November 24, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving to all celebrants.

http://www.ted.com/talks/louie_schwartzberg_nature_beauty_gratitude.html

I found this worth the nine minutes of my day.

Peaceful, gentle feast of time-lapse reminders.

Potential mind shift, useful for coming up with notions of goodness in life.

Gratitude knows no borders.

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Seventy-First Orbit of the Earth Round the Sun

Such a sweet moment in the genesis of the Lennon repertoire.
How many times I watched this clip, I could not say...
But on this day, I remember your birth and how glad of you
I am - for all of who you were and are to me and the world
You enliven still.

The duality of your nature, so honest it seems to me.
A help when I face confusion when mine rears up.
Thank you.

A Birthday... a poignant time to acknowledge, though for you
It's often(er)...

I imagine where you are. Imagine peace again. Now.
Well wishes always on your travels on.

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Time-Lapse HD~Landscapes V2, Dustin Farrell

How beautiful...
The earth, she sings.
For us?
And for which other things?

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Priorities, Solidarity, and Perception

Music has power.
People have power.
Step 1: Find the priority
Step 2: Find the people
Step 3: When what you want is for the good of all,
even if they can't see through greed;
When it coincides with the Golden Rule
It's time for Step 4: Stand in Solidarity with the wise
In whatever way you can.
Let them know you care as well.
Add your voice to theirs as you can or start speaking yourself
Articulate what's most important to you.

So much is going on right now.
The see saw goes up and down.
Force of fact, math, humanity, and mutual support
Compassion.
What is necessary is the mother of ideas
And solutions.

May all be well.
May all be happy.
May all be conscious and clear,
By way of love and support of courage.

Occupy Wall Street.
Occupy - to fill with content and energy.
What does it mean to you?
More and more are answering that question for themselves.
Makes me proud; and then it makes me proud some more.
Cognition, critical thinking, love.
Bring back democracy from that first moment:
The great experiment
Possibility + Passion = Potential Pure Perpective.

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The Real and the Overreaction; Nice to Meet Ya.

Sad. Real feelings. Don't want to go there.

Good to be aware and find alternatives through...

...should they be on the treasure map we all have tucked in our hearts...

Some don't know its location; no instruction manual given at the starts.

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Not a Raven in the Room; Divan to Bonfire and Back

Rolling Stone magazine, April 17, 2008: Keith Richards, Jack White, Mick Jagger

There is something about this picture.
Posed and relaxed, alone and connecting, each man seems comfortable.
Comfortable with himself and the others in the opulent space.
There's an energy to that and the way it's composed that I enjoy.
Timelessness and Poe heard whispering, "Nevermore."
All of that layered over a tribal fire gathering.
It's evening and the artists have come out to play.

The Last Time by The Rolling Stones Listen on Posterous

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Cemeteries of London and Life in General

I've always been one to linger in cemeteries, slowly strolling and reading what words and numbers remain on old tombstones. I find them moving, memorable, and mysterious.

Noticing the clusters of familial relations and relative dates of demise. The further back in time the more young ones, unnamed infants, and the like. Life may be brilliant, grand, glorious, yet also difficult and short.

Here's to the part that's within our control, and here's to the part that is not.

I like the gothic storytelling and admixture of media styles in this video: from cartoon to silent to dance numbers to the indescribable. The editing to fit Coldplay's music is uncanny imho. I'd never heard this song before I went searching for cemeteries. The music and the content are interesting together, I think. The first so enlivening; the subject matter more dire.

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Late Night Dream Drive

Playing with words when it's time for sleep.
These in particular have been rolling around in my brain a few times over the last couple of days.
Time to put them to rest.
Maybe then I can get some as well.

*~*~*~*

"A beautiful day, the drive into Pennsylvania from Jersey had been surprisingly stress-free. An open road stretched before us, maybe all the way up into the mountains if we were fortunate.

Just past the Philadelphia area we moved into steady evergreen forests and some altitude, both things I'd missed since coming east from Seattle years before. Certain impressions are printed on a person's soul; helps them find out exactly what kind of elf they are, as Tolkien might say...

