Rain in the Grail

No ideology is a replacement for Reason.

Ignorance brings wrack and ruin, and the dead walk the earth.  Can we be fully alive in the darkness of subjective shadows?

Light of Reason

To be passionate about something is to be emotionally attached to it, even to be mentally overwhelmed by it.  Some people do not possess such a temperament.

Over time, agility of mind is more potent than experience, the latter being of lesser consequence in dealing with the unpredictable, the unforeseen, and the unknown.

Heroes

There are times when rebellion against social and cultural norms proves itself right or wrong, viable or absurd.

There are times when the only thing worth rebelling against is the decline of civilized life.

Expansion

There is something about music repeating itself in one's consciousness, unbidden, that is not to be welcomed.

It is as if one's thoughts might be suppressed, one's emotional state might be compromised or falsified.

As a musical arranger involved in recording studio experimentation, and moving away from the creation of music using guitars, drums, vocals and "hooks", I grew interested in music that did not conform to the framework of popular songs or function as a setting for improvisation.  The nebulous and unpredictable appealed to my sense of form, as did a tone and mood most conducive to contemplative listening.  Utilizing developing technology, I grew capable of fabricating generative and ambient forms that sustained attention while enhancing the environment for listening and activity as well.  In this way what I think of as "my music" evolved into an effort of continuing interest, particularly as it contributes to a state of mind that is both focused and at ease.

What I consider to be Futurist music, given its origins in ambient music as an art form, appears to be without boundaries, not limited by genre, and unburdened by common definitions of music.

Echoes

Some people go around with "songs in their heads", or say "I have this song stuck in my head".  Some music, though obviously not all, dominates the listener's attention, then is internalized.  One may judge for oneself the value of this.

Perhaps such events, which are not external yet give the impression of being auditory, impinge or intrude on consciousness, superimposing their presence and emotional connotations, and perhaps they diminish clarity of perception.  One is left to one's own assessment of such things; that they are real is undisputed.

Soundtrack Assemblage

In the course of events broken by dreams remembered or lost on the edges of consciousness there is music.

A musical narrative emerges, a collage arriving along the labyrinthine routes of noise and rumour, melody and hearsay, rhythm and folk-tale, movement and legend, tone and myth.

No. 22 Golden Lane

Literacy itself was once considered a form of magic.  To look an an incomprehensible text that appeared no more than random markings and then, from these, to be able to know and speak the words and thoughts of kings and priests was surely the art of a sorcerer.  Something of that magic and mystery remains, embedded in human consciousness.

Certainly there are confusions of word and object and idea, problems of emotional connotation and comprehension of figurative expression in forms concrete and abstract, and mysteries of linguistic apprehension that provoke thought and debate.  Language nevertheless moves, challenges and stimulates reader and listener.

Logos

The virtue of the written word is its power of transmission across time and space.

The tongue asserts meaning and absurdity but briefly, while these letters express memory, ideas, description, instruction, imagination, and many of the vagaries of human thought over continents, over lifetimes and generations.

Human Nature

--to believe oneself above law, beyond criticism; to demand everything, produce nothing.

Accept no responsibility, act without restraint, and use any means to attain any self-centered end.

The Mask that Covers the Eyes

Ghosts of the living.  The persona, the mask, is the reality, and the self is unknown.

The persona becomes all, and the individual, the spirit, the soul, is cut adrift.

Lights

Some seek silence, solitude, reason, inspiration.  They are ready to act according to their best judgement.  They tend the ground they must tread.  Forces of history may touch them, or leave them to their ways.

The past may be darkness to some, light to others.

Passion Flowers

Our perceptions lose all subtlety, our apprehension and understanding of reality is numbed, degraded, stultified, and our days are made up of such relentless distraction and nuisance we see nothing.  Or nothing beyond our responsibilities or diversions.  Reason disintegrates in bedlam, and most are acclimated to nothing more substantial than transient and untrustworthy emotions.

The supremacy of emotion is everywhere visible.  It trumps a critical regard for facts; it trumps analytical assessment of our character, of our thoughts and actions.  The word "passion" is used far too often, as though it confers a kind of nobility to our pursuits, which may have nothing more than selfish and self-serving motivations.

Neuroscientists assert virtually all political belief is inextricably bound to parts of the brain associated solely with emotion.

And the brain is not the mind.

Timepiece II

To live in a timeless state of being.

To detach oneself from the mundane world of transient things and to live in the world of permanent things.

Transmission II

Culturally, one is engaged from an early age with a fully realized world view.

It is now likely that this world view encompasses postmodern perspectives which may be in opposition to traditional and historical cultural values.  One may not even be aware that those norms which comprise the latter perspective exist, or remain in existence as forces of history.

Camus

At the end of memory a jungle of unresolved threads.  Deaths that complicate and simplify.  Extraordinary circumstances, existing only briefly, apparently disconnected from common cause and effect, which lead nowhere.

That which cannot be explained is a prime indicator of the nature of reality.

Inquiry

From the past:  myth, legend , folklore, fairy tales, theater, ritual, ceremony-- the convergence of culture and community in shared experience.

From the present:  hyperbole, satire, exaggeration, propaganda, scapegoating, contradiction, obsessive ideologies-- convergence of nihilism, depression, narcissism, scientific materialism, repression, failure to thrive.

The former leads to questions; the latter asserts there can be no more questions.

Balance

The Golden Mean.  Temperate attitudes, a sense of order, avoidance of the excessive and irrational, clarity of thought and action, all these things that do not happen naturally, but through reason and free will.

They are contrary to base human nature, must be learned, applied, reflected upon.  But to do so is to apprehend the path to greater vision, deeper perception, and an understanding of reality beyond the given and the mundane.

Timepiece

When it is possible to slow the pace of life it becomes possible to increase perceptual awareness and expand the limits of consciousness.

To live more fully, let time pass in the way of nature, experienced as a continuum.

Consider all we are capable of doing when we are not rushed, when it is within our power to pursue our interests and focus our efforts unhurriedly.  Fine craftsmanship, artistic vision, reason, contemplation and reflection are within realization, as they may not always be otherwise.

Abstract, Concrete

Certainly the things of the spirit are of greater value than those of the merely material.  Why?

The spiritual things are permanent.  Honor, love, wisdom, reason, justice, and so forth-- these things which are good.  They are not limited by material nature.  They may be inspired and made manifest by their representations through the arts, yet their existence is beyond containment and measure.

Forces of History

--what individuals made possible in the past, often by virtue of persistence and arduous labor, makes mastery of such things possible more quickly-- or at a young age-- for people of the present day.

Things do not remain undone or unfinished; ideas continue to unfold in a variety of ways, and unforeseen connections are made in the collision of concepts and events.

Sometimes they come back to haunt you.