Music Of The Spheres

Music, music, music. If only I had the talent I would be playing some weird combination of Crimson, GYBE, David Sylvian, Shakti, The Hip and Zeppelin with a hint of interstellar space or maybe early Tangerine Dream and a dash of Miles. I think I need to get me a keyboard and just start creating sounds.

An Uncommon Affliction

“…they were very cheerful and friendly and I avoided them strenuously.”

An Unexpected Light - Travels In Afghanistan by Jason Elliot, Picador, London, 1999 - page 394.

An uncommon affliction. I seem to do the same, preferring even more so to be by myself most of the time. Or at least to be in silence even while next to someone. “I’m not afraid of your silences,” she said to me and I fell in love and married her.

The Story So Far

“…a journey was a kind of story in itself, providing one had the will to read it, just as a story too could be a journey, providing one had the experience to bring to it, and both found their mark differently in different people.”

An Unexpected Light - Travels In Afghanistan by Jason Elliot, Picador, London, 1999 - page 290.

The Self Made Man

“He is not concerned with acquiring powers but of uncovering something already within.”

Jason Elliot on a Sufi. An Unexpected Light - Travels In Afghanistan by Jason Elliot, Picador, London, 1999 - page 270.

Guitarzan

Robert Fripp was born today (in 1946 I think).

I thank his parents (both natural and spiritual) for his music and his writings.

Happy Brithday!

Enriched

I had a conversation recently with a colleague on bringing value to our lives that doesn’t involve enriching our employer to our own psychic detriment.

Couldn't be done, we concluded.

And there, we just did it.

Just Let Go

“Always there is this kind of suspense on a journey where you are both isolated and robbed of your own language. Under such conditions the means by which you make sense of things begins to be transformed; you can no longer rely on familiar signals but a cryptic sequence of tiny events, the pattern of which you sense more keenly as your isolation grows. It leads to a kind of parting of the ways; you either let go of your worries and put your faith in the natural unfolding of events or are plagued with anxieties which multiply as darkness falls.”

An Unexpected Light - Travels In Afghanistan by Jason Elliot, Picador, London, 1999 - page 191.

Just let go.

Lose The Habit

"In ordinary life you know yourself from your surroundings, which become the measure and the mirror of your thoughts and actions. Remove the familiar and you are left with a stranger, the disembodied voice of one's own self which, robbed of its usual habits, seems barely recognizable."

An Unexpected Light - Travels In Afghanistan by Jason Elliot, Picador, London, 1999 - page 144.

We gain and gather these habits over a lifetime and from our ancestors, and do not even realize it. Lose the habits and find yourself.

...trust in the spirit of the journey...

"...trust in the spirit of the journey..."

An Unexpected Light - Travels In Afghanistan by Jason Elliot, Picador, London, 1999 - page 80.

Sometimes you just have to let go and start walking.

Won't You Help Me Sing

Bob Marley died this day in 1981.

The impressive influence of his music reached even my extremely northern and very cold high-school, about as far removed from the beaches of Jamaica (in a sense, as was Marley as well) as you could possibly get. That power, careening around and through the atmosphere or at least our hearts, must do something...

Limits

"Ah", he replied solemnly, as if I had hit on a notion of importance. Then he lit a cigarette, and a coil of smoke spiralled upwards before his face. "If a man does not reach his limit," he pronounced, a flicker of enquiry surfacing into his eyes as if released from a great depth, "how can he discover the way to go beyond it?"

An Unexpected Light - Travels In Afghanistan by Jason Elliot, Picador, London, 1999 - page 72.

Sometimes I read passages such as this and it makes me want to give up writing forever. Luckily I only stop for a short while.

Staring

"...the faint sense of trespass implicit in the act of staring..."

An Unexpected Light - Travels In Afghanistan by Jason Elliot, Picador, London, 1999 - page 4.

This was my own reaction to the veiled women of Syria and the strangers on the subway in Canada. No matter the goodwill intent behind the staring, it is still intentionally rude.

