Data Centers in Space? ....nope.

 Pipe Dream! Peter Zeihan explains why in detail! So MANY reasons!

 

A country in free fall

"We are in free fall off a cliff here. I don't know where we land......The kind of authority that this administration has claimed for itself and exercised -- over Congress, the Supreme Court, the States, the American People, citizens, immigrants, and aliens alike -- is without precedent in American History - the end."

 -- American Political Historian/author Jill Lepore

Time Rolls, yes it does, no one stands against it

You’ve got one life - do what you can while you can! Friendships, institutions, traditions you rely on appear then vanish! Disasters happen! Defend yourself as best you can!

Life is messy and difficult, so beautiful and brief.  Be alive until you aren’t- don’t give up contributing to the human story —even if nobody seems to hear, offer up your heart!

Seeing beauty in the universe

This is a video I particularly liked from YouTube, though as a naturalist I might quibble with the term spirituality. I take that to mean that feeling of being in the moment, a part of,  feeling in unison with what is around you. If you click through and watch this on YouTube itself, you can read the text the videographer has put up alongside it.

Poem: What is aka Schema

Elizabeth Thomas at last year's Sunkin Garden

Love this poem! If you like this go to it on YouTube and hit LIKE!

SONG from the Molten show with weird visual effects

This performance by Mad Mar Walker (me) was filmed at the Molten Java send-off benefit on Dec 18, 2011, in Bethel CT. Since it was filmed in portrait rather than landscape AND since my head looks like a bowling ball with bad hair - well, I thought I'd just distort the heck out of the picture and give people something slightly less disorienting to look at.... 

METHOD: In iMovie HD - I used the Crystalize effect to make large cells, followed by the Edge effect, mirror effect, bloom, then n2 and exposure adjust. I exported it from there as an .dv file and used the new iMovie to turn it into an M4v file. whew... I left the sound naked as the day it was born. No effects there at all, gravel old age and all.

THE SONG:

This one dates back to when I was going out with my future husband and I was in my early twenties.

Lay On Down And Die

a song by Mad Mar Walker


Verse 1)

My love rents from a cold water baroness who
sticks to his pay check like gum (shit) on a shoe
on payday, she stalks him like a bloodhound dog
but after lunch why she'll be lost in a corn mash fog

REFRAIN:

So you and me go down to our favorite spot
in the grave yard beneath the pine trees
where it never gets too hot

We'll read the tombstone poets smell the flowers, get a little high
and when were too happy to move
why we'll just lay on down and die

Verse 2)

You had yourself a rusted out Chevrolet car
you drove it one night right thought the window of a bar
Then they could not find you for 17 days
when they did were mumbling dirty words
and your little eyes were still glazed.

REFRAIN

Verse 3)

For your birthday I brought you buttered rum, Jamacian red
You smoked and you drank till I was sure you was dead
but when it comes to chasing round after me
you're ever ready like that famous flashlight battery....

REFRAIN

POEM: Surface Substance Entropy

A bit of a mood here. Photos of reflections, or where one can look into and out of a building at the same time, taken in CT New Milford, Danbury, Bethel and Georgetown. An improvsed singing track over a keyboard track, a tap the metal mug track - all recorded in Garageband, sound effects added in both IMovie and Garageband. The poem was recorded using the Iphone OS Voice Memo app..

The Poem:

SURFACE SUBSTANCE & ENTROPY

Blue light, evening sky, red arches
frame black branches in reflection or white arches.
or grey shadow of arches and brick. Look through; see beyond the glass.

Notice the distorted view, the glass rippling
with unspoken memories and caught between
looking at the surface and looking through the surface

to another surface, to distant reflections
of that which is behind us --
far away, removed but present.

See into the room, see past the room
as the branches wave, reflecting unseen winds.
Sometimes the trunks of trees become what they are not.

They lift their hidden deadly power, tangled and electric.
The squares of constructed sky reflect cloud
until the pains are broken one by one.

The tenderest green leaves soon turn to barest vine,
and on the car, a curveture of glass
reflecting the ubiquitous trees.

On the horizon the peeling paint continues, and
in the glass, under the sky dome, blurred
with the speed of going, the goodbye waving

Vote. It's important.

Vote. Whoever you are, vote. In the end, when you complain to me about the results of this election - I will ask you "DID YOU VOTE?"  If you didn't vote you  should be ashamed and no one should listen to your complaint. I know I won't. Are you in the hospital? Out of the country? Get an absentee ballot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DRkUU-qhjk

Bruce Gray’s wild kinectic sculpture – gravity with sound effects!

