In Which The Author Asks You To Go Visit Another Blog

From time to time, I have the luck to meet someone "virtually" who significantly expands my understanding of the world. Former Sterophile iconoclast and controversialist John Marks is one of those people. We've never laid eyes on each other, but he has taught me quite a bit about high-fidelity audio, music history, and certain aspects of morality.

Having recently decided to leave Stereophile for good, John has decided to chart his own path on the Internet. With my encouragement and minor assistance, he's set up a blog of his very own. I think some of you will like the name he chose for it.

The blog is called The Tannhauser Gate. Like me, John is a Ridley Scott fan in general and a Blade Runner fan in particular. In one of his introductory posts, however, he expands the existing scholarship on that film by suggesting a Christian interpretation of the film:

For the entire last scene, Roy Batty tenderly holds a white pigeon (or a dove). When Batty dies, the bird flies skyward.

I think that the bird not only symbolized that replicants have immortal souls. I believe that the bird represented the active presence of the Holy Spirit, and that that was what inspired Batty to save a man who had earned death.

John sees more than most, to put it mildly. And his ability to analyze a piece of music in its proper cultural and temporal context is both enviable for the cognoscenti and accessible to lay readers. Go check him out. Tell him Jack sent you!