culture of consumption
Yesterday I utterly gorged myself, in that fine American tradition of sloth, gluttony, and retiring to the couch to watch TV (though I don't actually have a TV, and I had to go to work afterwards). Very interesting what we hold dear, and how we as a culture choose to "give thanks."
And today, 1% of America was in Wal-Mart between 5 and 6am EST. 2 freakin million people went shopping at Wal Mart, looking for holiday giftage. Another holiday that is celebrated by increasing one's consumption.
I think I could easily turn these observations into yet another rant. But for now I'll just keep them as observations.
stereo's in
...with no ill-effects. It sounds great, even with the factory speakers. I was pleasantly surprised. And let me state just for the record... MP3 disc capability rules. Since I don't have an iPodish device, this is really my first exposure to storing a tremendous amount of audio data in a small place; I can fit 6-8 albums onto a standard CDR.
Whee!
guitars and sticks
I had my first guitar lesson in the fall of 1981. I had just transferred out of Catholic school into our public school system, when I entered 7th grade. That jump -- from parochial school with a small number and wide variety of students to the huge, intimidating Junior High School building with hundreds of students within a year of my age -- was one of the most significant developments of my life for many reasons, not the least of which was that I was first exposed to guitar instruction in the standard music classes there.
I remember the first time we played guitar. The first thing we were shown was a simple, three-string, one finger voicing for an open C and G7 chord. While other students were struggling to finger the notes, it was almost effortless for me. I clearly had a natural aptitude for the instrument, and since then it has been a lifelong love for me.
I went on to play electric guitar, and explored a wide variety of techniques and sounds, mostly through modifying the sound electronically. I eventually acquired a state of the art guitar amplification rig, that I have since traded in on other gear. Finally, several years ago, I switched to being a primarily acoustic guitarist, where I have stayed comfortably since Freakwitch got started.
I don't want to say that I've gotten bored with guitar. That's not really right. But I don't really feel challenged in the way that I used to. Really, for me, it's a matter of spending enough time with the instrument to regain/maintain my "chops," my ability to physically execute the maneuvers that I need to do to get the sounds in my head. But I haven't really felt as if I've been pushing myself in new directions for a long time. Don't get me wrong, I still love playing guitar, I just feel as if I'm in somewhat of a rut in terms of pushing myself.
I've suspected for a long time that a new instrument might challenge me again in the way I've been missing. For a long time I thought it might be keyboards/synthesizers. I've had a few keyboards over the years, and they are fun to play, especially nowadays with all the software synthesizers available. And musically speaking, with my "producer hat" on, I see these more as ways to fill out the sound of recordings, rather than as a primary instrument for me.
But finally, I have heard the call of a new instrument, a call I haven't heard in a very long time.
The instrument is somewhat obscure to the mainstream audience, but somewhat legendary in progressive rock circles: it is the Chapman Stick. It's hard to describe in a way: it is a stringed instrument in the guitar family, but the base model has 10 strings (something like the 4 strings of the bass with the 6 strings of the guitar), oriented slightly differently to allow 2-handed tapping directly on the fingerboard.
Consider me officially intrigued. Anyone wanna spend $2000 to get me one of these?
:-D
rss feeds and aggregators
I'm discovering the joys of
RSS. For the uninitiated:
RSS is a format for syndicating news and the content of news-like sites, including major news sites like Wired, news-oriented community sites like Slashdot, and personal weblogs. But it's not just for news. Pretty much anything that can be broken down into discrete items can be syndicated via RSS: the "recent changes" page of a wiki, a changelog of CVS checkins, even the revision history of a book. Once information about each item is in RSS format, an RSS-aware program can check the feed for changes and react to the changes in an appropriate way.
Thus, I can read all of the sites that update regularly from one simple interface. It's simpler than the browser, because my RSS Aggregator (
aKregator is part of the KDE environment) collects recent entries from all the disparate sites I would normally go to, and
puts them all in one place like an email program would.
This program docks into the KDE panel, and a small number appears on the icon when I have unread items. Very cool.
