Meantime

Prelude 3

2009-06-07T01:25:00.002-04:00

In the spirit of enjoying the time...

I've Been Sleepy

2009-06-04T16:47:00.006-04:00

Another Mad Man's Laughter improvisation from the vaults.

Me: Trusty Hammond Organ M3
Sean: bran'new Ludwig drum set and ye'olde Chroma Polaris

Die Sonne.wav - Mad Mans Laughter

Hawking

2009-04-20T23:48:00.002-04:00

The dude keeps it real.

Hawking was my first intellectual hero when I was a kid. Dad brought home the Errol Morris Brief History of Time and I remember protesting as he put the VHS in the player. But learning about black holes led to an elementary school mystical experience. It was probably one of the defining influences of my life.

Hearing him communicate so frankly about humanity surviving beyond life on Earth is both disturbing and a breath of fresh air. If science has brought us any understanding, it is certainly that life is a precious thing in the universe and human consciousness in particular. To think that human will could alone determine the future of whether human consciousness survives or ends on this planet... it seems to be a thought that I stopped considering as a teenager. Perhaps it was too fantastic or overwhelming. Too Star Wars. But really, too godly.

But the dude keeps it real. What's more honest than that smile at the end? Serious.

mmmbira

2009-04-19T21:28:00.001-04:00

I watch this video at least every month. Can't help but smile when the shakers come in. The time is coming to learn to play this shona music...

Germination

2009-04-19T11:00:00.004-04:00

As another
One found to suppress
The most distant number of them all

Best not to worry
make do make do

Best not to worry
make do

In the evening
In lemon light
If hunger has come not to bear

Best not to worry
make do make do

Best not to worry
make do

Plant a seed under
A picture of water
There's no breath one cannot spare

Best not to worry
make do make do

Best not to worry
make do

Beat Furrer

2009-03-31T00:13:00.004-04:00

or Beat Führer as I like to call him. waka waka waka. No but seriously-- his beats are real good.

Yeah, Beat is my main man this week. Forgive the crude description - but his music brings to mind some sort of Stravinsky/Feldman hybrid brought to life through coked-out Boulez orchestrations.

I was actually hoping to find some video of his mono-drama piece FAMA since the music recording and descriptions sound amAzing. Anyone in Switzerland see this one? Hit me up with a review.

Anyway, here's an audio clip of Nuun for 2 pianos and orchestra. Enjoy with loud speakers or headphones.

Tesla's Legacy

2009-03-18T22:23:00.001-04:00

Yet another reason why I should start going to monster truck rallies.

Miraculous Mandarin

2009-03-16T15:30:00.004-04:00

One of the more exciting openings. I've never seen Christoph von Dohnanyi conduct before, though his grandfather, Ernst von Dohnanyi was one of the reasons I became a composer.

The camera lens stands out in this clip. Lots of great focusing. At times it even looks like Dohnanyi is conducting in front of a bluescreen - which is surely an idea that is moments away from being gobbled up by the geniuses of orchestra outreach programs.

Oh, and as a matter of record - last night I encountered some hellaviolence while jogging. Eight (8)of them - took my ipod too. I'm okay - just bruised and sore. I happened to be listening to the fifth door of Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle. Intensity. Anyway, maybe my 8-gig ipod will offer up some rare musical gems to the inner city.

Hella

2009-03-14T13:15:00.003-04:00

i lika the drums

Little one

2009-03-08T21:20:00.005-04:00

I haven't written a solo piano piece in years. Something drew me in today, long enough to finish a small piece. Maybe this will the beginning of a group of prelude style works. That might be fun.

I named her Sarabande. (despite any meter-ish accuracies/inaccuracies)

Sarabande.wav - T. Herion

Well, Of Course

2009-03-06T23:03:00.005-05:00

Not only are these Berio Folk Songs beautiful and inventive and sincere, but mezzo (and wife) Cathy Berberian completely deceives the eye - and I discovered that I have a prejudice against grey-haired mezzos wearing Armani mumus. She is actually quite fantastic.

Finally, Berio is clearly the epitome of a gentleman conductor. That dude seriously looks like the hipster James Bond of the orchestra. Totally smooth, confident, and digging his own music.

Ms. Smith Gets Hot

2009-02-15T11:44:00.001-05:00

Not sure how the camera man contained himself. This is sexay.

Noveltys

2009-02-15T11:23:00.002-05:00

My fascination with novelty gets the better of me every once in a while - and a quick google video search featuring the top results usually provides enough jib jab for a coupla weeks. This morning I decided to search using classical instruments as keywords. Dude - did anyone else realize that we're in the midst of a robot invasion?

Search: Violin
Top Hit

Search: Orchestra
Top Hit

Can't help but wonder what this orchestra clip is trying to say. ASIMO's appearance as a conductor was brought to us by The Power of Dreams: Musical Education Fund. Robots are the musical competition of the future? Surely, in the future every composer could afford to have their pieces realized by 100 ASIMO virtuosos.

Take That! Infant Jesus

2009-02-01T00:36:00.002-05:00

X. Regard de L'Esprit de joie, fo sho

Birds and Beats

2009-01-31T18:48:00.006-05:00

I was recently honored with a position to mentor some college theater students, and contribute music, to their production of "The Tempest" this semester. I was chosen based on my previous work, and during interviews it was clear that since they enjoyed my theatrical compositions, that's exactly what they were asking me to contribute. Only problem is, they also hired a director who doesn't share my musical vision. I missed a rehearsal due to illness and read in the rehearsal notes that they had choreographed the masque scene to Britney Spears. Confused, I wrote and asked why? Especially since I had offered to compose music, etc. etc. Answer: Daily Double. It has a good beat.

My original idea was to craft sounds of nature with some musical instruments on stage and make something a bit more mystical. I realized that it just wasn't gonna fly - so if beats were what they wanted, best thing was to make some beats.... son.

Grabbed my birdsong collection, some drum machine software, a few African and Indonesian CDs, and went to work. Here are the first few ideas/rough mixes. Damn those plovers are funkay.

Doves.wav - T. Herion

Geese.wav - T. Herion

Plovers.wav - T. Herion

Tarkovsky on Art

2009-01-29T23:12:00.002-05:00

So according to Tarkovsky, art does not equate with knowledge. Yet the artistic experience enriches one spiritually. So some sort of artistic residue remains, and accumulates, and he calls this spirit. What is the direction of this accumulation? What does it tend towards? A rising above oneself - an expression of "what we call 'free will.'"

I can say that Tarkovsky films play over in my mind for days after watching. Those long, disorienting shots, scrolling over some landscape close or far, have made me lose time more easily than any music. But that's not entirely true, since music and sound are indistinguishable elements from the whole of these scenes. And I am completely haunted by the way he lingers on inanimate objects, moments after all humans have left the scene. The thought of all the world happening at once, independent of any conscious perception, is one to behold. Surely the tree falls in the forest and makes a sound...?

Improvisation

2009-01-19T14:35:00.004-05:00

I haven't really seen a film take on this subject to this degree... ever? Yeah, this is the only one, for sure. Part 2 looks particularly interesting.

PART 1 AND 3
http://www.ubu.com/film/bailey.html

PART 2
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1195a_on-the-edge-improvisation-2_music

PART 4?

The Xenakis Complex

2009-01-11T10:13:00.004-05:00

But other paths also led to the same stochastic crossroads - first of all, natural events such as the collision of hail or rain with hard surfaces, or the song of cicadas in a summer field. These sonic events are made out of thousands of isolated sounds; this multitude of sounds, seen as a totality, is a new sonic event. This mass event is articulated and forms a plastic mold of time, which itself follows aleatory and stochastic laws. If one then wishes to form a large mass of point-notes, such as string pizzicati, one must know these mathematical laws, which, in any case, are no more than a tight and concise expression of chain of logical reasoning. Everyone has observed the sonic phenomena of a political crowd of dozens or hundreds of thousands of people. The human river shouts a slogan in a uniform rhythm. Then another slogan springs from the head of the demonstration; it spreads towards the tail, replacing the first. A wave of transition thus passes from the head to the tail. The clamor fills the city, and the inhibiting force of voice and rhythm reaches a climax. It is an event of great power and beauty in its ferocity. Then the impact between the demonstrators and the enemy occurs. The perfect rhythm of the last slogan breaks up in a huge cluster of chaotic shouts, which also spreads to the tail. Imagine, in addition, the reports of dozens of machine guns and the whistle of bullets adding their punctuations to this total disorder. The crowd is then rapidly dispersed, and after sonic and visual hell follows a detonating calm, full of despair, dust, and death. The statistical laws of these events, separated from their political or moral context, are the same as those of the cicadas or the rain. They are the laws of passage from complete order to total disorder in a continuous or explosive manner. They are stochastic laws.

= Iannis Xenakis - Thought and Mathematics in Composition

Sometimes I wonder to what extent the Trust of Man has disappeared following the 20th century carnage that was Europe. Perhaps a pointless question, but has this period determined a lasting fear of the "irrational" Forces of Man to the point of striving to always divorce patterns of their moral context? And if there are benefits to the irrational parts of human mind, will this fear destroy those too? Such basic wonder - yet it sometimes feels to be the most fundamental issue...

This tea is good - loose tea makes all the difference - especially when the morning is so cold.

The Great Ziegfeld

2009-01-09T20:01:00.003-05:00

Ah, Depression era entertainment. What lush single-shot sequences will we have to look forward to during this recession?

And what is more far out than three "neverending story" ladies-in-waiting playing Puccini on 5 foot-long moon-banjos?

Anamorphosis

2009-01-05T15:49:00.006-05:00

Anamorphosis
Uploaded by confidencial

Anamorphosis is one of those tricks of perspective that has excited me ever since I was a kid. Brothers Quay contribute this short film to the educational world - with their usual brittle and dusty characters. The wooden sound of the harpsichord is such a great combination. And I have to say, I am a sucker for all the soft--->hard focus depth of field.

Finished

2008-12-11T23:30:00.004-05:00

Finally the new piece has been performed and recorded.

The uploaded sample is a 3 minute excerpt, about 6 minutes into a 15 minute piece.

Instrumentation:
Bass Clarinet/double Bflat Clarinet
Baritone Sax
Flute/double Piccolo

Hammond Organ (Leslie Speaker)
Fender Rhodes (with Tremolo)

Violin I
Violin II
Bass

Male Voice
Female Voice

Percussion I - timpani, talking drum, shakers, bongo
Percussion II - drum kit, cymbals, shakers

I am fairly happy with the piece. The aesthetic is something I have had in mind for about a year now, but the opportunity to write didn't present itself until I committed to serious maneuvering. Best of all, it has inspired the creative urge to continue - - ideas are already brewing for the next one.

I've decided to include the piece in my upcoming grad school application. Time spent out of school has been great, but ultimately school is the most realistic method of living a lifestyle with the time to work on serious music again. I hope the application committee sympathizes with my work. The stressful part is feeling the pressure to contextualize this music in writing. I understand that distilling thoughts in writing is an essential aspect of academia, and I should hope to grow into it. But it has been an incredibly liberating experience not having to justify the sounds I want to listen to. Maybe it's time to come back around to the objectification side. We'll see how this plays out.

SU Sample - Troy

Beautiful Animation with Good Music Part 1

2008-12-06T00:56:00.003-05:00

A nice day for some Russian animation. I just love the atmosphere of this piece - just soaked in fibers... sensual enough to elicit some dream memories. And once you hear it, the sound "crocodeele" will stick with you for all times.

David Lynch Elevator Music

2008-11-11T20:41:00.003-05:00

I am nearly finished writing my newest composition. It's been something of a new direction - new orchestrations, new form... also the first composition to be demoed first with my own recording, then notated, then recorded with the studio's strengths in mind. Just bought the 2-inch tape. Anyway, there is a cutting room floor - which is basically about 25 minutes into the track where I cut away and drag pieces of music that didn't end up working. Eventually they line up based on their shape.

I happened to fall asleep listening to the demo, and sure enough the 25 minute mark rolled around. As the music played a dream came to me: David Lynch and I were in an elevator watching a documentary on his i-phone... some patriotic propaganda that tried to teach husbands to fix leaky faucets. May your dreams be so sweet.

