Kaoru Abe

Kaoru Abe was a Japanese saxophonist active in the 70's. He died in 77' at the age of 29 by a stomach rupture, due to his heavy usage of booze and pills and, that's my guess, to the intensity of his playing. Legend says that at his last concerts you could see blood fly out of the sax, and its kind of true that this man put as much as maybe anyone has put into his playing. During his career he played mostly solo, because of his wild behavior and playing, but he did play with some groups successfully, one of them with Masayuki Takayanagi an extreme guitarrist... together they did the 'mass projections', which consisted in everybody playing as hard and loud as they possibly could actually ignoring the rest of the band, the result is a jawdropping wall of noise, a battle to death between a guitar and a sax... i'll post it as soon as i get my hard drive fixed, but for the moment here goes a beautiful shot of him playing on the river side. He used to practice as well in busy highways, playing to the roar of the big trucks, playing above the horns and the motors. He is possibly the most free of all 'free' players.

Here goes as well a couple of quotes of him:

“Sound that stops the capacity for judgment. Sound that never decays. Sound that breaks free from every possible image. Sound that comes from both death and birth. Sound that dies. The sound around me. Sound like the symptoms of eternal cold turkey. Sound that resists private ownership. Sound that goes insane. Sound that spills over from the cosmos. The sound of sound.”

“I want to become faster than anyone. Faster than cold, than man alone, than the Earth, than Andromeda. Where, where is the crime?”

The Lunatics are in the Central Banks

Al-Jazeera kicks ass, and Max Kaiser in Al-Jazeera kicks banker's ass!
What seemed to be a financial storm starting last year, when the subrprime mess in the US started unwinding, then continuing with the run on the bank of Northern Rock and now has its last chapter with the bailout of Bear Stern by the Federal Reserve (of wich JP Morgan is one of the owners) one has to ask what the hell are they doing? It is indeed taking out a fire throwing in more fire, if one of the principal causes of the credit crisis is low interest rates, lowering them now is only creating an even bigger bubble in the future, its like you have partied hard for two nights, and insted of collapsing in your bed, you want to party more and take another hit of acid, mdma, coke or whatever you like to keep it going, but you know that the comedown is going to be much worse. So it looks like it is just a matter of time until the debt swallows the economy, and I don't have the faintest idea of what that is going to look like.

And now that we are at it, this is possibly the most educative video of all time, very well explained for such a complex issue, I recommend, if it goes too fast, to pause it once in a while to take on all what's being said, the animation is crappy beyond belief, but it is very effective in transmitting the ideas exposed, for a full screen go here.

If you like it, next you can watch the money masters which is much more like a history lesson on how fiat currencies came to be and how the bankers came to have so much power. Great stuff, you will never see a pound note the same way.

"Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create money."
Josiah Stamp (1880-1941 director of the bank of England in 1928 and second richest man of England at the time)

Yosuke Yamashita Trio 1972

from "ecstacy of the angels" by koji wakamatsu, 1972

Carmen Amaya

At the end she said: "If I ever have to stop dancing I will die."
More clips.
A bit of her Bio.

Alvien Lucier "I am sitting in a Room"

One of the most elegant pieces of conceptual sound art you can find. All self contained, all self-explanatory, all sound. Feedback: Somehow everything relates to this concept, from being trapped in it to the liberation from it. Get out of the room Alvin!

I am sitting in a room different from the one you are in now. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice and I am going to play it back into the room again and again until the resonant frequencies of the room reinforce themselves so that any semblance of my speech, with perhaps the exception of rhythm, is destroyed. What you will hear, then, are the natural resonant frequencies of the room articulated by speech. I regard this activity not so much as a demonstration of a physical fact, but more as a way to smooth out any irregularities my speech might have.

Its Raining in the Bible

I was going to put a video of some strayed dog dying of hunger in an art gallery of Managua (it was actually one of the pieces, and it died a day after the inauguration) but then I found this youtube clip of a marine in Iraq throwing a puppy as if it was a hand grenade, and still then I found these footage taken by members of PETA in China of dogs and cats being collected, treated worse than US cattle, and then killed for their fur, but finally I decided to save you from seeing all of this and instead put a piece of the Bible here (Ecclesiastes I) that has nothing to do with it all, so recite with me:

The words of the Teacher, [a] son of David, king in Jerusalem:

"Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."

What does man gain from all his labor
at which he toils under the sun?

Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.

The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.

The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.

All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.

All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there anything of which one can say,
"Look! This is something new"?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.

There is no remembrance of men of old,
and even those who are yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow.

Manufactured Landscapes

Watch it if you get the chance!! Another peek into our global (ir)reality. It focuses mainly in China, which is were most of the materials go to be assembled into cheap Chinese goods, which traditionally were plastic stuff like trainers, toys and cheap bracelets, but now they build it all, from computers to microphones. It has effectively transformed into the factory of the planet, and into its junkyard too. I wonder what kind of life these Chinese workers had before being slaved into this factories... was it so bad? In some ways I'm glad this is all going to be over, but unfortunately we are going to leave such a mess behind and nobody to clean it except eons of time.