This site has an RSS feed (technically it's an atom feed) available. And I've already imported many of my friends blogs.
Car Audio
I just ordered a new
in-dash CD Player for our car. I'm wicked excited about it. This unit also plays MP3s that have been burned to CD, so that's cool. Car audio has come a long way.
My first job out of high school in the late 80s was as a car audio installer (also alarms, cellphones, etc). I got into doing high-end car installations back then; much to my chagrin, most of my clients wanted me to make their cars into giant bass cabinets that could be heard booming from blocks away. Very few people were actually interested in what I was interested in, which was clean, accurate, detailed sound in the car. It's an elusive goal given the acoustic challenges of an automobile (small space, lots of reflective surfaces, road noise, etc). But it can certainly be done; there are a lot of cars out there with superior audio systems.
So I'll get to install this unit when it arrives later this week. Very cool! CDs in the car again, right on!
Yoga
As I get into better shape via
the
various
exercises
I've
been
doing over the past several months, I feel more and more called to do yoga. I've hesitated, as I don't want to develop any "bad habits" as my body gets smaller and stronger. I thought I'd wait a while until my body stabilizes a bit. But I think it's getting closer to time.
I'll have to figure out if I can afford actual classes (or work out some sort of bartering arrangement), but in the meantime there are quite a few online yoga resources, not to mention the fact that my wife and one of my best friends have been taking yoga together for years. They take Kripalu yoga, which looks quite appealing to me.
The Fourth World War
I've spent part of today watching
The Fourth World War with my daughter. This is a very important film, much closer to global reality than something like Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 because it doesn't get hung up on American oversimplifications (ie, "It's all Bush's fault") and paints a true picture of what's really happening on the global scene.
My daughter and I were continually struck by the contrast one would see over and over throughout the world: whenever there was a conflict between The People and The Government, The Government enforcers (ie, the police and the soldiers) were there with armor, with guns, with helmets, with shields, with tear gas, with clubs, and with stern, unsmiling faces; while The People were there with signs, with dancing, with costumes, with drums, with guitars, with singing, and with smiles on their faces.
My wife and I have had a disagreement on many occasions about my feelings regarding the police. I don't like them, and I don't trust them, and I've said so many times to my daughter and my wife. But today, after seeing this film, I was able to explain that it's not the People who are police officers that I have trouble with, rather it's the position of police officer that I have trouble with. The problem is structural, not personal. And while in America things are generally docile enough among the sheeple that one can usually trust a police officer, this trust must necessarily go out the window once one expresses dissent toward the government.
It was nice to be able to explain that to my daughter. In a peaceful situation, if she is in trouble, she definitely should go to a police officer if she has no one else to turn to. However, as soon as she places herself in opposition to the government (ie, at a peace rally or demonstration), she in general should not expect a police officer to be helpful.
But yes, this film triggered much fruitful thought. I highly recommend that people see the film, or better yet, support the filmmakers and order a copy.
The Second Republic of Vermont
"Secession is one of the most politically charged words in America, thanks to Abraham Lincoln. Secession really combines a radical act of rebellion grounded in fear and anger with a positive vision for the future.
"It represents an act of faith that the new will be better than the old. The decision to secede necessarily involves a very personal, painful four-step decision process. It first involves denunciation that the United States has lost its moral authority and is unsustainable, ungovernable and unfixable. Second, there is disengagement or admitting 'I don't want to go down with the Titanic. Third, there is demystification that secession really is a viable option constitutionally, politically and economically. And finally, defiance, saying 'I personally want to help take Vermont back from big business, big markets and big government and I want to do so peacefully.'"
Yes, it's true. A
historic independence convention was held at the Vermont State Capitol building in Montpelier, where the resolution is simple and straightforward:
Be it resolved that the state of Vermont peacefully and democratically free itself from the United States of America and return to its natural status as an independent republic as it was between January 15, 1777 and March 4, 1791.