David Lynch Elevator.wav - Troy

Philadelphia Pride

2008-10-30T21:13:00.004-04:00

As anyone who reads the small print of national newspapers would know, the Phillies have won the World Series! I had the enormously great fortune of being present in the stadium for Game 5 - and then walked an hour up Broad street from the stadiums to center city, where a spontaneous parade exploded as Philadelphians took to the streets and collectively went nuts. I heard there were some moments of vandalism somewhere, but of the thousands and thousands of people I saw, there was nothing but running, jumping, climbing, hugging, slapping five, and occasional disrobing. What a scene - glad to have been part of such a real spectacle.

thought and the joy of toil

2008-10-27T13:12:00.008-04:00

What can I say? I like this stuff.

Thought which is only thought, the work of art which is only conceived, the poem which is no more than a dream, as yet cost nothing in toil; it is the material realization of the poem in words, of the artistic conception in statue or picture, which demands effort. The effort is toilsome, but also it is precious, more precious even than the work which it produces, because, thanks to it, one has drawn out from the self more than it had already, we are raised above ourselves. This effort was impossible without matter. By resistance matter offers and by the docility with which we endow it, is at one and the same time obstacle, instrument and stimulus. It experiences our force, keeps the imprint of it, calls for its intensification.

Philosophers who have speculated on the meaning of life and on the destiny of man have failed to take sufficient notice of an indication which nature itself has given us. Nature warns us by a clear sign that our destination is attained. That sign is joy. I mean joy, not pleasure. Pleasure is only a contrivance devised by nature to obtain for the creature the preservation of its life, it does not indicate the direction in which life is thrusting. But joy always announces that life has succeeded, gained ground, conquered. All great joy has a triumphant note. Now, if we take this indication into account and follow this new line of facts, we find that wherever there is joy, there is creation; the richer the creation, the deeper the joy. The mother beholding her child is joyous, because she is conscious of having created it, physically and morally.

...Take exceptional joys,-- the joy of the artist who has realized his thought, the joy of the thinker who has made a discovery or invention. You may hear it said that these men work for glory and get their highest joy from the admiration they win. Profound error! We cling to praise and honours in the exact degree in which we are not sure of having succeeded. There is a touch of modesty in vanity. It is to reassure ourselves that we seek approbation; and just as we wrap the prematurely born child in cotton wool, so we gather round our work the warm admiration of mankind in case there should be insufficient vitality. But he who is sure, absolutely sure, of having produced a work which will endure and live, cares no more for praise and feels above glory, because he is a creator, because he knows it, because the joy he feels it the joy of a god. If, then, in every domain the triumph of life is creation, must we not suppose that human life has its goal in a creation which, unlike that of the artist and philosopher, can be pursued always by all men -- creation of self by self, the growing of the personality by an effort which draws much from little, something from nothing, and adds unceasingly to whatever wealth the world contains?

= Henri Bergson, Mind Energy - Life and Consciousness

Vita vita

2008-10-14T18:43:00.003-04:00

Reading up on all the vitalist theories of the early 20th century doesn't leave much time for blogging. That and I'm finally COMPOSING again.

A few friends have asked me why I bother with the Bergson, the "intuition" and "duration" and all of that non-quantifiable gibby gabby. "Well," i say, i say, "well, first and foremost, I find that in order to maintain a creative outlook in the world today, I needs me some inspiration. Best kinds'a inspiration comes from the kinds that just makes sense - ya know?"

What's all of this missing the forest for the trees? I like 'em both. So here's whatcha do. When I see a tree, I think of a forest. When I see a forest, I think of a tree. That simple.

So this brings me to the music. I've decided to take on an ambitious task: Write and record (with an excellent engineer using excellent equipment from both the analog and digital worlds) a piece that dips me into the undulating river of time, and then pulls me out slowly, without hardly enough trouble to notice it. In the meanwhile, a moment or two of full out recognition, recollection, and head nodding.

This little post comes on the heels of a comment about joining the ranks of qualitative charlatans of the next generation. Yeah, that's me too.

I've been writing for a month now. Scheduled to be recorded right before thanksgiving (crazy deadline). Whenever I think of the instruments I've chosen, I just wanna get right back to it. It's kinda secret, but here's a bit:

2 organs
voices
bass clarinet
bari sax
lots of percussion (including custom made awesomeness)
and more...

what a seed to blossom. can't wait can't wait can't wait.

Bergson for Fun Part 2

2008-09-22T18:35:00.002-04:00

I decided a while back to re-read Creative Evolution with absolute concentration, pencil and notebook in hand, so that each sentence and long form logic was understood to the best of my ability. The process has been nearly transcendental. A friend of mine made a good point - reading philosophy is an experience like listening to music - in other words, the journey is the point. Getting the "gist" or reading second hand analysis is certainly no substitute.

So the process has been slow, but I enjoy it tremendously. I need to type out a passage that has hovered over my brain for the past week.

It must not be forgotten that the force which is evolving throughout the organized world is a limited force, which is always seeking to transcend itself and always remains inadequate to the work it would fain produce. The errors and puerilities of radical finalism are due to the misapprehension of this point. It has represented the whole of the living world as a construction, and a construction analogous to a human work. All the pieces have been arranged with a view to the best possible functioning of the machine. Each species has its reason for existence, its part to play, its allotted place; and all join together, as it were, in a musical concert, wherein the seeming discords are really meant to bring out a fundamental harmony. In short, all goes on in nature as in the works of human genius, where, though the result may be trifling, there is at least perfect adequacy between the object made and the work of making it.

Nothing of the kind in the evolution of life. There, the disproportion is striking between the work and the result. From the bottom to the top of the organized world we do indeed find one great effort; but most often this effort turns short, sometimes paralyzed by contrary forces, sometimes diverted from what it should do by what it does, absorbed b the form it is engaged in taking, hypnotized by it as by a mirror. Even in its most perfect works, though it seems to have triumphed over external resistances and also over its own, it is at the mercy of the materiality which it has had to assume. It is what each of us may experience in himself. Our freedom, in the very movements by which it is affirmed, creates the growing habits that will stifle it if it fails to renew itself by a constant effort: it is dogged by automatism. The most living thought becomes frigid in the formula that expresses it. The word turns against the idea.

The letter kills the spirit. And our most ardent enthusiasm, as soon as it is externalized into action, is so naturally congealed into the cold calculation of interest or vanity, the one takes so easily the shape of the other, that we might confuse them together, doubt our own sincerity, deny goodness and love, if we did not know that the dead retain for a time the features of the living.

The profound cause of this discordance lies in an irremediable difference of rhythm. Life in general is mobility itself; particular manifestations of life accept this mobility reluctantly, and constantly lag behind. It is always going ahead; they want to mark time. Evolution in general would fain go on in a straight line; each special evolution is a kind of circle. Like eddies of dust raised by the wind as it passes, the living turn upon themselves, borne up by the great blast of life. They are therefore relatively stable, and counterfeit immobility so well that we treat each of them as a thing rather than as a progress, forgetting that the very permanence of their form is only the outline of a movement. At times, however, in a fleeting vision, the invisible breath that bears them is materialized before our eyes. We have the sudden illumination before certain forms of maternal love, so striking, and in most animals so touching, observable even in the solicitude of the plant for its seed. This love, in which some have seen the great mystery of life, may possibly deliver us life's secret. It shows us each generation leaning over the generation that shall follow. It allows us a glimpse of the fact that the living being is above all a thoroughfare, and that the essence of life is in the movement by which life is transmitted.

=Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution, pp. 126-128

Maybe it was my own state of mind, but this passage seemed to jump out at me as a fairly clear change of style and prose, particularly that bit about the "deny goodness and love if we did not know that the dead retain for a time the features of the living." Once he follows up with his ditty on the essence of what love is: life recognizing life - the whole thing starts to feel pretty good. I almost imagine Bergson sipping his scotch and really getting into these few pages (actually I get the impression that he didn't drink, especially when he talks about the effects of alcohol on the reproductive system, but I don't know for sure). It is really such a remarkable book, swirling together the mysteries and certainties of science, logic, and the ineffable.

Images to Save Mankind Part 1

2008-09-20T14:58:00.004-04:00

I have said this before and will repeat it again as long as I am able to talk: if we do not develop adequate images we will die out like dinosaurs.
=Werner Herzog

I think the same thing is true of sounds. But the Herzog quote is pretty intense - and I tend to agree on the extreme side of it, that the symbolic arts should be considered an essential offering to humankind.

But on the subject of images, I post one of my favorite all-time movie images via YouTube - the great leveler of digital compression and quality.

Scene from Mirror by Andrei Tarkovsky

There's a Hole in my Bucket

2008-09-17T20:06:00.004-04:00

In the spirit of good fun, I present a clip of "sound design" from my most recent theater collaboration. The show "Kid Simple" made use of foley sounds and called for comedic sound collages based on some brief descriptions. I used some samples here and there, wrote some of my own sounds, and had friends use their favorite made-up character voices to finish the job.

Instructions in the play:

5 seconds each of:
1. News report during a New York City blackout
2. New England matron explaining how to dismember a lobster
3. Commercial promo for Extreeeeme sports
4. Rousing rendition of "There's a Hole in my Bucket Dear Liza"
5. A line from Dante's Inferno
6. The echo of the echo of someone saying echo

Chasm.wav - Troy

I think there is an r&b album of folk songs in the works...

Alfred's last words

2008-09-05T23:10:00.002-04:00

It was a mistake, as the Hebrews tried, to conceive of God as creating the world from the outside, at one go. An all-foreseeing Creator, who could have made the world as we find it now -- what could we think of such a being? Foreseeing everything and yet putting into it all sorts of imperfections to redeem which it was necessary to send his only son into the world to suffer torture and hideous death; outrageous ideas. The Hellenic religion was a better approach ; the Greeks conceived of creation as going on everywhere all the time within the universe; and I also think that they were happier in their conception of supernatural beings impersonating . . . various forces, some good, others bad; for both sorts of forces are present, whether we assign personality to them or not. There is a general tendency in the universe to produce worth-while things, and moments come when we can work with it and it can work through us. But that tendency in the universe to produce worth-while things is by no means omnipotent. Other forces work against it. God is in the world, or nowhere, creating continually in us and around us. This creative principle is everywhere, in animate and so-called inanimate matter, in the ether, water, earth, human hearts. But this creation is a continuing process, and 'the process is itself the actuality', since no sooner do you arrive than you start on a fresh journey. In so far as man partakes of this creative process does he partake of the divine, of God, and that participation is his immortality, reducing the question of whether his individuality survives death of the body to an estate of irrelevancy. His true destiny as co-creator in the universe is his dignity and his grandeur.

= Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead, recorded by Lucien Price, 1954, pp. 296-7.

Stage Directions

2008-09-05T15:10:00.004-04:00

For a theatrical music piece that is yet to be:

...and the sun literally drying up to become a piled circle of mud crusted gray rocks floating in air - along with the beautiful sounds of a slippery, creaking transition from life-giving radiance to a pale, pulsing luminosity.

Higher Ground

2008-08-30T18:29:00.003-04:00

Holy crap, they did it - inspiration has truly entered politics during my lifetime.

While searching for some feel-good videos on google video, one search culminated in the combination of Stevie Wonder and Barack Obama...

Feel gooooood....

Then.... feel great.

Les Espaces Acoustiques

2008-08-17T23:40:00.000-04:00

This music makes me so happy.

Gérard Grisey - Partiels from La Espaces Acoustiques

Only an excerpt, and the YouTube fidelity leaves something to be desired. But it stimulates the imagination. I heard a (maybe false) story that Stravinsky kept a muted and out-of-tune piano in his studio where he composed. It was kept in this condition so as not to impede on his own imagined sounds.

I have to admit that I love the "tree of knowledge" image at the beginning of this fractal music video. Add in some imagined vibrancy to the colors and it is pretty beautiful.

Frenchy Froggy Froggy Frenchy Frenchy Frog

2008-08-04T22:37:00.000-04:00

OK, I admit it. My two favorite sets of Chansons are Ravel's Chansons Madécasse and Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé.

