what?

to hear the sound of snow being

!

WATCH

i saw it happen

i watched
as a monk fell asleep
his chin now resting
on the top of his sternum
and he snorrs sweetly
sitting before
his computer screen

stinking priorities

Everyone is very conscious of the fact that while Rome is burning,
we shouldn't be having a great time.
Nobody's ordering caviar as a first course.

Sean Driscoll

freedom

freedom
is best known
in the act of using ones
freedom to serve others

if you have freedom
you should try to
be available
to share that freedom

flake

first snow came
like a whisper in
a dream

think of that

"the most incomprehensible thing about nature
is its very comprehensibility"

-albert einstein

from john milton

knowledge is as food, and needs no less
her temperance over appetite, to know
in measure what the mind may well contain;
oppresses else with surfeit, and soon turns
wisdom to folly, as nourishment to wind.

-Book VII Paradise Lost

(knowledge without wisdom is not worth a fart)

would that 'twere true

we do not kill one another over our disagreements about the will of god
because we believe that it is the will of god
that we should not kill one another over our disagreements
about the will of god

--richard john neuhaus (in current FIRST THINGS)

database

base data data data base
data base base base data
database dada base dada
tata baba tata baba taba
bata tada saba besa data
database database database

we base the data on the base
the data is based on the
foundational programming of data
the infinite x o x o ++++ ----
data base of basing data
in the base of data based information

betadates alphafigs
database database database database database

don't kid yourself now
it's a database world
sahlom ahleikim

anthem

WAR!!

WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR??

ABSOLUTELY NUTHIN' !!

LET'S SAY IT AGAIN

- from the late 1960's
edwin starr

the political party conventions

are
a display of circusry
political animals
prancing
jumping through burning hoops
democratic monkeys
republicanic lions
independentic tigers
faking the mauling
political horses with
midgets dancing on their rumps

contortionists and freaks
spewing emphasis

we pay to be so entertained

american politics has become
a circus spectacle

it is the illusionist version
of what the real players are doing
and we do not believe that what is hidden
from us is very important

it seems important
it is a babblefest of
empty signification

why music

music is fundamentally
a philosophical venture

the one who plays the music
of others may not have this sense

for music to be viable
it must be performed in the
context of "saying" something
within the hearing of others

st columbe
perhaps the greatest
viola de gamba player
of all time
composed for his deceased wife
and played endlessly for her alone
for he believed she lived in heaven
and could hear him

he was a great metaphysician

vexations

on august 29th 2008
there will be a performance
of a piece of music
by erik satie
in a nearly abandoned theatre
on the main drag
of crestline CA

in accord with satie's directions
the piece
a musical statement with
a duraton of about 100 seconds
is to be performed 840 times
in succession over the course of 24 hrs

the effort will be that of spencer holden
a 21 yr old filmmaker/musician

it is the only musical event worth noting
in all of california in the year 2008

youthful zeal must not be underestimated

go pal
go

am i free

we are free to acknowledge life
as it transpires before our
powers of perception
and to decide
that there is often very little
or nothing
that "i" must do
to control or adjust anything
in life
including my own life

this awareness may be
the only true human freedom
that
and thinking freely





.

blessing

every human act
placed into the context
of blessing

apocatastasis

                            the ultimate reconciliation of good and evil 



angels and devils waltzing in the night











.

epistemological testing

perhaps the greatest test of knowing
is to recognize ones utter solitude
and have the recourse to endure it
with a sense of grace

the new categorical imperative

the effort to organize society
based on human categories
deriving from psychological or
sociological rhetoric
is a humanist/postivist agenda
which results in the diminishment
of the person
and undermines any discussion
of sane morality

christian sobriety

...keep death daily before your eyes...

rule of st. benedict - 6th century

perception is partial

recorded music is to music
what photographs are to reality

excess opulence overkill

too many guns
too many automobiles
too many movies
too many tv(s)

we must be lacking something

fundamental epistemology

the mind is not the brain

politicos

politics is an excercise
in hopeful abstractions

ideas which may or may not
find some application to
the needs of humanity

the measure of political interest
is limited either by the forces of
reality or the idealisms
emerging from the imagination

somnolence

to take a nap is an act of faith

photoplights

the pervasiveness of photography
forces awareness
into a superficial apprehension
of the world

could the mystery be

the holy spirit
alive and joyful
amid the pilgrims
walking in mild despair
unsure of the path ahead

cards

given the numerous games
he could have played with the deck
it was sad
that he was given
to solitaire

fatigue

imagine the state of the world
if some very important naps
did not happen

fatigue has played a role
in shaping the world we know

we must distrust all the
attempts to arrest fatigue

just let people sleep when they need to
as long as they need to

and the world will be at peace

try it

you'll see

the "fuck you" principle of modern economics

in almost every transaction
in every "price"
there is the implied
and positively unconscious
principle which can be
stated
albeit insufficiently
thus:

you know it is not worth that much
i know it is not worth that much
but that is how much it will cost
and that is how much you will pay
so
"fuck you"

and that is why bartering
and haggling over money
and purchasing
is
more dignified

time has a way of not existing

pistis eros

even if it is only the more extreme urging
of the active imagination
to suggest that god's love
is like that of an ardent lover
it is enough to get the blood of
faith rushing in the veins
the pulse of life is quickened

the deliberate patient attention
to pleasure that knows
no end
is the christian sickness
extraordinaire'

optimal cognition

"prayer is the highest achievement
of which the human person is capable"