I think this is fascinating. Of course, no one is giving them a snowball's chance in hell, but it's interesting nonetheless... I wish them luck. Maybe they'll take Maine with them....
Dead grandfathers, Norse gods, and Hammering
Things in my reality are going quite well lately. We
mourned our dead and celebrated our ancestors over the weekend. It was very good for us (meaning my wife and I) on a symbolic level; it triggered a really good release that was timely. I found myself thinking quite a bit of my maternal grandfather. I never met him; he died when my mother was 12. But in many ways, what he represents in terms of spirituality has been resonating with me; he was a
Mason, representing a spiritual and metaphysical departure from the Catholicism of my family, and I owe my Norse heritage to him. It almost feels as if he has somehow been speaking to me these past few weeks. My grandfather had a Masonic ring given to him by my grandmother (who I knew well, she just died a few years ago), and recently my mother passed his old Masonic ring down to me. Funny how the ring fits perfectly on my right ring finger.
Indeed, my fascination with the Norse Old Ones continues; my happy local booksellers (consider this an official plug -- cheaper and better mailorder service than amazon) supplied me with both the (Elder) Poetic Edda and the (Younger) Prose Edda for study. I've been reading several other texts on the matter; the thing about the Norse mythos is that pretty much any summary is going to be summarizing the Edda, which is The Original Text that nearly all our knowledge of Norse mythology comes from. It is certainly the earliest known reference to the stories of Odin and his clan. So the scholar in me will always prefer to go back to the original, primary texts; the fact that the Edda was written in relatively simple, plain language, with a good translation, make it a pleasure to read.
My exercise/diet regimen is continuing well; I'm noticeably smaller and fitter than I've ever been as an adult. Though last week I slacked a bit as I wasn't feeling great, this week should see a return to my normal regimen, with new vigor since I picked up a 16 pound sledgehammer 2 weeks ago (I'd been using a 10 pounder with a 3 pound ankle weight wrapped around it). I'm working now, and quite tired from the weekend, but once I rest up tonight I expect to get back to my exercise regimen with a bit more vigor. I really enjoy hammering, the fact that it has spiritual resonance for me is only a bonus.
more tweaks
I've made a few more tweaks to this site. IE seems to still be quite unstable with how it renders this site, it still crashes occasionally, mostly when I scroll over the title of this site at the top. Also, the color of the text in the title is not quite right. I may mess with it some more today to try to fix that error. But then again, why should I go out of my way to adapt to a
broken browser?
The background image for the quotes still does not render correctly, this is probably because it is a transparent .png image, and if I remember correctly IE doesn't render those correctly. Stupid.
Aluminum Foil hats
This is funny. For those uninitiated with the culture of conspiracy theory/paranoia, the idea is that there the "
Evil Geniuses are building Orbital Mind Control Lasers ...aimed at you!"
Since then, the idea of Tin Foil Hats (TFH) as an effective means of protection against such diabolical technology usage have become something of an urban legend, especially in Internet culture and the subculture of conspiracy theorists.
Anyway, an old friend recently pointed me to a recent (only partially tongue-in-cheek) study at MIT called On the Effectiveness of Aluminum Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study. It's quite funny, and worth the read, especially since the study concludes that
The helmets amplify frequency bands that coincide with those allocated to the US government between 1.2 Ghz and 1.4 Ghz. According to the FCC, These bands are supposedly reserved for ''radio location'' (ie, GPS), and other communications with satellites (see, for example, [3]). The 2.6 Ghz band coincides with mobile phone technology. Though not affiliated by government, these bands are at the hands of multinational corporations.
It requires no stretch of the imagination to conclude that the current helmet craze is likely to have been propagated by the Government, possibly with the involvement of the FCC. We hope this report will encourage the paranoid community to develop improved helmet designs to avoid falling prey to these shortcomings.
So any paranoiac who reads this will only become more paranoid, and one favorite protection device only exacerbates the paranoia. Brilliant!
