Ephemera

Varieties of artistic experience dominate the cultural landscape from time to time.

Novels, films, music and fashion create interesting effects through their interactions. These are for the most part transitory, though for some they are difficult to abandon when they run their courses.

It is difficult to envision and create those things of lasting value. More difficult is to recognize the desire for them.  But such desire exists.

Hidden, Waiting

Inclusive language is ubiquitous, and insidiously manipulative.

While the implications for art and culture are obvious, they have not always been so, with the result that conformity of thought is now more rigidly enforced than in previous, less dangerous times.

The danger lies in loss of vision, followed by loss of freedom.

The Lake, The Sky, Disappear

When there is only darkness, or noise, perception declines.

But endless argument is pointless as well, and there are always those who will call day, night, and night, day.  So forward, from there, to evil ends, or beyond these to unknown tomorrow.

Nova Sound

The indiscriminate ear reflects the intellectual nature as well.

A simple bias toward things "random" is a key indicator of the mental laxity that will not put forth the effort to determine cause and effect or its impact on ideas and events.  Such minds cannot be troubled with "meaning", and are easily set in perpetual, escalating conflict with all who have the wherewithal necessary to acknowledge simple, objective perspectives.

Thus was established the environment of din and clamor that has plagued the past half-century and eviscerated its cultural arts.

Posed Little Time

Ideas are shaped and colored to purposes.

Some purposes are intentionally clear; others are crafted to be intentionally obscure.  What is necessary is to be cognizant of the ideas, rather than of their appearances only.

Mindful

The general Western perspective on living recognizes a central idea of continuing progress.

This is natural, given historical experience and the impetus to invent and to refine and improve existing technologies.  Even so, human progress, that is to say, the ways and means by which the human condition and state of being may be elevated, cannot be neglected without consequences.

And, again, it is often the artist who is first to recognize this fact, and to act upon it.

Stone

Access to knowledge is not culture.

A culture that countenances the belief that any view of the nature of reality is no different than any other is one step removed from barbarism, and may anticipate the immediate arrival of what will be known as a dark age.

Image and Sensation

Observe the extent of vicarious and "second hand" experience.

Art is direct representation, experienced directly, not filtered through "media".  Remember that.

Fading False

Without common vision and purpose, there is no culture, but only its false appearance.

What remains is nihilism, centered upon obsessive and bellicose disputation over long-past failures of moral reason and creative vision, ideas rendered obsolete by the test of time.

The real goal of those engaged in conjuring such a state of affairs is one of totalitarian control.

It is the artist who is often the first to realize that the single, essential struggle is one for individual freedom and personal autonomy, regardless of whether society as a whole is capable of it.

Sounds Real and Imagined

Give conscious attention to the full spectrum of sounds in the surrounding environment.

This is a difficult task, and one that demands intent. Like any critical mental exercise, it does not "just happen".  Ultimately, over an extended period of time, one begins to imagine sounds one has not previously heard.  

This is an arduous journey, but a worthy goal, and one that the artist and composer may realize.

Momentary and Continuing

Attend to culture as it is experienced in personal ways.

This is how culture is extended and transformed.  All the rest is noise and debris.

Real Light

A balanced, yet critical and incisive state of mind is not effortless.

The purpose of my compositions and recordings, beyond the application of experimental and aesthetic principles, is to promote and enhance the emotional state of equanimity.

In terms of contemporary music, very little is done in that regard, and very little of that is done effectively.

Movement of Ideas

Culture includes both convergence and dissolution.

One may therefore realize both possibility and loss, choice and crisis.

Fire, Fix, Pose

There are uncanny aspects to contemporary experience.

Where cultures lack common subtleties of perception, and these qualities are suppressed within the social order, any heightened sense of reality beyond the mundane is stifled.  Those experiencing the transcendental are silenced.  Dubious materialist beliefs are held unassailable, and promoted with imperious ardor.  Still, those who most strenuously hold to such ideas claim to be so intellectually weak and helpless that they must be "protected" from perspectives they reject and denounce as a matter of faith, because these points of view make them afraid.

Not Hiding, Yet Hidden

Meaning is dynamic, or else it is lost.  It transcends limits placed upon it, or withers.

Where once authentic artistic expression was discovered, now find only political expression that appropriated and absorbed it.  It cannot transcend the limits of its narrow vision and purpose.

One is never told where to look, but knows what is real.

Outside

Connectivity does not unify cultural visions.

Rather, it renders them more distinct, and distant.

Unknown Extent

The mind imagines.

It is then a matter of drawing the future into the present.

Distant Sight

Expression of perspective requires an expenditure of effort.

The greater the effort necessary, the less likely the rewards will be commensurate with the work.

This, too, is control, and the expansion of control.

Seem and Be

Some face the real; some fabricate the unreal.

Some experience directly, while others negotiate every moment of existence through dense filters of supposition and pretense that may be utterly without foundation and self-evidently false to one with clarity of mind.  Think.

The Artist is Not Alone

The contemporary, modern person has a single, essential choice to make.

It is a simple and difficult choice: to live and act autonomously or to be a complete puppet, strung to innumerable forces of control, and especially to those beyond one's knowledge and influence.