Pre-concert lecture

I just lost half my dignity by having to record a pre-concert lecture for my music history course. It's on Haydn's Symphony No. 4, Szymanowski's first Violin Concerto, and Mendelssohn's "Italian" symphony. Simply listening to my voice over and over when editing, saying horrible horrible things, squeezed what little happiness I had in me straight out into the open, where it was caught by huge invisible butterfly nets, jumbled up a bit and deposited some place where I won't be able to find it; somewhere in a tiny pocket of time.

Click here for the link.

Imagine if space/time had little pockets everywhere, that you could see and slip things into, like little cotton bulges in mid-air. or maybe little black holes sitting just over your head, sucking ideas out of you without you even noticing.

21st Century America(ns)

How to Define Yourself in a World of Definitions

1. Research
"I have a mind!" should be the first words out of your mouth. Second should be, "And how shall I use it?" with a healthy, dramatic pause for the audience, who mercifully gasp holes in the air. Go out there. Observe. Choose role-models. Throw them away. Choose others. Place yourself in unorthodox situations and work your way through with that courage you've been waiting to use. Throw some of that youthful instinct on the burner, toss some broccoli or orange slices in there with a pinch of enthusiasm, and take a whiff. What's it smell like? Terror? panic? death...? Not a chance. There should be a spiral of smoke circling from your concoction thats tinged with a fresh sprig of parsley-scented opportunity. Now take it and...

2. Bend the Rules
"Don't ask for permission, ask for forgiveness" as the saying goes. I prefer "demand adherence." if the irony is not immediately apparent, let me just add that i'm one of the most lily-livered idea-men out there; if only i could drop the social obligation and take a page out of the objectivist handbook I would be allll right. Innovation is the name of the game and if you don't have dreams of Greatness then hand the reins over to your non-existent ego, sit back in your carriage pulled by two surging steads named Nescience and Oblivion, and enjoy the ride.

3. Persona
"Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character" and character breaths life into the fabric of our modern reality. True character can be found in the work of Brauer or Frobenius, but our character comes from negation and a healthy suspicion of society. Re-creation, in the literal meaning of the word, and rediscovery, as psychoanalysts breath it, both lie beneath the warm, comforting covering of the self. The uncovering happens in step 1, harvesting comes in step 2, and profits flow here, when your exuberantly unique personality is established and nationally recognized. Craft every thought with a pre-thought and dominate yourself with deliberate ease. This is the Schillerian moment when the two impulses flow as one from without and within, ebbing and flowing with balance, ever intertwined, complementing each other. Cash it in: sell your self on the stock exchange and watch your stock grow.

4. The Part
Play the Part. Your Persona that you created in the previous steps steps into this all-star role with confidence and poise. Sharpened by experience, enlightened by Truth, protected by dignity and ego, experienced by protection, truthed by sharpen-ment, ego-ed by enlightenment, dignity protected by ego, truth sharpened to enlightenment through experience, and ..... and loved by all.

Love in the time of Boredom

I once told friends that life around me tasted bland, like my mind's tongue had turned into a dusty piece of cardboard. I feel now that I was right. But I can't help from thinking how hackneyed my feelings are, how utterly and exactly average. At the risk of sounding like I need gallons of self-pity poured down my throat, i recall a time when I went to the doctor in high school for a check up and was confused to hear that I was exactly average height and average weight; someone please tell me I have average sentiments as well. Thankfully I have been successfully bred to have a violent gut-reaction to average-ness, so that I feel horrible about it. In a society where labeling is a thinly-veiled substitute for intellect and value, the paradox seems to be lost on everyone including me, or, rather, its simply accepted and brushed under the rug.

What is needed is a firm, irrefutable passion to walk through the door wearing robes of thyme and singing odes of joy at the top of its translucent lungs that fill the entire room, wall to wall. I need to drown in an endless golden pond, going down and down to its depths weighted by my own, seeing singing fish holding lutes with their mouths full; a lightness like day-dreaming. Mmm... cloudberries. I'm glad I no nothing of poetry. Imagine the trouble I'd get in if I did.

I just read that McCain proposed forming an organization of true "democratic" states to promote and protect the democratic spirit, something he says the UN is hopelessly failing at. Discuss.

Excerpts from my Bhutan journal, again

Here's another ditty from my journal I kept while trekking through Bhutan:

A rat prances to Prague
for breakfast
2 in the afternoon, melting
coffee beans sizzling on a
platter.
rattle.
ring the police

Now don't be so critical. Remember, I was short on oxygen.

And now my favorite one so far:

rain like a leg fallen asleep
a gray tent house, amorphous
water dribbling through its skin
dirt specks like ticks
spelling constellations
a chocolate milky way

I'm guessing on that last one, I was in the tent, probably trying to sleep. Unfortunate things happen to people who can't sleep.

Excerpts from my Bhutan journal

Its 12:30 and not wanting to go to sleep I reached for my journal from my Bhutan trip, which was sitting above my bed. I remember, Near the end of the trip, strands of nonsense twirled through my head and I was compelled to write some down. Here's a sample:

Wake at 5.
Its 8. hours bundled
in a dream of seconds
stretching the dawn
along the rough horizon

Its 5. light dinner. Its 6.
Dark. Step out into nothing
the world at your feet
like a tight rope line
Now its 11. The thinnest silence
you've ever heard
Your heart beating time.
One by 2. One by 2.

Its 11. Enclosed by immeasurable
counters, counting each
day each hour each minute

Each minute, one foot at a time
along the rough rope.
grasp it. it is morning

minutes flowing into an eddy
of time
collected like stamps
sent off to distant places,
locomotion.