In between taking care of two little ones and experimenting with new recipes for no-bake cookies (it’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it), I am not writing a post today. Not to be confused with yesterday, when I didn’t because I was just lazy.

Still, here’s a Christmas? classic from the great Tom Lehrer:

Whoever chose this date did so in blithe ignorance of its significance to any Brit old enough to have secured a halfway decent education.  ‘Please to remember the 5th of November, gunpowder, treason and plot …’  begins the verse I first heard as a very small child. It speaks of a 1605 plot to blow up Parliament in London, killing MPs and their acolytes together with the King (James I of England & Wales, VI of Scotland). In England, the day is marked by bonfires – a ceremonious immolation of ‘the guy’ (representing Guy Fawkes, the plotter apprehended among barrels of gunpowder in the cellars) – and fireworks, standing in for more lethal explosions. All no doubt based on atavistic trace elements of ancient rites long lost.

Currently the idea of someone blowing up Parliament complete with its human contents would probably prompt a smile, a laugh – even a sigh of wishful thinking among most of the inhabitants of HM’s Kingdom, so jaded are we by the shameless cupidity and mendacity of our elected representatives.  So very few of them appear to have any idea that they are supposed to serve not their own interests but those of their constituents – let alone of the country.

But today is a day when we’re enjoined to think of peace. And by extension, the absurdity of mass destruction and how apt is the acronym formed by ‘mutually-assured destruction’.  That brings us back to weapons, and demonstrates that this date turns out to be – however accidentally and coincidentally – a very good choice indeed.

As my concentration’s completely blown by a dire combination of headcold-plus-chest infection and hammering & drilling courtesy of builders above, I’d better bow out.  I’m leaving the matter with someone vastly more capable of exploiting the essential irony of this doubly significant date: Tom Lehrer, a consummate satirist from the days when we still had them (by definition, such people must be very clever, very witty, very well-informed and very brave).  He illustrates the waste and madness involved in large-scale human conflict far better than I ever could. And the clip’s more than 40 years old – progress, eh?

So, then to a busy weekend (or a busy Sunday, to be more precise).  A matinee of Arne’s Artaxerxes and an evening in Greenwich with the wonderful Fascinating Aida.

We hadn’t booked for the Arne, but a friend couldn’t make it and offered us the tickets.  I’m so glad she did.  It was a joy.  Whilst it’s not my usual period, I thought is stood up very well indeed for English opera of the period.  Oh, if only we had a tradition of standing up for our artforms, and especially our music, as is evident in France or Germany.

The production (in the Linbury Studio at the Royal Opera House) was a luminous, vividly-lit blue box, with three ’stations’ behind which different groupings of characters or set pieces took place.  The costumes were a marvellously sumptuous affair: a combination of Tudorbethan crinolin and cullottes in the manner of the Persia of the setting.  And I was rather transfixed at moments by the shoes: fabulous heels for both men and women, everything conjuring up the stage idiom of the 18th century, but with a very modern flair.  In the front-centre a sunken pit, vividly lit in a contrasting white, housed the orchestra.  The Classical Opera Company were the people behind the endeavour and I will certainly be looking them up again.

The story can be found elsewhere and is an endearingly baffling affair at first reading, which is not actually that complicated but made more so by everyone appearing to have the same name:  Xerxes, Artaxerxes, Arbaces, Artabanes, Mandanes… you get the picture.  We have roles for two sopranos, one castrato (performed by mezzo in travesti), two countertenors and two tenors.  Countertenor is not a voice type I rush to, as I’ve observed on Handel, but I have to report being quite taken with these performances.  The whole thing had a spirit and clarity that made it a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon.  Hoorah for its dusting off and re-presentation.  It was also difficult (as a lay person) to work out where Arne stopped and the necessary reconstruction (of the finale) began.  The recitatives were also reconstructed, which may have assisted with the feeling of seamlessness in the finale.  I enjoyed all vocal performances, Elizabeth Watts being notable for finishing us all off with a fabulous vocal display, and Rebecca Bottone being her incisively-sung sometime-friend and sometime-nemesis.

