(Re)Learning to Listen

Tags

learning, magic, mind, music, philosophy, wonder

A couple of weeks ago, I was chatting with a bright young man. At some point, the discussion turned to music, then to listening to music.

He told me that he had tried something new recently. He put on his headphones, closed his eyes and sat still, doing nothing but listen. It was extraordinary, he said. Listening without doing anything else was a revelation. He found subtlety in the recording that he’d never noticed. He found himself immersed in the music in a way he’d never experienced before.

I was stunned. It had never occurred to me that someone could not have had this experience until his mid-20s.

We continued the conversation, agreeing that music is deeply gratifying when it absorbs our whole being. Our thoughts may wander, but we are alone with the music, and the experience is wonderful.

 

I relayed this story to a friend, a musician and music teacher. She touched my arm eyes open wide, not sure what to say, other than “John”.

 

I have since looked, listened and thought quite a bit about that day. Music is everywhere and nowhere. Kids enjoy time together, one earbud for each friend. People walk, talk, cycle, while half-listening to tunes. Road noise makes in-car music barely musical. And, of course, music has been cheapened in every retail shop for decades. Fragments of music pour out of every imaginable medium.

Is anyone listening? I mean really listening.

 

But after a bit of general sadness for music and our psyches, I realized that I have largely abandoned listening. I listen on a computer, or tablet, or phone. Or I put up with sonic crap in the supermarket. But I’d stopped stopping to listen.

So, I made a conscious effort to listen. To listen while doing nothing else but being alone with music.

Now, I set aside some time to sit in my big comfortable chair, and listen to a full disc on my stereo. Just me in the room. No books, no work, nothing to twiddle in my fingers. Just music and me. It’s been a revelation.

The music brings me more joy than it has for years. I am peaceful during and after listening. I am focused. And I am happy.

Most startling of all is how clearly I hear music when it is not playing. Like everyone else, tunes and fragments of remembered music pop into my head at unexpected times. But during these past few weeks, music has been presenting itself with greater clarity and for a greater duration than it has for years. I had not noticed the decline until I was presented with the ascent.

Do yourself a favour, please. Go listen to something. Just you and the music all alone. No distractions.

It’ll be beautiful.

I promise.

Ryan Heavy Head

Tags

alberta, lethbridge, rattlesnakes, Ryan Heavy Head, wonder

The online world is full of nonsense. But hidden in the corners of this crazy place are little gems waiting to be discovered.

Southern Alberta, represents the northernmost range of a number of animals. Turtles eke out an existence in the Milk River watershed, but cannot survive the winters any further north. Red-sided Garter snakes can overwinter in the northern regions of the province, but they are the only reptiles that can make it. If you want reptiles in Alberta, head south.

The two big snakes in the south are the Bullsnake (Pituophis catenifer) and the Prairie Rattlesnake (Crotalus viridis viridis). I grew up in Calgary, sort of the northern tip of southern Alberta, and although there are historical records of these snakes, they haven’t been seen in the Calgary area since the mid-20^th century.

 

Prairie rattlesnake

 

I was indoors, avoiding another cold winter weekend and my thoughts turned to summer snakes. I turned to Youtube and found Ryan Heavy Head.

I’m not sure who Ryan works for, but he spends much of the summer picking up rattlesnakes that have found their way into Lethbridge yards, garages, golf courses and buildings, and safely relocates them near known dens in Lethbridge coulees.

I think snakes are cool, but I like Ryan a lot. A real lot.

Bullsnake

Each video opens with a welcome in Blackfoot, the Gregorian date, and the month of the Blackfoot lunar cycle. Ryan, wearing his GoPro, finds and gently lifts the snake into a traveling bucket—he added a bucket cam a while ago!—and then moves and releases the snake.

The plots are pretty much all the same, but what stays with me is Ryan’s calmness, his dedication, and the respect he shows every character in the drama, including the snakes.

It gives me hope that we can peacefully coexist with our surroundings.

