Hank's Blog
Friday, October 31, 2003
i'm sorry. these images are gruesome. i couldn't turn away from them. the human toll of this war. from The Memory Hole.
THE UNIVERSE MOVES TOWARDS BASS
from Reuben's Zoo Station:
Not with a bang, but a hum
The New Scientist is carrying a report on an analysis done on the leftover radiation from the Big Bang. Turns out it wasn't a bang as much as it was a hum.
To produce the sound, Physicist John Cramer of the University of Washington in Seattle took data from NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe. Launched in 2001, the probe has been measuring tiny differences in the temperature between different parts of the sky. From these variations, he could calculate the frequencies of the sound waves propagating through the Universe during its first 760,000 years, when it was just 18 million light years across. At that time the sound waves were too low in frequency to be audible. To hear them, Cramer had to scale the frequencies 100,000 billion billion times.
The loudness and pitch of the sound waves reflect what happened in the early Universe. During the 100-second recording, the frequencies fall because the sound waves get stretched as the Universe expands. "It becomes more of a bass instrument," says Cramer.
from Reuben's Zoo Station:
Not with a bang, but a hum
The New Scientist is carrying a report on an analysis done on the leftover radiation from the Big Bang. Turns out it wasn't a bang as much as it was a hum.
To produce the sound, Physicist John Cramer of the University of Washington in Seattle took data from NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe. Launched in 2001, the probe has been measuring tiny differences in the temperature between different parts of the sky. From these variations, he could calculate the frequencies of the sound waves propagating through the Universe during its first 760,000 years, when it was just 18 million light years across. At that time the sound waves were too low in frequency to be audible. To hear them, Cramer had to scale the frequencies 100,000 billion billion times.
The loudness and pitch of the sound waves reflect what happened in the early Universe. During the 100-second recording, the frequencies fall because the sound waves get stretched as the Universe expands. "It becomes more of a bass instrument," says Cramer.
what reason could i give
to live
only that
i love you
how many times
must i die
for love
only when
i'm without you
where will the clouds be
if not in the sky
when i die
-Ornette Coleman, Science Fiction
to live
only that
i love you
how many times
must i die
for love
only when
i'm without you
where will the clouds be
if not in the sky
when i die
-Ornette Coleman, Science Fiction
Thursday, October 30, 2003
Molly Thomas thinks about horrible things she regrets to avoid laughing when someone farts during standing tree pose.
tonite: Eskimo Nebula, the Milena Mix
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
Wrong Habits That Feel Right
Personal style of movement is formed by genetic background, developmental patterns, and habits acquired continuously throughout life. Changing movement habits is not always easy because what you have been doing all along feels normal, and any change, even if it is to your advantage, feels abnormal. Unless you "evolve" into new movement habits very slowly, change sends an alarm through the body: "This is not the way you normally move, this is not your habitual posture, this is not your habitual alignment." - Eric Franklin, Dynamic Alignment Through Imagery
Personal style of movement is formed by genetic background, developmental patterns, and habits acquired continuously throughout life. Changing movement habits is not always easy because what you have been doing all along feels normal, and any change, even if it is to your advantage, feels abnormal. Unless you "evolve" into new movement habits very slowly, change sends an alarm through the body: "This is not the way you normally move, this is not your habitual posture, this is not your habitual alignment." - Eric Franklin, Dynamic Alignment Through Imagery
eye contact:
1. A visual connection made as one person gazes into the eyes of another. 2. A highly emotional link established as two people simultaneously observe each other's eyes.
1. A visual connection made as one person gazes into the eyes of another. 2. A highly emotional link established as two people simultaneously observe each other's eyes.
this is what Camille Paglia thinks about blogs (from Salon):
Why aren't you a fan of blogs?
Blog reading for me is like going down to the cellar amid shelves and shelves of musty books that you're condemned to turn the pages of. Bad prose, endless reams of bad prose! There's a lack of discipline, a feeling that anything that crosses one's mind is important or interesting to others. People say that the best part about writing a blog is that there's no editing -- it's free speech without institutional control. Well, sure, but writing isn't masturbation -- you've got to self-edit.
...
Most bloggers aren't culture critics but political or media junkies preoccupied with pedestrian minutiae and a sophomoric "gotcha" mentality. I find it depressing and claustrophobic. The Web is a wide open space -- voices on it should have energy and vision.
...
gulp.
Why aren't you a fan of blogs?
Blog reading for me is like going down to the cellar amid shelves and shelves of musty books that you're condemned to turn the pages of. Bad prose, endless reams of bad prose! There's a lack of discipline, a feeling that anything that crosses one's mind is important or interesting to others. People say that the best part about writing a blog is that there's no editing -- it's free speech without institutional control. Well, sure, but writing isn't masturbation -- you've got to self-edit.
