Tuesday 21 September 2010

Recent Tracks

Recent Tracks by Jake Hartnell

These are some things I've been composing and working on in my spare time using just my guitar, my MacBook (and the pathetic microphone that comes with it [thank God for compressors]), and a midi-keyboard. I've preformed and engineered everything on these tracks and I think they sound pretty damn good considering my limited equipment. I'm looking to start producing bands soon, or perhaps doing sound editing in films.

The first is about my time in the Amazon Rain Forest. The second is about two lovers dancing in a zero gravity ballroom; one about to be crushed, the other about to do the crushing. Or that's the gist of it.

Website

Did I ever mention I had a website? Probably because I've been neglecting this blog while building it! www.JakeHartnell.com. Yes! I am the only one!

Wednesday 15 September 2010

Unconscious Jungle do ABC's "The Look of Love"

My band was interviewed on the BBC last Sunday as part of Radio Manchester's '40 years of Manchester Music.' You can listen to the interview and our cover of "The Look of Love" by clicking here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p009tws2/BBC_Radio_Manchester_Introducing_Forty_years_of_Manchester_music_covered/

We come in at about 1:23.30. (I say "we" but I actually 3,000 miles away).

Friday 11 June 2010

Your Brain on Computers

The New York Times have been doing an excellent series called "Your Brain on Computers." It looks at the side effects of computer usage, and how these machines that have become such essential parts of our lives that we are starting to be changed by them. It's very interesting reading:
  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/technology/07brain.html?src=me&ref=general
  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/garden/10childtech.html


Saturday 29 May 2010

"Night-Sea Journey" By: John Barth

I was talking to my friend Rachael, who has saved my life on so many occasions.

Part of the conversation went like this:

me:  Get ready for this piece of Zen: Life=Bullshit.
rachael.schaffner:  lol
yeah. i know

Then Rachael told me I needed to read the "Night-Sea Journey" by John Barth. And I thought it was so good that you need to read it too. It is such a brilliant metaphor, and I am a sucker for brilliant metaphors. And the ending!

I'm still thinking about it...