The Eclipse

Tags

nature, solar eclipse, wonder

The Eclipse

Monday, August 21, 2017, an enormous part of the USA will have the opportunity to see a total solar eclipse.

Not a partial eclipse. We get those pretty frequently. The total is special.

Consider this: we have special eclipses on earth. The apparent sizes of the sun and the moon are almost exactly equal. No other planet in our solar system has this lucky configuration. For some planets/moons, the sun appears much bigger, so every eclipse is partial. For others, the moon appears much bigger, so their eclipses are total, but lack the drama.

Ours are perfect.

Which brings me back to Monday.

I’m in Canada, and only 70% of the sun will be covered by the moon. This means a two things. First, it means that I regret not taking a vacation to be in the totality. My bad.

Second, it means that the day will not get darker for me. In fact, if I didn’t know there was an eclipse happening, then I’d never notice. Still, for those of us out of the path of totality, we can still observe the eclipse either directly or indirectly. Indirectly is easiest. Take something solid, say, a piece of cardboard, and poke a hole in it. Stand with your back to the sun and focus the sun’s image through the hole onto a wall, or a sidewalk or other convenient spot. The eclipse will be perfectly visible. It’s really awesome. If you show anyone, they’ll object and say that the black spot covering part of the sun is due to the imperfection of the hole in the cardboard. Calmly rotate the cardboard to show that the spot doesn’t move. For kids, it’s a good idea to take the whole box and poke a hole in one end. Then the child puts the box over her head and stands back to the sun. The box is adjusted until she has a perfect little cinema inside. This prevents any risk of her looking directly at the sun in excitement.

You can watch the partial eclipse directly through welder’s glass, or through a properly filtered telescope. I’ll be out with my scope and filter.

For everyone who can experience the total eclipse, this is not something to be missed. Yes, I’ve heard a few soulless cretins complain that the eclipse is overrated. Don’t listen to them.

If you’re in a city, go to your local planetarium, science centre or astronomy club site and take the experience in with others. There will be telescopes, big screens and people who know what they’re talking about. Take advantage of this. (BTW this also applies to those experiencing the partial eclipse.)

But if you can get to a more natural spot, you are in for a special treat. Observe the coming eclipse, following appropriate safety measures. And BE QUIET. At the anointed hour, as the moon completely covers the sun (for between 30 seconds and 7 minutes, depending on where you are), feel the change in heat on your face. See the world plunge into an eerie darkness, rather unlike the night. Listen to the reactions of the birds.

Experience the wonder of the world experiencing our planet’s special treat.

Happy birthday, Mr. Shakespeare!

Tags

April 23, Full Fathom Five, Hag-Seed, JudeMaris, Margaret Atwood, photoshop reconstruction, Shakespeare

 

April 23, the day we celebrate the birth of the Bard of Avon. Not surprisingly, we really don’t know when he was born, but he was baptized on April 26, 1564, so the date of the 23rd seems reasonable enough. Couple that with the fact that the 23rd is St. George’s Day, and that Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616, it’s as good a day to mark his birth as any.

At right, we see the Chandos Portrait, generally believed to be of Shakespeare. But, as with so much of history, we are not certain.

In The Tempest, the spirit Ariel sings to Ferdinand, telling him that his father is drowned.

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them,—ding-dong, bell.

And so, with Shakespeare, too. The bones he left behind have grown beyond anything he could imagine. All that was Shakespeare hath suffered a sea-change into something rich and strange. Consider, for example, what Margaret Atwood has done with The Tempest.

Atwood sets up the story in an almost embarrassingly simple-minded way–she has an egomaniacal theatre director get fired, and then take his revenge by taking a teaching job in a jail, where he has a class of inmates put on a production of The Tempest. And it’s amazing.

My purpose today is not to review Atwood’s book. You can read a very good review at The Guardian.

 

My goal today is to celebrate Shakespeare.

JudeMaris is a YouTube channel, responsible for a series of incredible Photoshop reconstructions of historical figures. Jude (A pen name for an M. A. Ludwig) takes existing drawings, paintings, sculptures, and verbal descriptions of historical figures, and set against a backdrop of his(?) own compositions, brings modern photo construction to their faces. The results are often breathtaking. I offer you Shakespeare today. But, trust me, if you grab a cup of coffee, you’ll happily spend the morning looking at JudeMaris’s creations.

