Archive for March, 2010

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A Pronoia Refresher – Every Little Thing Is Gonna Be All Right

[ Comments Off ]Posted on March 16, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

The suspicion that the universe is conspiring on your behalf can be pretty helpful at times.


Of course there are other
ways to achieve this state

The other day, a friend was lamenting the sad state of affairs in the world. War, poverty, hunger, crime, environmental catastrophes, the shameful state of our government and its duopolistic party system…they were really digging in. I ordinarily would be the source of this kind of lamenting myself, but whenever some else does it, the rebel in me starts acting up, and I drag out my favorite toolbox for dismantling this kind of gloomy thinking. I start by pointing out that if you take a city like Los Angeles – which has a population of about 4 million people – you’ll find that every day a person is murdered, there are about 45 robberies, 80 cases of aggravated assault, 70 burglaries, and 90 cars stolen. That means that out of a city of 4,000,000 people, 3,999,714 of them were pretty much behaving. Which actually is pretty remarkable. I then introduce the idea of Pronoia, the suspicion that the universe is conspiring to work in your favor. For “Pronoia 101″, I always point people to Rob Brezsny’s Glory in the Highest, an excerpt from his book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia. In it, he walks you through the beginning of an average person’s day, pointing out just how many more things are working than not working. Getting your mind adapted to this kind of thing is pretty useful. It doesn’t mean your life will then be all serene and gloriously comforting; on the contrary, life always seems to dish out as much as you can take, so one of the dangers of taking joy in all this finely-tuned universe stuff is that as soon as you’re ready for it, more crap is probably on the way. Which is why I then suggest that if you can’t take the buddha-like approach of living in perfect acceptance in the present, you at least take the Mel Brooks approach of “hope for the best, expect the worst” because as he then adds: “the world’s a stage, we’re unrehearsed”. Improvise. It’ll probably work out. Read the rest of this entry »

Coffee Party Movement Grinds To Halt In Soy vs Lowfat Debate

[ Comments Off ]Posted on March 15, 2010 by admin in Politics

Monday, March 15th, 2010

When I wrote about Why Democrats Always Lose & Why American Voters Need A Brand a while back, I was hoping for something a little more inspired than a choice loosely based on the title of a now painfully politically incorrect “tell all” book from the “swingin’ sixties”. Yes, the American liberal has once again [...]

When I wrote about Why Democrats Always Lose & Why American Voters Need A Brand a while back, I was hoping for something a little more inspired than a choice loosely based on the title of a now painfully politically incorrect “tell all” book from the “swingin’ sixties”. Yes, the American liberal has once again built failure into their plans for setting the country back on track by letting the Republicans frame the debate. Oh, you have a tea party? Well, we have a…a…a COFFEE party. So there. The Coffee Party’s ragtag collection of unofficial spokespeople claim that they really have many of the same values as the teabaggers, but just think we need more reasonable discourse. They then go on to ramble about complex social issues in an intelligent and articulate fashion using all sorts of four-syllable words. Which is what Democrats do well. Analyze and calmly complain about Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck while sipping green tea and listening to NPR. I mean, c’mon liberals, they ALREADY CO-OPTED YOUR PREFERRED BEVERAGE, for cryin’ out loud. No, I don’t think the Coffee Party Movement is going to be any great threat to the Republican party. The movement is almost certainly going to get bogged down early on in some kind of infighting about cappuccino vs latte, skim vs lowfat vs soy vs whole milk debate. For now, I’m sticking to my existing proposal for the American voter’s branding: Read the rest of this entry »

Christen Lien’s Vol I: Battle Cry Gives The Viola Its Voice Back

[ 5 Comments ]Posted on March 14, 2010 by admin in Music

Sunday, March 14th, 2010

The viola is often the butt of jokes like “What’s the difference between a seamstress and a violist? The seamstress tucks up the frills”, but Christen Lien gives the viola its voice back on her brilliant release Vol I: Battle Cry