A Kinetic Sculpture by Los Angeles sculptor Bruce Gray, titled "Califormia Dreamin"

One of things I am always excited about in a work of art - is a sense of motion. But with kinetic sulpture - you have the immediate delight of motion in three dimensions rather than motion hinted at on a flat plain. This sculpture also has sureal sound effects, even though it doesn't seem like the Califormia Dreamin of that era.. Another thing I like about it is the idea of alternate routes that all lead to the same destination and the juxtaposition of natural force (gravity) and man-arranged force which lifts the iron ball to the top for another cycle.

I found this video featured on a blog called DenverArtsyGal - she has a fantastic blog and twitter feed so take a look.

Reggie Marra "Bump" - a poem for Anne Marie

A poem about Reggie and his older sister Anne Marie as giggling children at play. Reggie read this during his featured reading at the Blue Z Coffeehouse on the one-year anniversary of Anne Marie's death on St Patrick's Day 2009.  --> Cherish life. You only get this one....
.

http://www.youtube.com/v/D2Ws6-I_LEQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0

.
.

The roar at Stevenson Dam after all the rain, 3/14/2010

While traveling from the New Haven area on Sunday I took this short video of the Stevenson Dam on Route 34. Notice the incredible gush of water that is being let out of Lake Zoar at the side of the dam > you can see it in the lower right hand side of the frame . That is a lot of water. Peak was not expected until 1 p.m. the following day, according to a Danbury News Times article. This was video shot with a G3 iphone using the Qik Video app. The G3 cannot shoot video out of the box. This is a a low rez fix - but low rez but better than no rez.

http://www.youtube.com/v/zvRsLMKukJ0&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0

"Science is the poetry of reality" - from Symphony of Science

Another tuneful statement from Symphony of Science.com:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Cd36WJ79z4&w=560&h=349]

"Glorious Dawn" from Symphony of Science

"Glorious Dawn" - I think this was the first music video posted at  http://SymphonyofScience.com which is a very cool site.  Check it out! You can find the Lyrics there as well. I have two other of their videos embedded here also.  You can see by watching their videos that outdated concepts of the supernatural are not needed for awe, wonder or mystery in this amazing universe of universes in which we live.

http://www.youtube.com/v/zSgiXGELjbc&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0

"Our Place in the Cosmos" a music remix from Symphony of Science.com

I am hooked on the concept of setting science to a beat with gorgeous pictures. Here is another video "remix" from http://SymphonyofScience.com 

"We Are All Connected" - a music remix from SymphonyofScience.com

This is a part of a series of videos from http://SymphonyofScience.com - watch the video and checkout their website. I will post more of this series here also.

Christmas Prep: The Whirl, the Blur, the Pause, the STRESS!!

Here is a link to this column, posted as text on this blog a few years ago

POEM: The Matrix of all (from Inverse Origami)

The Matrix of All rumbles at critical mass,
a macro-synaptic storm
in cascade
in perpetual toss

Opposed and opposing:
heads-tails
crest-trough
light-dark
alph-nul
the perception of water and thirst

---

---

from Inverse Origami - the art of unfolding
--- Mar (Mistryel) Walker, © 1998
Puzzled Dragon Press

Ambient Music Meditations: Water Callings

Here is a brand new ambient music video, cooked just this morning. Click on the photo to watch it on my YouTube channel. I have a feeling this is one of those things you'll either love or hate.

The basic singing track was recorded in Garageband. The track was duplicated and altered over and over both in that program and in iMovie. I kind of like the wavy plaintive effect... It vaguely reminds me of birds or whales calling to each other...

The video is of the stream at the entrance to the Stamford Nature Center.

iPhone App Art with a homecooked sound track

Yes, is true that I like to fiddle around with materials and with technology. This is a video slide show of art made on an iPhone. Click on the photo to watch the video.

ARTWORK: The slides were created in SpinArt a $1.99 cent IPhone app.
MUSIC: The sound track is made in three distinct tracks each recorded driectly into iMoive HD (the old iMovie) For one track I used "mouth percussion" on another I smacked the TV remote against a lamp, on a third I improvised a tune (me singing). Then I manipulated each track using IMovie's audio editor applying pitch changes, delay and reverb i varying proportions and doing a little graphic equalization until the three tracks together had a sound I liked. It's short so give a little listen....  I kind of like the effect even though it's different from both my acoustic songs and from the classical music I used to do.

-- Mar Walker