My blog must have a post dedicated to Battlestar Galactica.
I don't know too many people who have seen this show. I never watched it while it was still on TV. I had no idea it had the potential to make such an impression on me. My co-worker, Stacy, and I finally decided to download all four seasons and watch it on our iPod Touches. Maybe watching it in this fashion offers a different experience than watching an episode on TV every week, with commercial breaks, re-runs, season breaks etc. Ours was certainly a very pure, very distilled experience. Perhaps watching it the way we did makes for more reflective moments.
The intelligence in the scripting of this show, the deeper philosophical and theosophical constructs never ceased to amaze me. The crafting of Battlestar Galactica was pure genius any way one decided to look at it.
The opening musical theme of every episode was the first thing to grab my attention. The accent, of course, was heavily anglicized but soon enough I had no doubt in my mind that it was the Gayatri Mantra set to music:
AUM BHOOR BHUWAH SWAHA,
TAT SAVITUR VARENYAM
BHARGO DEVASAYA DHEEMAHI
DHIYO YO NAHA PRACHODAYAT
The use of this mantra, the one chant that I never leave home without, at the beginning of each episode signalled to me that the creator of the show, Ron Moore was a rather impressive theosophist. I couldn't resist pointing this out to my friends who were finding every Judeo-Christian construct addressed in the plotlines. They are there, no doubt, but the view is much broader, much more all-encompassing than would seem at first glance.
The essence of Hinduism (which of course originated Buddhism and one or two other religions) for me is the one God philosophy, the other ‘gods’ are merely aspects or manifestations or over-simplifications to help along the faithful. The one Hindu God embodies a holy trinity of creation, preservation and destruction. All those things are clearly represented over the entire BSG story line. The motifs of eternal recurrence, building, thesis/antithesis, total destruction and building again are worked into the script in a seamless fashion.
The most impressively written character was that of Gaius Baltar. Stacy called him despicable. It is easy to do that when he comes across as a mere character on screen, a dramatis persona. But what the creators have really done is make us face a mirror, if not as a person, then as a global society. The pursuit of self-interest, above all else, is encouraged in many societies and is actually downgraded to a hidden, not so obvious motive in countries/societies where such pursuit is deemed evil (think China, old USSR). What is trickle-down economics, the profit motive above all else, the current financial and economic crisis in which we all find ourselves? It is nothing but a huge Gaius Baltar, all rolled up in one character we find easy to despise.
The kinds of beneficial things that end up happening, as a result of his self-preservation – cancer treatment for President Laura, the detection and imprisonment of Cylon#5 (after a hint from Head 6), his handing over the number from drawn lots when desperate Caprica survivors were trying to board Helo and Boomer’s plane – when he could have kept the # for himself – all these actions are incidental and not intentional, usually (his praying for the sick child seemed somewhat genuine). But yes, there are helpful things he ends up doing, if only as beneficial side-effects, while he plots self preservation.
That is indeed how a society such as ours – driven by self-interest – preserved and protected by political conservatives – usually behaves. We are Gaius Baltar! (Ok maybe not all of us – it’s a huge generalization :) )
The treatment of technology – lots could be said here as well. What scares me, on the show, and in reality, is that the sky is the limit for what mankind can achieve. We can whittle away at every mystery there exists and keep knocking them out, things that are mysteries today, won’t be so in a decade and so on. That’s our human programming, whether one calls it intelligent design or evolution. The problem is that one thing that is not programmed into us is a collective memory of history, a healthy appreciation of the irrationality of war and an utter lack of foresight. We don’t have what it takes to analyze the long term consequences of our actions.
There was a report in the news yesterday about how Moscow researchers have figured out a way to blast snow clouds out of their airspace – by spraying them with some nitrous chemicals (don’t recall the science). So yes, we are capable of messing with our clouds. My initial response was, of course, “Yay, no more snow!” But the euphoria didn’t last long as I had this sudden knot of fear emerge – “no one is thinking of what this would do ten or twenty years down the line”.
