This And That.

This is a brief entry to update those who are interested on the various “thats” going on in my life.

First, you’ve probably noticed that I am now on Twitter, which is the greatest network utility that I’ve stumbled on.  The networking is dynamic.  I’ve gleaned more resources in a week than I imagined possible.  Twitter is also the easiest way for me to stay active on this site without writing a full blog entry: if I’m too busy for an entry, I can still ‘tweet,’ even when in the library.  My thesis  calls once again, and once again I am behind schedule.  For two reasons:  first, getting the long awaited MacBook Pro; second, my research director nitpicked my draft to death, and I have to basically rework much of what I’ve done.

The first reason is an unexpected joy, one that I have waited some time for.  This machine is beyond elegant.  17 inch monitor, seamless interface, color saturation to die for, to name just a few things.  I also received the free iPod Touch (education purchase) which is basically the iPhone without the phone, i.e. wireless connectivity for the web, e-mail, GPS, and all kinds of apps for on the go.  Anytime I am in an the area of an open wireless network (or on campus, as I’m in the school’s network), I can read anything on the web I want, check my e-mail, etc.  Some of the apps are absolutely the best things I’ve ever used, and I can’t believe how much functionality and ease they add to both life and the mini-computer-on-the-go.

Many of you may be saying, “no biggie I’ve been doing that for years.”   Well, I’ve not.  And this little gizmo was free with my glorious MacBook Pro purchase.  It’s just too cool.

In addition to the Pro, I now have a Time Capsule, which backs everything on my computer up every hour, silently in the background, while I am Tweeting, cruising YouTube for rare tidbits, scouring eBay for deals, or following links in an endless regression of surfing for useless if interesting information.  (In other words, doing everything but writing my thesis.)   All my drafts, files, iTunes library are saved on this gadget.  Simply amazing.

My screen, now that it is larger, makes my blog look sparse.  On my old iBook G4, everything looked simple and elegant.  Not the case now, so I’ll have to see about moving the blog over to an upgraded space.  This blog is free, Word Press has a paid upgrade which allows me to fiddle around more. That way I can enhance it with Java goodies and some custom additions.  Not this month, though.   Also, I used to find writing entries incredibly frustrating, because my iBook was just a little too slow to handle the Word Press interface.  Looks like that is a now a thing of the past, and I am happy.

About the second, I am excited to revamp the draft and get moving.  My director’s main complaint is that I dallied around too much with the critics, and most of that stuff must be stuffed into the footnotes.  He wants me engaging more with the texts, which I have absolutely no problem with.  I was dallying around with the critics, because in the first draft of my proposal, the complaint was that I spent too much time dallying around in the texts.  That written, I’m successfully avoiding reading his criticisms point by point, as compared to a conversation, as he has a tendency to get a little lost in the details himself sometimes, all respect intended, and one reason I rather enjoy his direction, but I want to make sure I don’t flog myself for every shortcoming, as is my habit, one that I am working on.

In case you missed it, I posted a must see YouTube the other day on my Twitter feed.  It is must see: Glenn Gould and Leonard Bernstein performing Bach.

On the eightyth million day, G-d saw Gould and Bernstein, and said, “It was worth all that damn Garden nonsense.”

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The Man In The Mirror

There is a story that I frequently remember, when my life is moving slower than I would like.

Jermaine Jackson tells this story, and I heard him tell it around the time I was doing work in ‘write it down, and make it happen.’

Michael Jackson wrote a note to himself that read, “I will record the best-selling album of all time,” and he placed this on his bathroom mirror, where he read it every morning.

With time, Michael eventually released that album.  “Thriller” remains to this day the best selling album of all time, the closest runners up lagging behind by over 45,000,000 albums.  No other recording artist or groups comes close.

List of Best Selling Albums Worldwide.

Destiny is a strange bird, indeed.

Rest in peace, Michael.

There’s always a dark side to our dreams.

