reframe

Faith by David Whyte

// November 30th, 2006 // No Comments » // Art, Music & Poetry

I want to write about faith
about the way the moon rises
over cold snow night after night

faithful even as it fades from fullness
slowly becoming the last curving and impossible
sliver of light before the final darkness
but I have no faith in myself
I refuse to give it the smallest entry

Let this then, my small poem,
like a new moon, slender and barely open,
be the first prayer that opens me to faith

- David Whyte

Photo from Blue Ridge Muse

Destino

// November 28th, 2006 // No Comments » // Art, Music & Poetry

In 1945 collaboration began between the ubergenius Salvador Dalí and Walt Disney to produce an animated Dali- almost a tautology in itself. Financial woes intervened and all that was released was a precious 18 seconds of footage. In 1999, Walt Disney’s nephew, Roy Disney, unearthed the dormant project and with a team of 25 animators deciphered the storyboards and finished the timeless masterpiece.

(A Disney trailer for Destino)

I was blessed in early 2005 to see the full six-minute production and a collection of stills from the work- right here in the Netherlands. It was, and is, the most beautiful film I have ever seen. An animated Dali has a fourth dimension of fluidity- a dimension that is hinted at in every painting, but finally, here in these six delicate minutes, is brought to it’s ultimate creation.

ABC Linkdump- November 20

// November 28th, 2006 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

This weeks Linkdump from the Amsterdam, Budapest and Cairo Connection is so fresh it’s late. I missed a flight back from London and so had to catch an eleven hour freakin bus ride- pulling straight through to work this morning. Me, sprawled across a table, staring outside into the darkness as Force 6 winds whip up foam against the ferry as she makes her midnight crossing of the Channel, and Iraq debates rattle my headphones, ulterly failing to penetrate my somnolent mind. Nonetheless, I arrived and so does Week 3′s ABC Linkdump.

AJ- Pat Robertson showcases my problem with the Evangelical Right; divisive, demonising and explaining God on a blackboard
AJ- Dear Corporate Community, when you do things like this I get the impression that you are evil, or at best ammoral bacteria-like functionaries living off whatever energy society allows you to steal.
TG- I think I have linked to it before, but as a reminder, We Make Money Not Art is one of the coolest art/creativity blogs in the ‘sphere.
TG- This is meta-awesome: 2006′s list of lists, a collection of all the different “2006 Best of X” or “Top 10 X” for the year.
TG- For fans of beautiful things, the new Sony Bravia commercial (“Paint”) is absolutely gorgeous. And if you have been living on the moon (or a place with no internet) for the last year, here is the amazing original “balls” commercial . Two of the prettiest commercials you will ever see.
PB – Not a big soccer fan, but here is to the greatest hungarian soocerplayer.Ever . Rest in peace.
PB – A hungarian site, but just cool videos for a night with nothing to do . And if videos, don’t miss this BBC interviewing a cabdriver instead of an IT expert. And also, some dudes who use their bikes for flying.
PB -The 13 Most Embarrassing Web Moments
TG- I was randomly watching a few minutes of a Spanish Leage football game yesterday, and in the small time frame that I was checking it out, Ronaldhino scored this amazing goal, one of the best I have ever seen – the man is a freak, not to mention looking like a cross between a spider and a horse…..
AJ- National Geographic inquires (and aims to debunk) “chi”- the energy/force described in martial arts. Youtube video with George Dillman- 9th degree blackbelt .

Keep it Unreal

// November 26th, 2006 // No Comments » // Art, Music & Poetry

Who saw Mr Scruff play a wicked set last night in The Forum, London? (follow link for some free tracks)

A: The cast of Big Brother Extreme Saudi Scurvy and Supression Island edition?
B: Part of the Supreme Court of the Democratic Republic of Congo
C: Arthur and Monika
D: Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka

If you answered “C” you are correct. “A” doesn’t exist, “B” was recently burnt down in post-election gunfire, and “D” was busy giving farming tips on national television to his 80% state controlled agricultural economy.

It was freakin’ awesome- the best DJ I’ve seen in ages. Go, listen, become one with the Scruff.

