It’s a windy day out on the coast, and a big wooden pirate ship is sailing across the ocean. As it sails it’s boards need replacing from scratches and cannonballs and all of the natural and normal pirate occurrences. When it finally arrives to it’s destination, somehow every single board on the ship has been replaced. Is it possible for this to still be the same ship upon return as departure? If not, when should we say the critical point was, fifty-percent replacement, seventy-five-percent replacement? The ship of theseus is a philosophical puzzle that philosophers have pondered for ages, and one that probably sends the annoying kid in your philosophy class on a rampage because ‘it’s too subjective.’
With the beginning of a new school year, a university student is not unlike the ship of theseus. Never mind that one’s biological cells are completely replaced every few years, but with the constant resolutions to be better, the constant attempt at self-betterment and inevitable change to conform, we replace our boards over the years. This semester I had a great long list of changes I’d love to make before the new school year, I cut and dyed my hair, fixed the zipper on my backpack, started going to the gym, bought new notebooks and pens, and made a promise to myself not to skip class this time around. Through these changes it does not feel radical to call myself the same person, or at least the same name, today as I was a few weeks ago. A few weeks ago I had blonder and longer hair, a better tan, and a lot more free time, but I was still (am still) me. Something must connect current me to the old me, the same thing that connects current me to high-school me.
I see myself, this changing of the boards, in the flowing identity of a standard jazz tune. Jazz standards, similar to standards in other traditional forms of music like bluegrass and folk, are at the foundation of the genre’s culture. Musicians and audiences know the names and melodies of these tunes, something like ‘Funny Valentine’ comes to mind here, and play them live together. The shape of the song changes in the hands of each musician, depending on the mood, the skill, and the vibe of the players. This unofficial set of standard music lays the ground for jam’s and collaboration, a secret language spoken among those in the know.
Before I dyed my hair, when it was still blonde, I went to a jazz performance. It was quite the windy day and was the beginning of my thinking of the ship of theseus, and as I was sitting there ‘Old Devil Moon’ began to play. The cadence of the piece rendered it almost entirely unrecognizable, at least to my uneducated ears, until it rolled back around to the main theme. There is something which connects this performance of ‘Old Devil Moon’ with that of Chet Baker, with that of a different version of Chet Baker, with that of Dodie from a few years back. Although notes and accents and keys may change, words exchanged for humming, then exchanged for something else, and then finally left out all together. Something must connect the new, hip version to the old version, and maybe that is the same thing that connects current me to high-school me.
Let’s break it down even further. What connects me right now, to me in (hopefully) six hours when I am asleep?
‘If the same Socrates waking and sleeping do not partake of the same consciousness, Socrates waking and sleeping is not the same Person. And to punish Socrates waking, for what sleeping Socrates thought, and waking Socrates was never conscious of, would be no more of Right, than to punish one Twin for what his Brother-Twin did, whereof he knew nothing, because their outsides were so like, that they could not be distinguished; for such Twins have been seen.’ – John Locke
I have gathered a playlist of my favorite covers and traditional standards for my broadcast on the FM radio this week. Everything old becomes new again!
Feral in the barrel 