Father of all! in every age, 
In every clime adored, 
By saint, by savage, and by sage, 
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord! 

Thou great First Cause, least understood, 
Who all my sense confined 
To know but this, that thou art good, 
And that myself am blind; 

Yet gave me, in this dark estate, 
To see the good from ill; 
And, binding nature fast in fate, 
Left free the human will: 

What conscience dictates to be done, 
Or warns me not to do, 
This, teach me more than hell to shun, 
That, more than heaven pursue. 

What blessings thy free bounty gives 
Let me not cast away; 
For God is paid when man receives, 
To enjoy is to obey.

—Alexander Pope, from “The Universal Prayer”

’T is you that are the music, not your song.
  The song is but a door which, opening wide,
  Lets forth the pent-up melody inside,
Your spirit’s harmony, which clear and strong
Sing but of you. Throughout your whole life long
  Your songs, your thoughts, your doings, each divide
  This perfect beauty; waves within a tide,
Or single notes amid a glorious throng.
  The song of earth has many different chords;
Ocean has many moods and many tones
  Yet always ocean. In the damp Spring woods
The painted trillium smiles, while crisp pine cones
  Autumn alone can ripen. So is this
  One music with a thousand cadences. 

—Amy Lowell, “Listening”

***

Once upon a time, way back in the 1990s, I studied journalism and media, and the famous saying of Marshall McLuhan, that “the medium is the message,” which I didn't entirely comprehend at the time, has since proved to be, in my view, an immensely important, fundamental truth, especially as it concerns young, developing human beings. 

In other words, when considering the impact of media, the primary influence is not the "content" so much as the means of communication, be it a book, a radio program, television, film, or . . . the internet, which, in a way, combines, or mimics, all previously-known media in a new form.
 

(Around here, you may have guessed, we quite like books, the best and most durable of mediums, of which we have several new, or new-again, featured this week.)
 

With McLuhan in mind, I have been somewhat ambivalent about “broadcasting” human voices over the internet—call it a podcast—and thus entering even more deeply into a relationship with an increasingly ubiquitous medium that seems to desire an ever-more complete integration with human consciousness. . . .

However, always aiming for a balanced view of things, and as people here and there continued to suggest that we do something along these lines, I considered the possibility, aware also of the more positive aspects of the medium, the reality of its current presence in the cultural sphere, and the need for its ultimate redemption. Eventually, with the help of a trusted producer-collaborator, I decided to do it; to make a podcasted audio “show,” but based on certain self-imposed conditions and intentions: 

1. in-person human conversations only (no “zoom” calls; conversants meet face-to-face)

2. audio only, and of the highest quality, given our recording circumstances (at our offices, not a studio)

3. we “wing it”: any questions or prompts on my part, are born out of a genuine human interest in my "guest" and what they know, feel, or believe to be true (no pre-conceived formulae or agendas, ideally)

We call it “Aleatory Encounters,” even though, just as Mr. Dylan sings, “I don’t gamble with cards and I don’t shoot no dice.”

You can expect a new episode every three weeks for the rest of the year.

This first episode, the human-machine interface w/ Joe Allen, appropriately enough, deals quite directly with these and many more questions, challenges, and possibilities of our human-technological age. Let me know what you think.

Thanks for reading, always, and this time, if you like, thanks for listening. 

Keep in touch, John-Scott