Sunday in Santa Fe

Tonight will be a full moon.

Whatever we wear,
We look beautiful,
When moon viewing.

– Chiyo-ni

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Wine from the Priorat, swirling:

Makeshift drip-catcher at the Jon’s studio this past week… right above Michael’s head. It turned out to be the skylight, which was fixed in the afternoon.

More snow this Morning:


My orchids keep blooming:

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

BBC News – Whaling worsens carbon release, scientists warn
Whales store carbon within their huge bodies and when they are killed, much of this carbon can be released.

US scientists revealed their estimate of carbon released by whaling at a major ocean sciences meeting in the US.

Dr Andrew Pershing from the University of Maine described whales as the “forests of the ocean”.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
From an email conversation about creativity:

I feel that there are two major movements, one towards more (complexity, dispersion, entropy, more of everything, less is bore) and one towards less (simplicity, essential, wabi-sabi, less os more)… and creatively we move back and forth between those poles. The Scent of Light, for me, was more, and this new album may be less.

It’s like a great movie, switching from a macro detail to an amazing overview, from the anthill to the cosmos… and back. From a detail to the grand picture.

It’s one of the really big parts of all creativity, whether it is in poetry or film or music.

In zen, it’s considered very important to be able to switch perspectives with ease, and that switch from complexity to simplicity and back is an important one.

A good soup is not made with just one ingredient. Many different things have to come together, herbs, spices, vegetables and meat. Maybe the onions are sautéed in oil first and then stock is added – meaning that even making a soup may be a mix of different techniques: sautéing followed by boiling.

There are times when we can’t see how these parts fit together. In a way we ARE the combination of different parts and interests. There isn’t one thing. It may seem convenient to be or have one thing, but that would be an illusion anyway.

Two Years Ago: Beauty

He who seeks Truth
Shall find Beauty

He who seeks Beauty
Shall find Vanity

He who seeks Order
Shall find Gratification

He who seeks Gratification
Shall be Disappointed

He who considers himself as the servant of his fellow being
Shall find the joy of Self-Expression

He who seeks Self-Expression
Shall fall into the pit of Arrogance

Arrogance is incompatible with nature
Thru the nature of the universe
and the nature of man
we shall seek Truth

If we seek truth we shall find Beauty

Moshe Safdie, Architect

Saturday in Santa Fe

Japan in the late 19th Century:

More information about the image, and the Italian photographer who captured them, in this article.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
This is a must-watch. Amazing, captivating, exhilarating, terrifying!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Do they dream of Hell in Heaven?

Read on one of the pieces in the current exhibit at Site Santa Fe.

SITE Santa Fe: Exhibitions
Artist, playwright, and musician Terry Allen examines an episode in the life of the similarly polymathic artist Antonin Artaud. Throughout his life, Artaud suffered a number of psychological crises, resulting in his repeated and lengthy institutionalization. In 1937, Artaud went to Ireland to return to the Irish people what he believed was the staff of St. George. He was involved in an altercation with the Dublin police and was subsequently deported. Because of his deteriorating psychological state, he was chained to a cot in the hull of the ship Washington for the seventeen-day journey back to France. This journey serves as the inspiration for Allen’s Ghost Ship Rodez, which will be presented in One on One.

Taking its title from the French mental institution “Rodez,” where Artaud spent a number of years after his deportation from Ireland, this exhibition will consist of room-sized multimedia works blending sculpture and video. A portion of the exhibition will invoke the physical environment of the Washington. Another will include a larger-than-life-size figure that refers to Artaud and the “Daughter of the Heart to be Born,” an archetype representing all the women in Artaud’s life. Although these works allude to the physical realities of Artaud’s life, their video components explore Artaud’s mindscape, giving form to psychological space. Allen invites us to take a journey into the depths of Artaud’s mind as he sees it.

And, yes I would think so, because without Hell Heaven is incomplete.

P-O-P

Playing around with fonts on my laptop last night:




Maybe I will look for a traditional calligrapher in Santa Fe. It would be nice to have this written/designed by hand. In my mind that would fit with the music, which eschews many of the modern recording techniques.