Only at MIT....
a Freakwitchery clean slate
so last night I wiped the studio hard drive clean. It's amazing how quickly you can fill up a 140GB hard drive, when you record 8 tracks of 24-bit audio, several hours at a time.
We'd been recording our rehearsals, the fruit of which is our new demo (also available in ogg format). So I backed up the relatively small amount of data we needed to save, and now we have a nice, clean, defragged hard drive upon which to record our album, now that the band is approaching Tight(tm).
Despite the fact that we now have a clean slate, we are closer than ever to getting the album done. Album recording can be done one of two ways: first, have a tight band, and capture a performance; second, build the album a track at a time by overdubbing. Because we never had a tight band, we were forced to use the latter method, with mixed results and sloooooow progress. But now that we have a tight band, the first method is a possibility, and will be far superior for our style of music.
We're also starting to actively seek gigs, for the first time in a long time. Wish us luck!
"armed only with our sense of human degradation, we came together"
I was lucky enough to see
Utah Phillips tonight, he was at the Lewiston-Auburn branch of USM. Utah is part historian, part storyteller, part folksinger, part anarchist, part peace activist, part
wobbly organizer, part elder; in short, Utah is the modern-day embodiment of the bard.
He is, by his own admission, Socratic in his methodology through-and-through, as he puts it, "I love books, but I keep them in their proper place." He's more about storytelling and listeners than the written word. My first exposure to Utah was through a collaboration with Ani DiFranco called The Past Didn't Go Anywhere, which still ranks among my favorite albums of all time. I remember my daughter, barely old enough to speak, walking around the house singing "you've got to mess with people, day and night, you've got to mess with people"; one of my favorite nuggets of wisdom from Utah.
It is also from Utah that I learned to think about politics from two perspectives: top-down and bottom-up. The top-down perspective is the dominant one in our culture, and is hugely depressing for those of us who pay attention. How can one be optimistic about the state of power politics, empire-building, and militarism/nationalism dominant in the US?
But from a bottom-up perspective, we are surrounded by optimism, hope, and goodwill. People come together despite differences, live and learn together, form communities, and all that other goodwill-hippie stuff.
So tonight, there was a small room, with perhaps 75-100 people listening to his stories. There were several nuggets there -- including a beautiful moment where he pretty much voiced an opinion I've held for a long time, the essence of which is that most Christians aren't very Christian -- that caused probably a dozen people to get up and walk out of the room. Heh.
But the one quote that resonated most strongly with me is in the title of this entry. And it got me thinking about my pessimism regarding people coming together in our divided society. The problem is, Americans are by and large still far too comfortable in their ignorant, wageslaving existence to think about alternatives. But as things continue to worsen -- and I don't feel I'm pessimistic to believe that Things(tm) will continue to get worse before they get better -- more and more people will share in this sense of human degradation, providing a powerful motivation to come together and organize, to move from a state of passive acceptance to direct action, which for Utah is the only way to make a difference in bottom-up politics.
So when Things(tm) get bad, they in a sense will really only start to get good, because that will be the switch when people finally are able to let go of the paradigm of dominance, of exploitation, of competition, of systematic violence and oppression, and of nationalism, and will finally be able to embrace cooperation, and community, and justice, and equality. So without attachment to the current dominant paradigm, one can very much have hope for a better future when the paradigm crashes and burns. I just hope that there are enough of us who survive this crashing and burning.
So yeah. Due to various health problems, Utah isn't travelling as much as he used to, but if you ever get a chance to see him for yourself, I highly recommend it.
Fighting the Good Fight
I remember being surprised at how little we in the states heard about the US assault on Fallujah last year. Well,
new stories are finally coming out about that assault:
Powerful new evidence emerged yesterday that the United States dropped massive quantities of white phosphorus on the Iraqi city of Fallujah during the attack on the city in November 2004, killing insurgents and civilians with the appalling burns that are the signature of this weapon.
So add white phosphorus to the horrid weapons historically used by the US military, joining napalm, nuclear weapons, depleted uranium, and who knows what else.
What is so horrible about white phosphorus?
