This is my link to the Heat Widget, aka the Global Warming Counter. Click on it and it will take you to the Skeptical Science 4 Hiroshimas web site, where you will find – the Widget! It’s a natty way to communicate the science. Each button gives a different way to measure the current buildup of carbon in the atmosphere. The information button gives a fuller description of each measurement. You can even set up your own, with your chosen year, colour and style of buttons. Give it a go!
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Pictures of You – Epic Photos of Earth from Space
Cross post: http://notesonbeing.com/2014/05/13/weather-report-third-stone-from-the-sun-jaco-pastorius-alien-reveries/
There is nothing that makes me appreciate our planet more than seeing it from space. These photos taken from the International Space Station are breathtaking, depicting Earth from different aspects. We see polar ice caps, glittery lightning storms, the Aurora Borealis, Odyssean land masses and oceans, a brightly coloured-in glacier, the Earth suspended in space surrounded by a spooky moon, bright sun and trippy stars, even Aurora Australis – the crew going about their daily biz. Astronauts are crazy people. Love ’em! How about you? What makes you appreciate the earth most? Is it pictures like these or something else?
You might want to get that breathlessness cured. Post at http://notesonbeing.com/2014/04/26/the-cure-pictures-of-you/
Video link: The Cure – Pictures of You
About this blog
About this blog: Notes on Being, or how to become yourself with writing and music
Welcome to my blog. It is wide ranging in subject to, I hope, reflect life in the present, with its tempo and its reverberations – the song and dance of being. I’ve long been interested in the theme in the writing of Friederi
ch Nietzsche that life has meaning if it is read as a text. In exploring it this way, we can write the narrative of our own true selves, and let go of the script received from others. Through the prism of art and culture is a great way to do this. What’s your passion?
In writing my own life, I present to you my authentic self, my passions and my perils. I’m a work in progress (like this blog) but happy with where I am today. An Arts graduate (BA Honours, UNSW) with English and Philosophy majors, and an antipodean progressive thinker, I step forward and a little to the left downunder. A teacher, writer, feminist, activist and lover of nature and beauty, and of all things literary, as well as visual and performing arts, I am also a recovering person on the 12-step program. I grew up in the era of the peace-loving hippie, the 60s and 70s. My great passions are music, and writing about music. I like to discover the stories behind the sounds – the histories and the creative process.
I direct a spotlight as well on politics; animal rights; the environment; spirituality; women and their space in the biosphere; and fashion, design and all things aesthetic. The future of the Earth and the human species concerns me, as I believe it does all of us on some level. I love to collect great ideas and to offer them in a simple lucid form, anticipating the world becoming a better place. I endeavour to paint colourful pictures with words, to illustrate and illuminate. My personal ethos involves caring and sharing; my inspiration is Nietzsche, and all those who have supported me.
Please join me on my trip through the zeitgeist towards becoming, set to music. It is my reading of the experience and understanding of what it means to be alive today, of what it is to be human, and intimately connected to our Mother, this stunning planet we call home. It is, hopefully, a roadmap for emerging as one’s true self – with images and a soundtrack. Feel free to jump in with your own views on any of the issues and experiences I explore. And the same goes for the soundtrack. Music to me is an essential part of life. Do you agree and if so, what music has moved and inspired you in your life?
Our greatest gift is today and our ultimate end is freedom. Caz
This song leapt out at me as the obvious choice to accompany my intro for the blog. The Beatles were the first band I fell in love with – they were the soundtrack of my childhood and adolescence. Their songs exemplified the peace and love of hippiedom I felt an affinity for in the 60s and 70s, along with their strong sense of social justice. Love the psychedelia too and this song is a case in point. I was heartbroken when they split; by the time I was fifteen Let It Be, their last album, had been released. An era ended and it was a wrench for me, a lesson in the impermanence of all things in life.
I moved on to The Moody Blues and discovered hard rock – Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, et al – and expanded my musical horizons with rock fusion in my teens, but the Fab Four have always held a special place in my heart. Today I love them as much as ever. “A Day in the Life”, the final song on Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, was ranked 28th greatest song of all time and greatest Beatles song by Rolling Stone magazine. I will be doing a post on The Beatles some time but it will be limited in scope; there is too much in their work for me to tackle in one essay. Even thinking about this endeavour I suddenly feel my confidence ebb. Oh dear reader, I am unworthy. Oh well, as in most things, I will just have to rise to the occasion. As I told myself before starting this blog, “be brave and do it!”
The Beatles – A Day in the Life:
Acknowledgement and thanks to my friend TJ who has, as usual, inspired and encouraged me through this process. C
Jim Morrison and The Doors: “The End” live version
Morrison is among the most quotable of rock stars.
The Doors: “The End” live version
Despite tragically making the 27 club, Jim Morrison lives on – The Doors albums still sell today. Morrison is among the most quotable of rock stars. Along with that rich bass baritone voice, perfect for rock music, he was a thinker. The singer and songwriter wasn’t just ahead of his time, he is timeless. His influences included Nietzsche, Blake, Joyce, Freud, Rimbaud, Baudelaire and Sophocles. Morrison wrote “The End”, but it evolved through months of Doors’ performances into a nearly 12 minute track on their self-titled album released in January 1967.
The song was used by Coppola in the opening scenes of his 1979 masterpiece “Apocalypse Now”. It’s a genius choice, setting the tone of the movie, which often veers between dream-like states and nightmare scenarios. In this live version, Morrison performs at his best – he could be unpredictable – & Robby Krieger’s opening riff is hauntingly beautiful. It’s an innovative piece of music, the lyrics reference Oedipus, from Greek theatre & universal themes of life, death & pain. This quote about the song’s meaning is reprinted from Wikipedia:
“In John Densmore‘s autobiography Riders on the Storm, he recalls when Morrison explained the meaning:
‘At one point Jim said to me during the recording session, and he was tearful, and he shouted in the studio, ‘Does anybody understand me?’ And I said yes, I do, and right then and there we got into a long discussion and Jim just kept saying over and over kill the father, fuck the mother, and essentially boils down to this, kill all those things in yourself which are instilled in you and are not of yourself, they are alien concepts which are not yours, they must die. Fuck the mother is very basic, and it means get back to essence, what is reality, what is, fuck the mother is very basically mother, mother-birth, real, you can touch it, it’s nature, it can’t lie to you. So what Jim says at the end of the Oedipus section, which is essentially the same thing that the classic says, kill the alien concepts, get back reality, the end of alien concepts, the beginning of personal concepts.’”
It is a piece of pure theatre. The people watching him perform this in the 60s seemed either transfixed or swaying in some hypnotic state. The Lizard King, mr mojo risin (anagram), King of Orgasmic Rock, with the rest of the Doors it must be acknowledged, in spite of his obvious character flaws, had the power to blow your mind.
“The End” ranked number 336 on Rolling Stones list of The 500 Greatest songs of All Time (2010) and Robby Krieger’s guitar solo was ranked number 93 on Guitar World’s “100 Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time”. I’ve reprinted the lyrics below.
This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I’ll never look into your eyes…again
Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need…of some…stranger’s hand
In a…desperate land
Lost in a Roman…wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah
There’s danger on the edge of town
Ride the King’s highway, baby
Weird scenes inside the gold mine
Ride the highway west, baby
Ride the snake, ride the snake
To the lake, the ancient lake, baby
The snake is long, seven miles
Ride the snake…he’s old, and his skin is cold
The west is the best
The west is the best
Get here, and we’ll do the rest
The blue bus is callin’ us
The blue bus is callin’ us
Driver, where you taken’ us
The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on
He took a face from the ancient gallery
And he walked on down the hall
He went into the room where his sister lived, and…then he
Paid a visit to his brother, and then he
He walked on down the hall, and
And he came to a door…and he looked inside
Father, yes son, I want to kill you
Mother…I want to…fuck you
C’mon baby, take a chance with us
C’mon baby, take a chance with us
C’mon baby, take a chance with us
And meet me at the back of the blue bus
Doin’ a blue rock
On a blue bus
Doin’ a blue rock
C’mon, yeah
Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill
This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
It hurts to set you free
But you’ll never follow me
The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of nights we tried to die
This is the end
What do YOU think about Jim Morrison’s legacy and his influence on rock music? Do you believe it stands the test of time?
Cross post: https://carolneilands.wordpress.com/2014/04/26/what-do-you-think-of-when-you-think-about-climate-change/
Carl Sagan quote on America today
Pink Floyd: “Another Brick in the Wall”
I love the ideas of astrophysicist Carl Sagan, of “The Pale Blue Dot” video. This is an incisively expressed observation on US society in the 21st Century.
Notes on Being 