We are programmed to shoot ourselves in the foot and to keep repeating it until a repetition in this cosmic statistical model becomes improbable.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
The Essence of Fall
Some fall days are beautiful. Especially the ones that are touched with grace, the ones where multiple hues shimmer in the morning light, raining on me like confetti as I make my way down winding roads. They fill me with the kind of fleeting happiness I haven't felt in days. As though someone laid a gentle hand on my forehead and brushed back bothersome tendrils of hair while smiling down at me.
Fleeting it was, in all its sweetness. My happiness was already tinged with nostalgia for the passing moment, even as the moment occurred. Just like this season we call fall- a glorious decay which looks ahead at months of bleakness.
I relished how I was feeling in that one passing moment and tried to live it to its fullest. And, as if it read my mind, the radio started playing Robert Plant's soft tones from when he wrote a fine tribute to his son Karac who died of stomach cancer at the age of five. This song probably sees Plant and JPJ at their best, with Plant's lyrics and Jones on synthesizer and bass making magic. Take a listen, it is the perfect musical accompaniment to the kind of morning I am trying so hard to relive here:
Fleeting it was, in all its sweetness. My happiness was already tinged with nostalgia for the passing moment, even as the moment occurred. Just like this season we call fall- a glorious decay which looks ahead at months of bleakness.
I relished how I was feeling in that one passing moment and tried to live it to its fullest. And, as if it read my mind, the radio started playing Robert Plant's soft tones from when he wrote a fine tribute to his son Karac who died of stomach cancer at the age of five. This song probably sees Plant and JPJ at their best, with Plant's lyrics and Jones on synthesizer and bass making magic. Take a listen, it is the perfect musical accompaniment to the kind of morning I am trying so hard to relive here:
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Do real violinists get calluses...
...on the fingertips of their left hand? Or is it a sign of how far one has to go before becoming someone who can carry a note or two on the violin?
I have doubled my hours of practice these days. I am determined to make those string crossings and multiple slurs effortless. I am determined to hear the notes gliding and sliding together and coming together well. But perhaps this determination is aiding and abetting bad technique. Maybe my fingers really don't need to press down so hard. There is some physics inherent in the mastery of this instrument that escapes me at the moment. I concentrate on the things that are obvious: right posture, bowing perpendicular to the strings, trying to apply the right pressure of bow to string, engaging those upper arm and shoulder muscles more than the forearm and wrist but something is still elusive.
Of course it has only been two years. I must admit I've come a long way in two years. Written music was as pretty as birds on wires to me until two years ago and I had no idea what the music director of the rock show, where I was a back-up singer in late 2006, was talking about when he talked about C sharps or B flats. So many musical concepts have come together in my head in the last two years and so many things are clearer, after starting from scratch and a good set of pipes. But like a guest speaker at a college function once reminded us, years ago - the more you learn, the more you realize how ignorant you are; every bit of light hints at the darkness that lies ahead.
I find that darkness overwhelming at times.
When one is overwhelmed so, it probably is time to look at everything with "soft eyes". I first heard that term on the second episode of the fourth season of the HBO drama "The Wire". It struck a chord and has stuck with me ever since. I often refer to it. I think the usage is brilliant. I am not even sure what the creators of the show, Ed Burns and David Mills, really meant by it; so much is always open to individual interpretation. But what it means to me is a cetain shift in one's perspective, giving a little, letting go of rigidity: literally, relaxing ones hard, squinting eyes until other details, previously hidden, masked in some way, start to emerge. In other words, just relaxing, letting go and making room for the things that your previous stance stopped you from getting.
In my violin playing and my life, I need "soft eyes". Nothing brings more fatigue and hopelessness these days than entrenched opinions and rigid stances. We have to give a little, the house needs to settle.