Night-Sea Journey

John Barth

"One way or another, no matter which theory of our journey is correct, it's myself I address; to whom I rehearse as to a stranger our history and condition, and will disclose my secret hope though I sink for it.
"Is the journey my invention? Do the night, the sea, exist at all, I ask myself, apart from my experience of them? Do I myself exist, or is this a dream? Sometimes I wonder. And if I am, who am I? The Heritage I supposedly transport? But how can I be both vessel and contents? Such are the questions that beset my intervals of rest.
"My trouble is, I lack conviction. Many accounts of our situation seem plausible to me- where and what we are, why we swim and whither. But implausible ones as well, perhaps especially those, I must admit as possibly correct. Even likely. If at times, in certain humors- striking in unison, say, with my neighbors and chanting with them 'Onward! Upward!'- I have supposed that we have ever after all a common Maker, Whose nature and motives we may not know, but Who engendered us in some mysterious wise and launched us forth toward some end known but to Him- if (for a moods length only) I have been able to entertain such notions, very popular in certain quarters, it is because our night-sea journey partakes of their absurdity. One might even say: I can believe them because they are absurd.
"Has that been said before?
"Another paradox: it appears to be these recesses from swimming that sustain me in the swim. Two measures onward and upward, flailing with the rest, then I float exhausted and dispirited, borood upon the night, the sea, the journey, while the flood bears me a measure back and down: slow progress, but I live, I live, and make my way, aye, past many a drowned comrade in the end, stronger, worthier than I, victims of their unremitting joie de nager. I have seen the best swimmers of my generation go under. Numberless the number of the dead! Thousands drown as I think this thought, millions as I rest before returning to the swim. And scores, hundreds of millions have expired since we surged forth, brave in our innocence, upon our dreadful way. 'Love! Love!' we sang then, a quarter-billion strong, and churned the warm sea white with joy of swimming! Now all are gone down- the buoyant, the sodden, leaders and followers, all gone under, while wretched I swim on. Yet these same reflective intervals that keep me afloat have led me into wonder, doubt, despair- strange emotions for a swimming!- have led me, even, to suspect . . . that our night-sea journey is without meaning.
"Indeed, if I have yet to join the hosts of the suicides, it is because (fatigue apart) I find it no meaningfuller to drown myself than to go on swimming.
"I know that there are those who seem actually to enjoy the night-sea; who claim to love swimming for its own sake, or sincerely believe that 'reaching the Shore,' 'transmitting the Heritage' (Whose Heritage, I'd like to know? And to whom?)is worth the staggering cost. I do not. Swimming itself I find at best not actively unpleasant, more often tiresome, not infrequently a torment. Arguments from function and design don't impress me: granted that we can and do swim, that in a manner of speaking our long tails and streamlined heads are 'meant for' swimming; it by no means follows- for me, at least- that we should swim, or otherwise endeavor to 'fulfill our destiny.' Which is to say, Someone Else's destiny, since ours, so far as I can see, is merely to perish, one way or another, soon or late. The heartless zeal of our (departed) leaders, like the blind ambition and good cheer of my own youth, appalls me now; for the death of my comrades I am inconsolable. If the night-sea journey has justification, it is not for us swimmers to discover it.
"Oh, to be sure, 'Love!' one heard on every side: 'Love it is that drives and sustains us!' I translate: we don't know what drives and sustains us, only that we are most miserably driven and, imperfectly, sustained. Love is how we call our ignorance of what whips us. 'To reach the Shore,' then: but what if the Shore exists in the fancies of us swimmers merely, who dream it to account for the dreadful fact that we swim, have always and only swum, and continue swimming without respite (myself excepted) until we die? Supposing even that there were a Shore- that, as a cynical companion of mine once imagined, we rise from the drowned to discover all those vulgar superstitions and exalted metaphors to be literal truth: the giant Maker of us all, the Shores of Light beyond our night-sea journey! -whatever would a swimmer do there? The fact is, when we imagine the Shore, what comes to mind is just the opposite of our condition: no more night, no more sea, no more journeying. In short, the blissful estate of the drowned.
" 'Ours not to stop and think; ours but to swim and sink....' Because a moment's thought reveals the pointlessness of swimming. 'No matter,' I've heard some say, even as they gulped their last: 'The night-sea journey may be absurd, but here we swim, will-we nill-we, against the flood, onward and upward, toward a Shore that may not exist and couldn't be reached if it did.' The thoughtful swimmer's choices, then, they say, are two: give over thrashing and go under for good, or embrace the absurdity; affirm in and for itself the night-sea journey; swim on with neither motive nor destination, for the sake of swimming, and compassionate moreover with your fellow swimmer, we being all at sea and equally in the dark. I find neither course acceptable. If not even the hypothetical Shore can justify a sea-full of drowned comrades, to speak of the swim-in-itself as somehow doing so strikes me as obscene. I continue to swim- but only because blind habit, blind instinct, blind fear of drowning are still more strong than the horror of our journey. And if on occasion I have assisted a fellow-thrasher, joined in the cheers and songs, even passed along to others strokes of genius from the drowned great, it's that I shrink by temperament from making myself conspicuous. To paddle off in one's own direction, assert one's independent right-of-way, overrun one's fellows without compunction, or dedicate oneself entirely to pleasures and diversions without regard for conscience- I can't finally condemn those who journey in this wise; in half my moods I envy them and despise the weak vitality that keeps me from following their example. But in reasonabler moments I remind myself that it's their very freedom and self-responsibility I reject, as more dramatically absurd, in our sensless circumstances, than tailing along in conventional fashion. Suicides, rebels, affirmers of the paradox- nay-sayers and yea-sayers alike to our fatal journey- I finally shake my head at them. And splash sighing past their corpses, one by one, as past a hundred sorts of others: friends, enemies, brothers; fools, sages, brutes- and nobodies, million upon million. I envy them all.
