for respect

does art distract from nature?

日

and by art i mean the artistic pursuit, which seems to contain acts of:

framing,
capturing,
preserving,
and emulating

;

in these the beauty of nature ( what is sensed ) is often praised and illuminated.

日

however, i feel it necessary to disclaim, to myself if to no one else, that i believe:

nature ( here meaning what lies outside of ourselves ) - all that we have been given to see, taste, touch, smell, hear, and imagine - is already "perfect"* in its raw form,

and to pursue one of the acts mentioned above out of the inspiration nature so freely gives is and can only ever be secondary, lesser - by any conceivable fraction and still lesser - than the rawness of that which has already been well underway in the fulfillment of cyclical existence long before and outside of us.

* i believe it is a profane act to insist that anything we ( humans ) might add to what was here before us, that signifying what created us and all that we see, could ever improve its intrinsic value or quality. perhaps even to attribute a word to what it is is in and of itself a defilement. as long as we understand the frailty of human speech in the giant macrocosmic picture...

i'm not entirely sure why i sound almost religious about this, but for some reason these sentiments resonate deep inside me as truth.

日

now, this does not mean to disparage that other wellspring of inspiration and invigorating mystery - that of the human soul which has the ability, unlike any other organism, to frame, capture, preserve, and emulate that which it senses. not only can the human see what surrounds it but he/she/it can attribute meaning, expound upon and link together flickering memories triggered by what is seen. we can create unique abstractions originating deep in the psyche, deep in the well of experience which has grown ever deeper since that first moment of awareness.

what exists of ourselves that remains from past lives, past experiences of life, i cannot say with certainty, nor can i attempt to estimate what percentage of our selves was already colored at our birth by what was experienced before even the blackness which preceded the life we live now.

日

i do not believe humans are lesser, or inferior, than the natural world from which we were born.
clearly we are of it and consist of the same material, undergo the same processes of growth and decay.

all i advocate for, with the utmost intensity,

is a genuine respect.

a reverence.

a sense of wonder and gratitude.

not for a humanoid being, but for the sheer vastness in which we are suspended.

for the systems in place, that have been in place, which produce such intricate work, such intricate hierarchies and manifestations of growth that we have been given - there is no better word that i know of to use here - to imbibe.

日

i suppose a lot of this passion comes from a feeling that many humans wish to separate themselves from the body - the flesh which encases the brain which encases a desire to expand at an exponential rate.

we are delving ever further into the universe of technology, that synthetic promise of unnaturally long life, the synthetic preservation of data and memory.

technology is beautiful as it is the seemingly-infinitely complex manifestation of an ever-advancing brain.

but i cannot let the majesty of the ocean, or the sky, or the mountain ranges, or even the other galaxies, which are so much bigger - in size, at least - than ourselves, become forgotten.

perhaps it is not an inherent human trait to find this life beautiful.

perhaps it is a trait which is being weeded out.

perhaps too many suffer from imposed trivialities and the majority has too little time to experience appreciation.

one can hope that we won't be swallowed up by the neverendingly abysmal prison of our greed.

if i indeed have been given a choice, it is to be swallowed up instead by the glorious infinity whence i came.

DON CABALLERO - FOR RESPECT (1993)

i am finally getting into this band after knowing about them and being totally psyched about them based on what i had heard from multiple sources but I WAS FAR TOO LATE, I WAS SO LATE.

i started with the below album, american don, and thought it was one of the greatest things i have ever heard (think of the interplay of musical lines found in steve reich's phase music mixed with the glitter of rothko mixed with the intensity of unwound) - the track "the peter criss jazz" @ 4:43 being a definite highlight.

BUT MY GOD... the above album, their debut, for respect, is EVERYTHING I HAVE EVER WANTED! it is purely instrumental and relatively short. it isn't quite as advanced in form as american don but it is the bare bones of everything one could expect from math rock bordering on the highly experimental. nothing of this is by the books, if there were even any books at this time... i really really like "subdued confections" @ 16:27 and the track "well built road" @ 29:37 is utterly goddamn beautiful.

once again, 1993 produced a gem of a gem of a gem :D

DON CABALLERO - AMERICAN DON (2000) 

日

Ahora

a buscar pájaros!

presence

i have been utterly obsessed with the following song (and the album whence it comes) by massachusetts-based emo/post-hardcore/whatever the fuck band kolya. it's off their only full-length, the self-titled released in 2001~

"horizons"
kolya, 2001



EVERYTHING HAS BECOME WHOLE.

oh man. the riff that begins right at 2:30 is fast becoming one of my most favorites in the whole entire universe of music. especially at 2:40 exactly when the bass starts in again, soaring, simultaneously lifting the track up by miles and sinking it deep into the core of the earth. i keep re-playing this part over and over again. the bass line throughout the entire song - shifting in register from mid-range to octaves lower - is part of the wonder.

what really gets me about the style of this music, this particular brand of sound, is the juxtaposition of disjointedness and rhythmic displacement, mostly tonal/melodic harmonies (characteristic of a lot of emo - it's "emotional" which is what "romanticism" in music is, basically) with desperate lyrics, poetic and philosophical, similar to word painting but more like thought or phrase painting ("perfection is forever all around us, AND NOT MEANT TO BE HUMAN"). or what about "UNCERTAINTY IS NOT TOO EASILY SHAKEN." i mean, his delivery! the words and the mouth which speaks them layered on top of all this volcanic gorgeousity; it utterly thrills me.

i just feel so alive and filled with life energy listening to this, bursting sun and human and sky and language and music energies all intertwined. the entire album is full of such gems like this but for many years now (and not again until quite recently) THIS track, "horizons," has continually left me awestruck. i'm not sure what it is. the skilled and delicate use of harmonics? the sweeping gestures, the vivid colors ("IN THE ORANGE LINE THERE IS NO MOVEMENT")?

the best answer would be: all of it.

