Image Credit & Copyright: Babak Tafreshi (TWAN)
Explanation: As the Sun rose, a nearly full Moon set in this serene seaside vista captured last Monday from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In the foreground, the reddened early morning sunlight illuminates a stretch of South Atlantic coastline. Looking toward the west, in a scene that is a familiar one to Rio's Ipanema beach goers, the favela Vidigal is nestled below the twin peaks of Morro Dois Irmãos (Two Brothers Hill). This well-composed multiple-exposure image recorded the steady progress of the dramatic moonset with a 6.5 minute gap between each frame. Flying from their nests at the break of dawn, all the ocean birds appear only in the last single frame.
Monday, April 11, 2011
“All material in nature, the mountains and the streams and the air and
we, are made of Light which has been spent, and this crumpled mass called
material casts a shadow, and the shadow belongs to
Light.” —Louis Kahn,
Architect
What if the Creator is like Rainer Maria Rilke's God, "like a webbing
made of a hundred roots, that drink in silence"? What if the Source of
All Life inhabits both the dark and the light, heals with strange
splendor as much as with sweet insight, is hermaphroditic and
omnisexual? What if the Source loves to give you riddles that push you
past the boundaries of your understanding, forcing you to deepen your
perceptions and change the way you think about everything? Close your
eyes and imagine you can sense the presence of this tender, marvelous,
difficult, entertaining intelligence.
“Here’s a guy and everybody’s there, right? Up to him to put down what’s on everybody else’s mind. He starts the first chorus, then lines up his ideas, people, yeah, yeah, but get it, and then rises to his fate and has to blow equal to it. All of a sudden somewhere in the middle of the chorus he gets IT- everybody looks up and knows; they listen; he picks it up and carries. Time stops. He’s filling empty space with the substance of our lives, confessions of his bellybottom strain, remembrance of ideas, rehashes of old blowing. He has to blow across bridges and come back and do it with such infinite feeling soul-exploratory for the tune of the moment that everybody knows its not the tune that counts but IT”
“A yuppie most nearly
approaches sainthood,” the book noted, “when he or she is able to
accomplish more things in a single day than is humanly possible.” (The
Yuppie Handbook)
"All of which means that the archetypal yuppie of the eighties sounds precisely like, um, everyone you know."
"By
now, in fact, an argument could be made that the yuppie phenomenon is
the most enduring and influential social movement of the past 50 years.
The boomer media love to get all swoony over the Woodstock era, but how
many real hippies do you know? The only remaining trace of hippie
ideology can be found in supermarket aisles full of organic, farm-raised
food—but don’t kid yourself: Those people creating a boom market for
Whole Foods and organic baby food are yups, not hippies. Dead rebel
artists like Burroughs and Kerouac were long ago turned into useful
“bohemian” brands, tailor-made for Gap ads, but nobody actually aspires
to be a beatnik anymore. (At this point, beret might as well be French
for dickhead.)"
"Even back in 1991, novelist Douglas
Coupland, the man who introduced the term Generation X into the
mainstream, was picking up on a generation’s natural vulnerability to
comfort. “When you’re 27 or 28, your body starts emitting the Sheraton
enzyme,” he told People. “You can no longer sleep on people’s floors.”
By 37, the Sheraton enzyme mutates into the Four Seasons endorphin.
People, like neighborhoods, have a tendency to gentrify. On my recent
trip to the West Coast, I went back to the section of Pasadena that used
to be my beloved slacker drag strip in the eighties—a scrungy
wonderland of pawn shops, Bukowski-approved dives, vintage clothing
shops, used bookstores, greasy taco trucks. As I poked around in this,"
"it came as a shock to see that every last drop of that suburban
boho-scape was now gone, replaced by upscale trattorias and tapas bars,
boutiques and Pottery Barn and Tiffany’s.
A shock, but
only a minor one. While the yuppies were colonizing my favorite
neighborhood, apparently they were doing the exact same thing to my
brain."
Jeff Gardinier (The Return of the Yuppie)
Do not go where the path may lead,
go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
This is so beautiful...I don't know what year this is...my cd says that the Ballade No. 1. Op. 23 that I have could have been performed at various dates throughout 1979 until 1982. My cd only has sound and I've had it since around 1990. I'm assuming this video has to be within that time frame but there is no elaboration. I can't be sure. I have so very often stared at Mr. Horowitz with an amazed awe. He never seems to even break a sweat. A serene Buddha smile seems to reach his lips and his fingers are never weak...as if the countless hours of practice have been joyfully and gleefully spent...he leans forward, his arms look strong not exhausted...on the outside (in other words "1989") he'd have been performing this at the age of 86. Whew! Astounding. On the inside he'd have been 69 years of age and he's simply profound. I shall always treasure him...
When I was young, everything seemed so simple. I felt the calling toward art and literature, so I decided I would be a writer and pen a magical book like Peter Pan or Alice in Wonderland. But no matter how I fixed I was on my path, something always drew me away and I trampled unexpected roads with great twists and turns. And what I learned is that we are all Pinocchio: We begin our life, waving to our mother and father with our schoolbooks in hand, hoping to do well. But we are turned this way and that. We make mistakes, we move from our course, we falter, flounder, and may suffer remorse, rebellion, or a sense of defeat. We seem to lose our way. But no matter! If we keep our little flame alive, our first feeling of enthusiasm of who we are, without the influence or intervention of others, we will prevail. And like Pinocchio, despite all his transgressions, find the courage to reunite with our little flame and be rewarded. And the reward is this: We become ourselves.
In my life I have made many mistakes. Sometimes I was careless and inconsiderate of others. Fate drew me to singing and performing around the world, and yet this was not what I dreamed of for myself - sometimes I felt it took me from my true path, that of a writer. But I found performing brought me closer to the people. It gave me an opportunity to travel, to explore, to communicate, and concern myself with my fellow man.
In 1979 I gave up my life in the arena of rock'n'roll to marry and raise a family, another divergence from my pursuit as a solitary artist. But through my family I learned the final lesson of Pinocchio-what it is like to be human. And always through everything, through sacrifice and success, I have tried to stay close to my little flame, reminding me who I am.
The cricket tells Pinocchio, "Always let your conscience be your guide." these words, by a small, insignificant insect, give us all we need. The best person to tell you who you are, what you should be, is ultimately yourself."
