27.7.17

for respect

does art distract from nature?



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.


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.


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.


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.


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) 





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