think I’ll take a rain check; I’ve got something else to do
And that something else, baby, does not include you
Don’t tell me anymore how really smart you are
Don’t tell me anymore how you’re a superstar
I know the world where you exist has no appeal for me
The price I’d pay is much too high I’d rather just be free
Don’t tell me anymore that I am missing out
Don’t tell me anymore because I am in no doubt
That what you have to offer is illusory at best
I would find no peace there I’d be just a mess
Show me your etchings! You want to show me the view
Wine me and dine me and seduce me too
I think I’ll take a rain check; I’ve got something else to do
And that something else, baby, does not include you
And that something else, baby, does not include you
…it does not include you
Child’s Play (words and music Quentin Bega)
Intro: C2 Am F2 G7sus Chorus: C Dm G7 F G C Verse: F C F C F C G C
Just as a child at play imitates us, we also imitate at play
the forces which created and create the world
The girl is floating over the farmyard
She’s not attached to anything below
The rooster crows that’s just what he does,
The girl is floating over it all
Flowers shimmer softly in the green grass
The yellow of the sun is beaming down
A red spiral spinning near her black hat
Its meaning is beyond our power to tell
Just as a child at play imitates us, we also imitate at play
the forces which created and create the world
Can we imitate this child as grown-ups
Sporting an eye that’s staring brown
The purple heart is visible and beating
The girl is floating over it all
Where will we next go in our journey
Where will this magic carpet go
Will we sing together in harmony
Or cry alone as darkness takes its toll
Just as a child at play imitates us, we also imitate at play
the forces which created and create the world
we also imitate at play
the forces which created and create the world
Credits: All written text, song lyrics andmusic (including background music) written and composed by Quentin Bega unless otherwise specified in the credits section after individual posts. Illustrative excerpts from other texts identified clearly within each podcast. I donate to and use Wikipedia frequently as one of the saner sources of information on the web.
Technical Stuff: Microphone-songs Shure SM58; (for the podcast spoken content) Audio Technica AT 2020 front-facing with pop filter); Apogee 76K also used for songs and spoken text. For recording and mixing down: 64-bit N-Track Studio 10 Extended used; Rubix 22 also used for mixing of microphone(s) and instruments. I use the Band in a Box/RealBand 2023 combo for music composition.
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