Filed under: Booklist
Minimalists by K. Robert Schwarz
It's about minimalist composers such as La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Phillip Glass, and Steve Reich (The other Fab Four).
Filed under: Science
This is the most useless news I've ever heard. Who cares about the stupid environment? It's just natural that we as smart human beings kill ourselvesdue to complete incompetence. We're going to die anyway… I want to know what celebrity is fucking who.
Mon Mar 20, 2006 12:18 PM ET
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
OSLO (Reuters) – Humans are responsible for the worst spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs and must make unprecedented extra efforts to reach a goal of slowing losses by 2010, a U.N. report said on Monday.
Habitats ranging from coral reefs to tropical rainforests face mounting threats, the Secretariat of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity said in the report, issued at the start of a March 20-31 U.N. meeting in Curitiba, Brazil.
"In effect, we are currently responsible for the sixth major extinction event in the history of earth, and the greatest since the dinosaurs disappeared, 65 million years ago," said the 92-page Global Biodiversity Outlook 2 report.
Apart from the disappearance of the dinosaurs, the other "Big Five" extinctions were about 205, 250, 375 and 440 million years ago. Scientists suspect that asteroid strikes, volcanic eruptions or sudden climate shifts may explain the five.
A rising human population of 6.5 billion was undermining the environment for animals and plants via pollution, expanding cities, deforestation, introduction of "alien species" and global warming, it said.
It estimated the current pace of extinctions was 1,000 times faster than historical rates, jeopardizing a global goal set at a 2002 U.N. summit in Johannesburg "to achieve, by 2010, a significant reduction in the current rate of biodiversity loss".
"Unprecedented additional efforts' will be needed to achieve the 2010 biodiversity target at national, regional and global levels," it said. The report was bleaker than a first U.N. review of the diversity of life issued in 2001.
Filed under: Science
Someday, a nanotechnologist in Mexico will be cutting bits of DNA and will go to lunch. When he/she returns, the molecule will have morphed into an image resembling the Virgin Mary.
Filed under: Science
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060313/pf/060313-3_pf.html
Filed under: quaint expression
Fuck the sims. And Blue October sucks.
Filed under: Booklist
The New Music by Reginald Smith Brindle
This is a brief history of the Avant-garde since 1945 and written in 1975 yet this book is still highly enlightening especially for all those musicans who probably never had training in contemporary music. If you know what the notation for a quater tone sharp or flat looks like then you probably don’t need to read this book unless you like that sort of stuff like me. The author is a composer himself and offers a detailed description of what’s happened so far. It’s great.
American Music in the Twentieth Century by Kyle Gann
I haven’t started reading this yet but it’s cool, I can tell.
Breaking Open the Head by Daniel Pinchbeck
“A Psychedelic Journey into the heart of contemporary shamanism”. I had heard of Mr. Pinchbeck from the Psychdelic Salon podcast because they aired Daniel’s talks during the ‘03 and ‘05 burning man. I found this at the Ruiz Austin Public Library. Even the librarian who checked the book out for me told me it was worth reading. I guess I should make a link to all the podcasts I subscribe to…done. Anyways, this is a great read where the author goes to Bwiti tribe in Gabon to be initiated in the tribe by taking iboga root, a very dangerous and highly introspective drug that’s so powerful it can be used to cure heroin addictions. I’ve heard of iboga from the “African Vision Tribe” episode of Going Tribal. All cool stuff. Time to finish reading this.
Filed under: Sometimes I make music
I made this one with 3 second loops of random notes and effects with my bass guitar. The drum pattern loops every third time against the loop which has a 6/8 feel. I happened to be checking my voicemail as I was sitting down to record the drums so I added that message in too. Just and idea here. I’m sure I’ll use it somewhere some how in something.
Filed under: quaint expression
Sometimes you need solitude because you are scared of the tribe’s influences on your ability to access your true self. Sometimes you get that solitude. Sometimes you loose some of your friends from it. Sometimes some of your friends go with you. Sometimes those friends leave your elusive self and your exclusive cave. Sometimes you get scared of the cave your put yourself in until you find comfort in facing the opposite direction of the cave’s exit/entrance. Sometimes you look over at the last person in your cave with you and they are looking outside at the rest of the tribe. Sometimes you want to please everyone. Sometimes you realize the tribe has forgotten you but you are not done with your time in the cave. Sometimes you look over and that last person with you in a cave has gone to stand at the exit/entrance to watch the tribe. Sometimes your solitude doesn’t give the answer you are looking for. Sometimes there is a fire under your ass and you realize that you must return to the cave another time. Sometimes you’ve been in a cave so long you forgot the tribe as they have forgotten you. Sometimes the cave becomes around you so you just sit and wait for your time in the cave to be complete. And sometimes caves are lonely.
