The time for change was always now...

I think it is fairly interesting how my perception of my life has shifted over the past few years. One major area that has affected this blog quite a bit is my view of the availablity of my thoughts. I find I no longer enjoy sharing ideas with complete strangers anymore - my thoughts and actions are being more closely watched now that I am no longer 'just an instrument guy', and I find that people rarely undertand like one expects them to. Pub nights have disappeared, and I doubt very much that I might ever have the same community I had with my old friends, one of transparency, thought, and sharing. And so it is that I find some distaste in posting here publicly. I feel alot more gravitas every time I post, likely because of the lack of anonimity that it offers. I hate the idea that my philosophy must harden and close, but I doubt that I can live any longer without fear of repurcussion from what I say. "people just won't understand these things..."

So I apologize to anyone who still reads this - but I am considering buttoning up my online life in favour of friends and family, and removing a few of the sensitve traces of my personality from the blog and facebook. I guess these things come in cycles.

Reply to Ano...

Indeed, you are right, the time is nigh for an update. And was. Several times.

So yeah, all is well on the home front - I've got a new job which is actually challenging, white-collar, and surprisingly good. My boss phoned me one day and asked if I was any good with computers. I replied that I know my way around them, and the rest was history. Now I'm up to my neck in programming, databases, technical support, training, et al, with only my imagination as a limit. So It's pretty freaking cool. So are my co-workers. Even though there are three of us sharing an office, we're entirely random and have a blast most days. Mini, a programmer from India, causes me to have long, long conversations about all things India. The reminder is nice, warm, fuzzy, but also shockingly stark - a comparison to what I am now, and what I was.

I still long for the days of travel, and there is no "reintegration" as I had expected. I love my friends, family and home, but this tension is so strange - it wants me to balance life, work, and play. And yet the play - the travel - has such a hold on me. Perhaps I will never be rid of it, or - will I have to ignore it, painfully sweep that large part of my life away for a time? My friends also talk of and have moved on - some are travelling, some wish to be gone, and others are gone while still here. But I am not fluent in this as much anymore - we watched Largo Desolato at Timm's centre the other night, and it struck me how passionately neurotic I once was - these relationships and these feelings were a part of my life. They no longer have such a hold on me. I know one who would say I have become numb, but others would say I have become more reasonable. It is a strange comfort, this slightly out-of-body experience of viewing oneself, viewing one's personality from a few inches away, with a few centimeters of grace and rationality. It seems strange and dangerous, those waves crashing in my chest as I think about this life...

Anyways, I can wax poetic about it a little more - I don't wish to throw away my passion, but neither do I surrender myself to utter reason. The reason is interesting though - it has been a struggle to obtain, and now I must play with it.

So yes. Balance. Good. Weird. Calm. Thoughts?

Idiot Horn Players On The West Coast

A whole band of them! With inadequate footwear! A beautiful week of schlepping a camera tripod and related equipment through the hiker's nirvana that is the West Coast Trail with the best of friends... The incidents run into and amassed as a collective are hilarious and entirely undocumentable. Besides feeding eagles with Dwayne at Nitnat and listening to rambling diatribes by Monique about idiot horn players like Charlie Parker. Good thing I didn't tell her about my love for jazz. I was abused enough just for carrying a tripod by her.

What is the up

... is that they are kicking me out of this crazy country. It was bound to happen sooner or later.

I shall now wander, bewildered, not knowing my place in the world anymore. Fairly standard reaction to staying in India, from what I hear.

I am packing everything up, getting ready for another move-on, sending as much back as possible. Luckily, none of it is for me. :)

Where shall I go next? - Suggestions, comments, plans, kamikaze missions all accepted freely on this blog, for a limited time only!

The Iguana Will Bite Those Who Do Not Dream

---(We see a bridge from afar, and move to it. Now on the bridge, we see a shining light, from which Speed Levitch appears.)

