All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible. —T. E. Lawrence

Rob Brezsny has this to say, directly to me:

A bottle of Chateau Cheval Blanc wine from 1947 sold for $304,000. Three bottles of Chateau Lafite-Rothschild 1869 went for $233,000 apiece. The mystique about aged wine provokes crazy behavior like that. But here's a more mundane fact: Most wine deteriorates with age, and should be sold within a few years of being bottled. I'm thinking about these things as I meditate on your long-term future, Sagittarius. My guess is that your current labor of love will reach full maturity in the next 18 to 20 months. This will be a time to bring all your concentration and ingenuity to bear on making it as good as it can be. By September of 2017, you will have ripened it as much as it can be ripened.

And frankly, I like this. That I've finally begun writing music again seems to frame the above rather neatly.

I worked through this A/B test earlier, comparing a series of pairs musical excerpts. I didn't know what the test was specifically reaching for until I got to the end so I was a bit stumped sometimes in that I'd get pairs of tracks both of which I disliked and pairs of that both intrigued me.

And this is the result I got:

You are quite a knowledgeable person who has an interest in the arts. Although you respect tradition, you will also happily try out new things from time to time. You have a wide spread of interests, both mainstream and unconventional. Others view you as an interesting but not alternative type of person. Overall, you are a reasonably tolerant individual.

It’s important to you that you complete the tasks that you begin. You are reasonably well organised but you’re probably not excessively tidy. You can be impulsive at times but you also recognise that you can’t always live for the moment. You follow rules and can be relied upon much of the time. You work towards goals but don’t strive for perfection.

You’re not really an extravert. But nor are you a typical introvert. You’re quite easy going. Extraverts need other people to recharge their batteries, introverts need time alone – you’re a bit of both. You’re able to immerse yourself into social situations quite easily, but you’re also quite happy with your own company. At times you will seek excitement and at other times you will happily stay home by yourself.

Soft hearted and sympathetic, you see the best in people and trust others easily. You avoid conflict and tend to agree with others in order to keep the peace. Helpful, honest and direct, others see you as warm and caring. You are a good team player who cooperates well.

You tend to become stressed pretty easily and will focus on the worst possible outcome in any situation. You are highly sensitive and easily upset. You see danger where others usually don’t and can be quite shy. You don’t like to wait for things and may have a quick temper. You worry about things you have said and done, and can be hard on yourself. The problems in the world make you sad.

The quiz/test is available here: slm.tunehog.com/start/mai…

If I get two days off a week and one of those days is a week day, what’s to stop me from going through the large sheaf of song ideas I have written down and recording one of those songs on that day?

Really, what’s to stop me?

Is it too late for a New Year’s Resolution or is it the perfect time?

It's funny how one person's new musical experiment can repeat someone else's old one.

I've just listened a new piece which seems almost identical in premise to a piece I composed about fifteen years ago. I suppose it just goes to show that, in music anyway, nothing matters more than context and personal development.

My piece had very specific and personal beginnings and marked a turning point in my development as a player and as a musician.  It built on everything I'd achieved up to that point and I could not have created it without the experience I'd collected. I needed to write and perform that experiment, and I have no reason to believe this piece I'm listening to is any different for its author.

First read this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11659122
A man is accused of flashing at a 15 year old in a clothes shop.  He was denied bail.

Now read this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11658279
A man is charged with raping a woman twice.  He is granted bail.

So much is badly wrong with our justice system.

First read this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11659122
A man is accused of flashing at a 15 year old in a clothes shop.  He was denied bail.

Now read this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11658279
A man is charged with raping a woman twice.  He is granted bail.


So much is badly wrong with our justice system.

This week I must carry out at least three items from this list.

