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Eye Weekly lists the Hymn as

mrG — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 01:08:28 -0500

Eye Weekly lists the Hymn as one of the 'best' concerts of 2008, albeit in a list that seems to list all the concerts of 2008 and is it really impartial journalism to include a concert in that list when the reviewer himself was part of the show? Nonetheless, given the total net-snub this great show received, I suppose The Music Gallery is within their rights to take any compliment they can

SUN RA ARKESTRA @ X AVANT
Oct. 21, Palais Royale
A collaboration between the Arkestra and Toronto's Coleman Lemieux dance company, "Hymn to the Universe" brought avant-garde music into the upscale Palais Royale. Fittingly, the result was a night of unreality, where suited ushers (including myself) mingled with lifers wearing Rivendell caps, Arkestra members in radiant cosmic-priest vestments and dancers wearing little of anything. The multi-generational band swung expertly and with immense levels of energy; on the more experimental pieces from their 50-year back catalogue, they lived up to their late, visionary namesake. By the end, hoofers, players and the audience all danced together in the room's centre, as that refrain came again and again: "space is the place." We were no longer somewhere here. CHRIS RANDLE
[ The Best Live Music of 2008 - EYE WEEKLY ]

C'mon and get happy - yet

mrG — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 18:18:00 -0500

C'mon and get happy - yet another cognitive chicken and egg problem elegantly solved by a simple cultural ritual

Knowing someone who is happy makes you 15.3% more likely to be happy yourself, the study found. A happy friend of a friend increases your odds of happiness by 9.8%, and even your neighbor's sister's friend can give you a 5.6% boost.

"Your emotional state depends not just on actions and choices that you make, but also on actions and choices of other people, many of which you don't even know,"
[ Happiness is contagious ]

Thank goodness I found this

a stranger — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 05:33:11 -0500

Thank goodness I found this - you just saved my marble mouse from the bin!

3 minutes with a screwdriver and screenwipe and it's as good as new. Clicky-clicky.

A Practical Magick Primer,

mrG — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 13:34:00 -0500

A Practical Magick Primer, it occurs to me there's more to this oxytocin trust reflex than meets the eye; deep, deep repercussions appearing everywhere, and especially on that most sensitive of all human topics:

"That, Lord, is why you willed that the Son at your right hand, the man whom you made strong for yourself, should be called Jesus, that is to say, Saviour, for he will save his people from their sins, and there is no other in whom there is salvation. He taught us to love him by first loving us, even to death on the cross. By loving us and holding us so dear, he stirred us to love him who had first loved us to the end."
[ He Loved us First: Advent Reading by William of Saint-Thierry ]

This technique is a rampant motif, and herein the socio-evolutionary purpose and essential value. Psychiatry transference, Tony Robbins Power Within, fraternity oaths; religion solves a delicate Chicken and Egg problem in that a human community union is a mind/body reflex that needs an opening gambit before it begins. The catalyst promise, the vital ingredient for individual compliance and thereby societal cohesion, "Because He loved us first" just requires credible prerequisite proof, some token pre-assurance of His 'trust' -- perhaps even if only a sealed envelope stuffed with worthless magazine clippings.

"I have drugged my people"

Oh this is a choice piece of shamanic code, this one is. Its no wonder Richard Bandler and Aliester Crowley both went mad: the 'kill' was just too juicy to resist ....

Meanwhile, back at the Trust

mrG — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 23:52:38 -0500

Meanwhile, back at the Trust thread, yet another facet of the role of Oxytocin and the notion of Who's Yer Daddy to follow on, it seems it gets a little worse for that original feel-good post back on the KM site: inducing the neuro-sense of trust is as simple as the con feigning trust of their mark, reeling in the fish by way of a dear friend they cutely call THOMAS

The neurochemical system at play in the con is, as Zak explains, the The Human Oxytocin Mediated Attachment System (THOMAS). THOMAS is a powerful brain circuit that releases the neurochemical oxytocin when we are trusted and induces a desire to reciprocate the trust we have been shown -- even with strangers.