月

ever since i was little i loved to stare up at the sky. i would lay in my yard or on the driveway and stare up into space. it didn't matter what time of day it was, but in the evening around sunset the light shining through the clouds would be of an extra lovely gradient of slowly-shifting shades.

even now it's one of my favorite things to do, but when i do it i quickly become almost mesmerized; my thoughts no longer dart around but become still, focused. it's a form of meditation for me that doesn't take a conscious effort to initiate. i am absorbed into the ever-changing tapestry, the shapes and textures which exude softness, delicacy, perfection beyond our control or wildest dreams.

charles bukowski says that the majority of people murder the minutes that they are given by traveling, going to the movies, or whatever - "to fight for each minute is to fight for what's possible inside yourself." i find this inspiring, extraordinarily so (in his later years bukowski seemed to have attained a certain taste of truth which lights my days' way a thousandfold), but it is also one of the most incredible challenges asked of us.

to operate this body with the self inside and to habitually make good use of the gift of life.


月

have you ever found yourself swimming down the stream of someone else's memory?

it seems like some of the most lovely images i can recall are not actually of my own life, but were born of the nostalgia shared with me by others. the story of their childhood, the landscape of their homeland, the long forgotten rituals. stories of the early world, that which dawned and set before the rising of my own. i can almost taste the fruit of that far-off place, smell the wind through the grasses.

perhaps film is one way to preserve the dream, but for the most part it can be only two-dimensional. memories don't seem to abide by the laws of any dimension; they are flashes of light and sense, seemingly disconnected yet in an unbroken stream are bound tighter to the heart with each recall, reflect more of paradise or hell now that they have been lost to time.

 月

there is much more to talk about, but my body begs for sleep.

thoughts~

field recording of summer sounds, like cicadas and storms and frogs

finding pure silence, deep listening to non-synthetic soundscapes

the sky over the ocean at night, that vast dark sea under a vast dark sky and bright, bright moon

oceans and freshwater lakes - seashells and river rocks, their respective symmetry and asymmetry

cave formations

rocks not as beings but as physical manifestations of natural processes, what energies do they contain?

cave drawings, hieroglyphs and symbols that slowly became written language
what the fuck is modernism in visual art? a lot of scribbly, messy lines; thick blocks of color, smudges - reverting to simple outlines of the human figure, large-scale as opposed to fine, accurate detail

bird song, light, and the rising mist on the mountains at dawn

drawing with lead a mountain side (from) (of) memory, gray on white

sunsets that make the entire landscape bright orange, like from a streetlight

recalling and revering the depth of primordial consciousness

universally-interconnected mythologies

poems dedicated to nature

poems speaking to the ancient human

the ancient American human

the ones here before us

all of their stories

月     i've known rivers:
i've known rivers ancient as the world and  older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
...

i've known rivers:
ancient, dusky rivers.

my soul has grown deep like the rivers.

sleepy, golden storm

flecked with glee,

flecked with light

an impersonal passion

crushes this

night

like stars

blocked from our

sight

separately, in

fields take

flight

in this realm of night there is strength. upon this fallow land i pick myself up and after sowing lay me down to sleep.

i do not ask of the universe, "why have you forsaken me?"

what worlds shared, what light discovered (as behind hidden doors opened one by one, some requiring the strength of us two apes, hand over hand) still burns in every corner and in every shivering leaf aloft the branch.

my mind is alight with you, my heart aflame.

your indefinite absence is hardly a death, but, its physicality does leave an intense impression. it ages me, weakens me, creates illusions before me which would breed distrust toward my own heart.
 

I AM THE OCEAN.

I AM THE OCEAN AND YOU ARE THE STORM.

i take heart in the words of a poet. to say ever more clearly until the end what i truly believe is right.

even if it turns out to be wrong.

so each second is spent gaining and gathering. a lot of wandering, too. and resting in, almost sinking back into, this body of mine. there is also much reflection, with a care to avoid becoming stuck in harmful patterns.

like a shepherd guiding the flock. i must provide gentle guidance and never give in to weakness or negativity.

i know there is much to be learned from skimming off the top, as it were, the summary of my past - the paraphrased and abbreviated version of what happened, what could have been done differently, and how to become better.

it's not even a question of which memories remain, which are lost to time -


everything is lost all the time and that is the transitory nature of life, of this tapestry of Creation as you've called it (channeling words from ancestors).

we are sons and daughters. what more can we learn from ourselves?

i dig deep.

and it often feels futile.

ten thousand times a day and then some do i endeavor to find reasons for giving up.

but i haven't yet; not once, not for real, not in totality.

nothing is worth the loss of even the opportunity to lose everything while it is still in your possession.

truth must be made clear in blunt and stark terms as many times as it takes to find a fucking crack in the wall and drown my heart in its rays.

even in burning is the One Truth fragrant, soft, and beautiful.

my latest experimental work:

take care, little one
i know you will thrive  now that you can be sure you

ARE
ALIVE

 

(and always have been)