I’ve always felt a little bit of sympathy for the viola. The violin, in spite of its rather thin voice and high screech potential, always gets the limelight, while the richer, sonorous voice of the viola gets relegated to harmonies and pizzicatos. Well, I can feel a little less sympathy after listening to Christen Lien’s new CD Vol. I: Battle Cry. Lien definitely gives the instrument its voice back, and lets it say all the things it has the beauty and the power to say when it’s in the right hands. If you like the loop-based cello work of Zoe Keating, there’s a good chance you’d enjoy Lien’s work. Lien uses a bit of looping to help create the voices, rhythms, and textures on Battle Cry. But the fact that both Keating and Lien create atmospheric and compelling music by using looping on their bowed instruments is where the comparison ends. While I adore Keating’s soaring textural broods, Lien branches out a bit more. The tunes on Battle Cry range from the playful to the reflective, and from the almost searingly rhythmic to pastoral realms that literally brought tears to my eyes on repeated listens. There are brief previews of the songs below, and full length previews on her site . It’s available on Amazon as single songs, an album download, or eco-friendly on-demand CD, as well as from the other sources listed on Lien’s site, including CDBaby and iTunes. Learn more about how Lien was inspired by Martin Luther King – among other things – in this SCPR piece. The article includes this clip in which she walks you through the inpirations for the individual tunes. Lien has a lot of interesting things to say, but I’m quite content with what she says with the viola. Read the rest of this entry »

Science Holidays: Pi Day, Einstein, Equinoxes & The Poles Of Uranus

[ Comments Off ]Posted on March 13, 2010 by admin in Holidays

Saturday, March 13th, 2010

This time we forsake religious holidays for scientific ones, and end up talking in circles about Pi Day, Hole Theories, poles, and why Uranus won’t get up off its axis.

You don’t have to be Einstein to figure out that Pi Day is coming ’round again on March 14th, but if you were, it would be easier to remember, because it would also be your birthday. It also helps that Pi Day falls on 3.14, because well, that’s Pi. At least the “Pi For Dummies” version. For the longer, but still not full-size version (only a million digits) go here. March seems to have an astronomical number of math and science related “holidays”; not only do we bend time itself the day after Einstein’s birthday with Daylight Savings Time (which is bad for your health, by the way), but the following week we have the Vernal Equinox (that’s “First Day of Spring” for you lay people) which marks the halfway point between the longest and shortest days of the year. And don’t forget, it was on March 13, 1781 that William Herschel’s assistant climbed up on her ladder to adjust the telescope and Herschel said “I can see Uranus  quite clearly tonight“. Bad astronomy jokes aside, Uranus is an odd planet. All the other planets keep their axes in line, spinning vertically like little tops. But at Uranus’ equinoxes, it points its pole straight at the Sun. Which probably has something to with why – in astrology – Uranus represents sudden and unexpected changes and breaking with convention. It may seem like I’m talking in circles here, but what else would you expect when touching on transcendental numbers and the birthday of a guy who struggled with a hole theory?

Great Films That Have No Plot

[ Comments Off ]Posted on March 12, 2010 by admin in Popular Media

Friday, March 12th, 2010

Just because you don’t get it, does that mean that a film has no plot?


You have to be kind of dumb to
think this film doesn’t have a plot.

For some reason, a plotless movie with seventeen or more directors, fifteen or more actors, and the title Untitled Peter Farrelly/Charles Wessler Project seemed to get a lot of press yesterday. Apparently Hollywood thinks we’re overdue for another Amazon Women on the Moon, Kentucky Fried Movie or The Groove Tube. Maybe we are, but what intrigues me more is a thought that evolved out of a conversation with a couple of friends as we tried to recall that short list of plotless wonders. We then went on to ask: are there any really good movies that have no plot? Things got heated at points arguing about whether, for instance, Pulp Fiction or Requiem for a Dream had plots. I’ve compiled my quick list below, and I have to tell you I endured a LOT of pain perusing discussion threads on film web sites, reading commentary by the world’s unemployed film critics whose comments on a film like Requiem would go something like “the effects were kind of cool, but the movie had NO PLOT WHATSOEVER“. Which translated, clearly means “I really am quite stupid and didn’t get this movie at all but I DO have eyes in my head“. Have any suggestions to add? Read the rest of this entry »

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