Merging onto a new road many junctions later, we headed up one of the small, exhilarating inclines on a highway both more and less tame than the one passing through Philadelphia's surroundings.

The traffic began to slow then crawl at what seemed a least-likely spot that Saturday.

It was hard to see what might be causing the unexpected jam. One just proceeds with faith in these situations.

Several sudden movements caught my eye simultaneously. Along the side of the road came children, one carting a smaller other on her back, then a few more, followed by still others.

Where were they coming from? What was that look in their eyes? Were they spectators from this traffic lineup of cars, or was this their day at the beach, only running back our way in the 'wrong' direction? I made a mental note once the lineup seemed to run out of steam.

Without warning, the line-up inched onward over pebbly pavement again, slowly as a slug or sloth crawl. Pretty soon, it turned into a steady trickle of forward motion and working to keep safe from distractions: cones, then policemen waving us on.

There was a knowledge of orbit. Coming closer to the center, gravity accelerates.

To the right a jeep stood alone, present and immediate. Under its hood cackled a fully-fledged fire, something magnetic in the life of its flames so evenly spread under the hood as though smoothed by a butter knife. Billowing clouds of dirty smoke issued from the engine compartment sides, now burned clear through, perfectly invisible.

When would it go off? Here was the possibility of a roaring inferno. A vehicular supernova. There was no telling when. Hard to push away the urgency that information lent these moments of proximity.

At last I could identify the look in the deep-pooled eyes of the girl on the side of the road. She had been young, but she was the oldest of the only group to get away."

~L.E.

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Looking Forward and Behind: Insightful Interview for "I'm Not There."

<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7qW5bDFaz84" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Heath Ledger talked about acting, process, fear, reinvention, creativity, and more as he discussed Todd Haynes' innovatively scripted film about Bob Dylan in France, 2007. Articulate and honest as ever... is the feeling I took away.

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Broken Bells - Vaporize

Danger Mouse again!

This time with James Mercer of the once and current Shins as Broken Bells, which is also the name of their first album together.

'Vaporize' is the second song on the album, and so far, my favorite. Love all the change-ups and the lyrics as well... a wee reminder set to song.

I'll put them here:

Vaporize Lyrics by Broken Bells
 
What amounts to a dream anymore?
A crude device; A veil on our eyes
A simple plan we'd be different from the rest
And never resign to a typical life

Common fears start to multiply
We realize we're paralyzed
Where'd it go, All that precious time?
Did we even try to stem the tide?

Why should we waste it on
Buying into the same old lies?
The longer we wait around
The faster the years go by

It's not too late
To feel a little more alive
Make an escape
Before we start to vaporize

Doubtless, we've been through this
So if you want to follow me you should know
I was lost then and I am lost now
And I doubt I'll ever know which way to go

from magmp3.com, the pic above

 

Vaporize by Broken Bells Listen on Posterous

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Continuum, Anyone? Mixed Doubles?

Danger  Mouse and Daniele Luppi
from the project, "Rome."

This track is "Black," sung by Norah Jones.
The video meandering and pleasant.
The sound quality surprised me.

Before the initial split and afterward as well...
A certain and pure duality emerged.
Before and after one example,
Black and white the seeming favorite, like Kleenex brand
There is power enough to move it with the mind...
To a continuum, an insight, a whole.

Crows (in some countries), ravens in all ( I think ),
Starlings if one is not picky about saturation levels.

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Architectural Liquid

The rain falls down as avid artisans.
Together they work to build a liquid structure, drop and mortar, drop again.
I hear them through every window and the walls of the house too.
Their dedication rewarded with transient transformation.
Small sea and sky sisters separate no more.

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Atom Whatever Heart It Takes Mother

Seeing it through no matter what
Courage in the face of life
Immediate and enduring generosity
Happy Mother's Day.