1. Discourage all traces of shame. 
2. Bear no cross. 
3. Extend all boundaries. 
4. Blush perpetually in gaping innocence. 
5. Burrow beneath the subconscious. 
6. Pass from one world to another in carefree devotion. 
7. Exhaust the primitive. 
8. Generate the free brain. 
9. Forego no succulent filth. 
10. Verify the irrational. 
11. Acquire a sublime reputation. 
12. Make one monster at least. 
13. Multiply all opinions. 
14. Inhabit everyone.

This week I must carry out at least three items from this list.

1. Discourage all traces of shame. 
2. Bear no cross. 
3. Extend all boundaries. 
4. Blush perpetually in gaping innocence. 
5. Burrow beneath the subconscious. 
6. Pass from one world to another in carefree devotion. 
7. Exhaust the primitive. 
8. Generate the free brain. 
9. Forego no succulent filth. 
10. Verify the irrational. 
11. Acquire a sublime reputation. 
12. Make one monster at least. 
13. Multiply all opinions. 
14. Inhabit everyone.

From the 20th of July:

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I think it would be healthy for you to wander out to a frontier and explore a boundary. You might even want to re-examine a taboo you haven’t questioned in a while and tinker with a formula you thought you’d never change. I suspect that you would also learn a lot from gently pushing against a limit you’ve come to believe is permanent. Having said all that, I’m cautious about advising you to go further. If you get urges to actually transgress the boundary and break the taboo and smash through the limit, please do lots of due diligence.  Know exactly what you’re getting into and what the consequences might be.

What to do with this, exactly, that was my problem.  Which envelope to push, which questions to ask.  As with all of Rob’s guidance, this was about recognising and taking chances.

From the 20th of July:

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I think it would be healthy for you to wander out to a frontier and explore a boundary. You might even want to re-examine a taboo you haven’t questioned in a while and tinker with a formula you thought you’d never change. I suspect that you would also learn a lot from gently pushing against a limit you’ve come to believe is permanent. Having said all that, I’m cautious about advising you to go further. If you get urges to actually transgress the boundary and break the taboo and smash through the limit, please do lots of due diligence.  Know exactly what you’re getting into and what the consequences might be.

What to do with this, exactly, that was my problem.  Which envelope to push, which questions to ask.  As with all of Rob’s guidance, this was about recognising and taking chances.

Recently I’ve received a number of spam emails entitled “Will Facebook kill the high-school reunion?"
I believe that high-school reunions are a very American notion, much like the high-school prom, and as such are fairly alien to cultures outside the US and an adopted “tradition” that has crossed the Atlantic within living memory.

Now I could go off on an ill-informed diatribe about such invented traditions, where people in English-speaking Europe assume US traditions as their own under the full belief that these traditions exist in their own cultures thanks to a smorgasbord of US film and TV providing rich historical and social details about these traditions viewed through the eyes of the participants as a backdrop rather than in analysis.  But I won’t.  My point is somewhat different.

Facebook will never kill the high-school reunion because Facebook does not serve beer.

Recently I’ve received a number of spam emails entitled “Will Facebook kill the high-school reunion?"
I believe that high-school reunions are a very American notion, much like the high-school prom, and as such are fairly alien to cultures outside the US and an adopted “tradition” that has crossed the Atlantic within living memory.

Now I could go off on an ill-informed diatribe about such invented traditions, where people in English-speaking Europe assume US traditions as their own under the full belief that these traditions exist in their own cultures thanks to a smorgasbord of US film and TV providing rich historical and social details about these traditions viewed through the eyes of the participants as a backdrop rather than in analysis.  But I won’t.  My point is somewhat different.

Facebook will never kill the high-school reunion because Facebook does not serve beer.

So Brussels is finally bending their knee to the USA in this too.
Flying is by a huge percentage less dangerous than twenty years ago, which was in turn a huge percentage less dangerous than twenty years before that, yet the culture of fear and dependence that the US Government, closely aped by the major EU powers, is insisting we live in would have us see the world in a state of deadly terror under constant but non-specific threat of annihilation.

“We are encouraging the world of social and behavioural science to share their ideas and expertise with us to do this. Academia and industry may be able to provide invaluable assistance and advice in helping to prevent terrorist attacks."