Journeys Part 2

" I had in mind a quietly epic sort of journey..."

An Unexpected Light - Travels In Afghanistan by Jason Elliot, Picador, London, 1999 - page 17.

Mine are all like that too. At least...in my mind...

Journeys

"...journeys are sparked from small and unlikely things rather than grand conviction."

An Unexpected Light - Travels In Afghanistan by Jason Elliot, Picador, London, 1999 - page 4.

Could be true. A tale of lost love, a story about a street or river, a wall or mountain. A brief passage in a book such as...'When James left Ulan Bator, the winds had turned the skies pink'. The reader then wonders, why is the sky pink in Ulan Bator? I'd like to see this for myself. And off they go...

Moving Day

I was thinking today that government policy has made it far easier to move capital and goods (including drugs and money from drugs) than to move people between countries. What does that tell us about what is important to governments.

I Feel Good

James Brown was born today May 3rd. Get the funk out!

Cheating

Thoughts on cheating:














Yeah, as if!!!

Time Dilation

It was 100 years ago this year that Einstein published his theory of special relativity. One of the consequences of this theory is that as you get closer to moving at the speed of light, time slows down. This is also known as time dilation.

I once had a conversation with my spouse about time seeming to be going much faster for us since the children were born. It really does seem to go faster because, ironically, we're not taking the time to enjoy the time.

I;ve said it before and I'll probably go on saying it. In fact many, many others far cleverer than I have said it as well and in far superior ways. Live in the present moment. Make each second pass as though it were your last second and I guarantee you that time will slow down until it seems like forever. No need for a special spaceship.

Mellotron

A mellotron, played by the right musician, sounds like the soundtrack to the end of the world when the demons run amok in the streets and children cry for their lost parents.

Some albums recorded with a mellotron (some evil sounding, some not so much) that I have listened to:
The Beatles - Revolver, Magical Mystery Tour & The White Album
Black Sabbath - Volume 4
David Bowie - Space Oddity, Hunky Dory & Diamond Dogs
Genesis - Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot & Selling England By The Pound
Joy Division - Closer
King Crimson - Just about every album but best sounding on the first album, In The Court Of The Crismon King and on Larks' Tounges In Aspic
Led Zeppelin - Houses Of The Holy & Physical Graffiti
The Mars Volta - De-Loused In The Comatorium & Frances The Mute
Monster Magnet - Dopes To Infinity
Moody Blues - Days Of Future Past
Oasis - "What's The Story" Morning Glory
Opeth - Damnation & Ghost Reveries
Pink Floyd - A Sucerful Of Secrets, Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother
Porcupine Tree - In Absentia & Deadwing
Radiohead - OK Computer
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication & Blood Sugar Sex Magic
Rolling Stones - Beggar's Banquet
Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure & Stranded
Smashing Pumpkins - Most of their albums
Soundgarden - Superunknown
Strange Advance - World's Away
Talk Talk - The Colour Of Spring
Tangerine Dream - Most albums from the 70's but I especialy like Stratosfear
The Tea Party - All their albums
Traffic - Mr. Fantasy

Any parts of these albums that make you sad or fearful were most likely made by the mellotron.

Work In Progress 2

Work in progress: Poem from "A Quiet Weariness".

it's always quiet of course,
just the low sound of
classical music
playing in the background
and a muffled machine-like sound
coming from everywhere,
summer and winter,
morning and night,
forever,
apparatus that we need
to keep places like this
running
smoothly.

the names are always there,
Paul Eugene Lortie,
Georgette Gervais,
good old
Geraldine Di Tomma Stallato,
friendly, habitual denizens
of this quiet
place.

the new neighbours.

we can't always choose our neighbours,
even less in death
than in life.

it's quiet here,
the quiet of respect,
regret and tears,

death
of course,

but mostly
a quiet weariness.

hello Gino,
hi Alberto,
how's it going
Maria...

resting...
resting neighbours

old friends really,
in death only
of course

in death only.