The evening was a very different affair, somewhat smutty, but nonetheless incisive in its satire.  Fascinating Aida are an utter wonder.  Having negotiated London transport in all its typical mediocrity to get there, satire was desperately called for.  I won’t labour the point, but if you are a tourist planning to come to London any time soon, DON’T BOTHER.  You will doubtless visit at a weekend, so half of London Transport will not be functioning.  You will be passed from pillar to post, offered pointless alternative routes and methods for the journey you want to do and when you give up and hail a cab, as inevitably you will, you will be stuck in traffic and a journey from the City to Greenwich will set you back £20.  Bloody hopeless.  Why do we all bother?

Anyway, having got that out of my system, back to FA.  Dillie Keane, Adele Anderson and Liza Pullman are the performers and they bring a manic comic delivery to some very clever writing in the best tradition of the legacy left by Gilbert & Sullivan, Noël Coward, Flanders & Swann, Tom Lehrer et al.  The songs are all available on the album ‘Silver Jubilee’ so I won’t rehearse them, other than to recommend ‘The Markets’ (an exposition of the financial instruments behind the world economic crisis: “it takes a lot of skill, to make your lifetime savings, worth absolutely nil.”) and their satire on the dominance of Tesco in the song ‘Tesco Saves’: “Tesco saves, Tesco saves, Oh, Jesus saves but Tesco saves you mooorrre…”  A couple of quite poignant songs complete the mix and you have a remarkable evening in the theatre.  The run finishes, I think, in the next week or so, but I do so hope that they will be back.  We need them, especially in what Tom Lehrer referred to as “these trying times of crisis and universal brouhaha”.  OK, so he was thinking of different brouhaha, but potential nuclear disaster and economic crisis doesn’t sound so very far from the home life of our own dear Queen, now does it?

Above: I poured an awesome flight of Nebbiolo on Tuesday night at The Austin Wine Merchant for my class “The De Facto Cru System in Piedmont.”

They say that parenting blogs, so-called “mommy blogging,” are the most lucrative: evidently, folks who write about parenting have no troubles finding advertisers. Among wine bloggers, however, the term “mommy blogging” denotes a sub-genre of posts in which bloggers “write home to mom,” telling her all the great bottles that they have opened. Italian Wine Guy often accuses me of this and I must confess that my mom does read my blog (hi mom!).

Since I am about to indulge in some flagrant, unapologetic mommy blogging, I’d like to propose a new sub-genre of enoblogging for your consideration: “Umami Blogging.”

Umami is one of the “the five generally recognized basic tastes sensed by specialized receptor cells present on the human tongue” and in wine writing, we often use it to denote a class of “savory” descriptors.

Umami, meaty, brothy, savory flavors were on everyone’s palates Tuesday night when I poured 7 bottlings of Nebbiolo from Langa at my weekly Italian wine seminar at The Austin Wine Merchant. Man, what a flight of wines! The de facto cru system of Piedmont was the topic and participants tasted bottlings from the east and west sides of the Barolo-Alba road as well as a Barbaresco and a Langhe Nebbiolo sourced in Barbaresco, where many believe the proximity of the Tanaro river adds another dimension to the appellation’s macro-climate.

Highlights were as follows…

Bruno Giacosa 2001 Barolo Falletto

This wine, from a classic Langa vintage, showed stunningly on Tuesday. Still very tannic in its development but as it opened up over the course of the evening, it performed a symphony of earthy, mushroomy flavors. The Austin Wine Merchant is selling this wine at release price (RUN DON’T WALK).

Brovia 2004 Barolo Rocche

My first encounter with this vintage from traditional producer, Brovia, one of my favorites. Here wild berry fruit ultimately gave way to a wonderful eucalyptus note. The wine is still very tannic, of course, but was suprisingly approachable after just an hour of aeration. I loved the way the fruit and savory flavors played together like a meal in a glass. Great value for the quality of wine.