Be Crazy Dumbsaint of the Mind

// November 23rd, 2006 // 2 Comments » // Art, Music & Poetry

Although I think sanctifying a person denies their true reality as an integration of both the dark and light in all humanity- and that seeking the intervention of Saints is not only illogical but probably heretic- it is at times like these that I look to Saint Isidore of Seville, Proposed Patron Saint of Internet Users. After quietly reciting “A Prayer before Logging onto the Internet and the Catholic Online Forum” (there’s internet outside the Catholic Online Forum?) I discovered that St. Isidore had blessed my trip to the intertubes with Awesome.

It was manifest in the form of Jack Kerouac reading from “Visions of Cody” as interviewer Steve Allen accompanies on soft jazz piano.

Welcome to the UberNews

// November 22nd, 2006 // No Comments » // World Issues

One civil war ends, another’s about to begin. A coup is supressed off the African coast, a Russian spy in London is poisoned by a secret network, and an international consortium takes on this century’s biggest scientific challenge. It’s the future of news people!

News is the old “reality TV”- and to compete with new realities where we can sniff up the full buffet of human emotions- anger, betrayal or embarassment- news has got to get more of a “hook”. Simply put, the world must “liven up” if it is to win the ratings. People want to see mystery guests, Holiday Special Events, and sometimes you just need to move the whole thing to a tropical island. The Audience demands it- and Premium Members will pay for it. That’s right, exclusive wars, pay-per view scandals, history being shaped for a flat cable fee.

Tom Roy- Representing Aussie in Shanghai!

// November 21st, 2006 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

My cousin- one Mr Tom Roy of Brisbane, Australia- will be donning the green and gold to represent Aussie in the Special Olympics held in Shanghai next October!

Tom has been a keen swimmer since before I could walk and has been training incredibly hard for the qualification events- which he must have simply dominated. From Australia to Amsterdam, we shall be cheering him on and wish him huge success and enjoyment in his experience.

This announcement comes in the same week that Ian Thorpe, winner of five Olympic and eleven World Championships, announces his retirement from swimming. Merely a coincidence? Not a chance. Move over Thorpedo- Tom Roy is entering the pool.

Look out for the first interview with our rising star.

ABC Linkdump- November 20

// November 20th, 2006 // 4 Comments » // Uncategorized

After rave reviews of our first week’s linkage (ok it was a silent rave) we are back with week 2 of the ABC Linkdump.

TG – Via Aly, this is an interesting documentary on media coverage of the Middle East, watch it online for free at Google Video – “Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land” by Bathsheba Ratzkoff and Sut Jhally.

AJ- “Jesus Camp”, a documentary about a charismatic Christian summer camp for children to learn about their “prophetic gifts” and how they can “take back America for Christ.” Their chief “prophet” preaches a message urging children to join the fight to end abortion. He prays for George W. Bush to have the strength to appoint “righteous judges” who will overturn Roe v. Wade. By the end of the sermon, the children are chanting, “Righteous judges! Righteous judges!” At one point Pastor Fischer states, “I want to see young people who are as committed to the cause of Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam,” she tells the camera. “I want to see them radically laying down their lives for the gospel, as they are over in Pakistan and Israel and Palestine.” Article in The Guardian. Doco Trailer.

TG – Heh. Slashdot.org, the geeky industrial strength web community, just reached 16,777,216 comments, which is 224, the limit for their SQL database. Fear not though, they are powering through a newer, geekier solution as we speak…

PB – A quick video, on how to win a million bucks the coolest way possible.

AJ- Some techy business PC World’s 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time. Yes Realplayer, you deserve to die and I hope you burn in hell. “Just how bad is Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing? It’s as bad as your mind will allow you to comprehend.”

AJ- Brilliant Minds Forecast the Next 50 Years . New Scientist asked over 70 of the world’s most brilliant scientists for their ideas on…. the future.

AJ- I’ve been enthralled by the World Press Photo Exhibition for the last few years here in Amsterdam- where it exhibits in the Oude Kerk (Old Church) in the Red Light.

