Sunday

Yesterday was a perfect day. The only thing that could have made it better was if the sunset was more vibrant (not really an issue). It was a wonderful day!! It must have been the sun, or the rewarding feeling of getting to relax and do exactly what I want after a long week at work.

I work at 8:30 and got my Sunday New York Times. I listened to the Pacific Island music program on WCBN where they played gamelan and the like. Then at 10 I switched the station to WEMU to listen to Dr. Arwulf and the Sunday Best. At the end of the program he made me feel so good by saying, "It's a good day to be alive. Aren't you glad you're in your skin? I'm glad you're alive." I felt so wonderful after that, and after listening to Fats Waller. This whole time I was reading the NYT. I've been keeping my little widdling knife that dad got me for the birthday while I read the paper, and when I see a phrase or picture that I react to, resonates with me, inspires, motivates, validates or I find beautiful I cut it out. Not sure what I'm going to do with it yet. A collage seems in order, or maybe putting them all together as a story would be funny. Suggestions?

Mom and her friend came in and we talked for a little while, and now I am looking into raising peacocks (or other various bird eggs that I can make a profit off of), saffron and cardamom. I think local saffron would be a hit around here.

I started to get tired in the afternoon so I allowed myself the indulgence of a nap. I layed on the couch and turned on TCM where the movie Dear Heart was playing. Great movie! I recommend it!














I tried to read some books but to no avail. I decided to check off another task on my to-do list: ironing. I have so many clothes I've never ironed but have always needed it. I set to it, on the floor in front of the TV where I watched Tammy and the Bachelor. Very interesting movie in the way she spouts about god all the time. It's set in the south. Not many movies at all are set in the south today, so that was interesting. It's just a silly light hearted film about an amazing girl and romance.











Ironing a laundry basket of clothes took about 4 hours! Wow. But it was great. I watched great movies, and the color of the sky change from day to dusk to night. Between dusk and night I took a quick rollerblade around the neighborhood. That was great! I'm excited to do more and use my blades instead of a bike. I didn't even fall last night, though there were some close calls.

Finally, right before bed I did some yoga and that felt great!

Viewing A Person from the Past

Call me morbid, but while watching this video about Victorian Post-Mortem photography a thought occured to me which I have occasionally thought before.

Seeing photos of specific people who were as complex and dynamic as you or your best friend are today, but who died over 100 years ago, just makes me think about them and their lives.

I can look at a picture and see a person, but to really know and understand that they are a complex human being is a whole other concept, particularly if they are from another and completely separate time period from us today.

Even more, it is difficult to imagine a still image of a person as dynamic and contradictory as you or me, but especially a person who lived so long ago.

I mean, if you see a photo of a person from within the last 50 years, you'll recognize them as being similar to you (at least in what they are wearing), but if you see a picture of someone in a context that you cannot use your own experience and social knowledge to process what you see, then they are even less of a real person because now they are an anonymous face; a historical object which we can use to understand the time, and it is that much harder to derive any understanding of the person.

In fact, the fact that this person was once a real person doing the same thing that I am doing now is very incredible. That that time was all they knew, and this time is all I know, is equally as mind blowing. And that I now know them, but they will never know I caught a glimpse of them. Yet in the present times, when we see a picture from the past, we tend not to see the person in the photo anyway.


















Anyway,
I didn't intend to meditate on that when I found the video, what I was looking for was tips on how in the world I can dress up like Victorian.

Cruising

This week is the first really nice week since winter came. It's been between 30-60s during the day, rather than between 0-30. It was like a switch was flipped, and suddenly the sun moved in closer to Michigan, and so the birds started chattering and chirping and Spring began.

Well my mind is on fire with books I want to read, and things I want to learn about, and hands-on creations I would like to make. I've been on Youtube recently, and there are some videos I'd love to sit down and watch, but for some reason, I feel like watching videos online is a waste of time so it's hard for me to sit down in front of my computer and do that. I think it is just that I don't like to stare into screens for long periods of time. I feel like it is better to be involved in the 3-D world that I can touch.

Right after I got home from work today and was settling down for a day of doing some of the things aformentioned, my friend Sophia called me to whisk her away from the bustling streets of downtown Ann Arbor so we could perhaps get our hair braided (just about 10 braids, scattered about). My mom really wanted the car washed and vacuumed today, so I got Sophia, and we veered off down a major avenue in Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti called Packard, into Ypsi. Ypsilanti is the forgotten brother of Ann Arbor, in a sense. It's got it's own thing going on, with less ego, but they're similar places because the both have universities, and nice downtowns with lots going on. Ypsi is just less yuppy. They also have lots of hair braiding salons. Did you know that this hair style comes from Africa?