I have doubled my hours of practice these days. I am determined to make those string crossings and multiple slurs effortless. I am determined to hear the notes gliding and sliding together and coming together well. But perhaps this determination is aiding and abetting bad technique. Maybe my fingers really don't need to press down so hard. There is some physics inherent in the mastery of this instrument that escapes me at the moment. I concentrate on the things that are obvious: right posture, bowing perpendicular to the strings, trying to apply the right pressure of bow to string, engaging those upper arm and shoulder muscles more than the forearm and wrist but something is still elusive.
Of course it has only been two years. I must admit I've come a long way in two years. Written music was as pretty as birds on wires to me until two years ago and I had no idea what the music director of the rock show, where I was a back-up singer in late 2006, was talking about when he talked about C sharps or B flats. So many musical concepts have come together in my head in the last two years and so many things are clearer, after starting from scratch and a good set of pipes. But like a guest speaker at a college function once reminded us, years ago - the more you learn, the more you realize how ignorant you are; every bit of light hints at the darkness that lies ahead.
I find that darkness overwhelming at times.
When one is overwhelmed so, it probably is time to look at everything with "soft eyes". I first heard that term on the second episode of the fourth season of the HBO drama "The Wire". It struck a chord and has stuck with me ever since. I often refer to it. I think the usage is brilliant. I am not even sure what the creators of the show, Ed Burns and David Mills, really meant by it; so much is always open to individual interpretation. But what it means to me is a cetain shift in one's perspective, giving a little, letting go of rigidity: literally, relaxing ones hard, squinting eyes until other details, previously hidden, masked in some way, start to emerge. In other words, just relaxing, letting go and making room for the things that your previous stance stopped you from getting.
In my violin playing and my life, I need "soft eyes". Nothing brings more fatigue and hopelessness these days than entrenched opinions and rigid stances. We have to give a little, the house needs to settle.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Peace Prize or Albatross?
Alfred Nobel’s will states that the Peace prize must go to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.
Do I think President Obama has done the most or even his best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses? I certainly don’t think so. But I do know that 172 individuals and 33 organizations were nominated for the prize in 2009. We won’t know who they were until I am 92 years old, at which point I doubt I would even remember or care about the meaning of a Nobel Peace prize.
For now the Norwegian committee determined President Obama to be the candidate that trumped all the other nominees. I am not as aware of every world event as I should be, however I can’t think of any other world leader who has done the “best work” for fraternity between nations – Putin, Sarkozy, Manmohan Singh, Wen Jiabao, Kim Jong Il, Gordon Brown, Benjamin Netanyahu, Berlusconi? No, not a single world leader comes to mind.
People who are not in a “world leadership” position perhaps. I can think of several selfless individuals who are engaged in working tirelessly for making this planet a better place, a safer place, through their words, their actions their daily sacrifices. Do I think they deserve Nobel recognition? Absolutely.
But perhaps those Norwegians couldn’t define these unquestionably peaceful actions as actions that were furthering fraternity between nations. Or did a sufficient number of nominations fail to come in for many of these individuals? We won’t know until I am 92.
Then there’s the matter of abolition or reduction of standing armies. Again, I can’t think of any world leader whose efforts have resulted in the abolition or reduction of standing armies. President Obama did schedule troop withdrawal from Iraq and is on the cusp of making a decision about Afghanistan. Perhaps, if he had decided to send in more troops into Afghanistan (there’s certainly a case to be made for it) it would have knocked him out of consideration.
Has he done enough for the holding and promotion of peace congresses? Not nearly enough in his 9 month long presidency. His stance at the summits he has attended has been refreshingly different in its consensus building tone, its stress on rationality and the desire to find common ground. His rhetoric has signaled a welcome change in tone compared to his predecessor. But there would have been more evidence of this and perhaps some tangible and concrete results by the year 2012.
My vote went to him so I am hopeful of seeing these results. Have I seen them yet? No.
