blog (February, 2005)
and presently
If an artist is not a Modernist when he is young, he has no heart. And if he is a Modernist when he is old, he has no brain.
-- Einojuhani Rautavaara (in a press interview in Philadelphia, April 2000)
Buddha's Zen
I consider the positions of kings and rulers as that of dust motes. I observe treasures of gold and gems as so many bricks and pebbles. I look upon the finest silken robes as tattered rags. I see myriad worlds of the universe as small seeds of fruit, and the geatest lake in India as a drop of oil on my foot. I perceive the teachings of the world to be the illusion of magicians. I discern the highest conception of emancipation as a golden brocade in a dream, and view the holy path of the illuminatd ones as flowers appearing in one's eyes. I see meditation as a pillar of a mountain, Nirvana as a nightmare of daytime. I look upon the judgment of a right and wrong as the serpentine dance of a dragon, and the rise and fall of beliefs as but traces left by the four seasons.
-- The Buddha
read Zen Flesh Zen Bones or check out 101 Zen Koans
in search of
Today was a gratifying result of my scheduled downtime for repair the first half of this weekend; I'm hoping not just momentemporarily.
Wedged between two experiments in physical communication and directed movement, this afternoon I was lifted above my seat's armrests at Severance Hall (Jazz on the Circle) by legend Ahmad Jamal. Like how. He would be hammering keys through the stage floor and out through my teeth, and know just how to reverse in half a bar and float everyone up to cloud melody.
But how transplanted from a smoky lounge club -- with heads raging and hollering, and the sound so compacted it drills into wall corners and echos in your eyepits -- to be a stage centerpiece under this cathedral ceiling where everyone's wearing their sunday best and must mind to clap at the right places, and sure there's a man a few rows away turning behind him to say I didn't pay twice thirty to have my darling hear your comments throughout the performance.
Nah, Severance is a beautiful venue, and the performance left little to ask for. I'm just a snot, and I like to call people phonies and lament my unhads.
Jewels are hard to find -- you have to dig.
-- Ahmad Jamal
don't deduce; enjoy!
...then you will. Is!
Under the weather; under the world -- a bit out of
- balance
- whack
- touch
- phase
- my head
'bleed stay meditation everybody martini destroy...' [kero] Whack
Out not, (ought naught,) of ideas, but of their accomplishment.
Unconsciously popping ego-popping pills; spills, lips.
stomach bellows, bells chime -- need
pay more heed to nourish time
boorish flourish flour grist mine
fine! scour crooks and nannies for meaning.
what's a concerto for orchestra? what's a symphonic soloist?
sym-phony, con-certo
con phony cacaphony con, found
simple city certain; my nymphos
simulacrum bum,
ba dum.
corridors unto his perfection
staggering under heavy weightless hindrance
chugging through trainyards
bucketloads
cramped social quarters
trampled dime times
pack the kids into the station wagon we'regone and when'll it be wheel westward on?
But the excerpt shows clearly a charming quality of youth: to begin with optimism; and once the inadequacy of optimism is borne in on him by an inevitably hostile world, to retreat into abstractions.
-- Thomas Pynchon, V.
You are young, my son, and, as the years go by, time will change and even reverse many of your present opinions. Refrain therefore awhile from setting yourself up as a judge of the highest matters.
-- Plato
look'y here, hear; somewhat delighted and somewhat de-lighted; drop out and drop off