Tuesday, May 26, 2009
"Go Away Blues," by Jazz Street Trio added to "Light Catches Diamonds"
Light Catches Diamonds
I wrote this prose poem in June 2007, and a year later, in June 2008, recorded it. And, as seems to be a yearly tradition, now that it is almost June 2009, I have paired it with a beautiful Jazz recording, "Go Away Blues," from the album, Because, by Buz Hendricks of Jazz Street Trio, who has licensed this album with a Creative Commons license on Jamendo.
Hope you like it!
___
Links (that open a pop-up player):
DSL or Cable
Dial-up
(click on image to read
poem-about ½ way down,
gosh didn't notice that was
the image I created for my
website, anyhow, I've linked
it to Celestial Dancers page)
Monday, May 25, 2009
Ai!R's 'Insomnia'
Jamendo is now the #1 Creative Commons Licensed Music site in the world. There are true finds at Jamendo, too. Like Ai!R. This is Ai!R's second album. (I also posted on his first, Waxworks.)
Ai!R writes, in his description of Insomnia: "The album presents a four-part suite for chamber orchestra, piano, a few symphonic orchestral instruments, choir and perscussion. Its polyrhythmic musical language is both classically-shaped and modern and mostly addressed to lovers of chamber music. At the same time, all listeners may, hopefully, find it interesing as well."
I wrote (yes, I'm posting comments, it's a way to highlight artists whose work I really like): "I wrote a review some time back and lost it in the posting process. The stars showed up, but nothing else.
That night I was inspired to share images of your music that came while listening.
It hasn't come back again, that 'whatever-it-is'... but I feel I need to respond anyhow.
The title worked well for me - the pieces are beautifully woven into the hours of a long night when one can't sleep and travel through the hours in reminiscences, partial dreams, hallowed moments of visionary light, tiredness, a slow waiting for the unconsciousness of sleep.
There was a syncopated element in the music that was more Jazz-like than your earlier album.
I like the rhythms in these pieces. They are poems of the night. Sonorous. Slow. Fast. Beating with rhythm through the endless dark hours. When it is quiet. When you can free yourself from the constraints of space and time and drift and dream. While awake. On the edge of sleep. That profound state, my favourite one.
Thank you for these pieces, their harmonies that sooth and yet entrain with the strange harmonies of our inner lives. Where we transmute our darknesses into subtle and steady and holy light."
And now that I am again listening, of course Stravinsky and the strings. Chamber music, yes. I think I meant ambient jazz, which can have a classical soundscape.
Anyway, I post because I love Ai!R's work. Deep, complex, covering a huge tableaux in its sweep in the spirit of Russia's greatest artists. What isn't here, in his panoramic tonal vistas?
___
Direct link: Ai!R's Insomnia, in Four Parts.
Aural Pleasure: Poetry of Brenda Clews (playing with a widget)
Aural Pleasure: Poetry of Brenda Clews rich text with pleasing undulating voice and music poetry readings |
I am truly amazed that you can open 'View "page source"' & swipe html & twiddle with it bending it to your purposes & post it. Like I've done here. Damn it, it works.
(No idea whose description of my readings that is... found it at SoundClick. Seems okay :-)
Photopoem: Diversity of Us, and the Non-feeling Edges
I've added writing to this image, which goes with the written piece in the last post, Diversity of Us, and the Non-feeling Edges.
Click on it for a larger size.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Diversity of Us, and of the Non-feeling Edges
The diversity our species has evolved into is fascinating. There are a huge range of differences and yet we form a co-extensive and exciting, complex humanity.
I'm thinking of psychopathologies. Not schizoid schisms, or those who are broken, but of the empty ones.
Those without remorse or conscience.
While I can't imagine living without my turbulent emotional depths, and the guidance of an acute moral sense, a psychopath lives without that emotional range, and without the navigation of conscience, though has learned how to give appropriate responses in social/relational situations.