So should he have been given this prize? The determination of who gets this prize is not a democratic one. The world population, the “tweeters” don’t get a vote. It rests in the hands of a Norwegian committee and is bound by the words of Alfred Nobel’s will. People have a right to question the soundness of the committee’s judgment and express outraged opinions on every social networking forum there is. They can make jokes about it. RNC chairman, Michael Steele, can send me spam mail where he claims that the President received the award for “awesomeness” (I didn’t read anymore so don’t know what else it said), after all we are in this age of non-stop chatter, tweets and pointless expressions of rage at why our will wasn’t done. But that’s what it all is: pointless.
The President accepted the award as a humbling call to action and I have no doubt in my mind that he sees it as a somber rather than an ecstatic marker in his rather eventful life.
The committee has in the past had the good sense to reject the nominations of Stalin and Mussolini. I am sure they would have rejected Adolf Hitler if the person nominating him hadn’t withdrawn the nomination in early 1939.
They were also strangely and inexplicably reluctant to give the prize to Mahatma Gandhi who was nominated several times. He certainly deserved it on all counts. We won’t know who President Obama’s fellow nominees were until we’re too old or dead to care.
During World War I and II the committee decided not to award this prize, a decision one understands when one reads what Alfred Nobel’s will dictated. Perhaps they should have done the same in 2009. We don’t even have the slightest hint of peace on earth. At best, the desire for it is a well worn cliché mouthed by beauty show contestants or a fond wish expressed in Christmas carols. We have heinous acts of abuse, genocide, crimes against women, eternal blood soaked conflicts in the Middle East and strife and hell on earth everywhere we turn. The need for power drives and motivates more people than the need for peace.
There’s no doubt in my mind that there are pockets of selfless individuals in every country, working tirelessly for the holy grail of world peace. The best thing the outraged social and traditional media voices can do is find these people and nominate them for the Nobel Peace Prize for 2010, 2011, 2012…
For now, I just feel a tremendous sense of sadness for Barack Obama. His young presidency is carrying a tremendous weight of expectations not just from the people of his own country but the world. I don’t think this is the expression of an American centric viewpoint. People have pinned their hopes and expectations on Barack Obama. So much so that they even expected the results of his swearing in to yield instantaneous results, almost as if he had a magic wand.
How does a cynical generation like ours end up believing in the existence of a magic wand? He doesn’t have a lightning bolt scar on his forehead! Let’s go back to being cynical, folks, and let him steer this ship to the best of his abilities.
I say “ship” because in many ways he reminds me Coleridge's ancient mariner who has an albatross around his neck. Just like the albatross’s initial welcome, the Nobel is welcome. It has the tremendous capacity to guide every action that this commander in chief initiates, every bill he signs and every word he speaks. It has the capacity to serve as a filter. Will it give him pause every time he is poised at the brink of US initiated military action in any part of the world? Will it color his judgment about global collaboration on environmental concerns? Will it urge him to make his leadership on these matters more meaningful? It most certainly will. Or at least, the people who elected him, just like the people who gave him this prize believe it will.
Should the Nobel Peace Prize committee hand out prizes because they are “hopeful” of peace? I cannot second guess their motives but I like being a hopeful rather than hopeless citizen of the world.
If the president fails to live up to these expectations, then that would be analogous to the ancient mariner’s shooting of the albatross and the dead one ending up around his neck. Can one man handle this weight? Will he pass the test of time?
Do I think President Obama has done the most or even his best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses? I certainly don’t think so. But I do know that 172 individuals and 33 organizations were nominated for the prize in 2009. We won’t know who they were until I am 92 years old, at which point I doubt I would even remember or care about the meaning of a Nobel Peace prize.
For now the Norwegian committee determined President Obama to be the candidate that trumped all the other nominees. I am not as aware of every world event as I should be, however I can’t think of any other world leader who has done the “best work” for fraternity between nations – Putin, Sarkozy, Manmohan Singh, Wen Jiabao, Kim Jong Il, Gordon Brown, Benjamin Netanyahu, Berlusconi? No, not a single world leader comes to mind.