"Phosphorus burns bodies, in fact it melts the flesh all the way down to the bone ... I saw the burned bodies of women and children. Phosphorus explodes and forms a cloud. Anyone within a radius of 150 metres is done for."
A biologist in Fallujah, Mohamad Tareq, interviewed for the film, says: "A rain of fire fell on the city, the people struck by this multi-coloured substance started to burn, we found people dead with strange wounds, the bodies burned but the clothes intact."
The US government admits that it used phosphorus, but it claims it only used it "for illumination purposes." Uh-huh. And now the BuShites are advocating torture, trying to set a precedent for treating detainees and/or prisoners, yet their policies are already causing unimaginable pain to their victims, without regard to the political consequences of such brutality.
And now people wonder why Bush's approval rating is so low.
unrest in France
Like many, I've been hearing a lot about the
riots in France, but I wasn't sure what the riots were about. And I have had neither the time nor the inclination to investigate, until today.
There are several things one must understand about this. First of all, France has the highest Muslim population (about 5 million) in Europe. Secondly, much of this population, who are largely derived from centuries of French colonialism in North Africa, exists in poverty:
The growing violence is forcing France to confront long-simmering anger in its suburbs, where many immigrants and their French-born children live on society's margins, struggling with high unemployment, racial discrimination and despair -- fertile terrain for crime of all sorts.
In case there was any doubt about "Muslim extremists" (nee "Terrorists"), it is important to note the following:
France's biggest Muslim fundamentalist organization, the Union for Islamic Organizations of France, issued a fatwa, or religious decree, that forbade all those "who seek divine grace from taking part in any action that blindly strikes private or public property or can harm others."
So it seems that much of the unrest comes from the horrible poverty, unemployment, and racism that exists in France, that has existed for a long time. To put this in perspective, the largely Muslim areas where the rioting is mostly happening have a much higher unemployment rate than the rest of France, nearly 40%, compared to the national average in France of 10%.
It is also important to note that the rioting is not new:
... riots like those going on right now have been going on for years, on and off, in towns and suburbs far outside of Paris, led by disaffected children of immigrants, black, Muslim or both, and for the usual reasons: high unemployment, nothing to do, resentment of racism. The difference this time is that the trashing and burning and assaults that have broken out over the past ten days in the northern suburbs of Paris are too close to ignore. What's new is a desperate desire to make sense of these events.
So I'm not alone. These events are somewhat inexplicable; those in power are by definition those of privilege, and are not accustomed to systematic racism affecting their means of survival. So they don't really know how to respond, except to protect their privilege (ie, their property) with overwhelming force, promising further violence and punishment for rioters. Yeah, that'll help.
The violence seems to be spreading, for right now to Belgium and Germany. It will be interesting to see how the US government responds if/when unrest of this sort comes to the US.
Internet Exploder
Well, I'm at work, where they only have
Internet Exploder installed. Since this horrible excuse for a browser still commands overwhelming market share, I was eager to see how the new design looks from this browser.
Grade: F
It doesn't render the site correctly, because IE does not adhere to web standards in terms of how it renders HTML and CSS. For those of you who don't know what this means, basically IE doesn't render web pages correctly. It's a problem because so many people use IE, that they think this broken, ill-conceived piece of "innovation" (ha, ha) is actually correct.
Furthermore -- and I absolutely LOVE this -- this little ol' web page seems to crash IE. Of course I've had no problems whatsoever with Firefox, further testament to the power of Free software over proprietary software.
I think I'll keep this page as is. If you're using IE, you should stop. This page is proof of why. Get a better alternative.
New Design
Obviously, this site has a new design. I started with a freely-available
template called
Smoke and Fire and customized it to taste.
I think I like it! I'll keep it for a while, but of course I have the old template archived. I can always go back to that. Do people like it? Leave a comment....
Design of this site
I'm officially bored with the layout of this website. I designed this page when I created this blog 2 years ago, and I've modified it slightly a few times. But I'm officially looking for a new template to use. I can, of course, always revert to this if I don't like the new site design...