We strolled down Michigan Ave., a main street in Ypsi with lots of cute and practical little shops. This street is also known as US Route 12 does not just take you across lower Michigan, but across the whole northern US! Wikipedia link  One day, maybe even soon, I hope to travel the whole highway. That would be incredible. No one thinks of these states or this route too much. The northern US isn't too popular as a whole; not like Route 66 or I-75 which takes you through the Southern states to Florida; nor is it popular like coastal highway routes through New England. It's not even as well known as the well traveled Grand River Avenue (which also runs across Michigan)! At least it's not as well known to me. And I think it is because no one really cares to venture cross all the cold, desolate states of the north, and it's not as glamorous as California.

Notes from On Being 3/13/11

http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2011/asteroids/

astronomy is based on a human hunger, or need, to know whats out there.

the universe has existed for one year, humans for two minutes and science for one second.

http://www.howellnaturecenter.org/challengeprograms/challengeprograms.htm

christianity does not begin with faith but with experience...
Science does not begin with logic but with intuition... you have  to take a leap and see where it leads you. it may or may not be right


faith is love. its not there once and for all like a rock for support

the opposite of faith is certainty, you dont need faith if you know for sure

Musicking Like it's My Job

Lately, I have been trying to listen to more music and less NPR/talk radio. I am under the impression that music is something that a person needs, just like sleep and water. Or maybe the way people need music is more like the way they need exercise. It's important, but it does not seem essential, until you realize how good it makes you feel.

The question here, though, is: is musicking (music is a verb, it's never a static noun when we talk about it) more important than being informed? I guess the easy answer is that, though music does not pinpoint each day with new headlines and highlights, it is still informative. Music acts as a filter through which we interpret our life, the day to day world that a person inhabits.

So you won't know the answer to the news quiz, but you will feel better everyday you music. Music makes us feel important, because it provides 1. something to identify with 2. if we identify with it, is is also a form of self-expression, when you express yourself, you assert your individuality, when you assert your individuality, you express the fact that you are alive, you are here, you are important. Yes! I think that makes sense.

How important is being informed of current events as compared to other forms of creative expression? Is music essential for humans?

Interestingly, I am not listening to music right now, though I keep thinking to turn the radio on (oldies 104.3 please!). The problem is that I can't focus on music and writing at the same time unless it is purely creative, then I can meld the two.

There is a big push from people these days to keep music education in schools and emphasize it's importance for youngsters. Why does it really matter though??

It's important, no doubt, as a cultural institution that risks being left to only the ambitious or privileged kids. But it's an aspect of life that deserves to be explored by everyone (which will be harder to maintain as children become busier with math and science) so they have the traditional knowledge.

By traditional, I mean that people have been playing music and making it part of their regular life for centuries, and training, before formal schooling was a part of life, was learned from other folks. In this way, music in schools is essential because it is part of our heritage, it is a folk knowledge. If we lose that, we may lose part of our traditional cultural identity, and our history. On the other hand, though music seems formalized, go to Indonesia and then see that their formal knowledge of music is totally different, because it comes from a different lineage of folks!


Check out this video: Gamelan Ensemble on Youtube it will blow your mind! It's traditional Indonesian court music, originating in ancient times. It's so extraordinary! I love this stuff. It taps into just the right spots in my brain. When I hear this stuff it's like a finger pushing a button on the tense spots in my head, and all the stress and tension just melts away.

But then part of me stays tense, and thinks, is it weird that I like this stuff so much? Why do I like these sounds when they are so different from "normal" Western music? I think it is the fact that it is different, enlightening, and the bells! Perhaps gamelan music helps me to pull up a part of my identity that I don't see much when I listen to familiar music...

Here is a book by Judith Becker, an anthropologist at the University of Michigan, about the gamelan music and the meaning of it in Indonesian's lives. I had to read a section of this book for a class called the Anthropology of Music, and it blew my mind. She gets into some really interesting stuff about about consciousness. I'm starting to feel dizzy just thinking about it! Wow.

Here, through Google Books, you can actually look through the book! Just read the beginning of the introduction, and you'll see what I'm talking about.