"A poor irony: that I, who find abhorrent and tautological the doctrine of survival of the fittest (fitness meaning, in my experience, nothing more than survival-ability, a talent whose only demonstration is the fact of survival, but whose chief ingredients seem to be strength, guile, callousness), may be the sole remaining swimmer! But the doctrine is false as well as repellent: Chance drowns the worthy with the unworthy, bears up the unfit with the fit by whatever definition, and makes the night-sea journey essentially haphazard as well as murderous and unjustified.
"'You only swim once.' Why bother, then?
"'Except ye drown, ye shall not reach the Shore of Light.' Poppycock.
"One of my late companions- that same cynic with the curious fancy, among the first to drown- entertained us with odd conjectures while we waited to begin our journey. A favorite theory of his was that the Father does exist, and did indeed make us and the sea we swim- but not a-purpose or even consciously; He made us, as it were, despite Himself, as we make waves with every tail-thrash, and may be unaware of our existence. Another was that He knows we're here but doesn't care what happens to us, inasmuch as He creates (voluntarily or not) other seas and swimmers at more or less regular intervals. In bitterer moments, such as just before he drowned, my friend even supposed that our Maker wished us unmade; there was indeed a Shore, he'd argue, which could save at least some of us from drowning and toward which it was our function to struggle- but for reasons unknowable to us He wanted desperately to prevent our reaching that happy place and fulfilling our destiny. Our 'Father,' in short, was our adversary and would-be killer! No less outrageous, and offensive to traditional opinion, were the fellow's speculations on the nature of our Maker: that He might well be no swimmer Himself at all, but some sort of monstrosity, perhaps even tailless; that He might be stupid, malicious, insensible, perverse, or asleep and dreaming; that the end for which He created and launched us forth, and which we flagellate ourselves to fathom, was perhaps immoral, even obscene. Et cetera, et cetera: there was no end to the chap's conjectures, or the impoliteness of his fancy; I have reason to suspect that his early demise, whether planned by 'our Maker' or not, was expedited by certain fellow-swimmers indignant at his blasphemies.
"In other moods, however (he was as given to moods as I), his theorizing would become half-serious, so it seemed to me, especially upon the subjects of Fate and Immortality, to which our youthful conversations often turned. Then his harangues, if no less fantastical, grew solemn and obscure, and if he was still baiting us, his passion undid the joke. His objection to popular opinions of the hereafter, he would declare, was their claim to general validity. Why need believers hold that all the drowned rise to be judged at journey's end, and non-believers that drowning is final without exception? In his opinion (so he'd vow at least), nearly everyone's fate was permanent death; indeed he took a sour pleasure in supposing that every 'Maker' made thousands of separate seas in His creative lifetime, each populated like ours with millions of swimmers, and that in almost every instance both sea and swimmers were utterly annihilated, whether accidentally or by malevolent design. (Nothing if not pluralistical, he imagined there might be millions and billions of 'Fathers,' perhaps in some 'night-sea' of their own!) However- and here he turned infidels against him with the faithful- he professed to believe that in possibly a single night-sea per thousand, say, one of its quarter-billion swimmers (that is, one swimmer in two hundred fifty billions) achieved a qualified immortality. In some cases the rate might be slightly higher; in others it was vastly lower, for just as there are swimmers of every degree of proficiency, including some who drown before the journey starts, unable to swim at all, and others created drowned, as it were, so he imagined what can only be termed impotent Creators, Makers unable to Make, as well as uncommonly fertile ones and all grades between. And it pleased him to deny anay necessary relation between a Maker's productivity and His other virtues- including, even, the quality of His creatures.
"I could go on (he surely did) with his elaboration of these mad notions- such as that swimmers in other night-seas needn't be of our kind; that Makers themselves might belong to different species, so to speak; that our particular Maker mightn't Himself be immortal, or that we might be not only His emissaries but His 'immortality,' continuing His life and our own, transmogrified, beyond our individual deaths. Even this modified immortality (meaningless to me) he conceived as relative and contingent, subject to accident or deliberate termination: his pet hypothesis was that Makers and swimmers each generate the other- against all odds, their number being so great- and that any given 'immortality-chain' could terminate after any number of cycles, so that what was 'immortal' (still speaking relatively) was only the cyclic process of incarnation, which itself might have a beginning and an end. Alternatively he liked to imagine cycles within cycles, either finite or infinite: for example, the 'night-sea,' as it were, in which Makers 'swam' and created night-seas and swimmers like ourselves, might be the creation of a larger Maker, Himself one of many, Who in turn et cetera. Time itself he regarded as relative to our experience, like magnitude: who knew but what, with each thrash of our tails, minuscule seas and swimmers, whole eternities, came to pass- as ours, perhaps, and our Maker's Maker's, was elapsing between the strokes of some supertail, in a slower order of time?
"Naturally I hooted with the others at this nonsense. We were young then, and had only the dimmest notion of what lay ahead; in our ignorance we imagined night-sea journeying to be a positively heroic enterprise. Its meaning and value we never questioned; to be sure, some must go down by the way, a pity no doubt, but to win a race requires that others lose, and like all my fellows I took for granted that I would be the winner. We milled and swarmed, impatient to be off, never mind where or why, only to try our youth against the realities of night and sea; if we indulged the skeptic at all, it was as a droll, half-contempible mascot. When he died in the initial slaughter, no one cared.
"And even now I don't subscribe to all his views- but I no longer scoff. The horror of our history has purged me of opinions, as of vanity, confidence, spirit, charity, hope, vitality, everything- except dull dread and a kind of melancholy, stunned persistence. What leads me to recall his fancies is my g rowing suspicion that I, of all swimmers, may be the sole survivor of this fell journey, tale-bearer of a generation. This suspicion, together with the recent sea-change, suggests to me now that nothing is impossible, not even my late companion's wildest visions, and brings me to a certain desperate resolve, the point of my chronicling.