People who are not in a “world leadership” position perhaps. I can think of several selfless individuals who are engaged in working tirelessly for making this planet a better place, a safer place, through their words, their actions their daily sacrifices. Do I think they deserve Nobel recognition? Absolutely.
But perhaps those Norwegians couldn’t define these unquestionably peaceful actions as actions that were furthering fraternity between nations. Or did a sufficient number of nominations fail to come in for many of these individuals? We won’t know until I am 92.
Then there’s the matter of abolition or reduction of standing armies. Again, I can’t think of any world leader whose efforts have resulted in the abolition or reduction of standing armies. President Obama did schedule troop withdrawal from Iraq and is on the cusp of making a decision about Afghanistan. Perhaps, if he had decided to send in more troops into Afghanistan (there’s certainly a case to be made for it) it would have knocked him out of consideration.
Has he done enough for the holding and promotion of peace congresses? Not nearly enough in his 9 month long presidency. His stance at the summits he has attended has been refreshingly different in its consensus building tone, its stress on rationality and the desire to find common ground. His rhetoric has signaled a welcome change in tone compared to his predecessor. But there would have been more evidence of this and perhaps some tangible and concrete results by the year 2012.
My vote went to him so I am hopeful of seeing these results. Have I seen them yet? No.
So should he have been given this prize? The determination of who gets this prize is not a democratic one. The world population, the “tweeters” don’t get a vote. It rests in the hands of a Norwegian committee and is bound by the words of Alfred Nobel’s will. People have a right to question the soundness of the committee’s judgment and express outraged opinions on every social networking forum there is. They can make jokes about it. RNC chairman, Michael Steele, can send me spam mail where he claims that the President received the award for “awesomeness” (I didn’t read anymore so don’t know what else it said), after all we are in this age of non-stop chatter, tweets and pointless expressions of rage at why our will wasn’t done. But that’s what it all is: pointless.
The President accepted the award as a humbling call to action and I have no doubt in my mind that he sees it as a somber rather than an ecstatic marker in his rather eventful life.
The committee has in the past had the good sense to reject the nominations of Stalin and Mussolini. I am sure they would have rejected Adolf Hitler if the person nominating him hadn’t withdrawn the nomination in early 1939.
They were also strangely and inexplicably reluctant to give the prize to Mahatma Gandhi who was nominated several times. He certainly deserved it on all counts. We won’t know who President Obama’s fellow nominees were until we’re too old or dead to care.
During World War I and II the committee decided not to award this prize, a decision one understands when one reads what Alfred Nobel’s will dictated. Perhaps they should have done the same in 2009. We don’t even have the slightest hint of peace on earth. At best, the desire for it is a well worn cliché mouthed by beauty show contestants or a fond wish expressed in Christmas carols. We have heinous acts of abuse, genocide, crimes against women, eternal blood soaked conflicts in the Middle East and strife and hell on earth everywhere we turn. The need for power drives and motivates more people than the need for peace.
There’s no doubt in my mind that there are pockets of selfless individuals in every country, working tirelessly for the holy grail of world peace. The best thing the outraged social and traditional media voices can do is find these people and nominate them for the Nobel Peace Prize for 2010, 2011, 2012…
For now, I just feel a tremendous sense of sadness for Barack Obama. His young presidency is carrying a tremendous weight of expectations not just from the people of his own country but the world. I don’t think this is the expression of an American centric viewpoint. People have pinned their hopes and expectations on Barack Obama. So much so that they even expected the results of his swearing in to yield instantaneous results, almost as if he had a magic wand.
How does a cynical generation like ours end up believing in the existence of a magic wand? He doesn’t have a lightning bolt scar on his forehead! Let’s go back to being cynical, folks, and let him steer this ship to the best of his abilities.
