Night Side of Nature

Ask if it is possible to believe in the existence of ghosts, even now, in the twenty-first century.

Ask, on the other hand, if the quality of our lives renders our awareness of such problematic things as wandering spirits possible.

If the natural world escapes our notice, the phases of the moon, the turning of the tides, the subtle dynamics of the progress of the seasons, such that most of our perceptions are attuned to artificial environments and representations of "reality", how likely is it that anything other than the mundane to which we are acclimated can even capture our attention?

Noise, blinding brightness and frenetic activity being the norm, who can see into the quiet, still shadows?

Shape-Shifting

There is always a distance between art and audience.

It is sometimes necessary to extend one's perspective beyond the limits of ones experience altogether and perceive from such an unexpected point of view.

In the deck of the Tarot, the card of The Hanged Man.

Choice

Life filled with mysteries.

No easy answers.

Many questions, many based on wrong ideas, beliefs or information.

Bad premises.

Many situations provide few opportunities for freedom to act with integrity and dignity.  One's only recourse is to extricate oneself in the due course of things.  If we cannot be free, we can at least act wisely and rightly.

Walk Through Walls

Unformed ideas flash momentarily and leave a long after-image.  A school room, a schoolhouse hall.  But there are unspoken ideas, fully formed yet buried beneath emotion and confusion.

Five years, ten years-- these are not lifetimes.  Live with intensity but the facts do not change.  Anything and nothing happens, as days are measured out.  Some live for attachments that will not be, grasp at pleasure, pain, joy, anger, resentments, truths, lies-- real or imagined-- as if these phantoms exist perpetually.

There are times when the only reasonable and appropriate act is condemnation of ignorance, apathy, imitation and self-indulgence.  People who have nothing, as well (and as likely) as those of material wealth, will choose to remain in darkness, as is their right.  The former will do everything possible to appear to be the latter, but it is an intolerable spectacle.

Lao Tsu, it is said, disappeared into mountain mists.

And Thus We Sleep

Fragmentary nature of perceptions.

Consciousness of heat, cold, scent, sound, emotion, idea, impulse, color, light, texture, mortal limits of time and space.  Sounds of wind in the trees: yours, mine, ours, belonging to none.  Passing thought, offered prayer, creative act. 

The idea, the fact, that some never transcend the narrow limits of self, or complete subjectivity, astonishes, and yet is prevalent.

Reuters News Service:  ...both survivors report the assailant said he meant to kill them because they appeared to be happy people, and there was "no room for happiness in his world".

Phantoms of the Living

In the world of ghosts, we never understand our true motivations, act only on the impulse of passion and selfish desire, and, ultimately, behave as though we are alone, not knowing we are dead.

We interact with others as though they are who we want them to be, never knowing who they really are, because we cannot know ourselves.  We exist in a netherworld of images and ideas that our failures of perception and understanding create for us.

Such a shift in individual and cultural consciousness, while readily apparent, appears to go unnoticed.  We do not speak of such things.

Invest meaning in words that are not understood.  Create, and haunt, an empty prison. 

Cast a Cold Eye

If everyone is an artist, only the exceptional and the very strange leave an impression.

Culturally, an intellectual fascination with the idea of chaos prevailed for many decades.  Naturally it became prevalent in popular culture and remains so, to the degree it is commercially viable.  And it remains an issue of academic or quasi-intellectual importance, particularly in the arts, in which the "transgressive" is viewed as having value for its own sake, or conferring value to the artist.  Such value is so rare as to be almost nonexistent, as the so-called transgressive has become no more than redundant repetition of the clichéd act of shocking the bourgeoisie.  It has committed the cardinal sin of becoming boring.

The idea of order evolves accordingly.

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.