Post-Internet-Fast, Pre-Weekend Update
I has a portfolio. I will be adding more to it soon. So far, everything in it is stuff I did between 1997 - 2006. A long span for such a small amount of work, I know. A good portion of work from my more prolific art school years, I never photographed, and then gave away in a fit of non-attachment. Thus most of what’s here is smaller scale stuff I’d scanned at some point or kept stashed somewhere and forgot about. In other words, weird little collages, sketchbook drawings, digital design stuff and film stills from an unfinished stop-motion film project (which I do intend to revive and make something out of one day. Maybe music videos?).
Moving on. Internet fasting rules! I got so much done this week. I wrote some songs (rough sketches of songs anyway), made notable improvement in my drummin’ skillz, nailed several job interviews, applied to a bunch of art/design contract jobs (because while I may have nailed those interviews, they did not terribly impress me… much as it is my dream to become a full-time, underpaid secretary)… What else… made the art/design portfolio, read a great book called The 4-hour Work-week, recorded some new youtubes, plotted and schemed a cool idea with Joe to pool our complimentary mad skillz and become a freelance designer/programmer team, in hopes of freeing ourselves (sooner rather than later) from the evil clutches of the man. Eventually the plan is to get to where we can travel, wherever and whenever we want, working remotely (and minimally) from anywhere. Word… I’m learning Javascript this week.
Generally, the thought-vaccuum left when I stopped reading the internet lead me to do so much more creative thinking, creative creating, and tuning into a deeper well of energy, cool ideas, realizations and numinosities. It also left me with a daunting pile-up of emails, myspaces and youtube messages to catch up on, but it was worth it. (Though, that said, expect little more than a one-or-two-liner if you’re awaiting a reply from me. It’s nothing personal, I’m just trying to keep up my Brooke-mentum with minimizing internet time. Life’s too short, y’know?).
Oh, and I discovered one of the cooler benefits of diligently watering your lawn every night. Lush green grass attracts wild beasts!
Music Moves More Than the Soul
No time to chat, just stopping in to share a little of my Saturday morning associative chain of obsessions, then I have places to be.
HOW WAS THE GREAT PYRAMID BUILT?
[…] One rather interesting theory comes from the Jane Roberts/Seth material. When asked specifically about how the Pyramid was constructed, Seth says that sound was an integral ingredient…..
“This is a difficult subject. For the movement of heavy tons of rock for ex ample different techniques, using sound and precise mathematical calculations were necessary. Many civilizations grew and flourished in fertile areas simply because the people knew how to make them fertile and to keep them that way. Matter was manipulated through sound.”
To expound on this premise, Seth told Jane to visualize herself at the scene of the building of the Pyramid, to which she responded…
“I feel that a whole mass of people would visualize a pyramid in their imagination, then through their chanting, the use of certain vowels and pitches, they actually changed the air where that building was going to be. They made a boundary in the air, making angular gestures, a cohesiveness, for this imaginary structure. Then they had certain kinds of tuning forks, then some kind of instrument. The noise of the chant was like something that you’d use to turn on this instrument - when the chant got to a certain pitch it turned on this instrument, and it somehow intensified and focused sound to what we would call an incredible energy degree - broke it down and then focused it in certain directions. You could move very heavy objects with it. The objects were levitated - raised up in the air, no matter how heavy. They only needed to be guided by people to some degree. Many men were used to guide them but not to lift or carry them. The sound instrument had a fantastic cohesive effect that bound atoms and molecules together. Something about these instruments making atoms and molecules denser, somehow - doing different things with them…”
Seth replied that this information was substantially correct and added, “You know that sound has an effect upon living things. It can help mend bone. It can also be used, to reinforce structures. We are in the preliminary stages, hopefully leading to some understanding of the nature of sound, though (humorously) you may not yet be able to build a pyramid in your back yard.”
[…] Seth also goes on to give a warning about the overzealous use of sound in construction….
“In some respects the over enthusiastic use of the sound was responsible for the flood mentioned in the Bible, and other literature. There were several characteristics that proved difficult. Literally, the sound traveled further often than was intended, causing consequences not planned upon.”
[…] an interesting side note in favor of some sort of acoustic levitation is that in virtually every culture where megaliths exist, there are legends of huge stones being levitated acoustically by the use of chants, songs, musical instruments, gongs, cymbals, drums, or by striking the stone and causing some sort of vibrational resonance to set the stone in motion.
Skeptical? Intrigued? Either way, go watch this video: Acoustic Levitation Chamber.
I got on this little kick by way of another little kick I was on before it, after Tim of Pop Occulture linked to a Wikipedia article on Cymatics. This is fascinating stuff for a musician who’s also a visual artist (I can’t believe I’ve never heard of this before!) and one who’s also always envied synaesthetics. (Speaking of which, check out this artist, Justin Lassen). But I digress.
The picture on the left is from one of Hans Jenny’s experiments in Cymatics. It was made with sound. It is a visual manifestation of a specific sound frequency. Anyway, I’m running out of time, but here’s a bit from Wikipedia:
Cymatics is the study of wave phenomena. It is typically associated with the physical patterns produced through the interaction of sound waves in a medium.
A simple experiment demonstrating the visualisation of cymatics can be done by sprinkling sand on a metal plate and vibrating the plate, for example by drawing a violin bow along the edge, the sand will then form itself into standing wave patterns such as simple concentric circles. The higher the frequency, the more complex the shapes produced, with certain shapes having similarities to traditional mandala designs.
