Kebyar

... is a Balinese word that roughly translates to "the process of flowering." What a wonderful concept; certainly a word to be used by a particularly creative civilization. Since my student days "the process of flowering" has been one of my favorite sounds in all music - so much so that I began to listen to flowering motifs as functional elements in their own rite.

Of course in Balinese music, Kebyar is one of the most popular styles of playing. Sudden flashes of metallophones begin and end with buzzings of nature oozing through cracks of the gamelan’s silence. I imagine the act of creation on a chemical level, full of explosions and violence and mystery. Organic compounds and pollen and fertilization and zygotes and sun and soil and overwhelming growth...
I think I need to post Herzog’s jungle fever after this one…

Century of the Self

I watched this BBC Adam Curtis series last year (along with his other tantalizing documentaries) and have since had much more sophisticated conspiracy fodder for those slow days at the office.

Basically Curtis identifies the history of what has become an outright science of commercialized psychology led by Freud's nephew - the handsome, charming Eddie Bernays. My favorite citations are Betty Crocker's egg scheme, and the "freedom sticks" otherwise known as ciggies. Sit back, grab yourself a box of Kix, and enjoy the show.

P.S. this is part 1 of 4. Check out the others on gvid

Those Poor Pidgeons

Sheldrake goes off on some homing pidgeons. If you have time, its not a bad Sunday afternoon spent watching the whole Glorious Accident posted on blip.tv.

SO who do we have here?

Stephen Jay Gould, Oliver Sacks, Daniel Dennet, Freeman Dyson, Stephen Toulmin, and Rupert Sheldrake have a fine conversation over a meal and some hookah.

Check out the hilarious laughs of Dyson and Sacks. Oh man great time.

Stromatolites

sometime, to name a few,
we go back
oh, now i remember

that somewhere, in plain view,
a voice sustains
to whichever number

and if then, by some meager virtue
the havenots supplicate you

go back
go back
go back
go back
go back
go back
go back

hymn

insipid beguiling protest
in case of fire
repeatedly languishing selfish
form over style
having it sewn on
is seen to be trying
rather informally
time's underlying
lesson in taking our rhythms back home with you
listen to eating, aging, and dying