Friday, May 26, 2006

Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur michi.

A wonderful evening after work yesterday of reading. Dante Alighieri's La Vita Nuova continues to inspire, but really only the narrative and explanations of the poems within. I never cared much for the poems themselves. Perhaps it's the translation. Rotten English!

A morning filled with early rising despite a day off of work. A visit to the garage to see what can be done with the air conditioning in The Bot. Hopefully the expense will be small as a alternate form of charging and replacing was discussed, but I'm not counting on it. Next to Good Days for breakfast with the father unit and funny stories of his youth and Grandpa Doherty. Then off to Kenwood Tire to talk to Dave who works there but was formally employed by The Rock Pile down of 18, which was a favorite place of mine a few years ago before its closing. The three of us spoke for nearly 45 minutes about upcoming concerts and his growing up with the music he listened/listens to now. He's seeing Dweezil Zappa with many members of Frank's former bands playing Frank's music. He will be seated 5th row center. Jealousy! A wonderful fellow all the same.

Devil zit reeks havoc on the left of my nose!

Tuesday night has once again shown itself to be the magic night with Niles and I. Perhaps it's the church setting, or maybe our willingness to create in a sacred space. Either way, time stood still again, this time taking on a much longer form than usual, and with surprisingly little movement between us. How this phenomenon occurs I haven't the slightest idea, but Niles made a good analogy last week: "It's like God swooped down and turned on a lightswitch." Well said, David. "Sometimes God hides, and sometimes God waves."
The piece started out curiously in the same key as the last piece ended a week earlier, as if continuing and finishing the thought. In fact, around half-way through I realized the same chord progression had been (very) slowly established, and David had not even recognized it. That is in no way downsizing his memory or ability to create different things, but more so it further shows the continuation of what had been started a week earlier.
This slow beast crawled around and slept and woke and slept and woke for 32 minutes, until it finally was comfortable enough to rest. Time opens if you're willing to wait. It is not accessed by a high level of skill or a high level of thinking, but more of faith. A privilege.
The hours between 8:30 and 11:00 were spent cutting out voices and unnecessary this and that, and burning onto cd's. Silly titles abound.

Now for printing out of insurance forms to send back to lousy insurance company that doesn't seem to straighten things out themselves very well. Yucka!

"Any recording of a performance is not the performance: it is a recording & representation of only one aspect of the performance. And that may be useful, as an aide memoire; as an encouragement to continue to practice listening, and being.
The recording may even transmit part of the energy of the event. The mechanics of how that happens is a larger question. One approach might be this: a real event keeps going. It doesn't stop when people go home. Actually, it continues growing in the presence of those who were part of the unity of the event. The recording, or representation, allows us to enter that continuing, developing performance; to which we make our own contribution."
- Robert Fripp

Friday, May 19, 2006

Zakir

If only I could listen better. I heard true percussionists last night. They were a testemant to what humans can achieve if they devote their lives to something greater than themselves.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

"There's really only so much you can do."

I disagree Mr. Title. My father and I were discussing how far the Keith Jarrett piano improvisations can actually go in terms of what paths they lead down because of my recent purchase of yet another album of his. I spoke of what my first impression of it was and how I didn't feel it had the same fire that the others that we've heard have. He said he asked a guy who used to work at the Rockpile that now works at a tire place up the street whom he's become acquainted with recently if he wanted us to burn it for him and he said he had about all the Keith Jarrett he wanted. My dad said that he said "There's really only so much you can do" when it comes to his improvisations so there wasn't really a desire for him to hear more. He brought up a couple of valid points that I could understand where he was coming from, and in a way agreed. Upon listening to the album again not over an hour ago I realized something almost immediately about it. I no longer agree with that statement whatsoever. I found it is all in the particular persons desire to truly know what is involved in the particular piece of music. There can be repetitiveness, meandering (seemingly), and redundancy, but that's only if one doesn't choose to look deeper. I felt a little sick about half way through the piece because his intent in what he was playing became very clear to me. Every note seemed to play an equal part rather than what I felt yesterday when I first heard it, which was that it was a bit disjointed insofar as much as the first (main) improv had a few different parts to it they didn't seem to have a lot to do with eachother. I knew my first impression would change but I didn't think it would be as sudden as this. It rarely happens the day after first listen. It was a great wonderment to me that so much was in this piece that I hadn't heard at first.
If we heard precisely what was trying to be conveyed by an honest piece of music every time and really felt what it meant just by listening, we would hardly have the strength to continue to listen. It would be too much to bear.