That's it, I'm learning French.

I might change my mind to include Messiaen's Poèmes pour Mi or Debussy's Trois poèmes de Mallarmé.

écrivez l'automne

Ask the Expert

2008-08-04T21:26:00.000-04:00

Q: If zebra finches learn their song by imitation, shouldn't there be very little song diversity? And if so, how can the females judge the males' songs if they all sound the same?
Anonymous

A: Wow-that's an excellent question! It seems that zebra finches do not like to have a song that is too similar to that of other males. For example, if five male siblings are tutored by their father, only one or two of them will accurately imitate his song-the rest of the siblings diverge and sing different songs. There is an interesting parallel to this effect in population genetics. It is called evolutionary stable polymorphism: For example, different people have different hair color, and this diversity persists over many generations. If most people find one hair color (e.g., blond) more attractive, how come blond people are not becoming more common in each generation? One mechanism that can preserve polymorphism is called "frequency dependent selection," for example, blond hair is not considered as attractive in Scandinavia, where it is very common. Back to songs, polymorphism of songs in a group might be a result of frequency dependent imitation (young birds selecting some rare sounds from their tutors) or frequency dependent sexual selection (females preferring songs with some rare qualities, while some juveniles prefer to imitate their fathers).

Keep asking questions,

Ofer

From NOVA's website

Woosh

2008-06-25T23:19:00.001-04:00

I'm off...

Truth and Relativity

2008-06-24T00:37:00.000-04:00

What can I say? I argue for truth, and the same day I argue for relativism. Yes, yes, particles and waves - parts or continuity - we've heard it all many times. Any great debate ultimately comes down to this: where does one draw the limits?

Is point of view all that there is? Does a point of view tend to adapt over time? Can a point of view remain the same? To what extent is it possible for a point of view to expand to incorporate other points of view?

Alan Watts, one of my favorite folk philosophers entertains me tonight.

Bruce Lee and Space Counterpart

2008-06-11T14:55:00.000-04:00

Weekly gym goings-on have led to a few Kung Fu lessons. I've learned two things right off the bat. 1. Kung Fu requires serious core strength and lots of kicking ability. (I haven't kicked since I was 12 years old). 2. Kung Fu technique will, if executed properly, end a confrontation in about 2 seconds.

I don't think anyone between the age of 24 and 30 can deny the overwhelming influence of Karate Kid on our lives, but I wonder how many of us followed through. You'd wonder why anyone in their right mind wouldn't follow through. I mean, just look at this comparison - Kung Fu derived fighting techniques vs. brute try, try again as exhibited by NASA hero Captain Kirk.

Bruce Lee is superman. The Jeet Kun Do story is pretty awesome. And its nice to see Tao being put to use in the world of one-finger push-ups.

And then there is Star Trek. Was the fighting choreographer drunk?

Reflecting on the Elephant

2008-06-01T12:54:00.001-04:00

I think what I mean by the "elephant in the room" is that while our consciousness seems to operate by defining "parts", there is both an intuitive sense, as well as a logical progression, to those parts belonging to a "whole." If true reality is actually not parts at all, but a whole, then the pursuit of absolute philosophy is one where humans become "conscious" of this whole. Bergson ultimately takes a practical viewpoint, in that he recognizes, as the Zen masters recognize, that to be consious of a whole, of which consciousness is actually a part, is an impossible paradox. In that case, intuition may be used as a tool that only "hints" at the whole (through symbolism? art? dreams?) in order to enrich whatever consciousness is and what it is becoming. Perhaps this process is the very definition of "becoming" - an exchange between the unconscious and the conscious.

Field Recording No.1

2008-05-30T17:55:00.000-04:00

With all my fascination in birds and their sounds, I can only match about 3 different species of bird to their calls. Last night while I was riding my bike home at about 11:30pm, I heard a single bird blocks away. When the city is relatively quiet, it is surprising to hear a bird, of all things, carrying over such a long distance. (I've heard that city birds may be adapting to sing at night so to avoid competition with hustle and bustle). By the time I passed by the tree where it perched, I had already heard an incredible spectrum of sounds and phrases. I grabbed my recently purchased field recorder and made it back in time to hear the last few minutes of calling out - before flying away to another tree further away (I think the sound of my velcro pack scared him).

It sounds to me that this bird is one that mimics the sounds of its environment. He manages to sing some distinct calls I'm familiar with, but many of the others I think sound more like car alarms and locking/unlocking tweets. During the last third of the recording he sings a first inversion major chord, repeated about 3 times in perfect tuning. After all the complex timbres, it sounds out of place - a little too human.

After spending so much time living with fantastic opera singers, I would often dream of singing great tenor lines. Of course in real life I have, in the words of Messiaen a "composers voice." But in my dreaming, I felt the unique physical sensations of a singing that resonates through my whole body and head. Somehow, I can also imagine on some level the sensation of making some of those bird calls - tight vibrations of air passing through stretched vocal muscles...

Anyway, this is an awesome bird. I named him Fitzwater Thrushraillien - after the street I found him on, Fitzwater St., Philadelphia.

Bergson for Fun - Part 1

2008-05-22T15:44:00.001-04:00

It is difficult to categorize Henri Bergson’s role in philosophic history. On one hand his enormous presence included profound intellectual relationships with the 20th centuries greatest minds: Carl Jung, Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russel, T.S. Eliot, William James, Gilles Deleuze, to name only a few. On the other hand, his work resembles a western re-articulation of much older ideas found in Zen Buddhism among other eastern intellectual and spiritual philosophies/practices.

Bergson's theories of time, consciousness, and evolution were celebrated by the masses for their life-affirming nature yet condemned by the Roman Catholic Church for recognition of the impenetrable continuity of reality - they called Bergson a pantheist. His political influence was hardly indirect - meetings with Woodrow Wilson helped to sculpt the League of Nations which was later replaced by the United Nations. His publications garnered him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928 (recognized by some as the only philosopher to win in Literature). And perhaps most amazingly, despite the complexity of his philosophies, his prose and lecturing style resonated with the public at large throughout all of Europe and even America; he was a true populist icon. Amidst the folklore is the story where his 1913 lecture at Columbia University generated enough popularity to cause the first traffic jam in the history of Broadway.

Some view Bergson as anti-scientific, despite his academically recognized mathematical and biological accomplishments. Although his once highly publicized critiques of Einstein’s General Relativity and his elaborate contextualizing of Darwin's Theory of Evolution have more or less faded into the collective forget, even today they offer more than enough stimulation to ponder wild new possibilities to accepted notions.

Perhaps the most basic distillation of Bergson's philosophy deals with intuition and its elusive yet very real role in the pursuit of any conscious thing to truly "know" anything at all. All science and reason - human understanding at large - seems to sense an elephant in the room. Yet, as Bergson explains, our very survival largely depends on ignoring this elephant. This elephant has no name, and even if it had a name it would be a nameless one. Enter the world of Zen Buddhism - name that nameless elephant:

All things are one and have no life apart from it; the One is all things and is incomplete without the least of them. Yet the parts are parts within the whole, not merged in it; they are interfused with Reality while retaining the full identity of the part, and the One is no less One for the fact that it is a million-million parts.

= JIJIMUGE doctrine of the Kegon School of Japanese Buddhism.

OOOOOOMMMMMMMM.
It would almost seem that human consciousness is designed to ignore the completeness of things, yet derive it all the same. Hmmm.

Mind and matter are divergent tendencies; they point to an original and necessary dichotomy; they are opposite in direction; but they are mutually complementary and imply the unity of an original impulse. The new concept therefore is of a reality with which life and consciousness are identical, as distinct from the concept of a reality independent of life and conditioning it, and upon which it depends. This new concept in its turn suggests a new working principle in the biological and psychological sciences. The principle is that the great factor in evolution is a kind of unconsciousness. Such unconsciousness, however, is not a primitive self-sufficient principle. It is not an Absolute, as some metaphysicians have held. It is, on the contrary, a restriction of consciousness which life possesses in right, a restriction contrived by life in order to fashion the instrumentality of efficient action. So that while the philosophical problem of the past has been to define the nature of consciousness, explain its genesis, and determine its relation to the external reality inferred as conditioning it, the philosophical problem before us today, if we accept the new concept, is to explain the nature and genesis of unconsciousness.

= W. Wildon Carr in his Preface to Mind-Energy, H. Bergson.

More later.

Kecak

2008-05-14T13:38:00.001-04:00

This is Kecak or "the monkey chant" as captured by cinematographer Ron Fricke in his succulent cinematic film Baraka. My subconscious is erupting with Balinese dreams as I begin to prepare myself for the two month gamelan submersion in Ubud, Bali. People say that Bali is the Bayreuth for surfers - ok people don't say that but I just had some Wagner for dinner and it's on my mind. Anyway, I think I will give the surfing a shot between temple visits and practicing those incredible rhythmic palindromes on the gamelan. I just need to get out of my mind that my surfing sweat elicits the essence of fresh seal blood - yes I know I am more likely to be hit by a car than the mouth of a hammerhead shark, but I've always had a rich imagination for improbable disaster.

This Ron Fricke clip is pretty beautiful. The lead chanter has a spirit and presence on film that suddenly makes Clooney seem not quite the sexiest man alive.

Watts Reflecting

2008-05-05T00:05:00.000-04:00

I carry from childhood the vague but persistent impression of being exposed to hints of an archaic and underground culture whose values were lost to the Protestant religion and the industrial bourgeoisie, indeed to the modern West in general. This may be nothing but fantasy, but I seem to have been in touch with lingering links to a world both magical and mystical that was still understood among birds, trees, and flowers and was known - just a little - to my mother and perhaps to one or two of my nursemaids. Or was it just I who carried in my genes or in my "collective unconscious" the apprehension of whole worlds of experience which official culture repressed or ignored? the disciplinum arcanum of this culture, so easily mistaken in the child for idle reverie, was that intense contemplative watching of the eternal now, which is sometimes revived by the use of psychedelic drugs, but which came to me through flowers, jewels, reflected light in glass, and expanses of clear sky. I get it also from music that is not mechanical and does not march, as from the music of India which I loved at first hearing and which continues, like a lost name on the tip of the tongue, to put me in mind of a long-forgotten afternoon in a sunlit room where magicians were playing on the heartstrings of the universe.

= Alan Watts, autobiography In My Own Way

loops so go

2008-05-01T17:19:00.000-04:00

Out-take from one of this year's theater projects. Thawing of winter time into spring and the like.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

2008-04-24T17:51:00.000-04:00

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.

Durata

2008-04-14T22:44:00.000-04:00

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.

Daydream Quotes for Stationary Moments

2008-04-08T23:20:00.001-04:00

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.

Dreaming Fodder

2008-04-07T00:53:00.000-04:00

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.

Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe

2008-03-29T00:43:00.000-04:00

I took a job as musical director for the musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch. This means I generally work 14 hour days between the dayjob and rehearsals. But the cast is loads of fun, incredibly talented, and I spend most of my time laughing. The theater company hasn't hired an official diction coach to teach Hedwig his... her... German accent. The director overheard my Werner Herzog impression and ever since I have doubled as the diction coach.

"There is a harmony - a harmony of overwhelming and collective murder. Even the stars in the sky are a mess."

Try saying it with the Herzog monotone and hard Rs.

A few months ago I had the incredible opportunity to see Herzog at the University of Pennsylvania. The small lecture hall could only accommodate 10% of the people who wanted to see him. Near riots ensued.

From the Vaults

2008-03-17T00:11:00.000-04:00

Going through the hard drive today, I came across a set of pieces written my second year in college as a composition student. After taking a course in digital recording, I became much more interested in the sculpting of pieces through the graphic interface of Pro Tools - and the sound quality of the recording itself. I would bring a solo instrumentalist into the studio, study the particular style of their playing, and compose a piece in the moment - quickly scribbling music down on the staff paper, or simply singing what I wanted them to play. It was very dynamic - and a relief from the long hours of solitude I spent at a piano composing my other pieces. It didn't take long to draw the obvious connection between this method of composing with the method that most studio rock bands practiced. Afterall, I was raised on the Beatles, not Beethoven.

