I recently have been doing some sketches or cartoonish ink drawings of various faces, some more imaginative than others.

Here is one of the drawings:


Now just today I hopped by the ESA (European Space Agency) website, and noticed that the Rosetta satellite (which has been cruising through part of the Asteroid Belt on its way to chase a comet) managed to catch some amazingly detailed snaps of Asteroid Lutetia (http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM44DZOFBG_index_1.html).
The gallery of photos looks like this:


For the ultimate closeup view, click here.

Notice the similarity of pock-markings, grooves, craters, and such between the drawing and the photo.

The import of previous bloggits from the twohandsapproach.org/nucleus blog did not go as well as expected. The database has the records, but the dates are all screwed up.

Also, nucleus is not the friendliest at showing its archives.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

I have about 70 bloggits that I would like to have up on this, the new blog.

Please bear with me.

Jimmy Cliff is a legendary reggae singer from Jamaica.

I remember hearing some songs by Jimmy Cliff when I was living in Guyana in the early 1980s.

One song that I particularly like was Remake the World. The song spoke out against racial prejudice and talked of a hopefuly rebuilding of attitudes, institutions, society (what each person would call their own world.

I recorded the song some 25 years later in Guangzhou, trying hard to remember the lyrics and melody. I don't think I could find the original song on the internet at that time, but now we finally have it on youtube.

So, I give you first the original song sung by Jimmy Cliff in 2 versions (which I think are actually from the same LP)

1) the less clear, slightly more scratchy LP version (probably recorded using microphone instead of direct cable) but with LP cover as the only visual content in the video-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA3W-e-PEow


2) the clearer version but with rather bodacious representation of Jamaica's swimsuit crwowd --

Here are the lyrics:

Remake the World by Jimmy Cliff Too many people are suffering Too many people are sad Too little people got everything While too many people got nothing Remake the world With love and happiness Remake the world Put your conscience in the test Remake the world North, south, east, and west Remake the world Gotta prove that you're the best, yeah Too many people are suffering Too many people are sad Too little people got everything While the good suffer for the bad Remake the world Promote human dignity Remake the world Wipe out strife and poverty Remake the world Get racism from your sight Remake the world Be you black, be you white, yeah Too many people are suffering Too many people are sad Too little people got everything While too many people got nothing We will remake the world With love and happiness Remake the world People, people put your conscience to the test Remake the world And this is no jest, sir Remake the world Come on, come on, mister Remake the world Come on, come on, brother Remake the world I said this is no jest, sir Remake the world So, come on, brother Remake the world So, come on, sister Remake the world Come on, come on, mister Remake the world And don’t think you are too small Remake the world I said, this is no jest, Sir Remake the world

Now I give you the slightly modified stedawa version. There is no comparison between the original and stedawa's version. In fact, Jimmy Cliff is in an entirely different sphere of calibre than stedawa. stedawa is still trying to find his voice and groove and genre (possibly also gender), and swinging a serious musical hobby along with the more serious writing of philosophical works (the upcoming 5M plus the land or crust-breaking Symphonic Assemblage tomes plus managing a few websites is enough to almost make me totter under the unwieldy load, like a waiter carrying several platters stacked atop each other.

Without hesitation, I must divulge something of my peripatetic, genetic past. Psstt! Even though I was born, raised, and set free in Canada, my chromosomes come from Scotland.

My paternal grandmother, Marion Cole, was from Edinburgh, but later moved to Vancouver. She was alive until I was about 22 or so and traipsing around Africa and other nodal points of the globe.

Apparently, Watson is part of the Buchanan clan. Here is their tartan (see below):
Let's face it: Dylan has a huge mansion in Scotland, as does Sir Paul McCartney. The Chieftains and other bands keeping Celtic also deserve mention. Acoustic rocker KT Tunstall also hails from the land of the haunted moors. In fact, she praises Scotland's live music scene in this youTube video.

On my maternal side, I have English roots. I do have to explore this in more detail. I must talk to Mom at length on that soon.

I'm staying in Korea for the next few months, but Mom is in Ontario, Canada.

She's 85. She does calligraphy and drawing and painting. Here are some samples:

Well, I am on summer vacation but with a slew of things to do.

As some of you may know, I have occasionally blogged using an installation of nucleus blog software on the twohandsapproach.org website. Unfortunately, this installation does not show the stedawa.com name at the top, and it looks as though the blog is squatting illegally on someone else's land.

Well, the story is that twohandsapproach.org plus stedawa.com are housed on a single server under a single account. Stuff about domain name and how to point to it and how not to see one as a subdirectory of the other etc is stuff that my cranial fibers have to severely strain at times to fathom. Circuits overheat, causing blackouts in my mind's city.

On yet another analogy, we could say that I ride the tech train only so far, and when the topography and terrain gets too labyrinthine or the air too thin, I head back to sea level.

But this morning I was bothered by mosquitos at 3am, so I got up (since going back to sleep is an almost impossible task and not a viable option), and I tried to install the blog under the stedawa.com name.