When THOMAS is engaged by someone who displays trust, we become more vulnerable to the devices of the unscrupulous. The prefrontal cortex, home of our deliberative, and hence more vigilant faculties, takes a back seat while THOMAS flirts with disaster. The flip side of this, of course, is that if THOMAS was never engaged, we'd never empathize with anyone or be able to build relationships. Zak's research suggests that about 2% of those we encounter in trust scenarios are, using the clinical term of art -- 'bastards'.

[ The Psychology of Grifting ]

So we're only to beware of trusting the genetic mutant sociopaths? Well, no, not quite. As those who've been on sales motivation courses might suspect and as the following video cleverly illustrates, there is an automatic brain-juice high awaiting the executor of the 'kill', and repeated doses of that built-in perk itself can be the step up into a life of predation for just about anybody willing to undergo the conditioning to get there ...

Keep in mind for a moment that nearly last image, the face on the pidgeon when, after the con is done and exposed, he's just been told he can keep the envelope. Man oh man, he is happy happy happy and still believing in things too good to be true, he's a pal of these guys, even after all that's just happened to him; he's got Treasure and he's just been told it is his to keep. w00t w00t!

Next time you see someone being sold on snake oil and you wonder how it's done, you'll know.

Thanks for that invite --

mrG — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:04:14 -0500

Thanks for that invite -- although I'm not precisely sure how to follow a private blog (Google won't read the private RSS) but I'm in and I'm sure the content will be enough to condition me into rechecking the pages :)

As for why people put you through such trials over on BC, well I guess that's what this blog is mostly about, about the way most folks live inside a partially self-made virtual reality that leaves them living in one (outer) world while experiencing another very different (inner) world, at the best of times wandering around peering out with coke-bottle eyeglasses strapped to their heads, and not knowing the lenses are even there ... it's a wonder humans function at all, really :)

But take heart, there is an indisputable dawning awareness, as Sun Ra said, "The Planet Earth Awakening" and that's in part what the above show about Teilhard and his Noosphere was all about; there's maybe a lesson in Teilhard's view of this awakening not as an education but as an evolutionary emergence, because it means there's no way to induce the brute beasts to 'awaken', they simply do not have the evolutionary apparatus! So instead we're left with Sun Ra's method, "planting seeds in the air" in hopes they find fertile ears that will grow these seeds into an atTUNEment :)

Thanks again for that invite, and esp for the Gary McFarland that greeted me first time in (nice LP, hadn't heard that one in a while).

nice blog and thanks for the

a stranger — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 09:26:11 -0500

nice blog and thanks for the kind words over at black classical... sometimes i just dont understand people and trhe human race --- all sucks big time!

I can apreciate all what you went through. If your email is the right one you put into the comments then i will invite you to sounds as its just the place for people like you!

Just reply with yes and ill check back tom.

thanks a million for the support and all the best

greg

Gee, I'm only 4 years ahead

mrG — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:30:15 -0500

Gee, I'm only 4 years ahead of my time now:

IN THE beginning computers were human. Then they took the shape of metal boxes, filling entire rooms before becoming ever smaller and more widespread. Now they are evaporating altogether and becoming accessible from anywhere.

That is about as brief a history of computers as anyone can make it. The point is that they are much more than devices in a box or in a data centre. Computing has constantly changed shape and location -- mainly as a result of new technology, but often also because of shifts in demand.

[ IT's global 'cloud' | Let it rise | The Economist ]

Ok, maybe five years. That makes me feel a little better.

Some more traction appearing

mrG — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 08:45:04 -0500

Some more traction appearing on the web, this one from Tom Sekowski who writes a fine and comprehensive review on the Live Music Report:

To call this performance an event would be a blatant lie. This wasn't simply an event or a happening or a kick off to another successful X-Avant Festival. What we witnessed that night was a true collaboration that worked in droves. Forget about the fact that the Arkestra rehearsed this piece with Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie for a few days prior to the show. What matters is that all artists pulled off a stunt that rarely works this well. Across disciplines, they were able to affect the human soul and cement the audience's appreciation and love for the music and choreography that were such sheer delight. 'Hymn to the Universe' was a complex homage to the space above and beyond our sheer imaginations.
[ The Live Music Report ]

The balding business men where pregnant?? Um ... ok. I guess my being too close to their portrayed demographic maybe tainted my perception there a tad; I just kinda assumed it was middle aged spread in farce! ;)

What's it like to be on

mrG — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:47:44 -0500

What's it like to be on stage at age 84? Via Shomerde, Marshall Allen responds.

