Month: November 2005

Yesterday I utterly gorged myself, in that fine American tradition of sloth, gluttony, and retiring to the couch to watch TV (though I don’t actually have a TV, and I had to go to work afterwards). Very interesting what we hold dear, and how we as a culture choose to “give thanks.”

And today, 1% of America was in Wal-Mart between 5 and 6am EST. 2 freakin million people went shopping at Wal Mart, looking for holiday giftage. Another holiday that is celebrated by increasing one’s consumption.

I think I could easily turn these observations into yet another rant. But for now I’ll just keep them as observations.

…with no ill-effects. It sounds great, even with the factory speakers. I was pleasantly surprised. And let me state just for the record… MP3 disc capability rules. Since I don’t have an iPodish device, this is really my first exposure to storing a tremendous amount of audio data in a small place; I can fit 6-8 albums onto a standard CDR.

Whee!

I had my first guitar lesson in the fall of 1981. I had just transferred out of Catholic school into our public school system, when I entered 7th grade. That jump — from parochial school with a small number and wide variety of students to the huge, intimidating Junior High School building with hundreds of students within a year of my age — was one of the most significant developments of my life for many reasons, not the least of which was that I was first exposed to guitar instruction in the standard music classes there.

I remember the first time we played guitar. The first thing we were shown was a simple, three-string, one finger voicing for an open C and G7 chord. While other students were struggling to finger the notes, it was almost effortless for me. I clearly had a natural aptitude for the instrument, and since then it has been a lifelong love for me.

I went on to play electric guitar, and explored a wide variety of techniques and sounds, mostly through modifying the sound electronically. I eventually acquired a state of the art guitar amplification rig, that I have since traded in on other gear. Finally, several years ago, I switched to being a primarily acoustic guitarist, where I have stayed comfortably since Freakwitch got started.

I don’t want to say that I’ve gotten bored with guitar. That’s not really right. But I don’t really feel challenged in the way that I used to. Really, for me, it’s a matter of spending enough time with the instrument to regain/maintain my “chops,” my ability to physically execute the maneuvers that I need to do to get the sounds in my head. But I haven’t really felt as if I’ve been pushing myself in new directions for a long time. Don’t get me wrong, I still love playing guitar, I just feel as if I’m in somewhat of a rut in terms of pushing myself.

I’ve suspected for a long time that a new instrument might challenge me again in the way I’ve been missing. For a long time I thought it might be keyboards/synthesizers. I’ve had a few keyboards over the years, and they are fun to play, especially nowadays with all the software synthesizers available. And musically speaking, with my “producer hat” on, I see these more as ways to fill out the sound of recordings, rather than as a primary instrument for me.

But finally, I have heard the call of a new instrument, a call I haven’t heard in a very long time.

The instrument is somewhat obscure to the mainstream audience, but somewhat legendary in progressive rock circles: it is the Chapman Stick. It’s hard to describe in a way: it is a stringed instrument in the guitar family, but the base model has 10 strings (something like the 4 strings of the bass with the 6 strings of the guitar), oriented slightly differently to allow 2-handed tapping directly on the fingerboard.

Consider me officially intrigued. Anyone wanna spend $2000 to get me one of these?
:-D

I’m discovering the joys of RSS. For the uninitiated:

RSS is a format for syndicating news and the content of news-like sites, including major news sites like Wired, news-oriented community sites like Slashdot, and personal weblogs. But it’s not just for news. Pretty much anything that can be broken down into discrete items can be syndicated via RSS: the “recent changes” page of a wiki, a changelog of CVS checkins, even the revision history of a book. Once information about each item is in RSS format, an RSS-aware program can check the feed for changes and react to the changes in an appropriate way.

Thus, I can read all of the sites that update regularly from one simple interface. It’s simpler than the browser, because my RSS Aggregator (aKregator is part of the KDE environment) collects recent entries from all the disparate sites I would normally go to, and puts them all in one place like an email program would.

This program docks into the KDE panel, and a small number appears on the icon when I have unread items. Very cool.

This site has an RSS feed (technically it’s an atom feed) available. And I’ve already imported many of my friends blogs.

I just ordered a new in-dash CD Player for our car. I’m wicked excited about it. This unit also plays MP3s that have been burned to CD, so that’s cool. Car audio has come a long way.

My first job out of high school in the late 80s was as a car audio installer (also alarms, cellphones, etc). I got into doing high-end car installations back then; much to my chagrin, most of my clients wanted me to make their cars into giant bass cabinets that could be heard booming from blocks away. Very few people were actually interested in what I was interested in, which was clean, accurate, detailed sound in the car. It’s an elusive goal given the acoustic challenges of an automobile (small space, lots of reflective surfaces, road noise, etc). But it can certainly be done; there are a lot of cars out there with superior audio systems.

So I’ll get to install this unit when it arrives later this week. Very cool! CDs in the car again, right on!

As I get into better shape via
the
various
exercises
I’ve
been
doing over the past several months, I feel more and more called to do yoga. I’ve hesitated, as I don’t want to develop any “bad habits” as my body gets smaller and stronger. I thought I’d wait a while until my body stabilizes a bit. But I think it’s getting closer to time.

