by stolzyblog

tanka ’18 (at the tech conference)

_______RS

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Note: A tanka is a Japanese short poem form akin to a haiku, but with a five line structure built of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables. The spirit of these sentiments were wonderfully anticipated by Walt Whitman in 1865 with his ‘When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer’, though I consider the contemporary picture to be far more hellish. ( Whitman’s poem and a decent recitation ).

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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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