Happy birthday, Mr. Shakespeare!

If I had a rocket launcher

Tags

austin city limits, bruce cockburn, colin linden, guatamala, if i had a rocket launcer

Back in 1984, in the midst of bad electronic music, and daily reports of government-sponsored atrocities in Central America, came the sounds of Bruce Cockburn.

Here comes the helicopter — second time today
Everybody scatters and hopes it goes away
How many kids they’ve murdered only God can say
If I had a rocket launcher…I’d make somebody pay

Good God, how I felt those words. I don’t like violence. I don’t like revenge, but on first hearing, this went straight to my heart.

I don’t believe in guarded borders and I don’t believe in hate
I don’t believe in generals or their stinking torture states
And when I talk with the survivors of things too sickening to relate
If I had a rocket launcher…I would retaliate

Guarded borders. Stinking torture states. 30 years later, here we are.

On the Rio Lacantun, one hundred thousand wait
To fall down from starvation — or some less humane fate
Cry for Guatemala, with a corpse in every gate
If I had a rocket launcher…I would not hesitate

Cry. That’s all we seem able to do is cry.

I want to raise every voice — at least I’ve got to try
Every time I think about it water rises to my eyes.
Situation desperate, echoes of the victims cry
If I had a rocket launcher…Some son of a bitch would die

Can raising our voices make a difference? What is the good of a crummy little blog like this? I don’t know.

Let me leave the politics of this song for a moment and share artistry with you. Here’s Bruce Cockburn with Colin Linden punctuating the sound at Austin City Limits in 1992. It’s easy to overlook Cockburn’s brilliance on the guitar.

But don’t forget the message.

 

 

 

Robert Burns Day 2017

Tags

an a that, Is there for honest poverty, Robert Burns

As a teenager, I was fascinated by Burns’s poetry. When I picked up a used “Collected Works”, I was dumbfounded to read his letters. His prose was clear, unadorned 19th century English. It was nothing like his poetry!

I felt cheated.

But not for long.

After digesting the horror of realizing that Burns’s poetic language was not his everyday speech, I came to understand what he was up to. Burns was capturing something essential about a Scots country dialect, and finding the music within. More than that, he was using the dialect (how accurately, I have no idea) to express the burgeoning Liberal ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity. He wrote of the dignity and worth of country people.

And on that note, I give you a song of liberalism at its finest.

 

A Man’s a Man for A’ That
Robert Burns (1795)

Is there for honest Poverty
That hings his head, an’ a’ that;
The coward slave – we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a’ that!
For a’ that, an’ a’ that.
Our toils obscure an’ a’ that,
The rank is but the guinea’s stamp,
The Man’s the gowd for a’ that.

What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey, an’ a that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine;
A Man’s a Man for a’ that:
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Their tinsel show, an’ a’ that;
The honest man, tho’ e’er sae poor,
Is king o’ men for a’ that.

Ye see yon birkie ca’d a lord,
Wha struts, an’ stares, an’ a’ that,
Tho’ hundreds worship at his word,
He’s but a coof for a’ that.
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
His ribband, star, an’ a’ that,
The man o’ independent mind,
He looks an’ laughs at a’ that.

A Prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an’ a’ that!
But an honest man’s aboon his might –
Guid faith, he mauna fa’ that!
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
Their dignities, an’ a’ that,
The pith o’ Sense an’ pride o’ Worth
Are higher rank than a’ that.

Then let us pray that come it may,
As come it will for a’ that,
That Sense and Worth, o’er a’ the earth
Shall bear the gree an’ a’ that.
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
It’s comin yet for a’ that,
That Man to Man the warld o’er
Shall brithers be for a’ that.

I’m an adult now?

Tags

I'm an Adult Now, Moe Berg, Pursuit of Happiness, wonder

Yeah, I guess so. As the old joke goes, I knew I’d get old; I just didn’t expect it to happen so fast.