- Edith Stein
Blessed Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

making your bed

it may be that we have
collectively
created a social entity
that will collapse
under the very weight
which has been developed
in order to assure us
that we have nothing to fear

but be afraid anyway

the economic structure
of the free market
when taxed to its maximum strength
will implode
and become rubble
out of which perhaps
something new and interesting
can evolve

just think of the mayhem
when the gas pumps are dry

fascism: a dirty word?

it has yet to be proven
that mankind can exist
without the constraints
of social discipline

the question becomes:
how much discipline?

the next president
may do well to spend
some time in a garden
growing his or her own vegetables

the parody of information

a superficial exposition

what we refer to as the "news"
is but a doubled parody

a series of silly caricatures of life
and a caricature
of the the original intent
of televised news casting

the humanist doctrine

the humanists
are managing the world
the world they want
with incessant babble

humanist evangelism
is a form of psychological tyrrany

the grand illusion

capitalism in USA
presumes no limits

when the limits are finally faced
it may be too late

the demands of induced consumerism
will eventually require
national stomach stapling

or
accepting widespread famine

the politics of deceit

they appear to mean well
either they are formed intellectually
to reason with crass disregard
for the immediate good
or
they are cynical
pretending to serve the common good
while only serving some very selfish
and myopic ends

wisdom is too expensive for them

i have my doubts

it remains to be seen
if the goals and ideals
of a "free" society
serve in a more beneficial way
the healthy development of
the world

societies which have resorted
to implicit discipline
seem to have faired
quite well

the discipline of a free
economy amounts
in some marked degree
to a form of tyrrany

nothing so shocks me
as the pretentions
of civil democracy

the truth is
so damn difficult

we know there is movement

on a day that begins
grey and cool
i travel

our lady of the wayfarers
pray for us

a police state

the cameras are on
the ears are piqued
the radar is humming
the dogs are sniffing
the wires are hot
the cars are fine tuned
the minds are honed
to be knives in the flesh
of man's trite politics
the voices are babbling
the teachers are frightened
the bankers are worried
the silicon hounds are sad
comic book artists
are staying up way too late
gardening is the way

we know it is a police state
we can't get away from it
we thought it was democracy
but no
it looks like
tyrranical idealism
parading about in a business suit
some will say it's a good thing
as long as they don't get nabbed
others will fight it outright
as a cause of justice
i should hope
more than one folk singer
reacts with righteous indignation
and illumines the perverse character
of capitalist agendas
i'll grant you
clever
but ultimately appealing more to greed
and avarice
than to anything noble
in the human being

F**k the police state

they are saying

the terrorists are at the gate
and you must be afraid
and we will protect you

the rumsfeld

a standard of currency
equal to the dollar/cost amount
of one day of war
in Iraq

holy men

the dalai lama is in
minnesota
speaking of compassion

if there is no cure
why worry
if there is a cure
why worry

benedict XVI
is in washington DC
speaking of healing
of his shame

if there is no cure

trying to give
some dialectical light
to the family fight

in a secular world
the things become gods
the ideas become demons

two gardeners
planting seeds
two gardeners
with hope

pragmatism

who stops to think
of the abyss
separating the practical
from the good
the true
the beautiful

?

the knowledge of singing

it is a mark of great favor
and epistemological awareness
to have the honor
of singing in a well -trained choir

the mind can become aware
of sonic possibilities
while working out harmonic textures
with voices pitched at 4 levels
bass
baritone
second tenor
first tenor

it is more than merely becoming
familiar with melody and text
at some point
if a singer is listening as
astutely as possible
to all the other voices
there is the awareness
of powerful and beautiful sound

even when singing monophonically
as in gregorian chant
to acheive the sound of unity
while preserving the texture offered
by various voices
is to attain to
a portal to metaphysical possibility

one has that profound sense
that what is best in this world
is the result of drastic co-operation

people
souls voices united
for the sole purpose
of transmitting beauty

at the highest level of musicianship
that is the domain reserved by Boethius
for the philosopher
one becomes aware of actually
interpreting the sound of the choir
and positing other possibilities
perhaps for improvisation
perhaps for alternative harmonic color
perhaps for something as simple as timbre
simple and subtely complex at the same time

i pondered these cognitive principles
while singing with a double choir
an echoey version of
the setting from the middle ages
of HAEC DIES
this is the day
a polyphonic portrait
of the easter message

alleluia!!

time is tired of keeping up

the insistence upon
organizing time
has increased the urgency
we associate with progress
but has sadly diminished
the storehouse of imagination
in the soul of man

piecemeal

the world is a tirade
contained by air

indirection inc.

theoretically
we begin with nothing