Edited August 8. 2009:

Unfortunately, the YouTube video I originally posted was pulled.  I had two update choices: a live performance with an introductory note that I’d prefer not to see, or the official MJ YouTube upload that includes no video of Michael.  I decided to embed the former with its personal dedication, but I’ve included a link to the latter.  Both have their merits, for reasons that seem to me obvious.

Official Michael Jackson YouTube Channel Video ‘Man In The Mirror’

Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones, sometime before 'Thriller' changed the world.

Ali Akbar Khan

April 14, 1922 – June 18, 2009

The master’s death is

joy to the one who lovingly crafted

that heart, that spirit, and

those hands.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

See also:

Ali Akbar Khan & Swapan Chaudhuri – Brindabani Sarang (YouTube video, embedding disabled).

NYT article on Ali Akbar Khan.

“Indian music is like a river or stream that has come down to us through time, bringing nurture to man’s soul. From the past masters, this music flowed to my father and through him to me. I want to keep this stream flowing. I don’t want it to die. It must spread all over the world.”

–  Khansahib

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YouTube Find Of The Week: Alanis

Citizen Of The Planet

(From ‘The Flavors of Entanglement’)

I start up in the north
I grow from special seed
I sprinkle it with sensibility
From French and Hungarian snow
I linger in the sprouting
Until my engine’s full.

Then I move across the sea
To European bliss
To language of poets
As I cut the cord of home
I kiss my mother’s mother
Look to the horizon.

Wide eyed, new ground
Humbled by my new surroundings . . .

I am a citizen of the planet
My president is Kwan Yin
My frontier is on an airplane
My prison’s homes for rehabilitating.

Then I fly back to my nest
I fly back with my nuclear
But everything is different
So I wait
My yearn for home is broadened
Patriotism expanded
By callings from beyond.

So I pack my things
Nothing precious
All things sacred.

I am a citizen of the planet
My laws are all of attraction
My punishments are consequences
Separating from source the original sin.

I am a citizen of the planet
Democracy’s kids are sovereign
Where the teachers are the sages
And pedestals filled with every parent.

And so the next few years are blurry
The next decade’s a flurry
Of smells and tastes unknown
Threads sewn straight through this fabric
Through fields of every color
One culture to another.

And I come alive
And I get giddy
And I am taken and globally naturalized.

I am a citizen of the planet
From simple roots through high vision
I am guarded by the angels
And my body guides the direction I go in.

I am a citizen of the planet
My favorite pastime edge stretching
Besotten with human condition
These ideals are born from my deepest within.

Quan Yin: Anonymous, 14th Century Japanese Painting

I Am Troy Davis

“On 19 May 2009, Amnesty International held a protest outside the U.S. Embassy in London calling for the commutation of Troy Davis’ death sentence. We recorded people’s messages of solidarity, which we are sending to Troy and his family.”

Update: “On May 20, twenty-seven former judges and prosecutors from across the political spectrum filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis.”

Click here for details, and for links to both the amicus brief and the original writ of habeas corpus.

Honesty, You Gotta Love It . . .

I have said similar as Charlie Brooker to friends.

Male and female.

I’ve even touted legislation for the past years years that I call “affirmative action voting.”  It’s a kind of compromise between those who believe in “voter testing” and actually having womyn’s voices and lives represented in the law of the land.

For something like a hundred years, womyn were denied the right to vote, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were literally laughed out of Congress (read: white men) when they first presented the Constitutional amendment giving womyn the right to vote to that ‘noble body’ (read: male body, writ into the law).

Over forty years later, after the death of both womyn, the amendment written by Ms. Stanton was finally ratified.

As a corrective to those years, I’ve proposed “affirmative action voting.” This voting test requires a physician’s statement of biological gender. Have a penis?  Sorry, outta luck for a few decades. (And guess what, size won’t make a bit of difference.) Take a number and wait your turn.

Silly?

No sillier than the presumptions that governed this country for over a hundred years, and it is in fact the precise standard that was applied in denying the womyn the right to vote.

