Piero Scaruffi

Italian-American writer

Piero Scaruffi (born 26 April 1955) is a freelance software consultant and university lecturer, who maintains a music website on which he publishes reviews.

Piero Scaruffi, 2016

Quotes

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  • "We are swimming in the lake in which future generations will drown"
  • "If an animal spread plastic garbage all over the planet, we would certainly exterminate it. "
  • "The ones who do not wander are the ones who are truly lost"
  • "When the impossible happens, everybody has a very simple explanation for why it was inevitable"
  • "The most difficult part of finding a solution is to accept that there is a problem"
  • "Question answers instead of answering questions."
  • "The paradox of innovation is that it is accepted as an innovation when it has become imitation."
  • What we understand is not enough to understand why we understand it. (Signature line on his emails)
  • Philosophy is the art of saying something incredibly stupid and making it sound incredibly intelligent.
  • "Philosophy is the art of turning solutions into problems"
  • The fact that so many books still name the Beatles "the greatest or most significant or most influential" rock band ever only tells you how far rock music still is from becoming a serious art. Jazz critics have long recognized that the greatest jazz musicians of all times are Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, who were not the most famous or richest or best sellers of their times, let alone of all times. Classical critics rank the highly controversial Beethoven over classical musicians who were highly popular in courts around Europe. Rock critics are still blinded by commercial success: the Beatles sold more than anyone else (not true, by the way), therefore they must have been the greatest. Jazz critics grow up listening to a lot of jazz music of the past, classical critics grow up listening to a lot of classical music of the past. Rock critics are often totally ignorant of the rock music of the past, they barely know the best sellers. No wonder they will think that the Beatles did anything worth of being saved.
  • Beatles' "aryan" music removed any trace of black music from rock and roll: it replaced syncopated african rhythm with linear western melody, and lusty negro attitudes with cute white-kid smiles.
  • ...but defining their sound was Little Girls, an exuberant ska wrapped in an electronic patina, with modernist vocals à la XTC and a touch of dementia.
  • I really think we should modify the law so that one can be sued for defaming not only living people but also the memory and reputation of people who died centuries ago.
  • Mass culture is a way to escape from the psychological suffering that comes with that insight into the human condition, an escape alternative to the one preached by world religions. Mass culture is a modern invention to escape from existential anguish.
  • Why are there age limits? why can't i marry a 12-year old? Helen of Troy was 12. Juliet and Cleopatra were still teenagers when they became famous. Most heroines of classic novels and poems were underage by today's laws. Thomas Edison married a 16-year-old. Medical studies show that the best age for a woman to have children is between 15 and 25 (lowest chances of miscarriage, of birth defects and, last but not least, of the woman dying while giving birth); while the worst age is after the mid 30s. And the younger you are, the more likely you are to cement a real friendship with your children; the older you are, the more likely that the "generational gap" will hurt your children's psychology. Therefore it is much more natural to have a child at 16 than at 40.
  • Michael Brown was a thug.
  • If the cop honestly felt that this was a young black man (as politically incorrect as it sounds, this is the most violent category of people in the USA in 2014) aiming a gun at him, the cop can hardly be blamed for shooting first.
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