My full review of Hymn is

mrG — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 12:42:44 -0500

My full review of Hymn is now online here; comments and corrections are welcome. Also, for those of you who may have as-yet unshared photos or videos of the performance, the Music Gallery is collecting documentation and wants to hear from you.

More on XAvant from Kevin

mrG — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 19:07:42 -0400

More Hymn reviews are

mrG — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:44:00 -0400

More Hymn reviews are starting to appear. Gary Barwin writes

It really struck me that the Arkestra were surviving exponents of an authentic tradition. When they played Fletcher Henderson's music from the 20s/30s, it sounded grungy, wild, gritty, and dangerous. The opposite of the sanitized Stage Band versions one usually hears. I realized how the original bands were playing this wild jungly music that existed in opposition to the prevailing white mainstream. Completely natural, from a different culture, and very subversive.
[ serif of nottingblog: Sun Ra, Habitats, Cover bands, The Who, and Punctuation Funnies ]

There is also an emerging Flickr Photo Stream that will give you some sense of the visuals.
Carl Wilson too

they were super-tight and vigorous, whether they were playing Fletcher Henderson-style swing standards or swooshing and bleeping through the heliosphere. The dance component of the night was sensuous and playful, even if the choreography sometimes seemed a little loose, a bit hastily assembled - each segment had a strong central idea but not a lot of development - but never mind, as the general spirit seemed direct, simple and yet striking and faithful to the Arkestra's antic heart.
[ Zoilus: Hymn to a Ballroom:
The Arkestra Meets Coleman Lemieux Dance ]

with some more thoughts on Ra by Carl posted in a pre-show reprint worth most for this borrowed quote from Marshall Allen on the topic of why you need to experience not paying your rent so you can afford that horn you need for making music, and on the seeming enigma of Ra and now Marshall failing to secure 'royalties' on their recordings:

"It's the size of your spirit. You can have all the material things, but then you've got to lift your spirit up to the height of the money you've got all stacked up there." He chuckles. "It's a balance thing in this world."
[ Zoilus: It's After the End of the World ]

Do nothing 'til you hear

mrG — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:19:00 -0400

Do nothing 'til you hear from me, but in the meantime, here's a first-review on the show gleaned from the Globe reviewer who unfortunately wasn't as completely enthralled with the show as me, tho nonetheless, their haute review prose still has it's few magic moments:

The suite opened with a louche but reverent version of Duke Ellington's Black and Tan Fantasy, rendered as a slow dirty blues with a wrecked-looking carnal dance solo by Carol Prieur. It closed with a free-for-all dance party.

In between, there were some staggering coup de theatres, and a few magic moments when music and dance came together as different dimensions of a similar thought.
[ globeandmail.com: A space-time continuum of music and dance ]

I'm back home now, been running through my mind what I might say about this experience and I oh so need to see if I can salvage any photos from my phone; I'll endeavour to get you all a real review, real soon. Promise.

no dazzling job offers yet

mrG — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 09:53:17 -0400

no dazzling job offers yet from this one; I was sure this essay would hit a spark with sr. exec scouting HR for some whole-systems thinking enterprise somewhere, but in the four years and a bit since, best I had was one nomination for Best Essay of the Year (no prize) and the closest real industrial push to networked componentization is the way Ubuntu extended the old Gentoo package-install model of bootstrapping the unraveling sweater from a single CD install (a notion I had proposed to pre-Mandriva multi-CD Mandrake, and was laughed from the cooker room), and one tech VC who says un-interoperable systems are un-interesting (he also wants to see real opensource, and not the once-popular rack of patents).

Oh, and Google, who I had thought would find this networked-computing notion a true no brainer dead-obvious strategy, well, at least they did grasp some of the engineering business benefits of a Small-Tools approach, which is at least some progress from the Explorilla software kaiju we'd been using.

But hey, it's only 4 years later. My own best-estimate for innovations-lag in this industry is 3-5 years so maybe this industry innovation is just one on the tardier side.