Into the west

Lay down
Your sweet and weary head
Night is falling
You have come to journey's end

Sleep now
And dream of the ones who came before
They are calling
From across the distant shore

Why do you weep?
What are these tears upon your face?
Soon you will see
All of your fears will pass away

Safe in my arms
You're only sleeping

What can you see
On the horizon?
Why do those white gulls call?

Across the sea
A pale moon rises
The ships have come
To carry you home

Dawn will turn to silver glass
A light on the water
All souls pass

Hope fades
Into the world of night
Through shadows falling
Out of memory and time

Don't say
We have come now to the end
White shores are calling
You and I will meet again

And you'll be here in my arms
Just sleeping

What can you see
On the horizon?
Why do those white gulls call?

Across the sea
A pale moon rises
The ships have come
To carry you home

And all will turn to silver glass
A light on the water
Grey ships pass
Into the West

As has been my wont the past several years I've spent time the week between Christmas & New Years with the DVDs of The Lord of the Rings. The picture is a still life of some of the things that accompanied me as I watched this year.

As one year unfolds into the next I send these lyrics and a link to Annie Lennox's poetic treatment of them.



May the new year bring you much contentment and joy.

JR

On the second day of Christmas

Well not exactly two turtle doves, but I thought I'd include a photo from the 2nd day of Christmas showing our family creche with some additions that Andy dug up from somewhere. I took one of the pictures especially for one of my siblings. She'll know who she is when she sees it. ;)

On this penultimate day of 2011 I send my best wishes for a new year filled with health, comfort and joy.

Christmas can-can

Their corps de ballet master could have worked a tad more on their coordination, but hey, they're the dancers and the orchestra so we'll cut them some slack.



Christmas, Christmas time is here, and Christmas songs you love to hear
thoughts of joy and hope and cheer, but mostly shopping, shopping, shopping
Christmas. Christmas time is here, the sleigh bells and red nosed deer
songs and songs we love to hear all played a thousand times each year
Heard this same song 20 times and it’s only Halloween
(Joy to the World) It’s not even cold outside (deck the halls with boughs of holly)
Christmas, Christmas time is here, and Christmas songs you love to hear
(Hark the herald angels sing joy to)
thoughts of joy and hope and cheer, but mostly shopping, shopping, shopping
Christmas season, starting sooner every year It’s October,
stores with plastic Christmas trees Ransack the mall, shop until you lose your mind
Spike the eggnog, sit back and watch Rudolf, Frosty, Tiny Tim, and Scrooge the price, or Charlie Brown
It’s time... It’s time to do the Christmas can-can
if you can’t, can’t dance well that’s ok (not going to do the kick line)
All you need is a tree, some lights about a thousand presents wrap them up and pray for snow
Run to your closet find your Christmas sweaters screaming carols all the way (fa-la-la-la-la)
Maine all the way to California it’s the Christmas can-can
Halloween to Christmas day
It’s the most wonderful time of year we’re running mad with Christmas cheer
hey what’s troubling you my friend? It’s not fair if your jewish, jewish
(not fair if your Jewish, Jewish)
Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel I made it out of clay
You realize that Christmas ain’t the only holiday
Hey he’s right who made these laws Look! Wait! Here comes Santa Claus, Santa Claus, Santa Claus, Santa Claus, Santa Claus (Santa, Santa, Santa, Santa, Santa, Santa, Santa, Santa)
Hey Santa do the can-can help them if you can-can join in the parade
All you need is a tree, some lights about a thousand presents wrap them up and pray for snow
Run to your closet find your Christmas sweaters screaming carols all the way (fa-la-la-la-la) Prance all the way to Indiana
it’s the Christmas can-can that’s the end
Wait for our ending We should share this holiday I wanna give a happy Chanukah to you, a happy Chanukah to you, a happy Chanukah to you A merry Christmas, Chanukah and also Kwanzaa. Merry Christmas, happy Chanukah, and mer-ry Kwan-zaa too

Read more: STRAIGHT NO CHASER - THE CHRISTMAS CAN-CAN LYRICS http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-christmas-cancan-lyrics-straight-no-chaser.html#ixzz1gtpjQh5A
Copied from MetroLyrics.com

Hodie natus est

Angel playing salterium, Sforza Hours,
Giovan Pietro Birago, c.1490.
London, British Library, Add. 34294, f.38
(Faksimile-Verlag)

Well, not quite today but I saw this picture while trying to track down an urtext of the Blavet flute sonatas & just had to share.

Lovely sunny day today but a blustery wind. I've got to get back to practicing sometime soon but have been scrambling to get at least 1 scarf finished before the really cold weather hits.

