stedawa

Usher: Will Work For Love; Adrianna Huffington's 3rd World America; Moneyless Man; Tina's Fight No More

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 23:05:14 -0400

Heard this song in a local coffee shop. It made me think of the hard times that have hit America and most economies worldwide. I've just found out the song was released in May 2008 on Usher's Here I Stand CD which has guesstimately sold a meagre 5 million copies worldwide. Interesting how the lyrical content applies as much today as it did back then.

Working for love overtime. Isn't that what is needed in the world? I guess it should be 24/7, 365, 360, NSEW. More love, less shove, more grace, less fast-pace. All the NGOs are doing what they do out of love. Being of service to others is a high calling, and perhaps the highest of all in terms of true spiritual worth and enduring value.

A sombre mood is now o'er the land. The problems are not small. They call for courageous acts and long term vision. The Native Americans speak of thinking in terms of ultimate value and use of anything for the 7th generation hence. It irks me to see people sitting in cars with their air-conditioner on to keep cool, while their very sitting there idly pumps gases into the air which only cause greater heatwaves. Warm air holds more moisture; hence, we have heavier rain and more floods.

I remember watching the movie Beyond Thunder Dome. It was kind of post-apollocalypitic, when people scavengered to food and old machine parts and any old contraption that worked could help survival.

I just looked at a trailer for the movie. Then I got sidetracked into watching a Tina Turner video, I Don't Want to Fight No More. In its more limited interpretation, it is about a couple that is trying to see eye-to-eye without blackening any one of them. It's about understanding and peace between (among?) the genders. It's about nations giving up their grip on nationalism in lieu of a higher loyalty to humanity and the human species. A nation is only an abstraction, anyway, represented somewhere on a piece of paper, in a map that is rolled out or up. The real realty and reality is this piece of peaceless, orbiting dirt.

Another excellent live version of the song on late night TV is here.

The other day while posting my newly selfpublished book A New Angle on Writing, I found an interesting park. The park had this statue with 2 moons, and a mom and a kid looking up at them. We can only speculate as to what the sculptor meant. Are the mother and the kid the same as the 2 moons? There is also 3 dots on one of the pillars and 4 dots on the other. So I am wondering if there are also some number or figure symbology going on here.

Here is a snap of it:

and a closeup:

Arianna Huffington has a book coming out (in September) out called Third World America. With a startling title like that, the point may register with our American friends that the American Dream has had its heyday and is/will prove itself to be the antithesis of sustainability. Greed, corruption, and lack of foresight have brought this crumpled state of the UnTied States. Let's call it a state of disarray.

Her video and book promo is at Amazon (also here ), plus a TV interview

There is even an interactive map that documents this collapse.

UK's Mark Boyle has shorn himself of everything but the essentials. Known as the Moneyless Man, he has lived for 19 months without any money. He exchanges work grit (labor) for grains. He's been on CNN, too. He has a website called justfortheloveofit.org that encourages people to reconnect to their communities by exchanging services instead of money.

His video and explanation of his freelosophy is here.

A truly sustainable and loving society will be very different from the society and image of success and values that are thrust before our bleary eyes with manipulative advertising and bellowed half-truths from pulpits and rostrums of every design and location.

"Peace" by Jamaica's Jimmy Cliff

Wed, 4 Aug 2010 02:58:00 -0400

I keep finding new and great songs, this time again by Jamaica's Jimmy Cliff.

It's on the theme of Justice. The foundation of this New, Integral Age should and will be Justice. The latest Manifestation of G-d, Baha'u'llah, has written in His capsule summary of all previous scriptures -- The Hidden Words (Arabic, #2):

O SON OF SPIRIT!

The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; turn not away therefrom if thou desirest Me, and neglect it not that I may confide in thee. By its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of thy neighbor. Ponder this in thy heart; how it behooveth thee to be. Verily justice is My gift to thee and the sign of My loving-kindness. Set it then before thine eyes.

To clear the way for this era of justice, the old world dis-order will be rolled up, swept away, dismantled, broken down -- due to its lamentable shortcomings, its bankruptcy of values, its disregard for the next generation and the resources of the planet, plus lack of any kind of unifying vision that goes beyond the walls and barriers that currently keep peoples and countries from assisting one another:

Soon will the present-day order be rolled up, and a new one spread out in its stead. Verily, thy Lord speaketh the truth, and is the Knower of things unseen.

(Gleanings from the Writings of Bah�'u'll�h, IV, p. 6-7)

Here is the AudVideo

Here are the lyrics:

A more fitting theme or anthem song for the New Age can hardly be found!

Going Scottish: Loch Lomond, Gathering of the Clans

Mon, 2 Aug 2010 09:35:00 -0400

Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond

wikipedia article and lyrics
baritone version
John McDermott

2 jazz versions
2
Maxine Sullivan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_cCkKz4dsc

Benny Goodman Orchestra and Maxine Sullivan?

The Real McKenzies from Canada

punk version

The Gathering of the Clans

Humans are gathering in groups aplenty these days - NPOs, NGOs, activists, de-activists, polemicists, conservationists, endemics, appalling collapsists, ... Collectivly, though, it is the promised time of the unification of the nations and peoples. In old Scotland, they called this the Gathering of the Clans.

sung by Kenneth McKellar

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV8fuiXMQao&feature=related
Lyrics
The clans are gathering, gathering, gathering
thro' the deep glens and from far-a-way lands
from cottage and shieling while music is stealing
ho ro for the gathering of the clans.

The pipers are sounding in low-land and high-land
the laddies sae brave and the lassies say braw
They come from the hill and they come from the island
and some from across the wide ocean and a'

The clans are gathering, gathering, gathering
thro' the deep glens and from faraway lands
from cottage and shieling while music is stealing
ho-ro for the gathering of the clans
Ho-ro for the gathering of the clans

Vera Lynn version

human face on asteroid lutetia?

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:52:00 -0400

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.

import not exactly working

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 18:15:33 -0400

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 -- Remake the World

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 16:09:00 -0400

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.

ancestral roots

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 19:04:00 -0400

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:

stedawa blog has moved, gets new name: "smatterings"

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 16:34:00 -0400

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.

Jai Agnish: CD "Awake when you dream" (sure to grow on you)

Tue, 2 Feb 2010 18:29:56 -0500

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

full sample track from upcoming 3rd CD

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 23:40:00 -0500

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.

stedawa - world's fare