[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2KvM2T40RQ]

“Cristo Redentor” by Donald Byrd

The omnologist anglophone blog Uncertain Times[3] brings American voice actor and spoken word artist Ken Nordine[4] to my attention[5], from there it is a small step to American Space Age musician Fred Katz (one-time soundtrack maker for Roger Corman[6]) and American sound artist and humorist Henry Jacobs[7]. From there we go to Donald Byrd‘s interpretation of Duke Pearson‘s “Cristo Redentor“[8] via Harvey Mandel‘s 1968 version[9].

John J. McNulty, the author of “Uncertain Times”, calls himself an omnologist; omnology is a neologism by Howard Bloom, which he defines as:

If one omnologist is able to perceive the relationship between pop songs, ancient Egyptian graffiti, Shirley MacLaine‘s mysticism, neurobiology, and the origins of the cosmos, so be it. If another uses mathematics to probe traffic patterns, the behavior of insect colonies, and the manner in which galaxies cluster in swarms, wonderful. And if another uses introspection to uncover hidden passions and relate them to research in chemistry, anthropology, psychology, history, and the arts, she, too, has a treasured place on the wild frontiers of scientific truth-the terra incognita in the heartland of omnology. —Howard Bloom[10]

In this sense, omnology is very much related to my adagium on connections:

“Wanting connections, we found connections — always, everywhere, and between everything.” Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum.

Think intertextuality, interconnectedness, nexus, six degrees of separation and my favourite metaphor: the rhizome.

“Cristo Redentor” is WMC #62.