Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Breath and Passion (Green and Red)

She's got a new CD out meeting mixed reviews, but I thought I'd pull out some of her finest:

Rusted brandy in a diamond glass
everything is made from dreams
time is made from honey slow and sweet
only the fools know what it means
temptation, temptation, temptation
oh, temptation, temptation, I can't resist
I know that she is made of smoke
but I've lost my way
she knows that I am broke
so that I must play
temptation, temptation, temptation
oh, whoa, temptation, temptation, I can't resist
Dutch pink and Italian blue
she is waiting there for you
my will has disappeared
now my confusions oh so clear
temptation, temptation, temptation
whoa, whoa, temptation, temptation
I can't resist


[music & lyrics by Tom Waits, of course]

Monday, March 30, 2009

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Tu Propio Estampa (Red)

Flamenco guitar history and demonstration by Juan Martin:

Saturday, March 28, 2009

"Sneak Some Broccoli Under Dessert"

(So are you Deeply Committed, Trendy, or Practical? Yahoo should do a quiz! People love quizzes...)

At the GreenNet Conference held this week, MicroSoft's Chief Environmental Strategist scored a chic speak coup, managing to incorporate two of the hottest buzzwords of the day "sustainability" and "embedded" into his message for the conference. Cynicism about marketing-as-propaganda aside (thank you, George Orwell, seriously), the audio in the link is worth a listen.

Friday, March 27, 2009

How to Grow Your Own Fresh Air (Red)

This is red, because it's your own fresh air:

There's a book, too, but not by the same guy.

The music today is not (quite) random, we're following the artist and the color:

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Blues

Remember, blue is about flexibility and adaptation. I apologize for not including music tracks yesterday. I've updated yesterday's post with a link to a yellow song, and here's a blue song by the same artist.

"You can fix all the world's problems in a garden."

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Friday, March 20, 2009

Aranjuez

Aranjuez:

The orchestra with John Williams was better, IMO, but Paco de Lucia's ornamentation outshines the rest until it cuts off. (argh!) So here's John Williams' because it's complete:

Happy First Day of Spring!

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Irish Reeling

Story:

Song:

Dance:


Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Random Fun in Black & White


And Red (Fire):

And Blue (Water):

And Yellow (Earth):

And Green (Wind):

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Shoulder to the Wheel

[graphic swiped from this blog]

The wheel is the symbol of the Noble Eightfold Path: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration. Like spokes on a wheel, each of the "Rights" supports movement, in this case toward the ultimate goal of enlightenment, or in the Mahayana traditions, enlightenment for all [sentient] beings. (Personally, I tend to leave out the "sentient" part, but it's not really correct to leave it out, so I sort-of included it.)

If you followed the Noble Eightfold Path link, you would find a mostly not-too-bad article about the subject, with a jarring and bizarre snippet at the end about cognitive psychology, as if that had anything to do with it. Who is Gay Watson and why on Earth should we care what he/she/it thinks about the intersection of Buddhism and cognitive psychology? There's no link to Gay Watson -- because there's no Wiki page or author's web-site or anything to link to (except Amazon, as above, which would violate Wikipedia's rules). There is also no link to Wikipedia's cognitive psychology page, which of course does not mention Buddhism at all, but which does have a fairly extensive list of "influential cognitive psychologists" that Gay Watson is not on. There is also no link to the Wikipedia page on Buddhism, which not only does not mention Gay Watson, but also does not mention cognitive psychology, not surprisingly, since they are not related. There has been some discussion about this oddity of the Noble Eightfold Path wikipage on the Talk:Noble_Eightfold_Path page that has yet to result in removal of the offending blurb about what some obscure psychotherapist/author (it turns out she's female) thinks of the usefulness of Buddhist ideas in cognitive psychology.

I love Wikipedia, so I mean this in the nicest way possible, but it's a timesink I don't want to get sucked into. I'm sure as heck not an appropriate person to be officiating about Buddhism, but c'mon, this is common sense. What's a leamur to do?

Friday, March 13, 2009

Freedom

Grass-mud horses vs river crabs [warning: this video translates the song!]:


I think the cartoon version gives a better sense of taunting (no English, though):

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Swing?

From one of my fav shows, So you think you can dance?, this is West Coast Swing from season 3:

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

An Object to Crave


Oh, yeah, and:

I guess you know where my head's at today. Yeesh.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Space Music

White again, a bit more positively than last week. Think expansiveness, pervading, supporting.
[photo from National Geographic]

Vajrayana and Aum Shinrikyo from Bass Communion. These made me think of Lawrence, who I worked with for a little while, it was just a part-time thing for him, bringing home some yellow for the wife and kids. He was/is a poet, but I couldn't find any of his poetry on the web. IIRC, it was kind of trippy/spacey, like the music he liked. Like this music. Lawrence, I thought of you today, and I wish you well always.

Here's some good space to look at that's more down-to-earth:[From The Tibetan Photo Project]

Thursday, March 5, 2009

(un)Wellness



Compare and contrast with:
Me if I could afford beer (except it would be Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, nice and hoppy, not Bud Light).

Monday, March 2, 2009

Enough is Enough

[image swiped from here]

So this cheery press release for a book was published in a genetic engineering news site (huh?) and allegedly presents epidemiologic data that inequality is harmful to society. There's a website dedicated to this idea, too. Equality is not an unambiguous ideal.

The same Pope (Paul VI) who said "If you want peace, work for justice" also said:
All life demands struggle. Those who have everything given to them become lazy, selfish, and insensitive to the real values of life. The very striving and hard work that we so constantly try to avoid is the major building block in the person we are today.

This assessment hits very close to home for me and for many people, I think, as the world economy implodes. Many people who have always had things handed to them will continue to have things handed to them, although perhaps from fewer sources, but many others will learn or die, and others still will not have any chance to learn, their hard work will just not be enough. Of course my all-time favorite quote about equality is from Animal Farm: "ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS". The rejoinder, from another famous book, would have to be "So it goes."

It doesn't have to go that way. Some very fortunate people use their gifts to help. We don't have to hoard more toys than we can play with, like the kitty above. (Remember the '80's buttons "The one who dies with the most toys wins"?) We can be mindful that enough is enough. That mindfulness can bring equality out of concerted equanimity. A worldwide economic disaster could be the reset button for global culture.