PB – HP tries to make a new brand image with Jay-Z in it’s ads – and comments. And in some more ads, check out Dylan in Victoria Secret’s new campaign (yeah Bob Dylan)

PB – A tribute to Johnny Cash done in the way fit for the man, singing “but I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die” in Folsom Prison

PB – I know it’s almost boring, but here again Bush stupidity, indeed the apple and the tree it falls from.

TG- Nice Middle East news and blog roundup from Arabist.net

TG- AOL released 3 months worth of its customers’ search records a few months ago, and the goons at somethingawful.com did some hilarious analysis, well worth checking out…

The Challenge of the Hour

// November 14th, 2006 // 9 Comments » // Leadership Development

Professor Sacks is Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth and a world leader in interfaith dialogue. His address, extracted below and in full on mp3 which you should really listen to, is one of the most beautiful religious expressions I’ve ever heard. A call for openness between religions supported by a humanistic interpretation of Exodus that is both educative and compelling.

“I believe that at the university, and in the public square in general, in the 21st century we are being tested. Anyone of religious beliefs and certainly the three great Abrahamic monotheisms, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, to become open to one another rather than closed off from one another…

I actually believe that if we do not do this we face a great danger, of a return to the wars of religion that scarred the face of Europe in the 16th and 17th Centuries. And we really must have thinking equal to the challenge of this hour…

Friends, I have tried to suggest that the great test which religions will face in the 21st century is, are we open to the other? Are we open to the stranger? Are Jews open to non-Jews, Christians to non-Christians, Muslims to non-Muslims? Are we willing to stand up and insist in the name of our faiths for the rights of one who is not like me to continue to be not like me and yet be my equal serving God and bearing his image within me? Can we see the human other as a reflection fo the divine other? That will require all our humility, all our generosity of spirit but above all all our openness.

And that is the meaning of the otherwise cryptic phrases in Exodus when Moses asks God, “What is your name?” And God replies, “I will be where I will be”, meaning quite simply, in the place where you least expect me to be, there I am. And I will be there too in the face of one whose faith and language and culture and history are not like yours. You will see the trace of God in the face of a stranger, even in Pharoahs daughter, even in two Egyptian midwives, and I believe that is the openness we need to survive the terrible risks of the 21st century…

I just wish to give expression to the still small voice that never gives up hope, and that prepares the ground maybe between just a few in each religion, because those few when the time comes, will become the leaders of a new way. That is all I can say. “

Professor Jonathan Sacks was speaking in Australia at Monash University, via SBS.

The God Delusion

// November 14th, 2006 // No Comments » // Leadership Development

Richard Dawkins, the Charles Simonyi Chair in the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, speaks on his latest book “The God Delusion”. In the first part he focuses on debunking the ethical primacy of the Bible and the illustrating the logical fallacy underlying supernatural belief, however, my favourite part is in winning back Einstein in the religion debate. He differentiates “Einsteinian religion”, whereby some scientists use the word “God” as a metaphor for nature or the mysteries of the universe from revealed religions with the belief in “a supernatural creator that is ‘appropriate for us to worship’”. Christians have often misrepresented Einstein’s references to “God” (“”God does NOT play dice”, etc), whereas Dawkins answers this with Einstein’s own definitive clarification.

“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly.”

Again in his own terms, Einstein did in fact “believe in Spinoza’s God, Who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.”

Spinoza’s belief, expressed as Naturalistic Pantheism, hold at it’s fundament that God is Nature (nature means all things), and that there is no real difference between “Good” and “Evil”- everything in existence is perfect. He makes no account for the revelatory status of the Bible or for any religous practice as fulfillment of convenant or Word. A far cry from any Abrahamic doctrince preached at the Synagouge, Church or Mosque.

Back to Dawkins, in the second half of his presentation he takes questions from students of the hosting Randolph Macon Women’s College- and also visiting students from the Jerry Falwell’s Baptist “Liberty University”. The undoubting faith shown by the Liberty students makes me wonder if they followed the argumentation at all or merely closed themselves off and prepared to try and untangle Dawkins on morality questions- in which they fail. I would love to hear the reactions of a rationalist believer to Dawkins presentation- someone who is open to doubt, can follow the logic and still maintains their belief in the Koran, Bible or Torah and a personal God.