This piece was one of my early attempts to compose with the inspiration of nature - particularly insects. I managed to escape the city that summer. After a few years living in the concrete jungle of Philadelphia where sounds of birds and insects were rare, my ears became suddenly sensitive to those strange frequencies of living animals.

Here is Krysta performing on her bassoon. I titled the piece Insects.

Great Moments in Classical Crossover

2008-03-16T15:06:00.000-04:00

Freddy Mercury and famed opera diva Montserrat Cabelle perform the timeless Spanish anthem, Barthelona. Clearly Mercury has by this point mastered the physical act of identifying the downbeat with hip thrust, hands to fist, etc. Magicians everywhere look on with envy. Not sure where the orchestra is, perhaps inside an adjacent flaming oracle, but leave it to mad-scientist-inventor-conductor Brian May to find the best use yet for the once obsolete light saber.

Prologue to the End of Time

2008-03-08T20:58:00.000-05:00

Gospel great Goldia Haynes performs Fire.

It seems a bit surreal to end this song about The Book of Revelations with a piano flourish and applause, and it makes me think of the audience reception to pieces like the Quartet for the End of Time. Is it appropriate to clap, really? Did they clap after the premier in Stalag VIII-A in Görlitz, Germany on January 15, 1941?

Improvised Laughter

2008-03-05T18:26:00.000-05:00

My compositional style has turned largely towards improvisation in the past 3 years or so. Along with the influence of my buddy Sean, improvisation has revealed more depth to the music I've always loved, as well as the music I've wished to create. I have a catalog of improvised recordings on my computer that have been kept relatively private. I suppose that their spiritual connotations have kept these pieces close, without any attachment to the ambition that a composing career demands. And although this blog is public, I also consider it something of a private space.

Sean and I have been playing as a duo under the name Mad Man's Laughter. We began playing in what was once a tool shed - later a very redroom just big enough for one pieced together drum set and a large theater organ. The sound of the organ pumping through a lopsided but virile leslie speaker was a powerful sound, no doubt. So much that we were convinced that this music would be "ecstatic gospel" if anything at all.

A year has passed since this recording was made. The house was sold, the shed emptied. Our organ was too big to move, so it was put to sleep. Piece by piece, we took it apart - hoping to salvage the leslie. I've never felt nostalgia for an instrument before, but my feelings for that organ are pretty close. I'm sad that it's gone. I have since bought an old hammond, an old rhodes, but it's not the same. One day I will be an old man searching the internet, willing to pay any price for that same organ.

This track is called Mad Man's Laughter. Clearly one of our ecstatic improvisations. There are some mild hoots and hollers to prove it. More to come.

Virtually Bergson

2008-03-04T10:33:00.000-05:00

nature movie
eco resort
elephant god

Here is a musing on the nature of abstraction or virtual reality. I think the question is: as nature is abstracted more and more, and children are raised without directly contacting the non-man-made world, will they mistake abstraction for truth? Or will intuition thirst for the unknown experience of realization? Is intuition truly a human connection to the absolute continuum of reality? Will branches always break through concrete?

Inotherwords:

Although it doesn't seem theoretically possible to recreate nature in fully realized virtual form with any fewer elements than what make up its actual form, is it possible that human senses are limited and will at some point not recognize the shortcomings of virtual form?

I guess my fundamental belief says no. Does that make me a Bergsonian?

The demonstrations of the relativity of our knowledge are contaminated by an original fault: like the dogmatism they attack, they suppose that all knowledge must necessarily start from concepts with a rigid contour in order to reach flowing reality with them. But to tell the truth, our intelligence can follow the opposite process. It can lower itself into moving reality, assume its ever-changing direction, and, in short, grasp it by means of that intellectual sympathy called intuition.
=Henri Bergson from Introduction a la Metaphysique

Embedded Music!

2008-02-28T19:24:00.000-05:00

I have been moonlighting as a theater "sound designer" for the past year or so. I'm not sure what I think of the title "sound designer" since really I think a more accurate term is "mini-composer." I end up writing about 20-30 original pieces per show, each one between 30 seconds and 1.5 minutes. A sound designer can be mistaken for cuing doorbells, rain, and crickets. Ok, that's not true anyhow. The sound design to Stalker was one of the most brilliantly ticklish auditory experiences I've had in a long time.

Anyway, although it's not "serious" music, I try to bring compositional aesthetic to the table. Composing for theater can be a bit fun, particularly the bit of collaborating with non-musicians.* There are without a doubt countless obstacles and compromises in theatrical music, but I've found that I enjoy working within certain confines from time to time.

My first solo project was for The Wilma Theater's production of Brecht's Life of Galileo. The sets were bare wood and steel, evoking Galileo's story through the lens of an oppressed Eastern European 1940s society. Choosing the most obvious solution then, I decided to compose music using primarily percussive sounds on wood and steel. The result was interesting - a combination of Reich-like rhythmic effects with a certain rustic production quality. As an added bonus, the music was very well received. The production was reviewed by Terry Teachout of the Wall Street Journal but unfortunately there was no comment on music. Maybe next time an Alex Ross type should join the audience and offer a bit of perspective on the potential of a modern compositional element to today's live theater.

My second production was a US premier of Lisa Griffiths' Age of Arousal, also produced by the Wilma Theater. The play was inspired by George Gissing's progressive victorian novel The Odd Women. I read the set as a psychedelic Victorian parlor with its over-sized floral wallpaper and hints of eastern exoticism lining the lingerie. There was a sense of nature's urge for creation bubbling just below the surface as the modern women considered their intellectual, spiritual, and sexual roles in post-imperialist British society. Typewriters, commerce, and lesbianism abound, but the music was mostly inspired by a sensual undercurrent not least of which was highlighted visually by a giant floral arrangement that stretched over one-third of the stage.

Best of all was that Blanka, the director of both shows, decided to choreograph the scene transitions with intricate ballets of characters and sets moving. The transitions were always exciting and gave the music a chance to fulfill a worthwhile lifecycle without any fade-outs(!).

I've discovered a way to embed music files to this blog - so this is a test to see if it works. Track 1 is from The Life of Galileo, serving as a segue from the industrialist, socialist sensibilities of Brecht's Galileo to the aristocratic ball scene where the Grand Inquisitor is first introduced.

The second track from Age of Arousal is the introduction of victorian psychedelic beauty as walls open up to reveal a young bachelor courting a beautiful debutante on a stroll through some London park. I bought a 1972 Fender Rhodes and an out of tune piano at the used furniture store to create the atmosphere. The tape delay was also a favorite post production tool of mine.

The third track introduces Act II of Age of Arousal. The scene is entitled Impressionism - the characters are walking through the first exhibit of this new art form in a London gallery.

The fourth is the final scene of Age of Arousal, titled Garden, when the cycle of death and re-birth come to full realization in a beautifully lit (slightly psychedelic) garden. The internet provided the birds - I guess I modeled the short track on Messiaen and some freejazz solos. Enjoy!

*except when everything outside of classic tonality is considered "creepy" or "sinister"

Folk

2008-02-25T22:23:00.000-05:00

As our folk culture expands throughout the interwebs, google video maintains its massing snowball presence. Unofficial music videos made by music fans show up from time to time with something real to contribute. I've posted a fan-made video to Leaf House, one of my favorite songs by Animal Collective - the psych folk pop mod prog downtown indie boy band of the year (s).

Symbols of Enough

2008-02-24T22:18:00.001-05:00

Now summer has passed,
As if it had never been.
It is warm in the sun.
But this isn't enough.

All that might have been,
Like a five-cornered leaf
Fell right into my hands,
But this isn't enough.

Neither evil nor good
Had vanished in vain,
It all burnt with white light,
But this isn't enough.

Life took me under its wing,
Preserved and protected,
Indeed I have been lucky.
But this isn't enough.

Not a leaf had been scorched,
Not a branch broken off. . .
The day wiped clean as clear glass,
But this isn't enough.

= Arseny Tarkovsky (as used by Andrei Tarkovsky in Stalker)

Projected Anger Makes Me Mad

2008-02-18T22:48:00.000-05:00

I played the guess the composer game while listening to the last few minutes of an orchestral piece on the radio driving home from the grocery store.

A symphonic work
Sounds like the last movement of 4 movement form
Well, definitely a romantic - german sounds like
But i don't know it... kinda familiar.
No, don't know it - could this be a neo-romantic?
It's way too indulgent - how dare a neo-romantic demand this much empathy from me?
Oh man I'm pissed - this is ridiculous
If this is a Juilliard teacher...
What a sentimental asshole.
The academic scene is such bs.
Ok, that part was good - surprisingly -
What form is this anyway? It's like the transcendentalists.
What does this guy know about transcendentalism?
I am pissed off!
Ok that part was kind of interesting.
But it's mostly bad!
This is total shit and I'm tired of it. Who is it?

Final movement of Mahler 10.

for the record: Mahler 10 is mostly awesome.

Children of Parsifal

2008-02-13T23:21:00.000-05:00

Really - how awesome are the handheld camera single shot-sequences in this Parsifal clip!? The lighting is pretty badass too. Alfonso Cuarón eat your heart out.

And is that The Seventh Seal mysteriously slipped in at the 7:07 mark?

Is it serious?

2008-02-06T23:32:00.000-05:00

The video includes a lecture by Alan Watts on a number of wonderful subjects - but the subject that inspired me to post this video is not one he addresses (at least not directly). I was jogging when I first listened to this lecture as a podcast. The first minute went by and I had to stop running to catch my breath - I was laughing too much. Why was I laughing? Alan Watts wasn't making jokes, or ironic references, or anything "funny." But nevertheless, something was humorous.

Watts asks a simple question. Is existence serious? He also can't help but laugh after asking this question - as you hear in the video. What is so funny about this??

Henri Bergson wrote an interesting treatise called Laughter. Anyway, enjoy Mr. Watts - and I highly recommend downloading the Watts podcasts on itunes - They're Free!

Shamanistic Hunting

2008-02-05T20:22:00.000-05:00

David Attenborough narrates a phenomenal documentation of traditional Kalahari hunting.

Considered one of the most ancient hunting techniques, this "persistence hunt" originated before weapons were invented. The hunter uses tracking skills and trance induced intuition to simply run down the animal until exhaustion finally forces the animal to surrender after 8 hours in the African heat. Once the animal has collapsed, the hunter begins a killing ritual which includes staying close and comforting the animal until it dies. This ritual ensures that the spirit returns safely to the desert so the cycle of reincarnation is properly maintained.

Slogans of Our Time

2008-02-03T17:35:00.000-05:00

An old woman throws her crutches to the ground - "Change made me walk again!"

A billionaire swims in his pool of golden coins - "Change made me rich!"

A small child clutches her kitten to her chest - "Change brought Buttons down from the tree!"

Our contemporary political slogans have yet to achieve the true universality of phrases like "Uh huh" but at least campaigns of the future give us something to look forward to...

Harmony of Overwhelming and Collective Murder

2008-02-01T15:41:00.001-05:00

Herzog riffs on nature in the jungle during a scene in the fine, fine Les Blank documentary: Burden of Dreams.

I thought it might be a fair balance to the articulation of life on Earth as sounded in the post below...

Kebyar

2008-01-31T12:01:00.000-05:00

... 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

2008-01-30T20:06:00.001-05:00

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

2008-01-29T18:09:00.001-05:00

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

2008-01-11T22:22:00.002-05:00

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

2008-01-03T20:11:00.001-05:00

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

Cudamani

2007-11-03T18:56:00.000-04:00

I'm about to trek out of the house to see Cudamani perform for the second time today. The first performance here in Philadelphia, around 2pm, was taken in with very high expectations. I've long claimed to my friends and peers that gamelan is among the highest of human arts. Let alone their responses, I mean to say that my feelings for gamelan encompass nearly every branch of my own artistic ideals. If I had to compare my discovery of gamelan to some other much desired western discovery, I would say it is the missing link in human evolution, or better yet, the unifying theory to the physical forces of nature. OK, slight exaggeration... slight. More accurately, I'm mystified and inspired by the spiritual, metaphysical, physical, practical, musical, natural, timelessness of the sounds. Doth I protest too much?