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Northern Whale - Riding on an Island's Back

Let England Shake by Pj Harvey Listen on Posterous

Two songs referencing England that take my mind wandering.
I confess to being a long-standing Anglophile.
The nation and its history evoke for me compassion and sympathy first...
Before the balancing side of the coin pops up to say, "Me too."
And it comes back around to melancholy, so I get these songs that could
be about a place called Laraby instead.

Two videos, one studio/static with production values different to the live version with more concurrent emotion, seemingly.
An opinion I feel it necessary to share this morning.
Silly putty. What a concept.

Another wave crashed over you
It put you in a spell
On a cold place you know well

It pulls you further out to sea
Under the lights at Tilbury
I still love your melody

In a tied end town
Everyone hallucinating on you
But a northern whale wouldn't leave you
Until all England's tears are done
And the day comes, we move on endlessly

They only hear you in a dream
Lying by a sad machine
Sing on, love your melody

In a tied end town
Everyone hallucinating with you
But a northern whale wouldn't leave you
Until all our tears are done
And the day comes, we move on endlessly

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Hope Springs Eternal; Happiness to You and Yours

Happy Spring Holidays to celebrants worldwide...
3:35am Easter morning...
...it's Passover as well; other holidays to discover from the richness of humanity.

In the Northern Hemisphere, warmth returns to the sun and earth.

Like the daily rising of our home star, marking new beginnings is long-standing worldwide as important symbolic sign posts toward eternal renewal.

Enjoy each moment, each beginning.
Peace.

Spring in some of our myriad traditions

Basanth
In Pakistan, boys celebrate the first day of spring in the Muslim calendar with exciting kite-fighting contests. After putting powdered glass on their strings, they use the strings to try to cut off each other's kites. Whoever keeps his kite the longest wins.

Holi
For this Hindu spring festival, people dress in green. Children then squirt each other with water pistols filled with yellow- or red-colored liquid. They also blow colored powder on each other through bamboo pipes. Everyone gets soaked — and colorful — to celebrate spring.

Songkran
In Thailand, a special three-day water festival on April 13-15 marks Songkran, the Buddhists' celebration of the new year. Parades feature huge statues of Buddha that spray water on passersby. In small villages, young people throw water at each other for fun. People also release fish into rivers as an act of kindness.

Aboakyere
The Effutu people of Ghana make a special offer to the god Panche Otu each spring with the deer-hunting festival. Two teams of men and boys, dressed in bright costumes, compete to be the first to bring back a live deer to present to the chief. Then they all dance together.

Easter
On Easter, Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. People attend church and also enjoy different Easter customs. In Germany, people make "egg trees" that are decorated like Christmas trees. In Hungary, boys sprinkle girls with perfumed water — and in return, girls prepare a holiday dinner for them.

Passover
The highlight of this major Jewish holiday is the Passover seder. During these two special dinners, families read from a book called the Haggadah about the ancient Israelites' exodus, or flight, from Egypt more than 3,000 years ago. As they honor their ancestors, Jews reaffirm the importance of freedom.

May Day
To celebrate the return of spring, children in England dance around tall poles decorated with ribbons, called maypoles. Their dancing wraps the ribbons tightly around the pole.
 
<from http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3211>

Nature Springs by The Good, The Bad & The Queen Listen on Posterous

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A Poem for Earth Day 2011

Kiss the Earth
By Thich Nhat Hanh

Walk and touch peace every moment.
Walk and touch happiness every moment.
Each step brings a fresh breeze.
Each step makes a flower bloom.
Kiss the Earth with your feet.
Bring the Earth your love and happiness.
The Earth will be safe
when we feel safe in ourselves.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/thich-nhat-hanh-kiss-the-earth-poem.html#ixzz1KJoUBXe7

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Light the Earth Night

Lantern leads with light
Into night's uncharted sight
Aid til all is right...

Again

Safe journey along
On Earth Day's inspiration:
Continuing hope.

One day.
Only!
Take heed.
Make use.
Decide when it ends... yourself.

Does twenty-four hours sum it up: the work; the joy.
It's all there to decide.

Dark out now, so grab the lantern.
Won't you?

Lantern by The Brian Jonestown Massacre Listen on Posterous

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