We must learn from the software industry that this kind of knee-jerk, cure-all, attack-the-symptoms thinking simply forces those few would-be wrong-doers into more and more devious exploits, much like the ever-narrowing gaps between new anti-piracy measures being launched and cracked versions of new software appearing on torrent sites.
It’s like MRSA - hyperfocus on wiping out a threat and the threat develops immunity and becomes stronger.

Why don’t authorities see that dealing with terrorism effectively means dealing with root causes, like disaffection, isolation and demonisation?
Are there no obvious lessons to be learned from, for example, Northern Ireland? Is Politics so concerned with saving face that it cannot acknowledge that the foreign and domestic policies of sovereign governments can cause adverse reactions both within and outwith that country and that addressing this can only start with both admitting and ceasing to make mistakes?

So Brussels is finally bending their knee to the USA in this too.
Flying is by a huge percentage less dangerous than twenty years ago, which was in turn a huge percentage less dangerous than twenty years before that, yet the culture of fear and dependence that the US Government, closely aped by the major EU powers, is insisting we live in would have us see the world in a state of deadly terror under constant but non-specific threat of annihilation.

“We are encouraging the world of social and behavioural science to share their ideas and expertise with us to do this. Academia and industry may be able to provide invaluable assistance and advice in helping to prevent terrorist attacks."

We must learn from the software industry that this kind of knee-jerk, cure-all, attack-the-symptoms thinking simply forces those few would-be wrong-doers into more and more devious exploits, much like the ever-narrowing gaps between new anti-piracy measures being launched and cracked versions of new software appearing on torrent sites.
It’s like MRSA - hyperfocus on wiping out a threat and the threat develops immunity and becomes stronger.

Why don’t authorities see that dealing with terrorism effectively means dealing with root causes, like disaffection, isolation and demonisation?
Are there no obvious lessons to be learned from, for example, Northern Ireland? Is Politics so concerned with saving face that it cannot acknowledge that the foreign and domestic policies of sovereign governments can cause adverse reactions both within and outwith that country and that addressing this can only start with both admitting and ceasing to make mistakes?

I mean Tragedy in the sense of not an Epic or a Comedy.  Tragedies tend to be meditations on death, loss and suffering but without any final redemption, whereas Epics, though they touch on the same subjects, end with the protagonist learning an essential truth, becoming stronger for it, and experiencing some form of redemption.
Forgive me if I’m offering you a pre-sucked egg here.

Tragedies can be difficult to sit through and, forgive me for saying this, often seem to be taking themselves far more seriously than necessary.  To quote an esteemed colleague, movies that are hard-going for hard-going’s sake just seem to defeat the purpose…much the same [as] “earnest” movies.
Bill Murray, as one example, has an amazing knack for taking serious, “earnest”, complex roles and injecting both humanity and humour, allowing the viewer to watch and enjoy (because let’s be plain here, we’re not talking about documentaries, we’re talking about work that is designed, marketed and consumed primarily as entertainment) the movie, but which also serves the process of the art much better in that it communicates the human experience involved, adds extra levels of communication between actors and audience and forms connections, bonds, between actors and audience granting those unspoken dimensions a presence onscreen.

As another example I think Deer Hunter was more in the “hard-going for the sake of it” camp, although perhaps it was intended/received as a necessary catharsis for Americans from the Vietnam era, ‘cos heaven knows such a thing was necessary given what the vets experienced both in service and on their return home.

This is in stark contrast with another war movie, Apocalypse Now, which is one of my favourite movies (especially the 45 min longer Redux cut), and, y’know, it barely seems like a war movie at all to me.  I’m a bit of a Joseph Conrad fan, and I really really like the exploration & exposition of personality that his storytelling deals with, and I think Coppola reflected this brilliantly.  The war aspect was just a distracting device through which to explore the otherness of white guys going crackers in the jungle (amongst slightly more weighty topics ;> ).
Better than Romancing the Stone, anyway.