"Very likely I have lost my senses. The carnage at our setting out; our decimation by whirlpool, poisoned cataract, sea-convulsion; the panic stampedes, mutinies, slaughters, mass suicides; the mounting evidence that none will survive the journey- add to these anguish and fatigue; it were a miracle if sanity stayed afloat. Thus I admit, with the other possibilities, that the present sweetening and calming of the sea, and what seems to be a kind of vasty presence, song, or summons from the near upstream, may be hallucinations of disordered sensibility....
"Perhaps, even, I am drowned already. Surely I was never meant for the rough-and-tumble of the swim; not impossibly I perished at the outset and have only imaged the night-sea journey from some final deep. In any case, I'm no longer young, and it is we spent old swimmers, disabused of every illusion, who are most vulnerable to dreams.
"Sometimes I think I am my drowned friend.
"Out with it: I've begun to believe, not only that She exists, but that She lies not far ahead, and stills the sea, and draws me Herward! Aghast, I recollect his maddest notion: that our destination (which existed, mind, in but one night-sea out of hundreds and thousands) was no Shore, as commonly conceived, but a mysterious being, indescribable except by paradox and vaguest figure: wholly different from us swimmers, yet our complement; the death of us, yet our salvation and resurrection; simultaneously our journey's end, mid-point, and commencement; not membered and thrashing like us, but a motionless or hugely gliding sphere of unimaginable dimension; self-contained, yet dependent absolutely, in some wise, upon the chance (always monstrously improbable) that one of us will survive the night-sea journey and reach...Her! Her, he called it, or She, which is to say, Other-than-a-he. I shake my head; the thing is too preposterous; it is myself I talk to, to keep my reason in this awful darkness. There is no She! There is no You! I rave to myself; it's Death alone that hears and summons. To the drowned, all seas are calm....
"Listen: my friend maintained that in every order of creation there are two sorts of creators, contrary yet complementary, one of which gives rise to seas and swimmers, the other to the Night-which-contains-the-sea and to What-waits-at-the-journey's-end: the former, in short, to destiny, the latter to destination (and both profligately, involuntarily, perhaps indifferently or unwittingly). The 'purpose' of the night-sea journey- but not necessarily of the journeyer or of either Maker! -my friend could describe only in abstractions: consummation, transfiguration, union of contraries, trancension of categories. When we laughed, he would shrug and admit that he understood the business no better than we, and thought it ridiculous, dreary, possibly obscene. 'But one of you,' he'd add with his wry smile, 'may be the Hero destined to complete the night-sea journey and be one with Her. Chances are, of course, you won't make it' He himself, he declared, was not even going to try; the whole idea repelled him; if we chose to dismiss it as an ugly fiction, so much the better for us; thrash, splash, and be merry, we were soon enough drowned. But there it was, he could not say how he knew or why he bothered to tell us, any more than he could say what would happen after She and Hero, Shore and Swimmer, 'merged identities' to become something both and neither. He quite agreed with me that if the issue of that magical union had no memory of the night-sea journey, for example, it enjoyed a poor sort of immortality; even poorer if, as he rather imagined, a swimmer-hero plus a She equaled or became merely another Maker of future night-seas and the rest, at such incredible expense of life. This being the case- he was persuaded it was- the merciful thing to do was refuse to participate; the genuine heroes, in his opinion, were the suicides, and the hero of heroes would be the swimmer who, in the very presence of the Other, refused Her proffered 'immortality' and thus put an end to at least one cycle of catastrophes.
"How we mocked him! Our moment came, we hurtled forth, pretending to glory in the adventure, thrashing, singing, cursing, strangling, rationalizing, rescuing, killing, inventing rules and stories and relationships, giving up, struggling on, but dying all, and still in darkness, until only a battered remnant was left to croak 'Onward, upward,' like a bitter echo. Then they too fell silent- victims, I can only presume, of the last frightful wave- and the moment came when I also, utterly desolate and spent, thrashed my last and gave myself over to the current, to sink or float as might be, but swim no more. Whereupon, marvelous to tell, in an instant the sea grew still! Then warmly, gently, the great tide turned, began to bear me, as it does now, onward and upward will-I nill-I, like a flood of joy- and I recalled with dismay my dead friend's teaching.
"I am not deceived. This new emotion is Her doing; the desire that possesses me is Her bewitchment. Lucidity passes from me; in a moment I'll cry 'Love!' bury myself in Her side, and be 'transfigured.' Which is to say, I die already; this fellow transported by passion is not I; I am he who abjures and rejects the night-sea journey! I....
"I am all love. 'Come!' She whispers, and I have no will.
"You who I may be about to become, whatever You are: with the last twitch of my real self I beg You to listen. It is not love that sustains me! No; though Her magic makes me burn to sing the contrary, and though I drown even now for the blasphemy, I will say truth. What has fetched me across this dreadful sea is a single hope, gift of my poor dead comrade: that You may be stronger-willed than I, and that by sheer force of concentration I may transmit to You, along with Your official Heritage, a private legacy of awful recollection and negative resolve. Mad as it may be, my dream is that some unimaginable embodiment of myself (or myself plus Her if that's how it must be) will come to find itself expressing, in however garbled or radical a translation, some reflection of these reflections. If against all odds this comes to pass, may You to whom, through whom I speak, do what I cannot: terminate this aimless, brutal business! Stop Your hearing against Her song! Hate love!
"Still alive, afloat, afire. Farewell then my penultimate hope: that one may be sunk for direst blasphemy on the very shore of the Shore. Can it be (my old friend would smile) that only utterest nay-sayers survive the night? But even that were Sense, and there is no sense, only senseless love, senseless death. Whoever echoes these reflections: be more courageous than their author! An end to night-sea journeys! Make no more! And forswear me when I shall forswear myself, deny myself, plunge into Her who summons, singing...
"'Love! Love! Love!'"