I say “ship” because in many ways he reminds me Coleridge's ancient mariner who has an albatross around his neck. Just like the albatross’s initial welcome, the Nobel is welcome. It has the tremendous capacity to guide every action that this commander in chief initiates, every bill he signs and every word he speaks. It has the capacity to serve as a filter. Will it give him pause every time he is poised at the brink of US initiated military action in any part of the world? Will it color his judgment about global collaboration on environmental concerns? Will it urge him to make his leadership on these matters more meaningful? It most certainly will. Or at least, the people who elected him, just like the people who gave him this prize believe it will.
Should the Nobel Peace Prize committee hand out prizes because they are “hopeful” of peace? I cannot second guess their motives but I like being a hopeful rather than hopeless citizen of the world.
If the president fails to live up to these expectations, then that would be analogous to the ancient mariner’s shooting of the albatross and the dead one ending up around his neck. Can one man handle this weight? Will he pass the test of time?
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Black Mood
When there's nothing else to write about it is easy to mine oneself. Today was a rough day and I want it to pass into the irretrievable archives of the mind.
Sugar and sweetener wrappers in the drawer where we store packets of sugar and sweetener; the bottom of the drawer coated with crusted up sugar and sweetener, coffee stains on the carpet, dirty socks and wet towels strewn around the floor, dirty dishes in the sink, homework that doesn't get done until I raise hell about it after I get home, garbage that doesn't get taken out, cigarette smoke smells reaching up and out of the basement office, missing my bus by a minute because some people choose to leave a four car distance between themselves and the car in front of them, bank account that shows numerous casino transactions because someone is showing out of control behavior - these were all the ingredients that went into my vile soup of a day.
Forgot about mentioning the stellar customer service that consumers in this country receive from respected corporations. I was gleefully used by Sears in a "bounce the call between national and store level personnel" because they haven't a clue when they would be able to deliver and assemble a dresser I had purchased a week ago. In fact, they don't even have a record of my order in the system: "We apologize for the inconvenience, we are so sorry you have had such a rotten experience, but unfortunately we are not able to help you."
!!!
Wasted hours tally:
24 minutes waiting in the parking lot after missing the 7:15 bus by a minute
80 minutes wasted commuting to work
180 minutes wasted trying to get a non-idiotic answer out of Sears customer service
And this day isn't over.
What's to come you ask, well:
120 minutes or more will be wasted commuting back home
120 minutes cleaning up hubby and daughter's messes
60 minutes running after A to get her homework done
How I'll find myself within these wasted time segments is beyond comprehension.
Sugar and sweetener wrappers in the drawer where we store packets of sugar and sweetener; the bottom of the drawer coated with crusted up sugar and sweetener, coffee stains on the carpet, dirty socks and wet towels strewn around the floor, dirty dishes in the sink, homework that doesn't get done until I raise hell about it after I get home, garbage that doesn't get taken out, cigarette smoke smells reaching up and out of the basement office, missing my bus by a minute because some people choose to leave a four car distance between themselves and the car in front of them, bank account that shows numerous casino transactions because someone is showing out of control behavior - these were all the ingredients that went into my vile soup of a day.
Forgot about mentioning the stellar customer service that consumers in this country receive from respected corporations. I was gleefully used by Sears in a "bounce the call between national and store level personnel" because they haven't a clue when they would be able to deliver and assemble a dresser I had purchased a week ago. In fact, they don't even have a record of my order in the system: "We apologize for the inconvenience, we are so sorry you have had such a rotten experience, but unfortunately we are not able to help you."
!!!
Wasted hours tally:
24 minutes waiting in the parking lot after missing the 7:15 bus by a minute
80 minutes wasted commuting to work
180 minutes wasted trying to get a non-idiotic answer out of Sears customer service
And this day isn't over.
What's to come you ask, well:
120 minutes or more will be wasted commuting back home
120 minutes cleaning up hubby and daughter's messes
60 minutes running after A to get her homework done
How I'll find myself within these wasted time segments is beyond comprehension.