Category / Agora

by stolzyblog

A-i-t-S 3A : Cold Turkey Zazen

The 3rd in a series venturing beyond the veil of the obvious. Read this for more orientation info about the series. I almost feel a need to apologize since the length of this piece is over 5000 words, but only almost. Within this entire series (A-i-t-s) I try consciously to build as vivid a context as possible, according to my memory, within which the events in question unfurl. If I lose some people enroute, that is something I can live with. It is important to me to treat these things comprehensively and lovingly.

“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.” – Thomas Merton

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by stolzyblog

Recalling a Mentor

I think on biographies often of late. Not that I read them much, just occasionally. I’m more attracted to imagining the life maps of people I’ve crossed paths with, sometimes in major encounters but just as likely in subtle, ephemeral ways, like when a billiard ball kisses another in passing on a pool table. As experience grows, so does the depth of meaning one becomes able to infer from these encounters. It was such an imagination which caused to me look up an old high school teacher not long ago…

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by stolzyblog

Public Service Announcement: Fixing The Web?

Pretty much I don’t do re-blogging, though I love lots of blog sites. This place is for me; what I think, and what I create. But this wonderful overview of the present technology-mediated crisis Western (and now global) culture is ensnared within — is simply too good and too important not to draw attention to. I hope and wish that some will listen to this short talk, which was given three days ago in Vancouver, and think about it. (Thank you if you do!) This person is “one who knows”, but is practically devoid of egotism.

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by stolzyblog

What Arnold Saw at Dover Beach

In a short piece titled “God is Dead; So What?”, Richard Ostrofsky, an acquaintance of mine, lays out his overview of the present culture wars from a perhaps characteristically atheist perspective. He cites Matthew Arnold’s poignant 1867 poem ‘Dover Beach’, which I’d not thought about for over 30 years, and happily revisited. But we subtly disagree about the meaning of the cultural impasse this poem intuits, and about exactly what Arnold sensed over 150 years ago, gazing one night out to sea.

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by stolzyblog

Rumanikos Duet

This 3-minute musical snippet is an improvisation from about eight years ago. Entirely spur-of-the-moment, in the living room, and thus the recording is absolutely low tech. Two musicians, both amateurs. Mon amie is playing a hang, a Swiss innovation, which uses the sides and tips of the fingers to sound resonating metallic ringing tones. I’m playing a digital keyboard which had been set to emulate a zither. What unites these two instruments, an uncommon duo, is the scale they are tuned to. More on that after having a listen…

► (Listen to hang/zither duet)

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