Friday 28 May 2010

Grenades and The Second Amendment: why we shouldn't let idiots have guns.

I'm doing some research for a piece I'm writing on Nuclear proliferation and trolling through some right-wing forums I found this disturbing / hilarious piece. You have to read it! The diagrams are the best. And Ironically, I think the flaws in logic so easily observed in this piece are representative of the whole pro-arms movement. What underlies it all is fear. Fear of the other. Why it doesn't make sense should be obvious by the end of this absurd piece. I can't believe someone would argue for the right to own grenades and fully automatics, but then again how different are those from semi-automatics. I shiver to think what anarchy would unfold if people could buy grenades at gun shops.

Grenades and the Second Amendment


“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” —The Second Amendment

America is facing turbulent times. Terrorists are hell-bent on destroying American freedom and our sacred way of life.  These days, the burden of the militia duty lies equally upon all persons. The patriot Patrick Henry wrote, “The great object is, that every man be armed…. Every one who is able may have a gun.” And he also said, “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.”

In this essay, I want to explore why law abiding citizens should be able to purchase more powerful weapons such as fully-automatic machine guns and grenades. America is facing turbulent times under the threats of terrorism and tyranny, and citizens should embrace the rights that are endowed upon them by the constitution of our great nation.

Grenades and fully automatic weapons are illegal to own in all 50 states. It chills me to the core to think of how differently certain tragic events in recent history could have been mitigated by properly armed citizenry. These weapons are necessary for self defense from terrorists—who will stop at NOTHING to kill us— as well as our own government which keeps getting bigger and bigger. The purpose of the second amendment is to give the American People the power to defend themselves from all forms of Tyranny.

Personally, I don’t want to be stuck in a shopping mall unprepared when terrorists attack. Hypothetically, what if a group of them armed with AK-47s went through and attacked… look at the diagram below:


In this situation a semi-automatic would be worthless, but a grenade or an uzi could save hundreds of American lives. And yet some people on capital hill would like to delete the second amendment all together.

But the question remains, what if crazy people and gangs use grenades to kill countless people?

The fact of the matter is that these criminals already have these weapons, but the American people don’t. What could make more sense than arming American citizens and teaching them how to defend themselves. People, liberals especially, are all too quick to forget the lessons of history. What happened with the nuclear arms race? Deterrence! Remember mutually assured destruction (ironically called MAD), the Soviets wouldn’t fire their weapons because they knew they would also be destroyed if they did. Nuclear weapons saved countless American lives, and we would all be pledging allegiance to Stalin if we had simply said “we won’t have nuclear weapons.” The people of America should have a right to defend themselves adequately against their enemies who armed. WE DON’T WANT STALIN OR AN AYATOLLA HERE.

Likewise, the concept of MAD could extend the deterrence principle to everyday life. Imagine if you were in a bar and had to protect a woman from a gang of thugs who wanted to rape her. See the diagram below:



This situation could be safely diffused with a grenade. Unlike a gun if you pulled the pin on a grenade and they knew that if they shot you that they would die to, they would be deterred. It would be impossible to gun them all down, but with American citizens properly armed SITUATIONS LIKE THIS CAN BE AVOIDED. Without a gun, you would be dead, and the woman too. With a gun, you might die, but there’s a good chance that some innocents could get killed. But with a grenade, the thugs will know better than to pull the trigger.

It just kills me that some people can’t figure this shit out. The key to making America great again is to return to the principles of our Founding Fathers.

Oh, and P.S. JESUS IS LORD.

Thank you for your time.

Wednesday 26 May 2010

SSD Podcast Number 2



Drunken rambling about music, we invite a wino and George Lucas onto the show, and play tracks from loads of cool bands who are going to be playing our shows... including a special unreleased track from Unconscious Jungle. : D

Thursday 20 May 2010

Rainbowroom Waltz


The story behind this track is that I set out to write a waltz for a certain special someone. But unfortunately, well, things didn't go as planned and like many other things I was working on I didn't finish it because I was feeling a little too cynical to write a damn love song. But thankfully, Luke intervened and made this song what it is today. It's really his song, but I'm jealous because it's my favorite. The lyrics are just right. My favorite line is "Oh you ask me what I mean when I say 'I love you'. / What do you mean? What do I mean? / It's obvious what I mean."

It's about two people sharing the final dance way up in the elegant Rainbowroom at the top of the Rockefeller Center in New York City. It looks like this:


When you're not here a day can last an age
An age is worth it for one moment with you on the stage
Your head it nestles under my chin as we dance
And the way it makes me feel is just ineffable
Well I guess it's like staring down Bleaker street at sunset

Dancers around us blur into a convolution
And timeless we stand here alone in the ether

Oh you ask me what I mean when I say "I love you"
What do you mean? What do I mean? It's obvious what I mean
We're here above the clouds in New York City
And the band announced that this will be the last Dance
And it's time to go but I don't want to go

Well I'm sure as hell that I don't deserve you
And I can't think what you can see in me

Bossa Nova Supernova

Bosa Nova Supernova is a song about two lovers on a spaceship spending some finally moments together knowing that in a few minutes they will be sucked into a black hole. I imagine they are dancing a little bit too... at least until the space ship is crushed into oblivion.
I look into your eyes,
And know that this won’t last forever.
Because time goes by,
We can’t be lost in love forever.
Yes even stars will die
Because stars don’t last forever... oh yeah.

Just one kiss tonight,
Planted on your cheek so boldly,
What is this light?
You are my one and only.
And though we will die,
I’ll kiss you one more time tonight... : )

Let’s Bosa Nova
Supernova.
Bosa Nova,
I wanna hold ya.
Bosa Nova,
I wanna love... ya.
Oh Bosa Nova,
Supernova

Just one more kiss tonight,
Planted on your lips so boldly,
What is this light?
You are my one and only.
And though we will die
You are my one and only.

Let’s Bosa Nova
Supernova.
Bosa Nova, 
I wanna hold ya.
Bosa Nova, 
I wanna love... ya.
Oh Bosa Nova, 
Supernova



Foxtrot Hymn for the Stars

I guess this a chance for me to reflect on some of the songs I've written. Foxtrot Hymn for the Stars is a song about heart break, but not just in relation to a girl. Well, that too, but it's about heartbreak for the whole world. And it's about dancing too.

I’m waiting for the sun to rise
And shine upon my life.
It’s golden rays for endless days
void from loneliness and strife.

I never thought that I could fall
So far away from God.
That which I fear is in my mind,
Not only in my heart.