"On this bridge," Lorca warns, "life is not a dream. Beware. And beware. And beware." And so many think because Then happened, Now isn't. But didn't I mention the ongoing "wow" is happening right now? We are all co-authors of this dancing exuberance where even our inabilities are having a roast. We are the authors of ourselves, co-authoring a gigantic Dostoevsky novel, starring clowns. This entire thing we're involved with called the world, is an opportunity to exhibit how exciting alienation can be. Life is a matter of a miracle that is collected over time by moments, flabbergasted to be in each other's presence. The world is an exam to see if we can rise into direct experience. Our eyesight is here as a test to see if we can see beyond it. Matter is here as a test for our curiosity. Doubt is here as an exam for our vitality. Thomas Mann wrote that he would rather participate in life than write 100 stories. Giacometti was once run down by a car, and he recalled falling into a lucid faint, a sudden exhilaration, as he realized that at last something was happening to him. An assumption develops that you cannot understand life and live life simultaneously. I do not agree entirely. Which is to say I do not exactly disagree. I would say that life understood is life lived. But the paradoxes bug me, and I can learn to love and make love to the paradoxes that bug me. And on really romantic evenings of self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion. Before you drift off, don't forget. Which is to say, remember. Because remembering is so much more a psychotic activity than forgetting. Lorca, in that same poem said that the iguana will bite those who do not dream. And as one realizes that one is a dream figure in another person's dream, that is self awareness. ---

"Leather whip, sir?"

- Most random product offer of the day at Pahar Ganj, Delhi. Note that said gentleman held the product directly out to me (in my small personal space bubble), whilst I was contemplating more ethereal things at the time.

Indians have feelings too...

I know, it's hard to imagine what with becoming adapted to the pushing and scheming and general 'workaroundness' of the place, but I was just reminded today.

Boy number one was very upset that I had a ticket for my sleeper berth (the very berth he happened to think he deserved) on a very packed, overbooked, horribly slow train to varanasi. For the following twenty hours, he tortured me passively agressively, which is not nearly as fun as it sounds.

I subsequently was not very nice to anyone today, lacking two days of showering, having a very sore back from having to sleep at odd angles to account for said person's stubborness in refusing to listen to the ticket-master and 'going-away!, and from general 'I-need-my-own-culture-back-ness'.

When I showed up at my hotel in one of the craziest cities in the world, I first inquired about rates, and THEN revealed that I had a booking. This is an environmental reaction in a country where hotel booking means "If you pay us in advance with credit card, we might conceivably allow you to have one of our dingiest rooms, but only after moving you to a more inconvenient location, then bargaining for more money than the original booking, then acting generally very obtuse about bookings in general." Of course, my tactics resulted in me being told immediately by the hotel clerk that he didn't like me, and didn't trust me.

So, the question is, and at this point it's certainly very existential, do westerners have any feelings? And also, if a westerner has feelings and no one is around to care, did he ever have feelings in the first place?

/rant

Retro Nouveau

The tai chi form is now completed. Time to work on grace, balance, and looking like the karate kid whilst practicing on the beach, facing the waves and perfect sunset. (Read: Magnetic Fields - How Fucking Romantic) *sigh* how cliche. Watch my goldfish ride by on a tricycle.

Not enough tabla practice/ lessonry is being had. Steps are in place to resolve this issue.

Also discovering that I am a gigantic nerd, and there is no escaping it. A week of digging through medical textbooks, trying to figure the renin-angiotensin system, and then becoming stressed out with the damned endocrine jumble that is our body.

Also, I think I am now resenting solid state electronics. This musical journey backwards in time is making me rethink my soldering. Currently am reading triode tube theory, learning tone stacks, circuit bending, and will be soon embarking on a 5W 6I6 tube amp project. Someone save me from killing myself with Indian electricity. The 240V is bad enough without me going and playing with 900-0-900 xformers. A tube amp / pickup for strange instruments blog may be in the works.

All is well other than the fact that we are killing ourselves with greasy 'oil-boiled' indian breads, curries, and 'good-for-you' pure desi ghee. Damn you, beautiful punjab food...