Back in 1986, The Pursuit of Happiness rocked Canada’s 20-somethings with “I’m an adult now” a comical look at the bewilderment of unexpectedly finding yourself to be an adult.

What could go wrong with a song that begins with

Well, I don’t hate my parents
I don’t get drunk just to spite them
I’ve got my own reasons to drink now
I think I’ll call my dad up and invite him

Now, 30 years later, I’m still an adult. And I don’t know how that happened.

 

November 11, 2016 Remembrance Day

Tags

Currie Barracks, poppy, remembrance day, Sarcee barracks

November 11. Remembrance.

November 11 is a somber day for many. In Canada, we call it Remembrance Day. There is much to remember.

I was born in 1960, and my country was continually at peace until I was in my 30s. My children have grown up in a period of nearly continual war for our country, with our soldiers seeing combat in the Gulf War, Kosovo, Somalia and Afghanistan.
Growing up in Calgary, my home was nestled between two military bases, called at the time Currie and Sarcee. Soldiers were part of everyday experience on the streets. Military vehicles and helicopters were an everyday sight. We even played on a pair of WWII tanks that were displayed at the entrance to Sarcee Barracks.

Although we were at peace, war was still in the air.

My father, like many of the fathers in the neighbourhood was a veteran of the Second World War. A few of the younger men had served in Korea. There were two seniors’ homes nearby; many of the residents loved to tell their memories to eager little boys like me.

How odd that my childhood was full of memories of war, with games of war with other boys, with the very real presence of soldiers and equipment, and peace. Glorious peace.

One small memory before I search for a way to conclude this piece. In my early teens—sometime in the early to mid 1970s—a couple of friends and I cut through a corner of the Sarcee base, on our way to trout fishing in the Elbow river. There was a firing range and a few out buildings in that corner. If there were no shots, we knew there was no one around to interrupt our shortcut. We walked past a small storage building and looked inside a screened window. The building housed hundreds of WWII targets: squint-eyed Japanese soldiers, crouching while holding machine guns. Every target identical, and every target the size of a small man. For the first time, I felt the violence of the long passed war. I felt the reality that these men I knew had been taught to shoot at a de-humanized caricature of men, so that they could one day shoot at the real thing.
I don’t know if they were still using these targets, 30 years after the conflict ended. It must’ve seemed cartoonish and comical to the soldiers if they did.

So what does this all add up to? I don’t know, really. November 11 is a day of remembrance. And I remember. I mostly remember my father, even though he found his wartime experiences to be rather uninteresting, so far as I could tell. I remember the men who smelled of pipe smoke as they told me stories that seemed unreal. I remember that November 11 was very important to them. And I remember that it is only by luck that I was not required to serve in similarly dehumanizing circumstances.

Puzzles, puzzlement and learning

Tags

learning, math, mind

Here’s a bit of an odd thing.

Everybody knows that the two circles are of different size. We might even remember the right words to say that they have different circumferences. Heck we might even remember the fact that the circumference is proportional to the radius.

The outside circle is bigger than the inside circle.

But in the video, they both look exactly the same.

What is going on?

The answer, I’m sure you know, is mathematical. Things are not what they seem.

Imagine that you were a student, and your teacher showed you this video. What would your reaction be?

If you were engaged in your work, or if you were engaged in physical work (maybe you’re a bicycle enthusiast), you’d be pretty amazed, I think. Because if this were true, wheels couldn’t work. Of course, if you were not interested in the material, but cared about your grade, you might ask, “Is this on the test?” Or maybe you’d not care at all, and turtle up for a bit. (Yes, I’ll return to the question of engagement at a later date.)

It seems to me that the worst thing a teacher could do now is to reveal the “solution” to the conundrum. To answer the question now would be to kill it. The answer is important, but it’s not important right away. What is necessary is to feel the question. What does the video purport to show? Could I replicate it somehow? Why does this crash my common sense to the ground?

So I won’t answer it today. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the day after…