Thursday, April 24, 2008

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

gets down in her Sunday's best. Mmmm mmmm. And that's a fine lookin SG guitar she's playin.

I checked out a gospel convention here in Philadelphia for a minute about a month ago - not like the old days, that's fer sure. More american idol than glory hallelulian'.

There's a baptist church on my corner that sounds like all sorts of tambourine fun come Sunday mornin'. Think I might step in sometime soon - see what all the commotion's about.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Durata


Busy busy busy busy. But overcome with nostalgia in the past few days. Wrote my first Italian chamber opera the summer of 2005 (pictured above at Casa di Puccini). We spent all our money before anyone thought about recording it - so the only record I have are on these hissy tracks made with a laptop microphone. I don't mind, though - there is a certain Victor Victrola quality to the sound. Here is a short clip of my good friend Jason, the cellist taking a solo during the love scene between Florizel and Perdita. Uber romantic... despite all of the pressures not to write or live the romantic life. I'm glad I did - for at least one summer when I was 23. Wrote an opera, found a wonderful girl, took naps in the vineyard, learned to cook. If there was ever a time in my adult life that I managed to live intuitively, it was during that summer. Very glad.

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Daydream Quotes for Stationary Moments


Virtual reality is a fairly new concept to us; but once you grok it, it seems clear that any civilization that was capable of starflight and longevity extension, and so forth and so on, would also have a full VR toolkit under control. Well then, that means that when we go looking for the extraterrestrial, what will be the footprint? Perhaps vanished races are all around us, but downloaded into solid-state matrices that we have only recently come to the point where we could even recognize that possibility.

=Terrence McKenna from Technopagans at The End of History


I happened to watch the Daily Show segment on the congressional hearings of virtual worlds - particularly Second Life.


Imagine the headline:
Virtual Search for Bin Laden Discovers Extraterrestrial Life Instead

This just in: GlitteracticaCookie is in fact a pastry chef from the Glitteractica Galaxy.

Monday, April 07, 2008

Dreaming Fodder




Still working all day every day on the theater projects I've joined, but before I drift off to sleep, I've been watching these newly posted videos of Sheldrake working the thought experiments.

While I of course have some issues with certain Sheldrake-isms, particularly his fixated attention to lackluster results of some telepathy experiments, I nevertheless find him provocative, inspiring, and fun. He's the kind of guy who makes me think three times before I can agree or disagree with something he says.

It is true that Sheldrake has been shrouded in a bit of new-age populism, but he also shares a lot with Bergson and Jung - two philosophers I greatly admire.

Oh - and get well soon, Rupert.