Friday in Santa Fe

Yesterday: breakfast at CC, followed by HD Recording session #2. We started the session with a ballad, tentatively entitled The Long Goodbye or The Long Farewell. While we were playing the song I had this image of a person not being able to tear themselves away from another, and then I remembered how the Japanese often wave goodbye until the leaving party is completely out of sight… and should they drive or walk around a hill and become visible again on the other side of that hill, their hosts will still be waving at them. Jon reminded me that the staff from the Blue Note in Tokyo waved until the small bus we were traveling in had completely disappeared around a corner.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Disappearing acts: Master calligrapher Paul Antonio | Money | guardian.co.uk
Master calligrapher Paul Antonio demonstrating ancient skills with pens, ink and paper in his studio in Clapham, London

Wonderful audio slideshow about a London calligrapher, one of maybe fifty professionals in the UK.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

15 House Plants You Can Use As Air Purifiers
Here are 15 plants that could clean your air for just the price of a few drops of water each day.

here is a little homage to my rubber plant:

It looks like the rubber plant is tickling Miles Davis’ nose in the photo above…


•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

BBC News – Singing ‘rewires’ damaged brain
Teaching stroke patients to sing “rewires” their brains, helping them recover their speech, say scientists.

By singing, patients use a different area of the brain from the area involved in speech.

If a person’s “speech centre” is damaged by a stroke, they can learn to use their “singing centre” instead.

And what happens when you don’t even teach singing or music in schools?
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

A Key Concept for Neurodiversity: Niche Construction
When I suggest that neurodiverse individuals, such as those with autism or ADHD, might have been labeled gifted in other times and in other cultures, the quick retort is:  “Well, we don’t live in other times or cultures.  People have to adapt to the culture they’re in right now.”  So what does the person who is a round peg have to do to fit into a square hole?  Answer: Shave off enough of its wood to fit, uncomfortably, usually, into the square hole.  That’s one solution.  The other solution is to round off some of the square hole so that the round peg can stay a round peg and still fit in.  That’s niche construction.  In other words, I’m saying that people with neurodiverse brains can create special niches for themselves where they can be their unique selves.  An example would be a person with ADHD in a job that requires novelty, thrills, and creativity.  Instead of suffering in a 9 to 5 desk job (an example of poor niche construction), they create a career for themselves that allows them to be who they are.  Another example:  a person on the autistic spectrum who has keen mathematical skill working as a computer programmer in Silicon Valley, instead of wasting away in a group home somewhere. Niche construction is what animals have done for eons:  the bird building a nest, the beaver building a dam.  They’re modifying the environment to suit their unique needs.  We need to make niche construction a key tool in improving the lives of individuals with autism, learning disabilities, ADHD, mood disorders, schizophrenia, and other neurological conditions.  Yes, there will always be the need to adapt to the way the world is, and there are medications, behavior modification programs, and other adaptational programs that can help accomplish this.  But let’s not lose sight of the fact that we can also help neurodiverse individuals be who they are and still fit in. 
(Via Neurodiversity – The Book)

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Temple Grandin spoke brilliantly on that theme at TED. Check this out:

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Listen with headphones! You might also watch this film at Vimeo, so you can watch full screen.

(Via Music Of Sound)
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Consider the Germans
Come on: Is the West really in such decline? Yes, we can sit here on our island continent and gloom about the rise of China, as our elite now like to do. Or we can go out into the world and start competing like the Europeans. For here’s a strange fact; since 2003 it’s not China, but Germany, that colossus of European socialism, that has led the world in export sales or at least been tied for first.

Germany has somehow managed to create a high-wage, unionized economy without shipping all it’s jobs abroad or creating a massive trade deficit, or any trade deficit at all. And even as the Germans outsell the United States, they manage to take six weeks of vacation every year. They’re beating us with one hand tied behind their back.
— Thomas Geoghegan in Harper’s magazine
(Via Nikola Tamindzic)