Rust and Wrought Iron

Choice and action define the power of the individual.

It is the difference between change that evolves and change that is made to happen.

Let it Bleed

Reduced to caricature, art reflects trifling experience.

There is no value in the superficially clever, embracing, as it does, condescension and mockery.

There are immense debts to be paid to humanity, works to be accomplished through life-long sacrifice, and unforgiving realities to confront.

Heavy Lifting

Think. Ideas have consequences.

Artistic expression in the service of ideology is no longer art, and nothing more than propaganda.

The Futurist

"Futurist" perspectives range from the absurd to the nihilistic to the truly Modern.

The "Year Zero" point of view is particularly odious, requiring a ridiculous conviction that erasure of all human history, combined with an utter faith in one or another asinine views of  "human nature" as essentially "good", will produce an egalitarian Utopia.

The Modern Futurist perspective is simple: Elevate objective possibility into existential reality.

Art Not Art

One need not be a Zen master to observe the absurdity of many so-called attachments.

Consider this in the context of the plethora of shallow, sensational "connections" found in every form of media.  Expression without meaning or value, nonetheless, is not cast aside unless by choice.

Obligation

Observe and express clarity.

Eliminate the unnecessary and irrelevant. This is commitment, and self-reliance.

Credibility

Possibility will not always be realized.

The alternative is of no value, no virtue whatsoever. It is nothing, and without possibility at all.

That is the choice.

Purlieu

Any setting is replete with sounds.

Cultural and social conditioning contributes to the suppression of auditory perception.

The disposition to "not hear" sounds present in the environs, once overcome, presents the listener with an expansion of perceptual acuity, and offers the composer a palette of infinite variation.

Istigkeit II

Clarity of expression entails risk.

Do not confuse "vision" with dissembling.  Listen, and hear.

Fitting Imperfection

To understand the experience of reality is to walk through walls.

The small, apparently insignificant gesture elevates expression, revealing what is beneath notice.

Order and Flux

Reality is unchanging, though perspectives alter any understanding, and much remains unknown.

Culture and society form a continuum of change that constantly evolves beyond the grasp of historical perspectives as the heretofore unimagined becomes commonplace.

But as ways of life, art, and expression, these are subject to unchanging reality.

Expression, Reaction, Response

Total effect is a goal in various fields of endeavor.

In crafting the outcome of any creative work, it is worthwhile to note that numerous effects may be developed to generate both unthinking reactions and reasoned responses, and to remember that all responses will reflect, to varied extents, the regard with which one holds the audience for the work.

Exercise XV

Observe what is not present.

That which is to be expected is subject to control. This is to say, one would not be aware, in a given scenario, of one or more elements beneath one's notice.  Attention would be focused elsewhere for any number of reasons, complacency, for example, or fatigue.

Perceptual consciousness is not mere ego. Recognition of unexpected information may yield abstract perspectives outside of common events and their causal relationships, altering one's point of view and, by extension, expression.

Listen to Be

Information provides understanding, and choices.

Thus the impetus for heightening the sensory perceptions, these contributing to the subtlety and refinement of critical observation, analysis, and judgement.

These are essential tools of the composer's art.

Contention

That which is "almost possible" is not possible at all.

This is absolutely certain: without freedom of expression and freedom of thought there is neither liberty nor art.

Against Collective Thought

Authentic artistic expression may be viewed from diverse perspectives.

This authenticity is a form of "breaking out", and breaking out is not a form of "joining".

Intuitive Illumination

Art evokes elevation, and perceptual experience is heightened.

Empirical science measures neither aesthetic force and virtue, nor enlightened state of being.

Consciousness and Environs

"What are you doing out here?"

Listening.

"I don't hear anything."

You have to listen, and hear.

Between Light and Dark

It is easy to say, "day is night, and night is day".  It is nonetheless false.

So it is with art and war. What is false brings destruction.

Croesus consulted the oracle at Delphi concerning going to war against Cyrus of Persia, and was told, "If Croesus goes to war he will destroy a great empire."

The empire thus destroyed was Croesus' own.

Disappeared

Totalitarian societies do not evolve naturally.

These rigid systems are created by ideological partisans, over time, through intimidation and manipulation of mass media. On the surface, they appear to embrace universal freedom and acceptance of all perspectives, but this is a transparently false narrative none dare question.

Such cultural tyrannies must continuously maintain and consolidate power against innumerable enemies, who must be hated and feared, and so must be dehumanized.

Without exception, the anti-conformist artist is the first to go.