If you want true love,
You can have mine.
But you might wait long - I take my time.
Not only this, you should know,
We were meant to be.

We learn to dance our lives away,
Through mirth, through love, through cheer,
To spread our song through all the earth,
And to see through eyes so clear.

If you want true love,
You can have mine.
But you might wait long - I take my time.
Not only this, you should know,
That Love alone can save your soul.

We must learn to dance our lives away,
Through mirth, through love, through cheer,
Just hold your partner in your gaze...
And see through eyes so clear.

Thursday 29 April 2010

Don't Mow Your Lawn

I came across this article today:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/12/middlebury-college-launches-no-mow-program.php

"The "No Mow" program launched at Middlebury College began this year as one more way for the college campus to go green, no pun intended. There are 75 acres of lawn on the main campus at Middlebury. This requires 7 people to mow 7 hours a day for 3 straight days just to get all of that grass cut down. Their plan instead is to save 20 acres from being cut, allowing wildflowers and other native grasses to grow freely. This saves not only gas, but also cuts down on greenhouse gas emissions generated from all of those hours (and days) of driving lawn mowers around. The school estimates 670 gallons of fuel and 1000 hours of labor will be saved simply by keeping some areas off limits from lawnmowers."
This reminds me of a piece which I wrote and tried to post all over the internet called "Why you shouldn't mow your lawn (or parts of your college campus)." I thought I would repost it here because I still like the idea for it's shear craziness and yet complete plausibility.

*** No Mow




My idea is simple: we stop mowing our lawns, let the land return to nature, and make it a fashion statement.

Why do we spend so much effort, time, money, and carbon dioxide to keep our grass short? Who decided that was beautiful? Think of all the chemicals people poor on their yards to kill weeds and the amount of water wasted to keep them marginally green during the hot summer. Think of all the fossil fuels burned in non-hybird lawn mowers, weed whackers, and tractors. Think of all local wildlife that are losing their habitat to development and these “green” lawns. And why? Mostly because short grass is supposedly better looking than natural prairie and wildflowers.

We need to change the way people think… about their lawns.

Small engines can be extreme polluters. The EPA states that ‘using a commercial chainsaw—powered by a two-stroke engine—for two hours produces the same amount of smog-forming hydrocarbon emissions as driving ten 1995 cars about 250 miles each.’[1] Think of how many people are mowing there yards!  Mowing lawns is a major cause of air pollution and CO2! Look into it!

But even worse than the air pollution is the biggest problem caused by mowing, it keeps nature from growing. People have long realized that cutting down the Amazon Rainforest is bad, but they have yet to extend that same sense of responsibility to the area in which they live. For example, the prairie lands of Midwestern America. When Farmland is abandoned near the Amazon Rainforest, the forest takes over. The same would happen with our yards. We could restore the grasslands, let forests begin to take over are yards and give up trying to fight back nature. But no! We have to cut, and weed, and spray with chemicals! And then waste water in vain efforts to keep our grass marginally green during the summer! 

All to keep nature at bay!

If we stopped mowing our lawns, in time grass lands and forests would begin to take over millions of acres of currently mowed lawns. This is good both for fighting Climate Change and helping to restore local ecosystems. The return of natural habitats even if they are close to houses will help local wildlife by giving them more space to live in, as well as assisting in future species migrations due to climate change. 

Most importantly, it will send a message to the next generation… that instead of trying to dominate nature by mowing it down and spraying it with chemicals to kill anything that isn’t grass, we should instead be living in harmony with it, and learning from it.

Yes, in theory, it’s a great idea if people stop mowing their lawns, but how do we instigate this change on a wide enough level? Mowing lawns is so ingrained within our culture that surly it will be hard to get people to change? Wrong!

We can instigate this on a wide enough level, and that’s where the second part of my idea comes in. We make it the new fashion. First, we spread the idea among the Eco-conscious blog-o-sphere, and then we harness press and the TV. What is needed is to get gardening magazines and designers on board, and to put TV shows like “extreme home makeover” onto a more ‘natural’ philosophy. Some celebrities should get in on it too. The power of Fashion should not be underestimated: where I live in England it has been engrained in people’s heads that they should reuse plastic bags because frankly, if you ask for a bag, they look at you funny and you feel the need to give some excuse as to why you are destroying the environment. Why do many people spend a lot of time and money to mow their lawns? True, some people enjoy it, but mostly because they think the neighbours will think they’re being lazy and negligent.  But what if their neighbours thought they were being virtuous, fashionable, and green? Honestly, it is time for our world to discover the wonders of a new type of lawn care… caring for the Environment. Don’t mow your lawn. Let’s start a movement. : )




[1] http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/offroad/sm_en_fs.pdf

The Press: People with Cameras

In the Youtube clip below, the "interesting" lady that Gordon Brown called a "Bigot" is ravenously interviewed by Sky News.  It is funny and sad at the same time. The clip made me hate the people holding the cameras, who--like hungry vultures smelling a corpse--circle around her waiting for the story. It's fascinating because it shows, in a more overt way than we are used to, how the press gets its headlines. I just feel uncomfortable watching it... so now you can too. 
I feel that this lady gets victimized, not by Gordon Brown but by the media. I mean, is this better than paparazzi hunting celebrities? Or paying homeless people to fight each other to make a funny Youtube video? Or filming mentally-ill people to make fun of them? 
[sigh.] Cameras are everywhere these days.