I wonder what their electricity bill is?

Well, Nutcracker rehearsals down, now two performances to go. I've got the fingerings for the tricky picc licks down, now my goal is to get them up to tempo so they don't sound like so much crap in situ. Note to self: must do better. The yoga nidra I did before the first rehearsal did help me focus. Note to self: practice yoga nidra more than just before a rehearsal.

Active metaphor

What will they think of next?

"Active Metaphor
Author(s):
(unknown)
Institution:
Limiteazero, Milan, Italy
Year:
2002
URL:
http://www.limiteazero.com/carnivore/index.html
Project Description:
Limiteazero is an architecture, media design and media art studio based in Milan, Italy. Among it's rich portfolio in installation/exhibition design, sound design and new media, they created a Carnivore client with audio/visual feedback, entitled Active Metaphor.

The basis of the project is the "Carnivore" engine, a software application that listens to all internet traffic on a specific local network. Carnivore was created by RSG and has won Golden Nica at Ars Electronica and an honorable mention at read_me 1.2.

The authors made a script that gets the ip address ("aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd"), and breaks it down into four different groups of numbers ("aaa", "bbb","ccc", "ddd"). These elements are used as coordinates for 3D shapes and blending percentages ("x", "y", "z", "blend"). They choose to work with ip addresses because: "it's the main data that identifies an Internet relationship. Users identify their interaction by requesting ip addresses, even if they're not aware of it. Each ip address flowing over the net could be thought of as a human action, a communication, or an experience."

This piece of work lets the user see and hear the data flow, which is something that we normally can't perceive. It allows us to see the net as a huge data field that is constantly moving, like a digital life-form that feeds itself with human interaction."

I found this image on http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/.

Heading off soon for acupuncture - my first appt. in a month due to my schedule & the acupuncturist's. Tomorrow is Alexander then the Nutcracker marathon begins on Friday with 2 rehearsals, & performances on Sat. & Sun. Here's hoping the practicing I've done all year will have paid off.

22.Aug.2011

Some actual factual pictures from life here in Beantown for a change recently (that's Andy ogling the enormous sunflowers). Others include a tree (or destruction of a tree) sculpture & some rock sculptures from the yard of a wonderful house on Waldorf Street in the Ashmont Hill area. Heading off for a neighborhood toddle - a little chilly now but a welcome relief from the ridiculously high temps we've been having recently for this time of year. God (or Mom) must be giving me time to get finished a new scarf for moi to wear in the cold weather. Then tootlin, stitching, etc.

Vocabulary of Mystery

From Krista Tippet's recent interview with the physicist and contemplative Arthur Zajonc:

Yes, um, so here's my take on that word. Number one, mystery can sometimes be used as a way of deflecting real inquiry. To say, well, we just have to resign ourselves to the mystery. . .

It's a mystery. We should leave it be. We should just let it go. Now, the scientist in me says no, that something is not right with that, that interpretation of mystery. It's too easy. Rather, what I think we need to do is to recognize that no matter how deeply we engage the world, no matter how far we manage to penetrate into the mystery, there will always be more mystery.

It's always deeper, it's always bigger, it's always wider than our possible imagination at any given moment. But it's always an invitation. Mystery is kind of an invitation in. It's not a wall before which we have to give up, but rather, a kind of find the door. Where is that little chink that allows you to peer through and then gradually to open up and find resources and capacities in yourself to take a little step or to put the horizon a little further away?

You know, it's like when you have a horizon around you; it's given by how high up you are on the earth. I think the contemplative dimensions of life help us do that, to say there are capacities or points of view or places we can put ourselves that allow us to engage the world more broadly, more widely, see further. And it doesn't take anything away from the world because there's always another horizon. There's always a further distance.

Full transcript here.

Cultivating compassion

Mr. Ricard: [Happiness] can encompass every mental state except those who are just opposite which is like despair, hatred, precisely the mental factors that will destroy inner peace, inner strength, inner freedom. If you are under the grip of hatred, you are not free. You are the slave of your own thoughts. So that's not freedom, therefore, this is opposite to genuine flourishing and happiness.

[music]

Ms. Tippett: So I imagine that people ask you how do I become happy? What do you say? How do you respond to that?

Mr. Ricard: Well, clearly by first saying yes, outward circumstances are important, I should do whatever I can. But I should certainly see that at the root of all that, there are inner circumstances, inner conditions. What are they? Well, just look at you. Now if I say, OK, come, we'll spend a weekend cultivating jealousy, now who is going to go for that?