The effect of gamelan on the western composer has become something of mythical proportions. Debussy is of course the most famous example, especially the story of his exposure to Javanese gamelan in the 1889 Paris World's Fair. To my surprise, I couldn't find many of Debussy's thoughts on gamelan recorded, but I did find this ditty:

"There used to be-- indeed, despite the troubles that civilization has brought, there still are-- some wonderful peoples who learn music as easily as one learns to breathe. Their school consists of the eternal rhythm of the sea, the wind in the leaves, and a thousand other tiny noises, which they listen to with great care, without ever having consulted any of those dubious treatises." (Debussy on Music, trans. Richard Langham Smith, [New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1977], quoted in Tamagawa, p. 22)

UPDATE:
I was awarded the Independence Foundation Fellowship. I'm going to Bali this summer --shhhh don't tell anyone yet. I have to figure out what to say at the old nine-to-fiver. Maybe it's time to move on, ya know. To really become an artist - leave the 40 hour week behind for an 80 hour week of composing, coffee shops, and bi-polarism. Anyway, I'm amazed that I have this opportunity. I'm going to study with Cudamani.

Teatro Comunale di Città della Pieve

2006-07-15T19:33:00.000-04:00

Well tomorrow I'm off for Italia. Citta' della Pieve (or as we affectionately call it "shitabowlopubes") to be exact. My chamber opera, La Tempesta (ummm... The Tempest) will be gloriously performed thrice in a gorgeous multi-hundred year old opera theater. It was a rush job, as these things often are, and it was a radical break from my more experimental musics, but it has been a time of worthy trial up to this point. I orchestrated two hours of music in two weeks. Nothing like deadlines to show a man what he's made of...

Commissions are strange that way. Fulfilling a commission, a specific goal, can be quite fun. I got to write in all the languages I'm not 'allowed' to write in. I find the whole process quite fascinating... at least fascinating enough to do it this time. Yeah, this time it was okay. After this, I'm prepared to drown myself in uncompromising duende inspired art-making. For the people!

What a strange strange time its been. I've been expected by other people... many other people... to write performable music. So strange. I've been fortunate enough not to think too much about it, but in my brief moment of reflection, I recognize how obsessive my mind has been to simply complete a job. Expectation creates a very unique atmosphere that I never really anticipated before. Sure, I should have reasoned this dynamic as likely, but it never really occurred to me.

Blah. I'm off. I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted. I haven't slept in months. Time to reap what I've sown.

Wow. What great friends I have. I'm not about to do a public banter on each of you, the three or four who read this thing, but I am completely humble to each and every person who has been so understanding through this crazy composing time. I'm very very fortunate. It is clear that what I have attempted would not have been possible without support from amazing people. yikes, i'm so cheesy. well, you know me. i'm a sincere cheesy guy. Thanks everyone.

Well, that's all for now. Poof...

Reflection - Negation

2006-07-01T15:11:00.000-04:00

IndieWire interview with Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, Naqoyqatsi director: Godfrey Reggio

iW: Do you see benefits from technological progress?

Reggio: There are obvious benefits -- medical or educational. Buckminster Fuller, one of the prophets of the technological order, used all the metaphors like "spaceship earth" and it was his basic point of view that prevailed that said technology is neutral. It's use or misuse that you make of it. So, of course America makes good use of it, Saddam Hussein makes bad use or the Al-Qaeda makes bad use, and the UK makes good use, well that to me is ridiculous. Technology is not neutral. All tools have intrinsic politics and technology is the tool of now. It's not just the effect of technology on the environment, on religion, on the economic structure, on society, on politics, etc. It's that everything now exists in technology to the point where technology is the new and comprehensive host of nature of life. We are now cyborged, that's not the future, that is the present. Now, that's a hard sell, believe me. It's not a popular point of view.

iW: Well perhaps because there's a sense of inevitability in your films, and I think people don't want to accept that. Because what you're telling me is that we're already there, it's not a warning.

Reggio: That's what I meant about holding a mirror up to society. I think there's an enormous value to being negative. The world we live in today, negativity is not permitted.

iW: No, it's medicated away.

Reggio: Yeah, we want to have the shiny view on everything. But in fact if you look at film as a metaphor, only through the negative can you have the positive print. What I'm trying to get to is the positive value of negation. I think it's the tragedy of our time that we're not aware of the affect of the manner in which we've adopted tools. Those tools have become who we are.

iW: Do people call you a doomsday prophet?

Reggio: I've been called that or a very negative person: "You better take a pill if you go see Godfrey's films, they're pretty dark." What I'm trying to do is to at least raise a flag to the blinding light of technology. Homer said, "Ah, fire, their brilliance, their flaw. Is this the moment of the sunset or the moment of the dawn?" They weren't shrinking from tragedy or from humor. If it could help you sense the moment you were in, it had a very positive value. It wasn't to depress, it was to purge. Now, this all heavy stuff you realize isn't stuff I demand from my crew. [laughs]

iW: Because the theme of "Naqoyqatsi" is civilized violence or a life of war, I'd like to ask you to comment about the time we're in right now, with eminent war in Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and your own studio having been located south of Canal.

Reggio: Right on the ninth ring outside the bull's eye. As hard as this is going to be to say, I think the events of 9/11, the events that are happening in Israel right now, in Palestine, the events in the Middle East, in South East Asia, in Africa, which we all neglect, and Latin America, and now coming to our shores are the ongoing, logical conclusions of the way of life based on power.

For me, nation-states are the first technology. They homogenize language, develop mother-tongues, become father-lands. They think only of their own interest. And power becomes the arbitrator of what is good and bad. It's curious to me that the gods of the conquered become the demons of the conquerors. History has been the history of warfare.

Morning Raga

2006-06-24T22:24:00.000-04:00

I finally got around to putting some Mad Man's Laughter sound files online. Sean and I will make the official internet debut next fall, once we've completed our summer projects. But for now... here's a few improvised and composed pieces... or whichever ones I get around to loading on that crappy website called myspace.

A good read...

2006-06-21T23:14:00.000-04:00

Cornelius Cardew gets down on the essense of improvisation, music, and humanity in Towards an Ethic of Improvisation. If you don't read the whole thing, at least skip to the virtues that a musician can develop.

Music is Erotic

Postulate that the true appreciation of music consists in emotional surrender, and the expression music-lover becomes graphically clear and literally true. Anyone familiar with the basis of much near-eastern music will require no further justification for the assertion that music is erotic. Nevertheless, decorum demands that the erotic aspect of music be approached with circumspection and indirectly. That technical mastery is of no intrinsic value in music (or love) should be clear to anyone with a knowledge of musical history: Brahms was a greater composer than Mendelssohn, though it can be truly asserted that Mendelssohn displayed more brilliance in technical matters. Elaborate forms and a brilliant technique conceal a basic inhibition, a reluctance to directly express love, a fear of self-exposure.

Esoteric books of love (the Kama Sutra for example) and esoteric musical theories such as Stockhausen's and Goeyvaerts' early serial manipulations lose a lot of their attraction when they are readily available to all.

Love is a dimension like time, not some small thing that has to be made more interesting by elaborate preamble. The basic dream -of both love and music- is of a continuity, something that will live forever. The simplest practical attempt at realising this dream is the family. In music we try to eliminate time psycholgically [sic] to work in time in such a way that it loses its hold on us, relaxes its pressure. Quoting Wittgenstein again: "If by eternity is understood not endless temporal duration but timelessness, then he lives eternally who lives in the present".

Yeah, that's what's up

2006-05-23T00:24:00.000-04:00

Alkan via Hamelin

Psychedelia

2006-05-19T00:26:00.000-04:00

I totally wasn't expecting this.

MML

2006-05-17T23:52:00.001-04:00

Desire, ergo, suffering, ergo sum: salvation or tranquility

How do you do, sir?
She said as you kissed her
to fly or to transfer
next to by after

I'll sing to them faster
Said their queen pastor
next to or after
the mad man's laughter

Healthy Forest Initiative

2006-04-22T20:50:00.000-04:00

Ah google. My window to the world.

Today Google's logo was decorated by solar panels. Must mean it's earth day. Sure enough, a click on the logo took me to earth day search results. A few clicks later I found myself looking at the United States Government web page for earth day. How exciting! I wonder what the United States Government, the wealthiest, most moral, most visionary, most fantabulous government in the history of human civilization, was doing to celebrate our mother earth. What were the great resources of our great people doing to protect and serve our planet? What were the intentions of the brightest, healthiest, most-god-blessed civilization doing to preserve our life sphere for future generations?

Well, one thing I found was the Healthy Forest Initiative. Sadly, I have only learned about the HFI through liberally biased networks. I've heard something or other about it pressing legislation that would allow loggers the right to cut once protected forests under the guise of "preventing forest fire." But that was liberally biased. What is the government's side?

Why is the Healthy Forests Initiative Needed?

In recent years, most of us have seen televised pictures of wildland fires, evacuated communities, burned homes, and blackened forests, or witnessed these fires first hand. In 2002, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon and New Mexico, each had their largest timber fire in a century. The most devastating series of wildland fires in state history swept Southern California during October 2003. These fires killed 24 people, destroyed more than 3,700 homes, and burned 750,000 acres. Alaska set a record for acres burned in 2004. And, while fire has always helped shape our landscape, today's fires are not those of the past; they are often hotter, more destructive, and more dangerous to fight.

Wow. That's wierd. I wonder how these new mutant fires came to be. I mean, the forests seem to have been here much longer than we have. Why the sudden need for a rescue?

We know in part the reason for the difference. Compared with earlier times, many of today's forests often have unprecedented levels of flammable materials including among other materials: underbrush, needles, and leaves. In the interior West for example, Ponderosa pine forests range from Arizona and New Mexico northward into Idaho. A century ago such a forest may have had some 25 mature trees per acre and be easily traversed on horseback or by a horse-drawn wagon. Today that same forest may have more than 1,000 trees on the same acre creating conditions that are much too thick for the passage of a hiker. These tightly packed trees are smaller, weaker, more disease prone, and more susceptible to insect attack than their ancestors. Such forests form huge reservoirs of fuel awaiting ignition, and pose a particularly significant threat when drought is also a factor.

Hmmm. Forests are flammable? That's crazy. So the more they thrive, the more prone they are to self destruction. You'd wonder why God would make such a crazy, self defeating ecosystem.

Just as we know the reason for current devastating fires, we also know the solution. Wildfire requires three elements: heat, oxygen, and fuel. We can manage neither heat nor oxygen, but we can remove hazardous fuels and make them unavailable for fire's inevitable appearance. HFI helps make that happen by reducing unneeded paperwork and processes thus shortening the time between when a hazardous fuels project is identified and when it is actually implemented on the ground.

Oh. By hazardous fuels I'm sure you mean trees. I gotcha. Just wanted to be clear on that symbolic step forward. So HAZARDOUS FUEL = TREES. Okay. I'm clear. Yep. Sure, lets continue.

HFI accomplishes its goals through administrative reforms and legislative action.

Bush With Tree

As I went on reading, I found out that trees were at higher risk for insect infestation and disease. They were at risk of sustained periods of drought. And creepy crawly suburbia was not at risk since it burrowed its way into these cancerous trees. I also found a quote of Bush claiming "analysis paralysis."

hee hee. analysis paralysis.

While I am quite the expert of analysis paralysis and I do support bold, mythical steps in the escape thereof, Bush's context and logic techniques make me suspicious. Does that mean I'm paranoid?

Lets just put it this way.

Dear Mr. Government:

I support a healthy forest ecosystem that sustains itself for the remainder of our planet's existence. I understand that forest fires have been around since the oxygen and forests first met, and I strangely assume that the ecosystems have, through natural selection, assumed the adaptations that create the most sustaining characteristics possible. My question: is my assumption wrong? Are forests not able to behave in such a way as to secure their own future existence? Why are forests creating more "fuel" which makes fires "hotter" and "more destructive" (presumably towards the point of annihilation if we're concerned with saving them so much)? Are we in any way performing harm towards ecosystems? I mean, are we sacrificing one good for another?