"There is an art of listening. To be able to really listen, one should abandon or put aside all prejudices, performulations and daily activities... But unfortunately most of us listen through a screen of resistance. We are screened with prejudices, whether religious or spiritual, psychological or scientific; or with our daily worries, desires and fears. And with these for a screen we listen. Therefore, we listen really to our own noise, to our own sound, not to what is being said. It is extremely difficult to put aside our training, our prejudices, our inclination, our resistance, and, reaching beyond our verbal expression, to listen so that we understand instantaneously." - J. Krishnamurti, The First and Last Freedom

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Paradise Regained

Today finally held a shift in my thinking that I was hoping for. Conveniently I just started and finished Paradise Regained by John Milton earlier today and I am once again more pleased than I ever thought I could be at the written word.

I had a chance to visit the house my parents are seriously considering as our new place today. It was in a fairly nice part of east Taunton right near the Stone family's new apartment. That doesn't have much significance but it's kind of cool. The house was very pleasing. I walked down the basement room which I immediately felt comfortable with, so hopefully that will be my area. There are brand new floors but I wasn't too impressed with the walls. Nothing bad about them per se they just didn't look entirely professional. The upstairs is nice but the rooms are in a strange 'L' shape that I haven't encountered before so hopefully I wont have to be put in one of those. The yard is very nice with some beautifully positioned trees in the back that would hold a peaceful atmosphere in good weather. I suppose if anything I would enjoy moving to that house, and I think a move would be a well accepted thing for us.

More to say but I haven't the time to say it. Well I do, but rather I haven't the concentration at the moment. I'm sure I'll add to this later.

Three days out of work because of the rain. I have grown a bit lazy.
Lazy stage #1: Knowing I should occupy my time better even though I have a lack of things to do and feeling a bit guilty if I don't do something, but not making that much of an effort to do anything.
Lazy stage #2: Not feeling so bad about having a lack of things to do, and not looking for much to do.
Lazy stage #3: Being happy that there is a lack of things to do and feeling content with what little I do.
All these months of hard labor undone in three days? Yikes.
Fortunately the next two days are supposed to be better weather so welcome back work.
I suppose I shouldn't say my work ethic was completely undone. In fact it's not that at all. The problem as of late has actually been my desire to do. The problem is more how to do something when I haven't been appointed something to do. Up until around this point I have been content with taking the opportunities as they are presented, and realizing that that is the more honest way of going about doing things. If I tried harder and harder to do something when I didn't know what it is I was actually supposed to be doing and listening to myself rather than God, what chance do I have then of contributing something worth while? Not very good. For some their efforts are in different areas where they should listen to themselves the way I have been trying, but that is the key word. Try. "To try is to fail". A lovely little aphorism that I haven't really started to understand until recently. It can't be explained nearly as well as it can be experienced, so I wont bother explaining it because quite frankly, I don't have the ability. My mind has been too set on things I am not capable of achieving right now, mainly because I don't have the sources and I simply don't need them now. I should not worry about controlling every aspect of my life because I simply dont need to and can't anyway. My point is not coming across well so I will stop here and hopefully this will suffice: "All things are best fulfill'd in their due time, and time there is for all things, Truth hath said: if of my reign Prophetic Writ hath told that it shall never end, so when begin The Father in his purpose hath decreed, He is whose hand all time and seasons roll."