We all know that even though that's part of human nature, but we are not interested in cultivating more jealousy, neither for hatred, neither for arrogance. So those will be much better off if they were not — didn't have such a grip on our mind. So there are ways to counteract those, to dissolve those.

I mean, you cannot, in the same moment of thought, wish to do something good to someone or harm that person. So those are mutually incompatible like hot and cold water. So the more you will bring benevolence in your mind, at every of those moments there's no space for hatred. It's just very simple, but we don't do that. We do exercise every morning 20 minutes to be fit. We don't sit for 20 minutes to cultivate compassion. If we want to do so, our mind will change, our brain will change. What we are will change. So those are skills. They need to be, first, identified, then cultivated. What is good to learn chess, well, you have to practice and all that. In the same way, we all have thoughts of altruistic love. Who didn't have that? But the common goal, we don't cultivate them.

From The Happiest Man in the World - http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2011/happiest-man/ the latest On Being interview with "Matthieu Ricard is a French-born, Tibetan Buddhist monk and a central figure in the Dalai Lama's dialogue with scientists." Photo today from an online exhibition about Geoffroy Tory at the Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris. http://expositions.bnf.fr/tory/index.htm

12.Aug.2011

Angles, all tied up & silver shoes included in today's pix. Disappointing news, the extra student I was hoping to meet today @ Northeastern has cancelled @ the last minute, promising to return next semester. Good news, I don't really have the energy to teach another hour today anyway - and we're counting down the last three lessons with the 1 student I have there. Payday due 14.Oct.2011 so that will be good.

Postal conveyance cutbacks?

I know the USPS has been considering drastic cutbacks, but this seems a bit extreme (look carefully for the mail carrier in the background & remember you can click on the image to see a larger version).

Other photos - neighborhood sighting of Elvis' love child & a study in greens.

Cortisone shot has really thrown me for a loop - hip much less painful but I'm irritable & having difficulty sleeping. Should have known with my reaction to prednisone back in the 90s (was it?) for my vasculitis that I should have expected something like this. If your MD ever suggests steroids to fight inflammation, tell him/her to take a flying leap.

5.Juli.2011 toddle

Andy & I took a walk down to the Ashmont area the day after Independence Day & these are some shots taken along the way including a kitty in the sky, the man in the moon & and a quite old building that isn't showing its age.

Going to have to force myself through the Prokofiev & Pictures today - I wish I found them more interesting and am having trouble dealing with the politics of the Prokofiev after having read Richard Taruskin's book on Russian music where he pointed out the lengths Prokofiev went to ingratiate himself with the Staling regime even after it was clear what genocide it was perpetrating against the Russian citizenry. Of course stitching in the mix, too.

Still muggy after almost forever it seems. Won't see much relief until mid-week at the earliest according to today's forecast. At least the temps are only due to be in the mid-60s though having to wipe down anything taken from the fridge before returning it to same in order to cut down on electricity use is getting old. Life is hard.

He went that a away

Lots of skyscapes & earthly delights from 2.July.2011. The pride-o-place photo looks to moi like nothing so much as a guy, nose to the sky pointing to his right. Other faves, the bun rab on the Beatrix Potter-like table & the lion ornament.

Went in for the hip injection yest. Seems to have done some bit of good in reducing pain while sitting. Time will tell.

Off soon for some acupuncture then tootling, stitiching & laundry on this day between showers. Unfortunately the tech got on my shirt some of the dye the injected into the joint to guide their work. Here's hoping it comes out.

1.July.2011 toddle

Some shots from a toddle to & from acupuncture. That's the clinic to the left of the community garden in the bottom picture. A lovely garden in the South End, some shots from the public garden, including a live & a not-live horse. And what I can only take was a warning about an iffy right of way.

In the middle of a horrid stretch of humidity. Not to let up until sometime next weekend. :| Tootling & stitching maybe heading out now for a toddle before it gets any warmer.

29.June.2011 finale

I'm going to finish off posting the pix I took that day with the rest of the photos of Bresdin & Redon's lithographs & etchings. Hey, Bresdin's Comedy is from a century from my birth year. And who knew some of Redon's grotesques were inspired by Darwin?






Today is the 4th birthday party for the Dorchester Stitch House. I plan to attend & do my bit to help them & the economy by adding to my already daunting (when I think of knitting it all up) stash.

We had a great time dyeing our yarn yesterday - I unfortunately started out with way too much red so had to add tons o' blue (& a touch of black) to get near the color I had in mind so my custom color will be pretty dark - but pretty nonetheless I hope.