They think psychopathology largely genetic - not as a 'genetic defect' but as an actual 'genetic pool.' A predisposition to psychopathology can be cultivated if a child passes through numerous foster homes before the age of 3. Such an early life is like a key, an entrance into the zone of non-feeling, a zone without exit.
So much harm in our culture seems attributable to violence without remorse that I wonder about the prevalence of psychopathology in the general population.
The diversity of our genetic variations. As a species we are a full spectrum.
An unfinished sketch, water-soluble oil pastel and graphite on paper, 12" x 16", from late last
year, 2008, and photoshop filters. (click on image to enlarge)
I'm thinking of psychopathologies. Not schizoid schisms, or those who are broken, but of the empty ones.
Those without remorse or conscience.
While I can't imagine living without my turbulent emotional depths, and the guidance of an acute moral sense, a psychopath lives without that emotional range, and without the navigation of conscience, though has learned how to give appropriate responses in social/relational situations.
They think psychopathology largely genetic - not as a 'genetic defect' but as an actual 'genetic pool.' A predisposition to psychopathology can be cultivated if a child passes through numerous foster homes before the age of 3. Such an early life is like a key, an entrance into the zone of non-feeling, a zone without exit.
So much harm in our culture seems attributable to violence without remorse that I wonder about the prevalence of psychopathology in the general population.
The diversity of our genetic variations. As a species we are a full spectrum.
An unfinished sketch, water-soluble oil pastel and graphite on paper, 12" x 16", from late last
year, 2008, and photoshop filters. (click on image to enlarge)
Celestial Dancers, revisited
Off to BLOSSOMING with women, dancing to Erica's sweet music & musings in an all-day
urban dance retreat. Happy day!
Later:
Haahhhaaaahahahaha... oh, yes, showered, cooked a buttery good 'breakfast' (cheddar cheese & basil omelette & sausages, shhhh, yes I do eat that) to take with me, made coffee, grabbed bags of raw almonds and Thompson raisins, an apple, filled canteens & thermos' and a huge bottle of Spring water with fresh lime juice added to it, lugging a big bag of goodies for the day, only no-one was there! haahhaahhhaa... and I was *late* - more like a week early!!! I walked home carrying my heavy bag, laughing all the way...
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Celestial Dancers webpage
Celestial Dancers
It's taken 8 hours to put the Celestial Dancers webpage up... these images are from 2004, during the time when I was painting those paintings. Silly, & fun.
I 'lost' the entire file of images in my Picasa folder on my computer, after hours of scouring two hard drives in search of them. I tried to delete one repetition and somehow managed to 'hide' the entire folder - oh, I could see it in Finder alright, but couldn't open anything, or access it in any way. Picasa finally relented when I asked to 'see' all 'hidden folders.' But by then I had two albums up on Picasa on the web and who knows what's what anymore. I'd better leave them, both with the same images but probably different URLs, otherwise images will disappear :-)
Friday, May 22, 2009
Love Letters on Sand Manadalas (1:01min)
Added a background of ocean & shells to this older recording for the Photopoem page of my Art & Writings website. An improvement over the plain voice in this one. I worked on this recording (shells & distant tinkling bells are mine) because I thought this poem needed some 'pizzaz.'
(But, yes, I forgot to 'master fade out' & this version is gone because I continued fiddling in garageband & saved a later version... it bothers me, but, ahhhh, it's late... & I did manually 'fade out' each of the six tracks (yes, yes, there are that many)...
Love Letters on Sand Mandalas, 2005..............click to play
(click on this image
to enlarge)
(But, yes, I forgot to 'master fade out' & this version is gone because I continued fiddling in garageband & saved a later version... it bothers me, but, ahhhh, it's late... & I did manually 'fade out' each of the six tracks (yes, yes, there are that many)...
Love Letters on Sand Mandalas, 2005..............click to play
(click on this image
to enlarge)
Thursday, May 21, 2009
I have to be formless to write; dissolved to paint; non-existent to create. It's always a risk.