Marcarini 2005 Barolo Brunate

This wine had a bretty, barnyardy note on the nose that was a turn off for a lot of folks but guest sommelier June Rodil (the current top Texas sommelier title holder) and I really dug this wine, which weighs in at less than $60. I love the rough edges of this rustic style of Barolo and only wish that I had some bollito misto and mostarda to pair with its vegetal, sweaty horse flavors.

Produttori del Barbaresco 2005 Barbaresco

Tracie B, who joined at the end of the class, and I agreed that this wine is beginning to close up. It is entering a tannic phase of its development and its savoriness overpowers its fruit right now. That being said, it still represents the greatest value in Langa today, at under $40. If you read Do Bianchi, you know how much I love the wines of Produttori del Barbaresco: I would recommend opening this wine the morning of the dinner where you’d like to serve it. By the end of the night, the tannin had mellowed and the fruit began to emerge.

To reserve for my Wines of the Veneto class (Nov. 3, a seminar dear to my heart because of my personal connection to the Veneto) or my Italian Wine and Civilization Class (Nov. 10, my personal favorite), please call 512-499-0512‎. On Tuesday, Nov. 10, we’ll all head over to Trio after class for a glass of something great to celebrate. Thanks again, to everyone, for taking part and heartfelt thanks to The Austin Wine Merchant for giving me the opportunity to share my passion for Italian wines with Austin!

In other Nebbiolo news…

My buddy Mark Sayre is pouring Matteo Correggia 2006 Roero Nebbiolo by the glass at the Trio happy hour at the Four Seasons. European wine writers have been paying a lot of attention lately to the red wines of Roero (an appellation better known in this country for its aromatic white Arneis). There isn’t much red Roero available in the U.S. and I was thrilled to see this 100% Nebbiolo in the market. It’s showing beautifully right now and is my new favorite pairing for chef Todd’s fried pork belly — my compulsive obsession — a confit seasoned with the same ingredients used to make Coca Cola.

See, mom? You can sleep peacefully knowing that your son is drinking great Nebbiolo!

*****

Does anyone remember Tom Lehrer’s “So Long Mom, I’m Off To Drop a Bomb”?

An dieses Gesicht sollte sich die hochgeschätzte Leserschaft gewöhnen, denn es ist gekommen, um sporadisch wiederzukehren. Tom Lehrer ist ein hochpolitischer amerikanischer Singer-Songwriter, der in den Sechzigern neben dem Singen, Liedermachen und Spotten noch Zeit für sein Hobby, eine Mathematik-Professur in Harvard fand. Dies kam ihm zugute, als er mit der Bemerkung, politische Satire sei überflüssig, wenn gebürtige Fürther vom Schlage eines Henry Kissinger mit dem Friedensnobelpreis ausgezeichnet würden, das Singen und Liedermachen aufgab.

Zum Einstieg gibt Tom Lehrer ein Stück aus dem eher apolitischen Teil seines Oeuvre, das auch als “Liebeslied in Zeiten des Influenzavirus-Subtyp A/California/7/2009 (H1N1)” durchgehen könnte.

Devilishly-cunning Norwegians know how to apply the blowtorch to Obama’s behind or feet or wherever, with a ’premature’ award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the US President. Those sophisticated Scandanavians (Europeans?) know how to boost an ego with old-fashioned flattery and prestigious awards. He’s bound to fall for it, stop all US wars and deliver world peace any time soon.

US critics hit out at those pesky Europeans for ambushing their President, giving him unwarranted plaudits for only talking the talk, etc.  Norwegians are not usually considered machiavellian but their famous poet & playwright Henrik Ibsen knew plenty about irony (‘The Wild Duck’ and other works). And of course, when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize despite his key role in mass killings by US bombing in S.E. Asia during the Vietnam war, Tom Lehrer famously said that his job as a satirist was obsolete.