Isn't the all pervasive power of media these days great? (Rhetorical Question)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMTnvtZro7U&feature=related

Wednesday 28 April 2010

RAG week: Battle of the Bands

Bossa Nova Supernova (LIVE at the ATTIC)
(Click on the link for the youtube video... I don't know how to imbed it in the post)


We recently won RAG week battle of the bands... this is the first song we played. It's going to be on our new EP. It was a great show, we got everybody Waltzing and doing the Foxtrot (or just pretending to dance the Foxtrot), but all that's secrative because the new EP is coming out.

Because of the strict level of secracy concerning the EP there is 2 minutes of just talking at the beginning to distract casual youtube browsers. Also, there is poor picture and extremely poor sound quality. This is intentional. The poor sound quality is to give people a tiny taste and a reason to buy the EP when it comes out later this May: Hi-fi Stereo!

Watch Out! It's going to be called "Four Dances For Dancers," and it has the following track listing:


The Midnight March
Rainbowroom Waltz
Bossa Nova Supernova
Foxtrot Hymn for the Stars



Sunday 25 April 2010

Climate Change Legislation

More than anything, the world needs effective climate change legislation. It's not just about the environment, but also about jobs and social justice. It's about helping out the third world and creating legislation that makes "sustainability" a reality.


In one of his articles this week in The New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman argues that,


"If we put a Patriot Fee ($10 per barrel of oil) on all of those imported barrels, we would use less, cease enriching bad regimes, strengthen our own dollar, make the air cleaner and the climate more stable, foster the exploitation of domestic and renewable energy sources, promote electric vehicles, help bring down the global price of oil (which hurts Iran and helps poor Africa), and we could use the revenue to shrink the deficit. It’s win, win, win, win, win, win ..."  
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/opinion/25friedman.html?hp

He's right, it would be win, win, and win.

And yet at the moment, it's impossible. A carbon tax? A Gas tax? That's political suicide. But it's exactly what's needed. Nothing will change unless there is incentive for change.

So, we, the environmentally aware, need to start a real political movement built around one of the most important issues of this age.

Friday 16 April 2010

The History of Christianity: Beginnings Part II (Columbus: Our God shapes us)




“We shape our gods. Then our gods shape us.”

If you want, you can put it in the singular capital-G form: ‘We shape our God. Then our God shapes us.”

This is Part 2 of a many part series called the “History of Christianity,” but I haven’t really gotten into the history stuff yet because I am writing the prologue.  In the first post I mentioned that the intention of all these posts is to look at ‘how people view the so-called ‘Word of God,’ how this has changed throughout the ages, and hopefully… is changing now.’

But it’s about more than that. : )

Here is another Sunday School Story I was told; Samson and Delilah.

(Note: A lot of my readers don’t bother to read the Bible so I’m going to retell the story here. I’m using the child’s version I found online that reminds me a lot of the version I was told (it’s from http://www.essex1.com/people/paul/bible43.html), and also the real and much bloodier version in Judges 15. I’m going to mix the two because the version told in Sunday school misses out some interesting details. I also summarize for sake of space, my text is in black, text from the Bible is in red, and the kid’s story is in Italics.)

Picture all of this on a green flannel board...

A lady is told she will give birth to a special son, and that she isn’t to cut his hair. He’s really strong, and even kills a fucking lion with his bare hands. Enter Judges 15:

After a while, in the time of wheat harvest, it happened that Samson visited his wife with a young goat. And he said, "Let me go in to my wife, into her room." But her father would not permit him to go in. Her father said, "I really thought that you thoroughly hated her; therefore I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister better than she? Please, take her instead." And Samson said to them, "This time I shall be blameless regarding the Philistines if I harm them!"


Then Samson went and caught three hundred foxes; and he took torches, turned the foxes tail to tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails. When he had set the torches on fire, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up both the shocks and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves.


(Interestingly, the commentary from the Bible site I’m pasting this from says, “Samson went and caught three hundred foxes: Samson seems to act like a juvenile delinquent. Yet God used it all for His purpose of fighting against the Philistines.”)


Then the Philistines said, "Who has done this?" And they answered, "Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion." So the Philistines came up and burned her and her father with fire. Samson said to them, "Since you would do a thing like this, I will surely take revenge on you, and after that I will cease."


After saying this, Samson kills some Philistines. This pisses them off until the cycle continues and gets so bad that ‘3,000 people of Judah’ (God-fearing Jews) come to Samson and tell him they are arresting him and handing him over to the Philistines… which they do.


“This is a story about revenge.” ~me.

Enter the Children’s story:

“Suddenly, the power of God came over Samson, and he broke the ropes around his arms as if they were thread. There was an old jawbone lying in the dirt. Samson picked it up and swung it over his head.


He killed a thousand men with the jawbone of a donkey that day.”


Then, if you know the story. Samson is tricked by a woman named Delilah. She finds out from him that if he gets a hair cut, he will lose all his strength. She cuts his hair in the night, and the Philistines come and capture him. They also gorge out his eyes.


"Our God Dagon has given us great victory over our enemy Samson!" they [Philistines] prayed. 