But an aesthetic operates. The aesthetic, way of shaping, what negotiates the creative forces and the tools, the diverse & complex language structures, the brush of paint by a sable brush on canvas, how far the back will bend in the speed of the movement, offers structure to the emerging poem or painting or dance.
It's like trying to hold a sail in a high-force wind.
Sometimes we just can't make it.
Sometimes we do.
But an aesthetic operates. The aesthetic, way of shaping, what negotiates the creative forces and the tools, the diverse & complex language structures, the brush of paint by a sable brush on canvas, how far the back will bend in the speed of the movement, offers structure to the emerging poem or painting or dance.
It's like trying to hold a sail in a high-force wind.
Sometimes we just can't make it.
Sometimes we do.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Rebirth, 1989
When I taught yoga in 1987, since I was following a theme of how to unite one's lifepath and soulforce, I used to bring "SoulCards," and we each picked one, and then spoke on what it reminded us of, or what message it might contain that would help us in our direction.
When I pulled this card, I knew, after my marriage had ended, that I had to open all the closed places within and re-find myself as an artist and poet, and continue on whatever strange and difficult but hopefully fruitful path that would take me.
I painted the image that you see above onto the large canvas I began working on, and from which I have posted an Angelic Whorl. She is a flying, whirling seed who has landed, who must begin the process of what would turn out to be a long, and painful rebirth, a process which still hasn't completed itself, ten years later.
Deborah Koff-Chapin
Monday, May 18, 2009
Dance of the Solar Wind (2:28min)
A recording of a prosepoem. While I made the recording in 2007, I never posted it. This morning I played with it in Garageband, adding loops (actually, this is the first time I have ever done this - a new direction perhaps). Surprisingly, I like it. Not sure about the image, oh, not the sun, the sun is beautiful in its golden fields of fire, but, hey, I don't have a whole lot of images of myself.
Read the text here.________________
DSL or Cable
Dial-up
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Photopoems
A photopoem page is now up.
My kids are at their Dad's, but will my dog forgive me? It's nearly 11pm and she still hasn't had her walk!
The photopoem page is okay, I'm not crazy about it. I embedded a slideshow, and then a selection of photopoems in a hidden table below that open out to new windows if clicked on. The table that they are in is being sticky about its left margin and not giving me enough leeway to space the photographs as I'd like. It's not bad. Servicable, as they say.
It's nice to get the ones I liked best in one place. I've tried to embed the 'poem' in the photograph "info" and Picasa kindly unfolds that in text below the image at the album at Picasa's site, but centred, which is a bit weird.
Anyway, I've been at this since lunchtime (which I forgot to eat, though I did throw some eggs in a pan for dinner), between locating the images, updating info, resizing, saving into a new file, and then trying to figure out the html - yes, I pasted all of them in the table in the html box. Way easier that way. I use "Stickies" on my desktop and find it very handy to paste URLs and codes and stuff, and that's where I worked out the html for the images.
It's a matter of keeping organized, isn't it.
It feels like I'm organizing work mostly over the last 3 or 4 years, but am finding things that go further back than that.
A kind of scrapbook of my path to here, I suppose.
'Night all! Oh, oops, doggie walk first!
xo
Serpent Rising: "Promethea Un/Bound: The Thirty-Six Million Year Old Turtle"
A new webpage: Earth Rising.
I was looking for an image on my old hard drive, and found this writing, "Promethea Un/Bound." I'm glad this piece wasn't lost. It is the only time I have ever written about a temp job, and if you read it you will see that it is composed of an inner dialogue. It was in a protected post at another blog site for a month or so, in August 2004, and it's been completely private/hidden for nearly 5 years since then.
In the piece, I am in intense dialogue with Hélène Cixous', The Book of Promethea, trans. Betsy Wing (University of Nebraska Press, 1991), and a 36 million year old turtle.