So, as you can see, it worked. My next task is to try to pry open the database of the older bloggits (entries), and to try to transfer them into the new installation database. Anyone who has any tips on how to do this (mySQL savvy), please tweet me @stedawa and I may pick your brains for tips on the procedure for transfering records.

By the way, the name for the blog is smatterings.

photo preview from flickr. photo by tammylo.

Jai Agnish: Awake When You Dream (free audit/download here)

Jai's music is listenable and approachable, and because of this, it is more than a pleasant surprise. Since I live in Asia and my access to the latest English-language music is limited, I don't have a lot to compare it with. What immediately springs to mind, though, because of its vocal-layering and subdued tone is that it is similar to The Weepies. Words are given an appropriate background, a kind of cushion if you will, so that as they are sprinkled or flung before you, you are relaxed enough and ready enough to catch their impact, their full charge. The charge of the lightness of words brigade that skips the light fandango and leaves trellises for us to enjoy. Words are suitably inaugurated, as they should be in all good songwriting.

It's a meandering, gentle weave of sound and sight, like a bike ride or country roads ride in a car that may break down and need towing, across the landscapes and shifting sandscapes of family and urban and other things that are livable, lovable, laughable. His somewhat soft but clearly audible voice, backed with overlays of and stretches of carefully crafted acoustic guitar and occasional mellotron arrangements and vocals by Peg Carlin, informs the listener without contest or confrontation. He is obviously trying to collate in these confusing times. Lively enough and with words that tell little stories and conjure up places and people, with words that capture the fleetingness of it all, seemingly acknowledging even the fleetingness of the words themselves, the song collection has tinges of transcendentalism, poetic pit falls that pull us and tug at our mind that at times, too, must be childlike, down the Wonderland rabbit hole of the imagination and away from the Blunderland of our blesst social mess.

Phrases are elevated at times with repetition, sometimes unexpectedly, making us notice even prosaic phrases as having something worthy of note. I provide here some not-too-carefully sifted samples from the lyrics; perhaps you may feel compelled to drop by the above website for a listen to the whole album. I also [encase] what might be the theme or drift of the song in each case, although that is personal and someone else could interpret the song quite differently. Perhaps it is poetic confetti, picnic finger food, krill for blue whales — with no Ultimate Meaning intended.
(1) New Parade: Call up the press and stop the traffic -- — and make a New Parade. Everyone's here, and everyone's messed up [celebrating something?]
(2) Farview: Go inside and open up the door. Tell the man in there that you're ready for more. [staying open]
(3) Paradise: Trying to find my way to Paradise, to Paradise. Can't quite figure out this roadmap, there's too many signs. Tie me to the truck, maybe you can tow me there... Does it matter at all? [metaphor of driving in a car for the cosmic journey?]
(4) Walls: Walls above my head. [?] I guess it's best for the rest of us. Tears are in my eyes, but I can't cry. How high is this, anyhow? [consciousness? reality of emotion?]
(5) We Found Love: I found a new friend. We found love. How high does this love go? [love springs eternal]
(6) **Shopping Malls: Whose land is this, anyhow? Give it back to the animals, to the dinosaur age. How long til it all becomes walls, walls, shopping malls? You can buy anything in this shopping mall. [suburban mall sprawl]
(7) Your Dream: Quick, get out of bed. You can tell me all about your dreams later. I'll see you later. [morning routine, singing in the shower, sunshine after rain]
(8) India: Told our tour guide this journey's been sanitized. Crowds of people wander by aimlessly. Does anyone notice them? Does anyone notice me? [night time in Mumbai, heritage identity]
(9) Lightnings Bugs: They hung around almost for a week. They have me drive them down the street to the bagel shop... We sit out on the cliff by the lake just in time for the sunset... I wanted to tell you this story about this thing that I found... Is it the timing or the rhyming? Haven't really figured that out.... His toys are everywhere... [snippets of stories, starts of yarns -- it doesn't take too much to get a story going.]
(10) Parachutes: It's OK if you put on your boots and fly away... Into the sky, you and I... It's easy enough to get lost in all of these worlds. Hey, we forgot our parachutes. Hold on, falling, down. [the convergent and composite nature of reality, the inevitability and atemporality of death]
(11) An American: Just outside the city lines... She says she's an American... Puts in 60 hours a week... Play games with money... They heard the saints making noise... Then the war it begins... They dream of smoke, they dream of fire, they dream a vision... Her face is like the sun... It's sweaty on the trading floor... [American dream? statue of liberty? the inner battle?]

Links:
review at docstoc had this to say about him
Jai Agnish -
album at bandcamp

stedawa is currently and sporadically work on his 3rd CD, tentatively entitled global plunk and due for (POD) release this July.

Excellent lyrics for this song were written by sallysense. Find the lyrics at the bottom of this page over at sallysense.com. stedawa had put another of her poems to music, That Field. a song that appeared on his first CD.

The song has its original title, World's Fare.

This little ditty plopped into my head this morning. Mortality rates, and mortality waits, and death is served on everyone's plate.

Everyone has a transitory story. Even if they don't tell it themselves, others will commemorate them with even a few words.