...
Most bloggers aren't culture critics but political or media junkies preoccupied with pedestrian minutiae and a sophomoric "gotcha" mentality. I find it depressing and claustrophobic. The Web is a wide open space -- voices on it should have energy and vision.
...
gulp.
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
Sunday, October 26, 2003
Toy dog causes stink at airport
A novelty dog toy which breaks wind as it bends over has sparked a major security alert at a US airport.
A novelty dog toy which breaks wind as it bends over has sparked a major security alert at a US airport.
Why do I think this is cool? See FishEye menu #2
Saturday, October 25, 2003
Once a year, musician and performer Leon Gruenbaum '85 breaks his strict vegan diet by eating a slice of pizza while surrounded by onlookers. Afterwards, he lowers a plastic mannequin leg from the roof of his New York apartment building in a ritual called "The Lowering of the Leg." - The Harvard Crimson
Friday, October 24, 2003
ego-surfing: To perform an Internet search on one's own name.
- from Netlingo
me? no, i've never done that...
- from Netlingo
me? no, i've never done that...
Thursday, October 23, 2003
nodes are people too: The Connectors - Meet the hypernetworked nodes who secretly run the world. - Wired
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
tonite: Suphala, Mazz Swift and Barbara Mendes at the K-Lounge. that was hot. please do it again. and longer.
... software developers are doomed to fail because they need to do three jobs at the same time - only one of which they are well suited for. First, they have to understand the often complex needs of the client - the insurance specialists or accountants or aircraft designers for whom the software is being built. Programmers must try to soak up knowledge that their clients have spent years accumulating. If not a wholly impossible task, it's certainly an inefficient use of their expertise... - from Emergic.Org blog
Ideas matter. Ideas are primary. Ideas are the ultimate public good in that they are totally non-rival: my use of an idea does not diminish your capacity to use it as well. Ideas can pass from one human mind to another and set up a chain reaction that has the power to transform the world. - Bonobo Land blog
Open Source Everywhere - Software is just the beginning... open source is doing for mass innovation what the assembly line did for mass production. Get ready for the era when collaboration replaces the corporation. - Wired
I want to put out an Open Source version of the Orixas disc when we finish it.
I want to put out an Open Source version of the Orixas disc when we finish it.
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
The Church of Reality - if it's real, we believe in it!
... The key point in this preliminary practice of equanimity is to overcome the feelings of partiality and discrimination that we normally feel towards others, based on the fluctuating emotions and thoughts associated with closeness and distance. It really seems to be true that attachment constrains our vision, so that we are not able to see things from a wider perspective... - Dalai Lama, Transforming The Mind
Monday, October 20, 2003
Sunday, October 19, 2003
Saturday, October 18, 2003
Friday, October 17, 2003
tonite: a capoeira angola class with Mestre Joao Grande. i think this will complement yoga practice very well.. let's see how it goes.. also, James Blood Ulmer at the Jazz Standard... the No Escape from the Blues Band. real good.
Thursday, October 16, 2003
as i sit at my current day-job, overlooking the Ground-Zero pit from a trading floor desk, i contemplate my recent viewing and re-viewing of Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy: The New Rules of the Game (2002). This is the third disc of this very well done PBS documentary... it took Netflix almost 6-months to deliver this one, they must only own one copy. I think it presents a balanced view of the issues we face in the upcoming years, as we try to find a way to make the global financial network function and not dis-function. I still have to watch the other two discs, this one is worth buying, I think. An eerie Dubya quote straight from the video:
GEORGE W. BUSH, U.S. President: Out of the sorrow of September 11, I see opportunity, a chance for nations to strengthen and rethink and reinvigorate their relationships. When nations open their markets to the world, they find in America trading partners, an investor, and a friend.
GEORGE W. BUSH, U.S. President: Out of the sorrow of September 11, I see opportunity, a chance for nations to strengthen and rethink and reinvigorate their relationships. When nations open their markets to the world, they find in America trading partners, an investor, and a friend.
Bus 174. Not exactly entertainment. Rio de Janeiro, my hometown. Everyone has a crime story, nobody feels safe... The "invisible" element of society, marginalized, in the streets, is young and ever growing... and the situation has only gotten worse since 2000, when the bus 174 hijacking happened. A society can't expect that hiding away human beings, locking them in hellholes of so-called prisons and condoning brutal policing will result in less violence. Maybe the popularity of these films (like "City of God") will somehow affect a change. It seems so desperate and unfixable. But then you see the joy and the light of brazilians and you know that it will someday get better. Maybe by the time I'm an old man.