Forgive me if I ask this, I don't mean to offend your integrity. But was the Healthy Forest Initiative in any way influenced by the profit-based intentions of the logging industry?

Thank you for your time.

Troy

Ambigious Truth

2006-04-16T14:49:00.000-04:00

Seigneur! Seigneur!
Musique et Poése m'ont conduit vers Toi: par image, par symbole, et par défault de vérite.
Seigneur! Seigneur!
Seigneur, illumine-moi de ta présence! Délivre-moi, enivre-moi, éblouis-moi pour toujours de ton excés de vérité...
(Il meurt.)

Lord! Lord!
Music and poetry have led me to Thee: by image, by symbol, and in default of Truth.
Lord! Lord!
Lord, illuminate me with Thy Presence! Deliver me, enrapture me, dazzle me for ever by Thy excess of Truth...

The Egyptians built the pyramids. The Romans built the Pantheon. The Saxons built Stonehenge. Messiaen built the opera St. François d'Assise. Messiaen's greatest masterpiece ends the life of St. Francis with lines inspired by St. Thomas Aquinas.

I wasn't raised religious. I am not a religious man. But I find that this quote resonates with my outlook. Perhaps my connotations of the word "Lord" are a bit more ambigious...

... but isn't that exactly it?

Field Report

2006-04-15T20:22:00.000-04:00

Sean and I (The Mad Man's Laughter) have been hired by Pig Iron Theater to provide original composition and sound design for their upcomming production "Love Unpunished." Details on the actual vision of this production will follow in time, but for now, lets say that the set consists of a gigantic stairwell that resembles those found in... american skyscrapers...

Certain words seem to be thrown around quite comfortably now, including...
meditation on death. prayer.

So Sean and I took a trip to a VT college where Sean's incredible friend hooked us up with some amazing studio space. The first night we played in an auditorium the size of a basketball court. I didn't think much of it at first, but I began to feel a strange comfort and energy while simply being present. I finally took a moment to really look around and noticed that the entire place was made of beautiful wooden panels which stretched from floor to the hundred foot ceiling. It reminded me of the orchestral studios I've seen in pictures of the 1950s NBC symphony.

The gods couldn't have been more generous as there was a collection of handmade instruments which were gathered for an upcomming celebration for the late composer who had crafted them. Every once in a while a chime would ring on its own, or a string would vibrate without us touching it, and we couldn't help but smile thinking that the spirit of that old composer was watching us with pleasure.

We wrote a piece for three parts which was based on a 66 beat cycle. This was performed on gamelan style instruments-- microtone vibrations and all. Practicing the cycle for two hours put us all in a very comfortable, focused frame of mind which proved to be particularly effective come our improvisation time.

Among other things, we improvised on three timpani, vibes, chimes, gongs, strange 20ft banjos strung with piano strings, and of course, piano.

The music is very beautiful and interesting and I can't wait to write more about this as the process continues. I will say that I believe that the future of this project looks fertile enough to produce what I may consider my first piece of public art.

Feldman and Cage and Radio

2006-04-04T22:59:00.000-04:00

Feldman: John, wouldn't you say that what we're dependent on we call reality and what we don't like we consider an intrusion in our life. Consequently, I feel that what's happening is that we're continually being intruded upon.

Cage: But that would make us very unhappy.

F: Or we surrender to it. And call it culture.

C: Call it culture?

F: Or whatever.

C: Give me an example. What would be an intrusion in your life that you would call culture?

F: Well this weekend we were on the beach, and on the beach these days are transistor radios blaring out rock and roll. All over.

C: Yes. And you didn't enjoy it?

F: Not particularly. I adjusted to it.

C: How?

F: By saying that... well, I thought of the sun and the sea as a lesser evil.

(Laughing)

C: Well, you know how I adjusted to that problem of the radio in the environment? Very much as the primitave people adjusted to the animals that frightened them and which probably, as you say, were intrusions. They drew pictures of them in their caves. And so I simply made a piece using radios. Now whenever I hear radios, even a single one-- not just twelve at a time, as you must have heard on the beach, at least-- I think they're all just playing my piece.

(Laughing)

F: That might help me next weekend.

C: And I listened to it with pleasure. And by pleasure I mean: I notice what happens. I can attend to it, rather than, as you say "surrender," I can rather pay attention and become interested in the... well what you're actually interested in is what superimposes what-- what happens at the same time together with what happens before and what happens after.

Recycle (part 1)

2006-03-15T22:48:00.000-05:00

In my daydream this afternoon I somehow made my way back to the days following Hurricane Katrina. I remember visiting my folks and basking in the glorious poison of cable TV... something to the tune of Fox News. Yeah, I watch Fox News from time to time-- for entertainment purposes, surely. Sometimes there's enough balony to muster up a real full-belly laugh, or at the very least, I try to predict the material for tomorrow's Daily Show. Anyway, railing at Fox News is old hat, but like I said, it's just a daydream. I remember (maybe Hannity was it?) interviewing an environmentalist who had a lot to say about the man made set up for disaster. (Hannity was it?) then ended the interview saying "well, nature really owes us one now."

!

Can you say, Mr. Burns?

Lisa: You never heard of recycling? It means to reuse things to conserve our natural resources.

Mr. Burns: OH? So mother nature needs a favor?? Well maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys. Nature started the fight for survival and now she wants to quit because she's losing. Well, I say, HARD CHEESE.

got back (while he can)

2006-03-14T14:07:00.000-05:00

Why I hate philosophy (but always come crawling back like a scared little girl)

2006-03-05T14:58:00.000-05:00

It seems that debates over the logical conclusions resulting from logical conclusions have been centering around "postmodernism"-- whatever that means. As far as I see it, western rationalism interprets reality in an order somewhat resembling:

1. Biological recognition through sensation: hear, touch, feel, get burned!
2. Immediate "emotional" categorization-- assign the perception to one of two places: pay attention and remember or ignore.
3. OH i'm bored and lazy already. Lets skip a few steps.
4. Rationalism identifies the true nature of reality: nothing has objective value. Objective value is an illusion placed on an object/idea/behavior/etc. by the valuer. Value does exist, however it is determined by the limits of a system which are invented by a particular frame of consciousness. The limits of a frame of consciousness result from: survival necessity (nature), intrinsic artistic beauty (some bastard child of the survival necessity), and *eh em* nurture (for god sakes, I love E.T. no matter how sentimental I know it is. I love Reeses Pieces too). Sometimes value is shared by groups of people, sometimes not. (as a side note, I'm convinced that most "agreements" are a result of miscommunication. If spoken/written language was nearly as precise as our pure thoughts are, we would find that the subtleties of difference are humongous. But who knows, really?)
5. In other words, pure rationalism = nihilism.
5(a). Nihilism sucks.
6. Postmodernism says there is no objective value because we all place our own value on things. But even this observation has no objective value. The value of looking at things objectively is also an illusion. In a strange turn of events, postmodernism says to the observer/academic/gaunt cynic from the underground: Hello!! are you going to be part of the human race or are you just going to translate experience into an incredibly inefficient language of "if this, then that."
7. Rationalism, when not taken to its ultimate logical conclusion, is a mystical wonder that brings us buggies without horses and self-cooling houses and theories and berries* and cherries* (*all spoken with mid-western accent)
8. Rationalism, when taken to its logical conclusion, is a bitch that ignores the cries of her only child because, well... why not?

I hate philosophy because it teases a human out of their humanity. But once the human has entered that cold, naked place, oh how greatful they are for their fickle desires and senseless appreciations of beauty which require no philosophy to experience, but a shit load to explain.

But when there's not enough manual labor in one's life, they tend towards "higher things" and in our limitless boredom, we indulge in intellectualism like me on sour skittles... and eventually the tastebuds are burnt out and everything tastes like hurting.

Of course, I'm completely wrong about all of this. I'm generalizing, and incredibly lazy in my approach. I'm even indulging. Not to mention hypocritical.

Blah.

Animal Collective is totally awesome

2006-02-21T13:10:00.000-05:00

While filling my daily quota of procrastination via web surfing, I decided to look into a band recommended to me a while back. Animal Collective is a quartet from... I'm just gonna copy and paste the description from R5 productions:

The Brooklyn-based modern folk group comprised of DEKAN, GEOLGIST, AVEY TARE and PANDA BEAR under their ANIMAL COLLECTIVE moniker. Built around the AVEY TARE and PANDA BEARS gorgeous harmonic vocals and twin acoustic guitar strumming, the group moves from chiming acoustic guitar songs to gentler, more dispersed picked ballads to sprawling, guitar-swell psychedelics, bubbling, acid-warped vocal effects, and tribal, almost shamanic trance-outs based around looping vocals and hypnotic kick-pulses. Influences range from the Holy Modal Rounders to Simon & Garfunkel, Syd Barrett, the Beach Boys, the Incredible String Band, Brazilian tropicalia, Gilberto Gil, Milton Nasciemento, Black Dice, and beyond. Sweet melodies, big catchy hooks, and a ton of focus and personality.

After listening to a few of their tracks (which are posted on the R5 site) I totally had one of those they beat me to it moments. Now I'm going to wallow in my own creative hollows while soaking in those AC melodies, flickering back and forth between real time and... .. .

To know us is to know our music

2006-02-19T22:27:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure why, but lately I've been experiencing some circular thinking regarding the communicative powers of music. When I expose a friend to Messiaen or Bach for the first time, my hands burst into the air and I say, "he was trying to communicate his thoughts on God-- his deepest spiritual philosophies... isn't it interesting that a man so religious... who could have chosen to preach or write essays... chose music as the method?"

I've also stopped composing for the most part. Or... well, I'm composing, but lets not get into that project. Instead, I'm playing free-improvised music as a way to explore and connect. And I've been completely amazed and grateful to have found a connection to some kind of earthly root, where my reptile brain is given opportunity to say something, and holy shit! It's beautiful!

These experiences have motivated me to explore my "world music" collection which includes mostly gamelan, east and west african music, and some indian ragas. In tribal conditions, music served a very spiritual purpose. And as I explore my own improvising inclinations more and more, and I am noticing similarities to tribal music. How interesting. And now, although I'm certainly guilty of imposing my will to some extent, even Bach, Messiaen, Scriabin, and Alkan are relating to this tribal music. There is a sense of obsession to texture, timbre, and repetition. There is a sense of surrendering.

THEN... I somehow had the urge to look up the Voyager golden record. You remember, the one that was shot off to space so that aliens light years away can learn about our beautiful planet and diversity of life, behavior, and ultimately culture and art. The record included audio excerpts of animal sounds as well as sound of the earth like rain and wind. Also included were examples of music from cultures around the world. Bach prelude in C major was the only piece I knew for sure was included since I remember it being referenced in Thirty-Two Short Films about Glenn Gould. But what else was included? What did the panel decide? What mix-tape was fit for intergalactic travel?

* Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F. First Movement, Munich Bach Orchestra, Karl Richter, conductor. 4:40
* Java, court gamelan, "Kinds of Flowers", recorded by Robert E. Brown. 4:43
* Senegal, percussion, recorded by Charles Duvelle. 2:08
* Zaire, Pygmy girls' initiation song, recorded by Colin Turnbull. 0:56
* Australia, Aborigine songs, "Morning Star" and "Devil Bird", recorded by Sandra LeBrun Holmes. 1:26
* Mexico, "El Cascabel", performed by Lorenzo Barcelata and the Mariachi México. 3:14
* "Johnny B. Goode", written and performed by Chuck Berry. 2:38
* New Guinea, men's house song, recorded by Robert MacLennan. 1:20
* Japan, shakuhachi, "Tsuru No Sugomori" ("Crane's Nest") performed by Goro Yamaguchi. 4:51
* Bach, "Gavotte en rondeaux" from the Partita No. 3 in E major for Violin, performed by Arthur Grumiaux. 2:55
* Mozart, Die Zauberflöte, Queen of the Night aria, no. 14. Edda Moser, soprano. Bavarian State Opera, Munich, Wolfgang Sawallisch, conductor. 2:55
* Georgian S.S.R., chorus, "Tchakrulo", collected by Radio Moscow. 2:18
* Peru, panpipes and drum, collected by Casa de la Cultura, Lima. 0:52
* "Melancholy Blues", performed by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Seven. 3:05
* Azerbaijan S.S.R., bagpipes, recorded by Radio Moscow. 2:30
* Stravinsky, Rite of Spring, Sacrificial Dance, Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Igor Stravinsky, conductor. 4:35
* Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, Prelude and Fugue in C, No.1. Glenn Gould, piano. 4:48
* Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, conductor. 7:20
* Bulgaria, "Izlel je Delyo Hagdutin", sung by Valya Balkanska. 4:59
* Navajo Indians, Night Chant, recorded by Willard Rhodes. 0:57
* Holborne, Paueans, Galliards, Almains and Other Short Aeirs, "The Fairie Round", performed by David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London. 1:17
* Solomon Islands, panpipes, collected by the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Service. 1:12
* Peru, wedding song, recorded by John Cohen. 0:38
* China, ch'in, "Flowing Streams", performed by Kuan P'ing-hu. 7:37
* India, raga Bhairavi, "Jaat Kahan Ho", sung by Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar. 3:30
* "Dark Was the Night", written and performed by Blind Willie Johnson. 3:15
* Beethoven, String Quartet No. 13 in B flat, Opus 130, Cavatina, performed by Budapest String Quartet. 6:37

Phew. Boy is that controversial. Was there really room for multiple examples from a single mind? Beethoven shows up twice, Bach thrice!

This begs the obvious, glorious question. What music would you send to space? Personally, I am one to first consider the purpose. This aspect of the record was created to inform alien intelligent life of our humanity through music. Surely Beethoven and Bach deserve a spot, but I hardly find it reasonable to give them more than a track. If Western European music deserves more time, what about the great melodies? Certainly melody was under-represented. Hmmm... and which melodies are worthy of intergalactic travel? Puccini? Gershwin? Tchaikovsky?

While the webpage loads...

2006-02-19T10:30:00.000-05:00

In keeping with my theme of short and incredibly useful posts, I present this: How to exercise while sitting at your computer.

The Ecstatic Gospel According to the Internal Truth

2006-02-16T15:32:00.000-05:00

I may be (unofficially) the resident Chroma Polaris performer in the city of Philadelphia. Come check us out. I'm tellin ya, it's freakin hot.

We're working on names for the trio (Chroma Polaris, Accordian, and Percussion) before September's tour.

Bubble Raga

sleep on it

speaking of not enough time

2006-02-16T14:55:00.000-05:00

The veins standing out in David's hands show Michelangelo's physiological accuracy of a person in pre-fight stance.

On Expression, Criticism, Humility, Humor, etc.

2006-02-02T20:15:00.000-05:00

...Others for Language all their Care express,
And value Books, as Women Men, for Dress:
Their Praise is still — The Stile is excellent:
The Sense, they humbly take upon Content.
Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound,
Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.
False Eloquence, like the Prismatic Glass,
Its gawdy Colours spreads on ev'ry place;
The Face of Nature was no more Survey,
All glares alike, without Distinction gay:
But true Expression, like th' unchanging Sun,
Clears, and improves whate'er it shines upon,
It gilds all Objects, but it alters none.
Expression is the Dress of Thought, and still
Appears more decent as more suitable;
A vile Conceit in pompous Words exprest,
Is like a Clown in regal Purple drest;
For diff'rent Styles with diff'rent Subjects sort,
As several Garbs with Country, Town, and Court.
Some by Old Words to Fame have made Pretence;
Ancients in Phrase, meer Moderns in their Sense!
Such labour'd Nothings, in so strange a Style,
Amaze th'unlearn'd, and make the Learned Smile...

...A smudging from Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism

Rosebud...

2006-02-01T10:11:00.000-05:00

Orson Welles is one of the most inventive, influential, and tragic heros of the 20th century. His genius was unchallenged from his teens until his 20s, and by the time he was 24 RKO Pictures gave him the most progressive- trusting in the vision of the artist instead of the members of the board- contract Hollywood had yet to see. With this power and influence, and unchecked vision, Welles made Citizen Kane (did I say he was 24!?).

But the poor bastard was called a Communist and blacklisted from Hollywood. He grew fat and drunk, and eventually made a living doing voice-overs for scotch and frozen peas. Ah, the frozen peas. A legend in its time. Orson's famous voice-over for a british based advertising agency is one of the finest moments of comedy resulting from genius vs. underlings. Orson belittles the producers and writers and eventually becomes so frustrated with the writing and direction that he walks out of the recording session. As mean spirited as it... becomes... I can't help but sympathize. How lonely he must be in this land of refined perceptions. Some of my favorite moments:

That doesn't make any sense. Sorry. There's no known way of saying an English sentence in which you begin a sentence with "in" and emphasize it. Get me a jury and show me how you can say "In July" and I'll go down on you. That's just idiotic, if you'll forgive me by saying so. That's just stupid... "In July"; I'd love to know how you emphasize "In" in "In July". Impossible! Meaningless!

You don't know what I'm up against. Because it's full of, of, of things that are only correct because they're grammatical, but they're tough on the ear, you see. This is a very wearying one. It's unpleasant to read. Unrewarding. "Because Findus freeze the cod at sea, and then add a crumb-crisp" Ooh, "crumb-crisp coating." Ahh, that's tough, "crumb-crisp coating." I think, no, because of the way it's written, you need to break it up, because it's not, it's not as conversationally written.

I spend... twenty times more for you people than any other commercial I've ever made. You are such pests! Now what is it you want? In your... depths of your ignorance, what is it you want? Whatever it is you want, I can't deliver, 'cause I just don't see it.

It wasn't until I heard this clip that I realized Orson Welles was the inspiration for the voice of The Brain from Pinky and The Brain. Wow... that makes it even more entertaining... BTW, what crap are people watching now that Anamaniacs are off the air?

You can listen to the whole clip here.

You Have Been Chosen

2006-01-26T21:54:00.000-05:00

So gmail provided an interesting link in the advertisement section next to the body of a recent e-mail. I typed a short message of concern for a friend, "I hope everything is alright. I know you're busy, but let me know how you're doing when you get the time."

Gmail uses an ingenious algorithym which scans the words of an e-mail for clues which generate the most appropriate advertising links. Apparently this system is one of the worlds most advanced methods of gathering and organizing information.

Next to the body of my concerned e-mail, I couldn't help but notice what Gmail concluded from my two sentences of concern. A single, lonely link was posted: Desperate?

The word, colored in blue hypertext font strangely reminded me of an Alice in Wonderland trip ---take the blue pill--- but you can never return.

Desperate?
Surrounded by troubles?
Overcome by problems?
If you want to see how to save a hopeless situation,
See below

I was only mildly surprised that there was no obvious place to click and send money. What are they selling? Drugs? Books? Videos?

But I went along reading, down a small ladder of logic that was designed to make the reader feel as though their pains are common to most humans.

I often wondered why I respond to a situation the way I respond. Interestingly, I have responded to the same event in different ways at different times, to the extent that one response can be opposite to the previous response. Why?

I have searched for answers. Nothing seems to be final, but I think it is something to do with my beliefs. If my belief about the situation changes, my response changes, even if the situation is the same.

Very systematic...

Why do I choose to believe the way I believe? Most times it is based on experience of the same type of situation in the past and whether it was beneficial to me.

To believe one way or to believe another way is merely a decision based on my belief at that point in time.

Why do I believe what I believe? Because I decide to do so. Making a choice is a decision. I can choose to decide I no longer believe in what I used to believe in. I can choose to believe in something else, even the opposite.

Can I believe in anything? Yes, I merely decide to believe in it.
Am I free to decide to believe in anything? I believe I am free to do so.
I believe that any belief is only one decision away.

Of course this gets to the nature of the question: what is belief?

Belief is created through reasoning and perception whether consciously or unconsciously. The idea that one can choose what to believe is surely a curious position. It stands that if one chooses what to believe, then human reason must have the ability to compartmentalize. For instance, one could reason that all reality is simply temporary beliefs, or an acceptance that patterns will continue uninterrupted until proven otherwise, at which time the belief changes to include the new patterns. But one could also reason that basing one's idea of reality on ever changing beliefs creates an unstable environment which may make one uncomfortable. Since a human may strive for comfort, it is reasonable that one may choose to believe in a steady, unchanging reality in order to maximize comfort and therefore productivity, health, etc.

This is a case in which reason provides two very opposite conclusions once compartimentalized to include the benefits to the one doing the reasoning.

Notice the brilliant encoding of the writer's position in the last few lines highlighted. "Can I believe in anything? Yes, I merely decide to believe in it. Am I free to decide to believe in anything? I believe I am free to do so. I believe that any belief is only one decision away.

The suggestion is that one could take advantage of the maleable nature of belief. The structure of the essay has so far been:

1. Are you depressed? It is likely due to your outlook.
2. Your outlook is based on a system of beliefs.
3. Although beliefs are created through reason, it is compartimentalized reason.
4. The choices you make will adjust the outcome of your reason.

This begs the obvious question. What is one choosing from?

1. Feel good.
2. Feel bad.

Suppose I tell you a fantastic story. It is fantastic because even by stretching my imagination, it sounds too good to be true. But why not hear me out. It may prove to be interesting.

The writer then goes on to explain, quite concisely, the Old Testament's story of creation followed by the history of man leading up to the Messiah.

A few parts are real gems:

There is a catch to this story. Who the creator chooses to hear and to believe this story is entirely up to the creator. Selection is entirely by grace or favor. Nothing I do or don’t do can influence the creator to select me. Interestingly, the selection has already taken place at the foundation of the universe.

Once I believe this story, I stop fearing death. I am enabled by an agent of the creator called holy spirit to focus on the creator’s son, Yeshua. Holy spirit enables me to cast all my cares to Yeshua. When I meet up with a problem, my attitude is as follows. “Hey! I didn’t ask to be created, so it is not my responsibility to solve this problem. Therefore, Yeshua, please take over.”

The extent that this attitude is employed is the extent of peace of mind I enjoy. The problem may not change immediately but the burden of responsibility is instantly lifted off my shoulders. Many a time, circumstances change and the problem shifts from appearing as a curse to appearing as a blessing.

Should I believe this story?
What if it is fiction?
So what?
What do I have to lose?

What I find particularly interesting is the existence of choice. But the nature of this choice may be very different from one person to the next. Those who acknowledge that their beliefs are based on a reasonable conclusion, whether conscious or not, that every belief originated from some evidence (how much or little depending on the individual's degree of skepticism)and some reasonable sorting of information from there on out, may find this choice to be... well...

humane.

To make rational decisions which are chosen to best serve the characteristics of the human require special study of the human. Yet how does one best understand the nature of a human, as a human? Some say that the study of archetypes reveal universal patterns of desire and fear, therefore revealing deep rooted human characteristics. Some say that intuition is our truest knowledge, and a quieting of the rational mind is in order.

Then some say: everything in moderation.

*gulp*

On Heroic Myth

2006-01-24T21:59:00.000-05:00

Moyers: But aren't many visionaries and even leaders and heroes close to the edge of neuroticism?

Campbell: Yes, they are.

Moyers: How do you explain that?

Campbell: They've moved out of the society that would have protected them, and into the dark forest, into the world of fire, of original experience. Original experience has not been interpreted for you, and so you've got to work out your life for yourself. Either you can take it or you can't. You don't have to go far off the interpreted path to find yourself in very difficult situations. The courage to face the trials and to bring a whole new body of possibilities into the field of interpreted experience for other people to experience-- that is the hero's deed.

Furthermore...

... we have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we will come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we will be with all the world.

The Golden Age of Advertising

2006-01-20T16:01:00.000-05:00

What does my mother have to do with this? Why do those chimey pop songs make me want to be simple and cool and wear light blue and khaki and drive Volkswagons and listen to i-tunes? Why do I have an overwhelming desire to love a sneaker?

Screw it, where's my wallet?