From "Bartleby the Scrivener" by Herman Melville

This is the ending of the book, that way you don't have to read the whole thing. Basically Bartleby is this character that works in a firm in Wall Street as a Scrivener. And although being effective at the beginning, he eventually starts to turn down work just saying 'I'd rather not' . He just stays in the office looking out the window which looks out to a brick wall. Classic of classics. I would strongly recommend too Vila-Mata's book, "Bartleby and Co." Which talks about writers who decided not to write.

Strangely huddled at the base of the wall, his knees drawn up, and lying
on his side, his head touching the cold stones, I saw the wasted
Bartleby. But nothing stirred. I paused; then went close up to him;
stooped over, and saw that his dim eyes were open; otherwise he seemed
profoundly sleeping. Something prompted me to touch him. I felt his
hand, when a tingling shiver ran up my arm and down my spine to my feet.

The round face of the grub-man peered upon me now. "His dinner is
ready. Won't he dine to-day, either? Or does he live without dining?"

"Lives without dining," said I, and closed his eyes.

"Eh!--He's asleep, aint he?"

"With kings and counselors," murmured I.

Seeds, Genetic Engineering, and Our Future

http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2008/03/20080306_a_main.asp

This is one of the most interesting radio shows i've heard lately, if you got some time give it a go. The underlying issue here is how to feed humanity; if industrialized agriculture, including or not GM seeds, is really necessary for this task. Because there seems to be a payoff with industrial agriculture or agribusiness, which is mainly an environmental one. Large scale agriculture requires high inputs of chemicals for it to work which means pollution, and the massive mono crop fields mean loss of biodiversity (animal and plant) on the other hand it seems that organic agriculture does not offer enough yield -production- to feed everybody... but all this is debatable. It all ties up with the theme of sustainability: since the discovery and use of oil at the end of the 19th century we started a path into unsustainability which goes in several directions, first is the issue of depletion: with increasing popultation and increasing consumption we not only deplete the hydrocarbons that are our energy base, but as well all of the other resources: minerals, forests, water, you name it, and all this generates pollution, which degrades the base where we get the resources from.... but I'm extending from the issue here, if anybody is interested in this issues I really recommend "Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update by Donella H. Meadows , Jorgen Randers, Dennis L. Meadows" The original book was released about 34 years ago, and it used system dynamics to put different models of what would happen resource-wise in the future if trends continued.
http://www.clubofrome.org/docs/confs/meadows_abstract_21_08_04.pdf
This makes a better synopsis... This book has had a great impact on me, maybe you will think that it is full of pessimism, and it is to some degree, but the Authors offer solutions and rays of hope at the end.

That is no ship. That is no forest. This is no Arrow.

Another Trillion

This time is the credit card debt that Americans have managed to raise. How? In part because now they don't even have enough for rent or food it seems, and because of this individualist consumer society. (please read: http://www.bostonreview.net/BR24.3/schor.html) And who is going to pay it if they can't? Any answers?

The dollar keeps falling, markets tumble and oil production might be in decline, but I don't want to talk about that, but about two other nice things for the pleasure of listening and learning, and although they might seem very different, they are related. As of lately I've been listening again to Elaine Radigue, she is a French composer and musician, quite an unusual one as she has basically only played (and plays) one instrument, the synthesizer ARP2600, it has no keyboard, just buttons, dials, cables and faders. Her compositions are long pieces sometimes over an hour long and consist of very subtle electronic frequencies or drones developing at a very slow but constant speed. It is one of the most engaging, profound and delicate music I've ever heard, and I have to admit that I almost only use it when I go to sleep... makes a fascinating introduction into the dream realm. Well, her most celebrated work is called "trilogie de la morte" and it is based on the Tibetan book of the dead and her experience of the death of her only child and her Tibetan master. Here is a link where you can download it, although I am aware that it has some sound problems (I didn't upload it, maybe will do it soon)and you can hear a small excerpt, bad quality but you get the idea.

And I want to recommend as well the listening of this audio-podcast-book, 'Geoff and Me'. You can find it here http://abuddhistpodcast.com/past-shows/ but to get all the episodes you would have to load it into Itunes, to make your life easier I will load the first chapter here. I find the music terribly cheesy too, it almost put me off listening to it, but the actor that makes the voices is really good, and yes, its about buddhism, but its explained in a very easy, practical and entertaining way.

and one last thing! here is the gamelan workshop I go to practicing the song for our performance in April. I don't play any instrument, but I do on some parts the monkey chanting (out of camera...), better called 'ketjak' with a few others. It's still sounds like a mess, but its improving.