So, clearly, music is part of the human experience, otherwise it wouldn't be such a big industry, and people would not have created it in just about every society, if not every society. There is a lot to say about music too, that's why so many people are scholars of it.

For me, I make a point to music like it's my job because if I don't, I believe that I will become rigid, or closed off from a part of me that can exist, and add to my overall well being.

It doesn't make sense to me that kids listen to music all the time, and are excited about it, and then as we grow older and busier, that passion for tone,s and identification and validation through lyrics slips under the rug. That don't make no sense! We must just be too busy. Our priorities become practical rather than explorative. We are no longer bright eyed and bushy tailed, we know everything we need to know (not). We simply become set in our ways, we know who we are and what we need to know, and if we don't then we ignore that facet of our complex beings.

I was listening to Wire Tap with Jonathan Goldstein a couple of weeks ago. That is a crazy funny program on NPR that comes from Canada. One of the skits was about Jonathan's friend who was telling him about how he took very early retirement, from being unemployed. Very funny stuff. But he said, "there's a lot to be said about the lost art of looking out the window." That resonated with me because now I feel like I'm not the only one thinking it! I feel like music fits in this area of life. We've forgotten why it was every important.

                                           "Schmelvis: In Search of Elvis Presley's Jewish Roots" by Jonathan Goldstein and Max Wallace

Personally, I feel compelled to stay busy and productive, particularly because I am unemployed (partially), and I feel guilty that mom goes off to work every day and I get to stay home and relax. That's not fair, and so I feel less guilty about not pulling my weight in society by keeping myself busy and trying to stay productive. I wonder though, is that necessary? If productivity means to better oneself, and progress, maybe it is not the same thing as staying busy. Productivity does not equal busy-ness. I can further myself by ruminating, meditating, so I can cultivate my self rather than my external product. Music fits in here.

Is this too spiritual? Music fits into other practical aspects of life too! I swear, but it comes down to this deep stuff, I believe.

Music loosens us up, it gives us sounds to live our life by, it puts us in the mood, it pumps us up! It makes a gloomy day sunny (or a sunny day gloomy, if that's what you're into), but usually only if you're feeling the rhythm.

What can be said about the feeling a person gets when they hear music they don't identify with? The kind of music that you just really want turned off? I used to feel that way in Mr. Pawlowski's algebra class in 12th grade. During our math tests, he would turn on his stereo and play the smooth jazz radio station. haha! I hated that, but then I started to like it... I feel the rhythm.

This shows that music can make us tense, and that it adds to our life only if we identify with it. Music we identify with is a form of self expression, and in order to get the most out of life and to feel like individuals; simply to feel important, music allows us to satisfy that basic need. Dig it!

I've just remembered that DJ Spooky has had stuff to say about what music is and it's importance. Neat!


Now I just want to finish real quick with some reasons why kids (those who haven't lost the way) think music is important:

“I think music is important because music is a way that people can express themselves and if people couldn’t express themselves there would be a lot more violence in the world.” – A. S.

“Music, without it there would be silence, less joy, and darker times.” – B. S.

 “Music puts the life and excitement into the world.  Music is a part of my everyday life, from the radio in the morning to chorus and band class at school.  Without music, I wouldn’t be who I am today. – S. P. 

“I play a lot of video games, so I hear a lot of music with it.  I may not notice, but the music provides more depth to the situation.” – M. M.

 “Music is important to my life because it makes dancing and singing a lot easier.  It also makes life interesting and hardcore!” – E. C.

 “Music is important to people’s lives because it makes things better when things aren’t going right in the world.” – T. M. 

 “Music isn’t important in my life, it IS my life.  From flute, to piano, to guitar, it pretty much controls my life.  In the case of the world, it unites it with happiness and continues and tells histories of civilization.” – S. P. 

“Music is important in my life because music has cool beats, and music is fun and keeps me happy.” – R. M.

 “Music is so much a part of my life that I don’t know what I would do if there was none.  The world is greatly changed by music.  People don’t notice, but music changes people’s moods, feelings, and even their actions.” – M. H. 

“Music is very important in my life because I worship God when I play at church, and because it takes me away from doing stuff that is bad.” – K. B.

 “Without music, there would be nothing to do.  There wouldn’t be video games, TV shows, or concerts to go to.” – M. P. 

“When I am feeling bad, it helps me not feel bad.  Music is important in life because you need it for your national anthem.” – A. V.

http://www.aasd.k12.wi.us/madison/Music/Band/important.html