How super cool is that. And how perfect a thing to incorporate into a certain secret art experiment I’ve been playing with. The creative wheels are turning out colorful harmonious visions in full force. Oh, and the image of a snake with a halo very clearly revealed itself to me in the pavement earlier, which sent more ideas spinning off colorfully in many directions. But never you mind. Go watch some videos of cymatics in action.
Sasquatch Festival!
Ass crack of dawn, Saturday morning, we make our way to the Gorge in George, Washington to attend this groovy thing called the Sasquatch Festival. Are any of you going?
The line-up isn’t the greatest compared to previous years (which I didn’t even know about at the time so I missed. This year is the first I’ve ever heard of the Sasquatch Festival. Shut up, I lived in Alberta for three years). But I am so starved for some good live music, so it’ll be cool. B’sides, come on, Bjork? (MP3), The Arcade Fire? (MP3), The Beastie Boys?, Grizzly Bear?… all awesome! And I’m sure there are more good ones. Most of these bands I just haven’t heard before. I wish I had more time to check them all out before going, but whatever, I’m exciteded.
There are also some good comedians hosting. And look at the damn scenery! Look, damn you, look!!!
(some nifty photos I found on this guy’s blog, taken at last year’s Sasquatch):
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I Have Sparkle Vision. Is That Normal?
Now that I’m living in a house and have a front porch again, I spend a lot more time just sitting outside staring at the sky, watching clouds and birds (Big Sky country is conducive to that). Anyway, I’m seeing the sparkles again. I used to see them all the time, but that was back when I was a whimisical, spaced-out art school student who often took to cloud-gazing for long periods of time.
This sparkle vision is probably a normal, common thing; some kind of natural, visual phenomena that occurs when you stare at bright backgrounds, such as the sky in daylight. But I’ve never heard anyone mention it. Then again, I’ve never mentioned it. It’s not one of those things that comes up in conversation, I guess.
What it looks like is a million tiny fireflies flickering in and out of sight, everywhere I look (everywhere with a light enough background to see them against). I used to romanticize it, imagining I was seeing through the surface into the aliveness of everything, seeing the energy itself which forms the universe. I still like to entertain that notion, but this morning I got curious enough to look into possible scientific explanations, so I googled it in relation to visual and neurological phenomena. I found very little along these (or any) lines, except for this (though I doubt what I see is what they’re describing)…
“Cosmic ray particles constantly bombard the earth causing little explosions of elementary particles which form a beam of matter and anti-matter particles rushing through the atmosphere…”
“‘It is amazing that with simple FM radio antennas we can measure the energy of particles coming from the cosmos’ says Prof. Heino Falcke… ‘If we had sensitive radio eyes, we would see the sky sparkle with radio flashes.’”
…and then this (a guy on a forum listing a bunch of physical symptoms he has, including sparkle vision):
“In late January, I began to notice bright spots moving like fireflies in my peripheral vision. This usually occurred after bending down or exerting myself, but not always. It happens about once every couple of days and the spots last only a few seconds. I also began seeing “sparkles”, bright non-moving dots in my peripheral vision when looking at objects in bright light. The first occurrence was when I was filling my tank and reading the gas pump. I could suddenly see hundreds of sparkling specks against the cloudy sky in the background. This has progressed from occurring only in bright sunlight to normal roomlight. The sparkles usually only show against a bright background (a wall, cloudy sky, a piece of paper, etc.) and last as long as I look at that object. The “sparkles” are not episodic. If the light is bright enough, I can reproduce this at any time by looking at an object for as little as one second. The longer I look at the object, the more sparkles appear. If I shift my gaze, they will disappear…”
His description almost perfectly matches what I experience, except I don’t correlate it with any particular event, my sparkles move around, and they aren’t just in my peripheral vision, they’re everywhere. Also, if I stare at them long enough, the air itself starts to pulsate and then flow into a kind of vortex in the center of my visual field. This might be a good time to mention that I haven’t consumed any illegal or hallucinogenic substances in years.
It doesn’t seem to be a problem or anything. I don’t have any of the other symptoms the guy mentions in the above-quoted post. I’m curious if any of you experience this, or anything similar, and/or if you’re aware of any information on it, scientific or otherwise.
Meanwhile I’ll just imagine that what I’m seeing is cosmic energy particles, like the “Dust” in His Dark Materials, and it’s because I have super cosmic radio eyes. ;)
The Frogs Get It
Here’s a little synchronicity story for you. I have these fairly often but this one keeps returning to mind, perhaps because it’s neurologically attached to a particular song, and that particular song is currently playing.
It was probably a couple months ago this happened. My husband had just told me of his encounter with an adorable frog outside our apartment building (we have a pond nearby), and I was envious of his good luck. I’d never seen one, except at an aquarium once (I’ll save the aquarium frog orgy story for another day). So I determined that I must keep an eye out for froggies on my walk later that night! Then I forgot.
Fastforward to my walk. I’m barely on my way, rocking out to a little song called ‘Instinct Blues’ by a little band called The White Stripes. It gets to the line, “the frogs get it” and at that very moment I detect a dark spot on the sidewalk. I move closer, and you’ll never guess what it was! Actually, you’d have to be rather dense not to guess what it was… but — a frog! Hells yeah.
I found it particularly cool because, not only did my intention come about much more swiftly than expected (not too surprising, being a small, simple intention with no conflicting emotions attached. Just 100% me wanting to see a froggie!), but the universe did me one better with the synchronicity — literally — synchronizing the event with a matching song lyric.
Just a coincidence? You decide. Meanwhile I’ll be over here working magic and what not. May you dream of dancing frogs, and may they not be giant poisonous frogs dancing creepily towards you with murderous intent. If they are, fear not. Let your instincts guide you and all will be well. Night night.
[audio:White-Stripes-Instinct-Blues.mp3]