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
My definition of stress is that it is the psychophysical response that is triggered by the perception that you are out of control. For example, when you are faced with a problem that you cannot solve by the body of knowledge that you currently have, you are under stress. When you are faced with a challenge or problem that is bigger than anything that you have encountered before, you are naturally under stress. In this sense, it is the most salient element that triggers and compels transformation. That's why I often tell my students to ask themselves a question for which they have no answer, or read a book that they cannot readily understand. That causes stress. And by the time they become able to answer the question or understand the book, they have evolved. - YASUHIKO KIMURA
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Kaz Maslanka's Mask of God. Leon maybe you can explain this to me.
If the term "evolutionary enlightenment" suggests anything in its languaging, it is that rather than an end-point, a higher realization is just the beginning of a process by which individuals can participate in the evolving Kosmos... rather than using terms rooted in eighteenth century (Western) notions and far older (Eastern) precepts with their associated linguistic and conceptual baggage, I like to use C.S. Pierce's "ongoing semiosis" - the process by which an individual can engage in the continuous perception of the phenomena of the universe to arrive at ever deeper and richer cognitions and conceptions of one's existence in it. - Joe Arredondo, from What is Enlightenment? letters page
... express yourself to God non-verbally. Imagine that you are dumb and you can only communicate with your eyes and your breathing. Say to the Lord, non-verbally, Lord, it is good to be here with you. Or, do not communicate with the Lord at all. Just rest in His presence... for the devotionally inclined, a rudimentary exercise is finding God in all things.
- aryabhatt.com, meditation
- aryabhatt.com, meditation
Monday, October 13, 2003
ok this is very cool - kartoo.com - is a visual search engine - your search results are displayed cartographically - i'm not sure how useful it is, but it looks cool... lookout Google...
Saturday, October 11, 2003
Friday, October 10, 2003
...We need Angry Jesus to storm the Vatican right now, kicking out the money changers and the temple prostitutes and the child molesters. I love me some Angry Ass Jesus... - from Margaret Cho's blog!
photo session last night with milena, for upcoming band "Eskimo Nebula", featuring me, Jorge, Leon and Po Gyzer (as DJ Scrappy Doo)... see article from the South Beach Eye!
Thursday, October 09, 2003
The Gafieira Dance Party every Friday at Made In Brazil, Astoria, has been cancelled... not enough people turned out. Pedro is trying to find a place in Manhattan to set up shop. Stay tuned.
The Catholic Church is telling people in countries stricken by Aids not to use condoms because they have tiny holes in them through which the HIV virus can pass - potentially exposing thousands of people to risk. - holy shit.
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
... the "self" is a purely conceptual construction emerging as a fearful reaction to the limitless expanse of our inherent nature... we pull back into an inner fantasy world that is a "mentalized" and distorted version of reality, a series of images and thoughts that we take to be a fixed and substantial "self". Because this "self" is little more than an incessant monologue that we must carry on in order to feel secure in our identity, it tends to be self-serving and self-absorbed. From this point of view, the wild ravings of some of the more extreme forms of mental illness are only exaggerations of the delusional inner life we all carry on to maintain the fiction of our "self". - Reginald A. Ray, from November 2003's Shambala Sun
Tuesday, October 07, 2003
Jorge's Photo Gallery is up...
\Dis`il*lu"sion*ment\, n.
The act of freeing from an illusion, or the state of being
freed therefrom.
The act of freeing from an illusion, or the state of being
freed therefrom.
Sunday, October 05, 2003
Saturday, October 04, 2003
Another mp3 for the studio page. A track we produced earlier this summer for capoeirista Mestre Sula, for use with his capoeira practice - it's a long track (31:28) to allow for a nice long roda.
Friday, October 03, 2003
breathingLight examines human psychological reactions to varying and bright light... it juxtaposes our fascination with bright light sources and their unbearability... it asks you to explore your own limits of desire for enlightenment and find a comfortable lightmirror balance... by comparing the breathingLight with human breathing it imposes human characteristics to a light source and unveils the hidden energy of this underexplored medium...
- milena iossifova, from her projects page
- milena iossifova, from her projects page
Thursday, October 02, 2003
The Shape of Jazz to Come... a blog of sorts.
Another track for our studio page... Come Ye Disconsolate - DK sings beautifully. Two brazilians, one jew, and a columbian did their best to do gospel justice. We came out sounding a bit like the Saturday Night Live band, but that's cool.
Wednesday, October 01, 2003
We all want to be strong all of the time; we want to enter the race at our best; we want to be swift and graceful and embody all the attributes the world seems to reward most. But in the real world we are not all strong; we are not all swift; and we can't face every circumstance with every attribute or resource we should. But whatever we have or don't have, whatever we are or aren't, no matter how tired or disillusioned we are, there is still a need to be met -- an objective to be reached, a dream to be realized. Chances are we won't reach our objective in one giant step. Success is rarely the result of one fell swoop, but more often the culmination of many, many small victories... - the lakota way, Joseph M. Marshall III