Mind
I've written before that I conceive of health in terms of Mind, Body, and Spirit. All of these are necessary for total health. When I went back to school in 1998, obviously I spent a lot of time focusing on Mind. Since I graduated in 2002, I've reasserted Spirit, a practice that continues to this day. And of course this year I've been highly focused on Body.
Perhaps my first realization through this purification is that my mind is not as well-trained as it has been in the past. Not that I'm suddenly stupid or anything (or at least stupider than my standard stupidity level), but spending a few dozen hours per week working through a philosophy text and writing about it, focusing one's thoughts, is like mental calisthenics. That's a practice I've largely stopped. I do occasionally read philosophy, but not with the rigor or discipline of a formal, dedicated student. So I've missed that in a way. I'm also finding that while I remain aware of the political situation, I'm just not as invested in it as I have been; my outrage levels have faded into something like detached amusement. I still care, but I just don't want to invest energy into being outraged anymore.
I also think my "strategy" in terms of social change has shifted somewhat. Rather than rage against the machine, I think living my life in a way that makes sense to me and promotes goodness and health is the best thing I can do to combat the fascist reality that exists today in America and the world. I sometimes wonder if this is just putting my head in the sand. But I truly believe that the best thing I can do to Change The World(tm) is to continue to focus on my music. It's been a long, slow birthing process, but once our music is widely available I have no doubt that the message of optimism, entrainment, and reality-creation implicit in our music will effect wave after wave of positive change.
Damn, what a hippie I have become.... heh heh heh.
health and purification
The purification ritual still goes well. It's not as difficult as I thought it might be, actually. But then again, in terms of body, I'm feeling better now than I have in many years. I bought a new sledgehammer last week, an upgrade in weight so that my
exercise routine is a bit more challenging, something that I welcome.
I'm healthier now than I've ever been as an adult. I have more muscle mass, I'm stronger, and I'm at my lowest weight in over a decade. I feel very good, yet I still think there is a long way to go. It is the difference between goal-oriented thinking, and process-oriented thinking. This time, I'm focusing on the process, on developing a healthy routine, as opposed to wishing I were at a specific goal in terms of health/weight etc.
Sustainability is so important, on so many levels. I continue to try to purify myself, in the interest of long-term sustainable health.
purification ritual, ancestry, and Thor
For several years running, a close friend of mine has undergone a purification ritual at the beginning of each (pagan) year, from Samhain to Yule. This year I've decided to join him, a somewhat austere yet quite healthy program to purify the body and forge the will. I'm a few days into it now, and it's going well thus far, though it is not without its challenges.
I was talking with another friend of mine that "purification" seems to be a central theme this season. Indeed it is so. This past year has been a huge challenge on many levels for me, and now that much of the negativity has been cleared, it seems as if I'm purifying the space that's left, cultivating sacred space in my life/energy system in which to place new endeavors looking forward. Ritual purification indeed.
Also, I've been feeling the Norse Old Ones calling to me lately. I figured it was a matter of time, given the large percentage of Norwegian blood flowing through my veins. One nice thing about neopaganism is that one is free to associate/identify with any chosen aspect of deity; yet that ancestral calling can definitely resonate strongly.
I went to a Halloween party dressed as Thor recently. I can especially hear Thor beckoning to me on some level; I've been wearing Thor's holy symbol around my neck for several days, and of course I've been having fun with my own version of Mjolnir for several months now.
But in many ways, Thor represents the aspects of masculinity that I have always had the hardest time identifying with. Thor was the best warrior, and the strongest, yet I am a pacifist. Thor was quick to anger and frustration and violence, all qualities I have tried to quieten within myself. Yet, Thor was also the protector of the gods, the one who took care of the most challenging tasks.
I don't know much about Thor yet, but I'm learning, and I've put the energy out there for Thor to teach me what I need to learn from him.
So I need to beware huge serpents encircling the Earth, giant cats that cannot be lifted, and drinking horns with one end connected to the sea. Or something.