But here, if you fancy some luscious cinematography, find a Russian movie called The Return.  so good.  Also an Epic.  Or its successor, The Banishment, a Tragedy.

I mean Tragedy in the sense of not an Epic or a Comedy.  Tragedies tend to be meditations on death, loss and suffering but without any final redemption, whereas Epics, though they touch on the same subjects, end with the protagonist learning an essential truth, becoming stronger for it, and experiencing some form of redemption.
Forgive me if I’m offering you a pre-sucked egg here.

Tragedies can be difficult to sit through and, forgive me for saying this, often seem to be taking themselves far more seriously than necessary.  To quote an esteemed colleague, movies that are hard-going for hard-going’s sake just seem to defeat the purpose…much the same [as] “earnest” movies.
Bill Murray, as one example, has an amazing knack for taking serious, “earnest”, complex roles and injecting both humanity and humour, allowing the viewer to watch and enjoy (because let’s be plain here, we’re not talking about documentaries, we’re talking about work that is designed, marketed and consumed primarily as entertainment) the movie, but which also serves the process of the art much better in that it communicates the human experience involved, adds extra levels of communication between actors and audience and forms connections, bonds, between actors and audience granting those unspoken dimensions a presence onscreen.

As another example I think Deer Hunter was more in the “hard-going for the sake of it” camp, although perhaps it was intended/received as a necessary catharsis for Americans from the Vietnam era, ‘cos heaven knows such a thing was necessary given what the vets experienced both in service and on their return home.

This is in stark contrast with another war movie, Apocalypse Now, which is one of my favourite movies (especially the 45 min longer Redux cut), and, y’know, it barely seems like a war movie at all to me.  I’m a bit of a Joseph Conrad fan, and I really really like the exploration & exposition of personality that his storytelling deals with, and I think Coppola reflected this brilliantly.  The war aspect was just a distracting device through which to explore the otherness of white guys going crackers in the jungle (amongst slightly more weighty topics ;> ).
Better than Romancing the Stone, anyway.

But here, if you fancy some luscious cinematography, find a Russian movie called The Return.  so good.  Also an Epic.  Or its successor, The Banishment, a Tragedy.

Y’know a thing that I find mighty curious? Y’know, curious in that full-on its blatant internal contradictions kinda way?
It’s this: if you can’t see a woman’s nipples, then she’s not naked.

Please explain this one to me, for it makes no sense to me, no sense at all.

potted philosophy, strawman

Y’know a thing that I find mighty curious? Y’know, curious in that full-on its blatant internal contradictions kinda way?
It’s this: if you can’t see a woman’s nipples, then she’s not naked.

Please explain this one to me, for it makes no sense to me, no sense at all.

potted philosophy, strawman

When were sports cars last used for competitive sports?

Surely not since the early seventies? Le Mans and Grand Prix cars have evolved way beyond the possibility for production road versions, and as the 70’s progressed Rally cars also moved away from the sports car model into its current guise of the souped-up and heavily modified saloon car.
Similarly televised motorsport is dominated by the British Touring Car championships, and in States they have Nascar, again using souped-up and heavily modified saloon cars.

Is the sports car, long a classic icon of wealth, elegance and performance, an anacronism? Is it now just a dead-end and flat-out statement of disposable income with little or no redeeming aesthetic or social meaning?

When were sports cars last used for competitive sports?

Surely not since the early seventies? Le Mans and Grand Prix cars have evolved way beyond the possibility for production road versions, and as the 70’s progressed Rally cars also moved away from the sports car model into its current guise of the souped-up and heavily modified saloon car.
Similarly televised motorsport is dominated by the British Touring Car championships, and in States they have Nascar, again using souped-up and heavily modified saloon cars.

Is the sports car, long a classic icon of wealth, elegance and performance, an anacronism? Is it now just a dead-end and flat-out statement of disposable income with little or no redeeming aesthetic or social meaning?