I was looking for an image on my old hard drive, and found this writing, "Promethea Un/Bound." I'm glad this piece wasn't lost. It is the only time I have ever written about a temp job, and if you read it you will see that it is composed of an inner dialogue. It was in a protected post at another blog site for a month or so, in August 2004, and it's been completely private/hidden for nearly 5 years since then.
In the piece, I am in intense dialogue with Hélène Cixous', The Book of Promethea, trans. Betsy Wing (University of Nebraska Press, 1991), and a 36 million year old turtle.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Angel of Links
It's amazing to find these old paintings and how they 'work' as sidebars, or backgrounds, or navigation buttons, or whatevers, for my new Art & Writings Website.
This one will (yes, yes, a self-portrait from perhaps around 1989 in a large painting of about 5 self-portraits in varying guises as I attempted to re-find the painter within who had disappeared for a decade at that point). She 'oversees' a "Links" page.
And links to whose sites will I place there? Oh, this is so exciting!
trying a simpler version, wishing I could make this into a card (painting from 1989, photo of rose probably 2004, prosepoem & recording from 2006, put together in 2009)
recording of this poem
(or click the 'click to listen rose':)
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Navigation Buttons for Website
They may not look like much, but I spent the greater part of 2 evenings and a night composing and attempting not just to link these little navigation buttons to their respective pages, but to have mouse-over text appear too. My html was a mess! I had embedded them in tables and the tables became like little replicating viruses! They spawned more tables, secretly, until I discovered the whole webpage was within a large cell! Spreadsheets aren't called what they are for nothing, I learned.
If it wasn't for 'Liv' at Google Sites help, I'd never have managed the feat you see above. And a tech whizz called Steegle who's left very simple guides to specific html needs in perfect little web pages. Without those two, oh forget it.
Tables were all stripped. Yay! Even the big 'mother-sucker' got deleted away, sure it took a few tries but eventually it succumbed.
The NavBttns, isn't that a cute name, were touched up multiple times in Photoshop before coming to sit nicely in a row I can live with.
Yes, Google offers free websites. It'll be one of the most interesting journeys you'll ever make!
My website is coming along, yes siree, and tonight I be happy with it.
Monday, May 11, 2009
A Calligraphy of Light in the Room
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Abrasion #2: by Joaquim Gil & Nuno Tavares
Abrasion #2, Created, Interpreted, Edited, Sound & Music by Joaquim Gil & Nuno Tavares, and I love their YouTube channel name: "Science Friction," (ScienceFrictionProds).
Abrasion #2 is brilliant! It's the BEST Butoh-inspired piece I have ever seen! While I may wish Gil & Tavares had uploaded it in HD for greater clarity, I am simply glad they have created a channel at YouTube and are sharing their work.
I sit here, in stunned amazement. There are videos, and videos. And suddenly, out of nowhere: art.
The images reverberate within me. I am deeply moved. The feel of the film, its archaic sepia abandoned warehouse setting, the drama between two men who live in near-naked isolation in an edifice that's becoming earth, a floor of stamped soil, the transition clips of lights and other strange phenomenon, like you see behind your closed eyelids when you're trying to sleep in a lit room, is an aesthetic I find gorgeously tactile, mythic.
Art that is magnificent, like a Tarkovsky, that great Russian filmmaker's palette and epic style, or Fellini's Satyricon, the abandoned building, the doubles, one white, one black. Two men. Their drama. Who are beautiful in this film. They are dancers, yes, but of the deep, vulnerable, inner spirit. In the strangeness of Butoh. Where it's raw, where movement is simplified, symbolic, intense. It's so intense! Emotion exploding out of this minimalist piece!
Gil and Tavares -are they the actors, the dancers? we don't know- added me as a 'friend' at YouTube, hence my checking them out... and I am so glad... I wish them great good fortune as a filmmakers!
[direct url: Abrasion #2]
___
Please note that in my continued sharing of works that I like I am posting comments (and usually enlarging on them) that I have left at sites along with the work.
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