Speaking Of Mothers...

As promised, due to my extreme lack of regular pictures on the travel blog, I am doing an update only here regarding my new flatmates.

First, some foliage outside the house -

And now, strap on your cuteness filter glasses...

(above) This is Taj, the suck of the litter, and tabla enthusiast...

Trying to drink milk without the bottle...

(The tragic results)


The Kits and I, lazing in the hammock...


Soaking up some sun...


Taj pesters me whilst in the hammock...


Singh and [Untitled], the gradient fur power nap duo!


Taj has had enough reading for the day...


Marc's rescued pup, sleepy...


Sleepy is tortured by the kittens, having been possibly mistaken as mum...

Word to your mother...

Or something equally random.

A week spent delving into music theory obscurity and instrumental experiments (like melting PVC on my stove to make a tuba-shaped didge, which subsequently broke, leaving me only with a standard, boring 54 inch piece of drain pipe that plays well but sucks.) Also, looking for methods of making pickups for the insides of drums - any takers?

Also wik, I have conquered the evil demon (mostly) that is the Indian power rotation schedule (id est, entirely random, very inconvenient in timing, and particularly made to annoy and pester), just in time for hajj. I bought some parts, a 9v battery, a relay, a new transformer, and now have my speakers wired up for BACKUP POWER BABY! So, last night, I was just about to flip my roti and simultaneously make the critical stir on my friend bhindi, when, surprise! the power goes out! I say out loud "baaaaad show old boy, bad show". However, The Books are lovingly continuing on my speakers because, as previously discussed, I am awesome. Not like all-powerful all-seeing, world-creating awesome or anything, but with time, I'm sure I could get there. Next - I drill a hole into an instrument that should never be violated in such a horrible manner, and try to find what we can find...

Paul and Chuck have propelled me into obscurity with tonal scaling - now I am worrying about stupid things like mozart's well tuning, the compensated complexity of confused and frustrated jazz musicians due to the de-complexification of the equal temper, and how to become a piano tuner the old-school way. Check out Paul's blog for more...The power just cut out in the internet cafe, TTG.

"The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways, I to die, you to live. Which is better, God only knows."

-Socrates

Stuff 'n' stuff

Positive reaction from most people on the new template - no problems? Cool! I now have no material to make the blog of any substance! Go and read my old posts or something. Blah.

To entertain:
One of my western producer strips is two farmers in a coffeeshop:

"
#1: Horrible dry, 'aint it?
#2: Damn Straight.
(A brief pause)
#1:Why do we do this?
#2:What, farm?
#1: No, sit around here, stating the obvious?
#2: I don't know, but I do know it's horrible dry.
#1: Damn Straight.
"

Ahh, to be back home where the buffaloes roam. Rather, cows. Well, rather, gophers in the wheat fields. Anyways, the point is, I need to get back to the farm. It is the call of the wild.

The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades

New template folks! There is so much javascript here, I wonder if it will ever work on a browser other than mine! So, you MUST enable javascript, or this page will be mostly unviewable. Working on a simple text version for all youse folkses still stuck in 1994 with an 800 baud, 386, and Netscape1.1 . Oh, god that was so nerdy and reminiscent, I may have to join the Linux discussion group. AHH!

Anyhow, things are good. Still hunting for the bus that transports baby jesus around.

Alive in 85

Alle ist gut, AFAIK.

Not much to say.

However - work is underway to capture a picture of the bus I see driving by everyday - particularly, the HUGE capital letters which spell out the company who own the bus - "INFANT JESUS TRANSPORT LTD." How awesome is that?

Tabla ist good, of course, after only two months, I am already an "ustad" :P. Considering most people take several decades to master the tabla - well, I doubt I'll ever even get to meet Zakir.

So, call me! I'm not doing anything useful - only me and my den of solituninous, poorly disciplined learning.

Found on a post in Wien

This sticker made my day. I came back to see it several times, and it made me smile each time.