Strange that a poem of this nature should come from nowhere, on this day, May 22 evening/May 23 day which are a Holy Day in the Bahá'í Faith, the Natufia) (for no other reason than it was in this part of the world to which Baha'u'llah was banished).

Happy Holy Day to all fellow Bahá'ís! View a wonderful video for this day here.

Beens'n'Gone Ernie Calhoun has been and gone He kept a lot of cattle, big and strong His wife and five children are now getting on Thus once was Ernie, now boxed in the ground Betty McIvor, a popular gal Was the queen at her high school Galaxy Ball She wore a long satin gown and a sparkling crown But now Betty McIvor is nowhere found Willy McGee had the power of three Few could match his ingenuity He overpowered bankers with a snap of his thumb Now his grave's all dirty with weeds overrun Serena McKenna, an accountant by trade, Kept her house in fine order, as well as her blades Her smile would warm you, even start a small flame But Serena's no longer part of the game Portly Patty McIntosh, now there's a dame She could glide on the dance floor, keep a guy at bay She could hustle, and tustle, and rustle her charms Now pretty portly Patty is in nobody's arms Esther Kudester lies comfortably still Her grave is well-kept, flowers on the sill Esther Kudester was on everyone's lips In more ways than one -- if you catch my drift Life is short, a few episodes A few epicenters, and alter egos Soon we find ourselves looking for an eternal lamp Life zooms by, then we're on the exit ramp (added 2009.5.30) Topsy Bopsy could rattle a tune And thumped on a drum each shiny moon Legend has it she'd keep four rhythms at a time But now Topsy Bopsy's in a far different clime Charlie McFarley rode a touring Harley Thundered down Main Streets, incurring looks quite snarly He had studs on his vest and chains that dangled to his knees Striking fear in the hearts which are now at ease Guitar Pete was an exceptional strummer He drove 'round town in a beat-up old Hummer One day while playing an awesome riff He up and died, and that was the end of it Carolina Myna shimmered like tassels on a tree She was as tall as one, and could shake her assets free She garnished her speech with referential spice We now miss those quips — so informative and nice!

Lend an ear to an initial rendering of these epic lines (minus the added verses) in

Addenda (2006.6.10) Just came across this little passage over at Shaktari Belew's Honoring All Life Foundation. It is by Steve Jobs.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Books in Print

2002. Co-authored The Two Hands Approach to the English Language. Self-published. Short print run. Currently out of print.

2009. An illustrated children's book Moss, the Bike-Riding Mosquito.. All script, artwork, and file preparation for printing done by stedawa. Printed on demand through createspace. Available online at createspace and Amazon.

2009. An illustrated lyrics book Out in the Open that accompanies stedawa's first 2 CDs. Printed on demand through createspace. Available online at createspace and Amazon.

2009 (pending). Co-author, designer, and file layout artist for the revised, revamped, and greatly expanded 2-volume edition of The Two Hands Approach to the English Language. To be printed on demand through createspace in the summer of 2009. Available online at createspace and Amazon.

2010 (in the works). 5 Models of Critical Thinking (Layers of Language).

Media

1)Stained glass
2) Acrylic on canvas
3) Ink, pencil on paper

Illustrations: children's book
1) Moss, The Bike-Riding Mosquito
front cover first town

next town students of Kashtent go home

Book Layout and Cover Designs

1) Professor Richard Dowling's book
University of Maryland
also at amazon.com with view inside
covers and interior layout

2) Bifford Debs, M.D. (author)
From the Other Side book covers (to be released June 2009)


CD Jacket Layout and Designs
1) stedawa CD: in it for the long haul
2) stedawa CD: Peoples of the World - A New Day

Excerpts from sketchbook
1) variations on a face




2) memories

This is a painting of a friend who I met after finishing university, who I lost contact with during my world work-tour.

I gave the painting to another family, the Aggarwals, when they were in Thompson. They lost their son in the Air India crash off the coast of Scotland. A few years later, his mother died. There were also some other tragic losses of family members. Such a kind family. They helped me a bit with background info that lead to my writing the Ganesh song (on CD#2). The father and his daughter were in southern Ontario last I heard. I think it is sometimes very hard for people to accept the kind of deep-wracking emotional upheavals, but then again, it is said that we are never tested beyond our limits.

Visiting them brought back many of my pleasant memories of living in India. Sitar and flute music really enchant me like the song of a bride.

3) India Café


Chai! Chai! can be heard by train-travellers in India. As the train pulls in to every station, children, youth, or adult salespersons holding trays of small glasses of tea run up to the train windows looking for thirsty customers. On the streets as well, there are many tiny to large cafés and restaurants that offer tea and small edibles. I really enjoyed having chai and idlis. They can also be eaten with sambhar. Often, riding my bicycle, I would stop and enjoy the small tea stalls on the roadside on my way to Pondicherry.

In northern India, men wear dhotis, in the south they wear lungis. Often a rolled-up towel or cloth would be worn on the head as protection from the strong sun. Women, bedecked in bangles, anklets, nose-rings and other adornments, floated by in colorful saris.