Of course, their god Dagon had nothing to do with it. There is no god Dagon at all. It was the one and only God who brought Samson to the Philistines. And it wasn't going to be a victory for them.


"Let's bring Samson out here, so we can have some fun!" the kings said, thinking they were so powerful, and Samson was blind and weak.


They made Samson stand by the columns of the great temple they were feasting in.


But Samson's hair had grown back.


"Let me touch the columns that hold up the temple, so I can lean against them," Samson whispered to the boy who was leading him.


The temple was crowded with over three thousand men and women, and they were all having a great time, making fun of Samson and his God.


But Samson was quietly praying.


"Dear Lord, my King," he prayed, "please remember me, your servant. Give me strength just one more time."


And then Samson put his hands on the columns, one on each side.


He pushed with all his might.


The pillars gave way, and the great stones of the building came crashing down in a thundering roar and cloud of dust. It all came tumbling down on the five evil kings and all the evil people who were celebrating there.


It was Samson's victory after all.


But it doesn't seem like much of a victory, does it? Samson died too.


But this is a powerful story.


In many ways the story of Samson is a picture for us of Jesus. It is a picture to help us understand what Jesus did for us.

***
There’s a weird subtext in the way this story is told: The Philistines didn’t worship the one True God like the Jews, and so their need to be slaughtered was never in question. 


The Jews were the chosen people. The Philistines were pagans. So three thousand are slaughtered at the end, fields are burned, another thousand killed earlier with a jaw bone, and… 


Praise God.


No one questions this in Sunday school. 


No one questions whether Samson was really doing the will of God in seeking his revenge (and this is supposedly from the “turn the other cheek” God too). The way this story is often interpreted, it’s as if God is reaping judgment on the non-jews. God is damning the non-chosen ones. 


And as for the bad thing that happened to Samson? The moral of the story was Samson got taken in by a woman and got his hair cut which God told him not to do. And because he didn’t “Trust” God he lost his strength. Another website words it, “As Samson became a young man he started to like girls.  There was one girl he especially liked, her name was Delilah.” I’m too embarrassed by the authors stupidity to post the rest of it… but the general idea was, ‘God looks down on those who practice premarital sex and disobey His Word.’


Well, at least Samson wasn’t gay… he was a real man of the Lord.


(That was sarcasm.)


Some Bible websites try to make him into a superhero. No joke. Because he killed Philistines by the thousands and was super strong.


But what kind of God is this version of the story promoting? A God who rejects and despises and justifies the killing of those who do not know him.


Which brings me to Columbus. And my first dose of history.


He was one of the greatest mass murders of all time, and he was very religious—as were all of the Conquistadors. His God shaped him, and he looked fondly upon certain passages of the bible, such as Samson slaughtering the pagan Philistines. 


Upon meeting the native Americans, and seeing their golden earrings and trinkets, and the gold in their rivers, he wrote to his Queen: “The natives so naive and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something, they never say no. To the contrary they offer to share with anyone…”


To his Queen, he spoke of gold, but also asked for help from the Spanish Crown. In return he promised he would bring them from his next voyage ‘as much gold as they need… and as many slaves as they ask.’


Most importantly, his writing was filled with Christian talk:


“THUS THE ETERNAL GOD, OUR LORD, GIVES VICTORY TO THOSE WHO FOLLOW HIS WAY OVER APPARENT IMPOSSIBILITIES.”


Like Samson killing 1,000 men with a jaw bone. 


What did the “victory” of “those who follow His way” look like?


Bartolomé de las Casas, a young priest who participated in the conquest of Cuba, tells of how, ‘[The Spaniards] grew more conceited every day… [They] rode the backs of Indians if they were in a hurry… they had Indians carry large leaves to shade them from the sun and others to fan them with goosewings… [The Spaniards] thought nothing of knifing Indians by the tens and twenties and cutting off slices of them to test the sharpness of their blades…”


The work of the Lord! The chosen people conquering the land of milk and honey (and Gold)!


Las Casas writes, “two of these so called Christians met two Indian boys one day, each carrying a parrot; they took the parrots and for fun beheaded the boys.”


I can tell these stories for ages. Columbus and his men were devout Christians. Pizarro was so devout he spent an hour in prayer each day. But who was their God? It was the God of Samson… or at least the God of that version of the story.


The Jews were the chosen people. The Philistines were pagans. So three thousand are slaughtered at the end, fields are burned, another thousand killed earlier with a jaw bone, and… 


'Thus the eternal Lord gives victory.'


What is your God like?


Does he smile upon hate and bigotry? 


Through out the ages, there have been different interpretations of the Jesus Story. It’s important if your a Christian to know your roots. In some interpretations, Jesus and the Bible are used to justify slavery and to massacre non-believers, and yet, they have also been used to stand up against genocide and to end slavery. 


Ephesians 6:17 (New International Version)
….the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.


In the Bible, scripture is referred to as a sword. Which is a great metaphor because swords can easily be used to do evil if put in the wrong hands.


And yet, they can be used to do good.


To stand up for the poor, the oppressed, and the downtrodden. To forgive.


The history of Christianity is often about how people choose to use this sword.


What is your God like?


You shape your God, and your God shapes you.

***

Up next:The End of the Prologue Part III: Jesus is the Anti-Christ