Perhaps not so silly as it sounds. Or perhaps it is only silly if a womyn proposes the standard be applied to men.

I think it more than fair to employ a little affirmative action voting for a few decades, making everything the way it should be, evening things up a bit, giving the little ladies the reigns for a few years.

Let’s see what happens after a decade or two.

I am so glad Charlie Brooker wrote this column.

So much better coming from a man.

Honesty, you gotta love it.

Though I doubt many American men are ready for this strong a dose of it. Honesty, that is. G-d bless them, it’s a hard habit to develop, and there is certainly little in this testosterone driven culture compelling to behave so.

This week’s must read opinion, because instead of bantering about the specifics, let’s start getting a good look at the forest amid the trees.

Gaurdian Commentary: Charlie Brooker Calls On Women To Rule The World.

Darfur Fast For Life

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I read this week about Mia Farrow’s hunger strike for the people of
Darfur, a little after the fact as life has prevented me from being involved with too much other than the day to day.

As many of you know, the genocide in Darfur has been an important issue to me, well beyond the few entries on this blog, the needless slaughtering of hundreds of thousands and the displacement of over two million while the world turns a blind eye unconscionable to this writer.

So in my little corner here, I’ve highlighted articles by Nicholas Kristof, and at times promoted Ms. Farrow’s blog and photos to raise awareness, as well as the things I can do behind the screen, in the world.

Here is where the two come together in an unusual way.

YouTube Find of The Week: Sinéad O’Connor

Today I downloaded Sinéad O’Connor’s “Theology” from iTunes.

So far, I am mesmerized, but I’ve not listened to it through.

I briefly checked YouTube for links to send friends of some of the songs I’m enjoying (Psalm 33 and Something Beautiful), and I stumbled on this recent interpretation of Prince’s song.

No need to explain why I immediately posted as my YouTube find of the week.

Never Forget

Martin Luther King, Jr.

January 15, 1929  –  April 4, 1968

April 4th is like no other day.

It is my mother’s birthday.

My mother.  What a character.  She’s an odd combination, as are we all, but my mother’s dramatic predilections write her many idiosyncratic qualities in large letters.

Very large letters.

Through character and circumstance, she’s always been a woman ahead of her time, a pioneer in word and deed, rarely zipping her lip when it would have served her

She is also a quirky kind of Christian, fundamentally conservative for fear of fire and brimstone, yet socially progressive for love and compasssion’s sake.  She was a very  odd fish, for her time and place, for she early and enthusiastically supported Reverand King.  “A prophet of God.” she’s always said. “We’re all God’s children. King  taught that, he was the greatest of our lifetime, a prophet of God. God’s spoke through him. You could hear it every time.”

I’ve never have been able to convince her of Gandhi’s influence on Dr. King, hoping that the link between them might get her beyond that soteriological fear animating so much of her imagination.

And when I casually brought up Dr. King’s documented character weaknesses during a conversation, she nearly disowned her only begotten to honor the Lord’s chosen one.

I’ve since decided that bringing up Dr. King’s humanity is not the best thing to do.

Dr. King’s assassination forever changed this day, my mother’s birthday.  It seemed unusually cruel for Providence to foist this on her, a single working mother with not much more than faith and hope to her name.  Seemed she could have been born on the 6th or the 7th, maybe the 10th.  The arbitrary nature of cruelty, perhaps that was the point, and why she so thoroughly embraced Dr. King’s message, and perhaps why she was able to fearlessly speak so, against the nice white bourgeios conventions that we lived on the fringes of.

She’s never forgotten that day, what it meant to those living on hope and the Lord’s promises, when that’s the best life has to offer.

April 4th has never been the same.

My mother’s birthday.

And the day a prophet and one of this country’s greatest leaders was murdered.

From Dr. King’s last speech, given the night before his death.

YouTube Find Of The Week: Two From Sarah Vaughn

Gorgeous:

The next one is a montage video, not a filmed performance.

But the audio quality is exceptional.

A sublime interpretation, one of my favorites: