Happy Hour

[Christophe]

What? There's only one discussion going on in the Pub?

That's definitely not enough. Barman! Another drink for me and the boys!

In the meantime I'll choose a song from the Jukebox:

www.youtube.video

[Edward theurj Berge]

I yam what I yam.

[Balder]

I just found some cassette tapes of songs I recorded back in the 90s, which I have begun digitalizing.  Here's a song a friend and I wrote while on a Dzogchen retreat one summer.

[Edward theurj Berge]

I like it. However given the cassette tech of that time the lyrics at times are indiscernible and I'd like to know them. Would you provide them here?

[Balder]

Yes, certainly; here they are:

As It Is

Something I can't say
Wants to be expressed
Something about the heart
When it's finally undressed

When you finally touch the secret
Then silence is the best
When you know the secret
Then silence is the best

Oh, I know what you mean, love
But I don't know what to say
It bathes me like the magic light
At the edge of day

As turtles turn their dreaming heads
To catch the final ray
My upturned dreaming head turns
To the word you never say

The word you never say
The word you never say
The word you never say
The word you never say

Go slow, don't move too much too fast
Go slow by slow, and make this last

And love is a silent many splendored thing
Leave it as it is and let it sing

Love it, leave it as it is,
And let it sing
Love it, leave it as it is,
And let it sing
Love it, leave it as it is,
And let it sing
Love it, leave it as it is,
And let it sing

Love is peace

[Edward theurj Berge]

Nice, who wrote it? I can tell that's your flute playing. But who is singing? And playing guitar?

[Balder]

I wrote the lyrics together with my friend, Stephen Dignan, who is playing the guitar.  We traded off writing lines and sometimes verses until the thing was done.  The singer is Bianca Villamar, a friend of ours (when we were living at the Dzogchen center in Virginia).

On a more playful note, here's another old song -- fully instrumental piece I wrote and recorded (on primitive equipment) around the same time period.  I'm playing mountain dulcimer, Balinese bamboo flute, a bamboo xylophone I built, and a bamboo percussion stick I picked up in Singapore.

[Edward theurj Berge]

This one is bouncing around in my head today, from my yute when I was in the Army guarding a nuclear missile base in Key Largo Florida, getting stoned and listening to this. Those were the days of the 20-minute song...

[Balder]

Nice.  The days of the 20 minute song are back in the post-rock genre that I listen to.  And this prog stuff is definitely a precursor to post-rock.

Taking a sharp weird left turn from this, here's some Korean instrumental music using classical Korean instruments but with a post-rock sensibility.

And then a stagger down an alley into a smokey Japanese 80s dive in 2009:

[Edward theurj Berge]

Post-rock could perhaps be called poro, in imitation of pomo? I really like the 2nd and 3rd ones. Time of Extinction is aptly named, with highly creative contemporary variations on traditional motifs. I jumped around in the Machine Dreams, sampling a bit of each song. It has a sort of techno club overall sound, but unique. It's like iteration, keeping the old while making it new with interesting twists and turns. The last song, Fortune, was my fav, with its dreamlike, machinelike ethereality.

And the name of the album makes me think of Bryant's allopoeitic machines, if they too have different 'states' of awareness, and if they dream? Which of course then associates for me with the original title of Philip K. Dick's classic Bladerunner: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

[Edward theurj Berge]

Happy hour has been limited to music but I want to bring in books too. After seeing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo I decided to read the trilogy, now on the third book. The movie (and its predecessor) and the books are cult classics, and deservedly so. If you've seen the film and/or read the book(s) and want to discuss it, see this thread.

[Edward theurj Berge]

And speaking of PKD--yes, I'm a Dickhead--I've read many of his books* and seen most of the movies based on his books. See this list for the movies made from his work.

* My fav being his last book, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, which I re-read every few years and still enjoy with each reading.

[Edward theurj Berge]

And you evolutionaries might be interested to know that Dick's unfinished last novel, The Owl in Daylight, has this theme:

"The plot was to express what he believed was an evolutionary step in humanity, using an interpretation of Joachim de Fiore, where he believed that one age of humanity used the left side of the brain, another the right, and the future would combine the two leading to a greater understanding of what is real."

Though I'm pretty sure it's not at all like kennilingus evolution.