These people are brilliant. This is where the talent has been going. Mixers, engineers, composers, visual artists, are on top of their game. The great artists of our day filtered through the most advanced consumer psychology have created a body of work that is nothing to sneeze at.

MLK

2006-01-16T19:34:00.000-05:00

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

I get chills when I read these lines. And so ended the last speech of Martin Luther King, April 3, 1968.

Ugh

2006-01-11T22:14:00.000-05:00

I've been slowly recovering from a diet rich in high fructose corn-syrup, foreign chocolates, and whitman's samplers. Christmas treats provide me with enough calories to cut out most other meals, and the means to melt dark, white, and milk chocolate in my mouth at the same time. What's really crazy is if you throw a tootsie roll in the middle of that mayhem. The combination of texture is just mind-blowing. Of course apples taste like cardboard for about a week.

With this disclaimer I justify ode to broccoli, both in lack of skill, quality, focus, as well as my desperate longing for nutrients.

Fun though... for a bit. It was a good ride. Until next year.

Ode

2006-01-09T00:12:00.000-05:00

Crunchy, tender broccoli
with a hairy brain
naked, except for the hairy part
from one, come many

You remain
green for about a week
then you sometimes turn yellow
in the hair area

and after the yellow,
you wrinkle at the stem
and your leaves turn to black
and your hair turns to soup

though you still throb with A
C, B, and Z-
inc, I will not eat you
if you remind me of soup

but sometimes soup reminds me of you

and all hail
the king of vegetables
the queen of earthly delights
the vacuum of heavy minerals
the only with eggs breakfast food

do yourself a favor
don't fight
surrender to me
dissolve into my blood
bond to my cells
share my Dee eN ey

and keep my brain
from becoming pale

that way you will be rewarded
with sons and daughters for all time

long after the demise of collard greens

Laughing is funny

2006-01-07T11:30:00.000-05:00

The art of observational comedy is endlessly fascinating to us all. So many observational comics are horrible, or annoying, but when it works, it's funny because it's true.

Thats why I present you today with the work of the late, great Mitch Hedberg. I'm just sorry we can't hear his delivery. If you never heard him, imagine an over-articulated, minnesota man, with the delivery speed somewhere between droopy and winnie the poo. He sounds especially funny when he does not use contractions. I do not know why. It is just that he does. Enjoy:

I was in a casino, minding my own business, and this guy came up to me and said, 'You're gonna have to move. You're blocking a fire exit.' As though if there was a fire, I wasn't gonna run. If you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit. Unless you're a table.

Alcoholism is a disease, but it's the only one you can get yelled at for having. 'Damn it, Otto, you're an alcoholic.' 'Damn it, Otto, you have lupus.' One of those two doesn't sound right.

I don't wanna have my face on the cover of a Wheaties box. I wanna have my face on the cover of a Rice Krispies box. Snap, Crackle, Mitch, and Pop. "Hey, how the fuck did he do that?" "Hey, in Hollywood its all who you know, and I know Crackle."

I want to climb a mountain -- not so I can get to the top -- cause I want to hang out at base camp. That seems fucking fun as shit. You sleep in a colorful tent, you grow a beard, you drink hot chocolate, you walk around... "Hey, you going to the top?" -- "Soon."

All McDonalds commercials end the same way: "prices and participation may vary." I want to open my own McDonalds and not participate in anything. I want to be a stubborn McDonalds owner. "Cheeseburgers? Nope. We got spaghetti!...And blankets. But we are not affiliated with that clown, he attracts too many children."

I went to a restaurant and I ordered a chicken sandwich, but I don't think the waitress heard me 'cause she asked how I'd like my eggs. So I tried answering her anyways. "INCUBATED! Then hatched, then raised, then beheaded, then plucked, then cut up, then put onto a grill, then put onto a bun. ...., it's gonna take a while. I don't have the time. Scrambled!"

When you go to a restaurant on the weekends and it's busy they start a waiting list. They start calling out names. They say, "Dufresne, party of two. Dufresne, party of two." And if no one answers they'll say their name again. "Dufresne, party of two. Dufresne, party of two." But then if no one answers they'll just go right on to the next name. "Bush, party of three." Yeah, but what happened to the Dufresnes? No one seems to give a shit. Who can eat at a time like this? People are missing. You fuckers are selfish. The Dufresnes are in someone's trunk right now with duct tape over their mouths. And they're hungry! That's a double whammy. We need help. "Bush, search party of three! You can eat when you find the Dufresnes."

A lollipop is a cross between hard candy and garbage.

I have a cheese-shredder, which is its positive name. They don't call it by its negative name, cause no one would buy it: sponge-ruiner. Because I wanted to clean it, and now I have little bits of sponge... that would melt easily over tortilla chips.

I like swiss cheese. It's the only cheese you can draw with a pencil and identify. You can draw American cheese, but someone will think it's cheddar. Swiss cheese is the only cheese you can bite and miss. "Hey Mitch - does that sandwich have cheese on it?" "Every now and then!" I got some swiss air on that bite.

I bought a doughnut and they gave me a receipt for the doughnut. I don't need a receipt for the doughnut. Man, I'll just give you money, then you give me the doughnut. End of transaction. We don't need to bring ink and paper into this. I just can't imagine a scenario where I would have to prove that I bought a doughnut. Some skeptical friend: "Don't even act like I didn't get that doughnut, I've got the documentation right here. Oh wait, it's at home, in the file... under D... for doughnut"

A waffle is like a pancake with syrup traps. It says to the syrup "You ain't goin' anywhere!"

I make instant oatmeal in the morning then I don't do shit for an hour. Makes me wonder why I need the instant oatmeal. I could make the regular oatmeal and feel productive.

I don't have a microwave but I do have a clock that occasionally cooks shit.

I took acid, and when I took acid, I finally understood that butter is way better than margarine. I saw through the bullshit.

I got some tartar-control toothpaste. I still got tartar, but that shit's under control. If the tartar gets outta line, I'm like, "Come on, man, you know the deal. Fall in! You crazy-ass tartar..." I got so much tartar, I don't have to dip my fish sticks in shit! ... That's actually kinda gross. After I tell that joke, I clarify that I'm just joking. I don't know how much tartar I actually have.

I booked myself at Las Vegas, in a casino, the Riviera Hotel, that has a comedy club. There were 4 comedians on the bill and we all had similar hair because we were all using the Riviera in-house shampoo. So we all have equal shine and bounce. It was a 2-in-1 shampoo and 2-in-1 is a bullshit term because 1 isn't big enough to hold 2. That's why 2 was created. If it was 2-in-1, it would be overflowing. The bottle would be all sticky and shit...

I was in my hotel's shower, and I started washing my hair, then I looked at the bottle, and it turned out I was using body wash. It was like a scene from one of those action movies where they get real close to the object. I was like, "Body wash... BODY WASH?!?" And then I realized my hair was part of my body and I didn't even care.

If you get lost in the woods, fuck it, build a house! I used to be lost, but now I live here! I have severely improved my predicament!

I get a cold sore. I hate to say it, Minnesota, but in a cold sore I put Carmex on it 'cause Carmex is supposed to alleviate cold sores. I dunno if it does help, but it will make them shiny and more noticeable. It's like cold sore highlighter! Maybe they could come up with an arrow that heals cold sores.

See, I'm a dreamer, man. And when I was a cook I'd always work with people who weren't dreamers. Like, I was cooking at this restaurant and I put a hot dog on the grill and my kitchen manager came over, and he said, "Mitch, put the hot dog up here, in the right hand corner of the grill, so in case you get a whole bunch of orders at once you have all this space available." See, that's how I knew he wasn't a dreamer, 'cause the day I give up my dreams is the day I have strategic grill locations. A dreamer has a philosophy: the entire grill is hot.

I bought myself a parrot. The parrot talked. But it did not say, "I'm hungry,"... so it died.

Baby Boomers Turn 60

2006-01-02T00:27:00.000-05:00

And Paul McCartney officially sold out. We all knew it was going to happen. No, not the bit on Sir Paul. Rather, Baby Boomers were gonna get old sooner or later, and the resources of our collective marketing machine were going to be focused on more conservative, plan-to-party-before-you-die type things like retirement accounts and viagra. If you wanna get rich, invest 10 years ahead of a generation, and wait for the demand to catch up. I mean, I bet Depends diapers for adults is pretty cheap stock right now.

But seriously folks. If the Baby Boomers had one thing going for them, it was their awe-inspiring neo-spiritualist movement. There was an awakening, a collective search for humanitarian roots which rebelled against the poisons of ominous corporate rule. They were resourceful enough to use the tentacles of mass-media to spread the message. Folk/Pop/Anthem music was healthy, fresh, virile, and above all, readily available for consumption. Included in this army of honest souls were The Doors, The Birds, Bob Dylan, and of course, The Beatles. Now, I'm not going to say that the Beatles achieved the most honest, in your face, get up and see the world yourself you lazy, brainwashed, product of military-industrial complex mommies. But I would venture to say that next to the military, The Beatles were the most successful deliverers of a universal message. I didn't live during their time, yet even two generations later, I am greatly impressed with their influence. Once the Beatles hit it big, I'm sure most people felt a sense of relief, believing that we had the closest thing to leaders who could not be bought. I recently read that Sir Paul is worth a sum of $1.5 billion. So tell me, please, someone, why is Paul doing commercials for Fidelity investments? Does he really care about my IRA? Does he even have an IRA? Or are old age and money really the two things we can count on to shrivel the idealist streak in us all.

Please, Paul, tell me you're saving up for a giant air filter, designed to take us back to pre-1930 levels of air pollution. Or maybe this will all go to the McCartney prize, awarded to the developer of the best plan to keep the human population in check while still saving children from starvation and disease.

Oh Paul. When I'm 64, indeed.

A reminder

2005-12-11T17:57:00.000-05:00

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile

e.e. cummings

Nocturne

2005-11-19T23:30:00.000-05:00

Dreaming has always been an important part of my everyday. When I was a child, I would have recurring nightmares which sent me running into my parent's room looking for some reassurance of reality. It didn't help that many of my dreams included my parents as part of a secret society of adults who sabotaged the lives of children. But one night my dad took the time to wake up and give me what turned out to be life-changing advice. He said, "When you're having a bad dream, pretend that you're watching the TV and only one click of the dial away from the greatest Popeye cartoon you've ever seen." Okay. So I went back to sleep and dreamt his advice, switching channels away from the grandmother wolf tearing the 6-year-old flesh from my legs to Popeye beating the hell out of him as a spinach induced berserker. This was my first introduction to lucid dreaming.

As a teenager I would always read before sleeping, hoping that I could enter the stories in my dreams. At the time I was suspicious of my half-assed religious upbringing, and suddenly concerned about the existence of heaven, which had previously seemed to make any sort of living inconvenience merely an inconvenience. So I found a bible and waded through the thick metaphor until something resonated with me, and I read and read those lines until I memorized them. I figured that if I could immerse myself deeply enough, I would eventually dream of heaven, and therefore experience some of its sensation without having to actually die. Unfortunately I never really succeeded with this experiment, or perhaps some angel erased my memory before I returned to the land of waking, so I eventually gave up.

But I haven't stopped experimenting. In the dreaming state, self-consciousness seems to give way to incredible possibility. One of the most interesting experiments has been trying to acquire new skills in my dreaming. For instance: flying, shape shifting, wrestling velociraptors, seducing supermodels, traveling at the speed of light... and even some less likely skills like improvising three voice fugues, singing a bel canto tenor role, and writing the perfect melody. I have had the great luck of waking in time to realize that my very own brain was capable of improvising the fugue I had just "heard" playing on the radio. But it has been pure discipline which every once in a while musters up the strength to drag my body from a saturated ecstatic sleep over to a piano to plunk out, in the freezing cold, the notes which sounded so silky and fat while floating on the top of the world...

I might as well mention that I was motivated to write after waking from a dream which had me composing a Nocturne on a glass piano floating on the arctic ocean. The world existed in only the brightest reflected white light and dark ocean blue, and I remember breathing in the coldest, most still air which should have frozen my lungs stiff.

Since I've woken, I couldn't stop listening to Nocturne by John Cage. It reminds me of somewhere I've been.