I’ll have to figure out if I can afford actual classes (or work out some sort of bartering arrangement), but in the meantime there are quite a few online yoga resources, not to mention the fact that my wife and one of my best friends have been taking yoga together for years. They take Kripalu yoga, which looks quite appealing to me.

I’ve spent part of today watching The Fourth World War with my daughter. This is a very important film, much closer to global reality than something like Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 because it doesn’t get hung up on American oversimplifications (ie, “It’s all Bush’s fault”) and paints a true picture of what’s really happening on the global scene.

My daughter and I were continually struck by the contrast one would see over and over throughout the world: whenever there was a conflict between The People and The Government, The Government enforcers (ie, the police and the soldiers) were there with armor, with guns, with helmets, with shields, with tear gas, with clubs, and with stern, unsmiling faces; while The People were there with signs, with dancing, with costumes, with drums, with guitars, with singing, and with smiles on their faces.

My wife and I have had a disagreement on many occasions about my feelings regarding the police. I don’t like them, and I don’t trust them, and I’ve said so many times to my daughter and my wife. But today, after seeing this film, I was able to explain that it’s not the People who are police officers that I have trouble with, rather it’s the position of police officer that I have trouble with. The problem is structural, not personal. And while in America things are generally docile enough among the sheeple that one can usually trust a police officer, this trust must necessarily go out the window once one expresses dissent toward the government.

It was nice to be able to explain that to my daughter. In a peaceful situation, if she is in trouble, she definitely should go to a police officer if she has no one else to turn to. However, as soon as she places herself in opposition to the government (ie, at a peace rally or demonstration), she in general should not expect a police officer to be helpful.

But yes, this film triggered much fruitful thought. I highly recommend that people see the film, or better yet, support the filmmakers and order a copy.

“Secession is one of the most politically charged words in America, thanks to Abraham Lincoln. Secession really combines a radical act of rebellion grounded in fear and anger with a positive vision for the future.

“It represents an act of faith that the new will be better than the old. The decision to secede necessarily involves a very personal, painful four-step decision process. It first involves denunciation that the United States has lost its moral authority and is unsustainable, ungovernable and unfixable. Second, there is disengagement or admitting ‘I don’t want to go down with the Titanic. Third, there is demystification that secession really is a viable option constitutionally, politically and economically. And finally, defiance, saying ‘I personally want to help take Vermont back from big business, big markets and big government and I want to do so peacefully.'”

Yes, it’s true. A historic independence convention was held at the Vermont State Capitol building in Montpelier, where the resolution is simple and straightforward:

Be it resolved that the state of Vermont peacefully and democratically free itself from the United States of America and return to its natural status as an independent republic as it was between January 15, 1777 and March 4, 1791.

I think this is fascinating. Of course, no one is giving them a snowball’s chance in hell, but it’s interesting nonetheless… I wish them luck. Maybe they’ll take Maine with them….

Things in my reality are going quite well lately. We mourned our dead and celebrated our ancestors over the weekend. It was very good for us (meaning my wife and I) on a symbolic level; it triggered a really good release that was timely. I found myself thinking quite a bit of my maternal grandfather. I never met him; he died when my mother was 12. But in many ways, what he represents in terms of spirituality has been resonating with me; he was a Mason, representing a spiritual and metaphysical departure from the Catholicism of my family, and I owe my Norse heritage to him. It almost feels as if he has somehow been speaking to me these past few weeks. My grandfather had a Masonic ring given to him by my grandmother (who I knew well, she just died a few years ago), and recently my mother passed his old Masonic ring down to me. Funny how the ring fits perfectly on my right ring finger.

Indeed, my fascination with the Norse Old Ones continues; my happy local booksellers (consider this an official plug — cheaper and better mailorder service than amazon) supplied me with both the (Elder) Poetic Edda and the (Younger) Prose Edda for study. I’ve been reading several other texts on the matter; the thing about the Norse mythos is that pretty much any summary is going to be summarizing the Edda, which is The Original Text that nearly all our knowledge of Norse mythology comes from. It is certainly the earliest known reference to the stories of Odin and his clan. So the scholar in me will always prefer to go back to the original, primary texts; the fact that the Edda was written in relatively simple, plain language, with a good translation, make it a pleasure to read.

My exercise/diet regimen is continuing well; I’m noticeably smaller and fitter than I’ve ever been as an adult. Though last week I slacked a bit as I wasn’t feeling great, this week should see a return to my normal regimen, with new vigor since I picked up a 16 pound sledgehammer 2 weeks ago (I’d been using a 10 pounder with a 3 pound ankle weight wrapped around it). I’m working now, and quite tired from the weekend, but once I rest up tonight I expect to get back to my exercise regimen with a bit more vigor. I really enjoy hammering, the fact that it has spiritual resonance for me is only a bonus.

I’ve made a few more tweaks to this site. IE seems to still be quite unstable with how it renders this site, it still crashes occasionally, mostly when I scroll over the title of this site at the top. Also, the color of the text in the title is not quite right. I may mess with it some more today to try to fix that error. But then again, why should I go out of my way to adapt to a broken browser?

The background image for the quotes still does not render correctly, this is probably because it is a transparent .png image, and if I remember correctly IE doesn’t render those correctly. Stupid.