Ibsen said:   “The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone”.

Tom Lehrer
Life is like a sewer. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it.

Despite being a Tom Lehrer fan, I only found out this morning that he said Henry Kissinger’s Nobel Peace Prize ‘made satire obsolete’ (quoted in a Times leader about Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize today).

Kissinger and Obama are bad choices for different reaons, of course, but it seems a good excuse to post Lehrer at work – and We Will All Go Together When We Go seems a good accompaniment to talk of erroneous peace prizes…

“Political satire died the day Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize”

Tom Lehrer

I see Obama has just won the peace prize and that puts him in the company of people like Henry Kissinger.

I think it is time to bring something up again…

If the bombs that rained down on Iraq and Afghanistan were Bush’s bombs and were unjustified then…are the bombs that are raining down on Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan now Obama’s bombs and are they unjustified now?

More from Tom Lehrer

When someone makes a move
Of which we don’t approve,
Who is it that always intervenes?
U.N. and O.A.S.,
They have their place, I guess,
But first send the Marines!

We’ll send them all we’ve got,
John Wayne and Randolph Scott,
Remember those exciting fighting scenes?
To the shores of Tripoli,
But not to Mississippoli,

What do we do? We send the Marines!
For might makes right,
And till they’ve seen the light,
They’ve got to be protected,
All their rights respected,
‘Till somebody we like can be elected.

Members of the corps
All hate the thought of war,
They’d rather kill them off by peaceful means.
Stop calling it aggression,
O we hate that expression.
We only want the world to know
That we support the status quo.
They love us everywhere we go,
So when in doubt,
Send the Marines!

Obama Jesus

Well, other than complaining about the load time of WordPress.com, I’ve got not much to add to the news Barack Obama’s won a Nobel Peace Prize. Except that Tom Lehrer got out of political satire the day Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, on the grounds that anything he could have said would have been redundant.

Quite so.

In my day it was Tom Lehrer and his song “The Elements.” It always struck me as a humourous way of remembering the name of the chemical elements – when you didn’t have a periodic table handy.

Gareth, from Hot Topic, has passed on a modern song “Meet the elements” from the new They Might Be Giants kids’ album, Here Comes Science (see video below). Coincidentally, Damian is also recommending it on his blog And Slaters Go Plop

Sounds like the album will be great or kids – especially with Christmas coming up.

Update:

Another song from the album: “I Am A Paleontologist”

After writing about some well known people with degrees in mathematics, I was moved to re-listen to some old Tom Lehrer songs on YouTube. I decided I’d post some links to his more mathematical songs here. Enjoy.

First, “Lobachevsky,” a song about the Russian mathematician Nikolai Lobachevsky and his discovery of non-Euclidean geometry, which some historians claimed was actually due to Gauss (this claim of plagiarism now seems to have been thoroughly refuted):

Here are some other videos:

• Decimal
• The Professor’s Song
• New Math
• Derivative Song
• That’s Mathematics!
• There is a Delta for Every Epsilon

Here are some audio-only songs:

• The Slide Rule Song (lyrics – mp3)
• Any Questions? (lyrics – mp3)

When you worry the world is spinning out of control, it can be comforting to think back on a simpler, happier time.  A time when the people next door were really neighbors, every house had a car and a Frigidaire, and global catastrophes were for everyone.

SF 21   ORDER AND FREEDOM

We live in a world where we are interdependent; so cooperation is necessary and sensible. Much of that cooperation has some force behind it, as when we cooperate with our parents as kids or with our bosses when adult. For most of us there exist several people who are in a position to tell us what to do and to expect us to obey. This is widely justified in the name of good order.

God gave us free will to choose between good and evil, according to the established religions. For atheists such freedom to choose is inherent in our condition anyway.

Are we really free to choose whom we obey? Not entirely. If we are rich or powerful, then we have nobody we are bound to obey. Most of us, though, do have such people, especially if we need to earn a living. Of course we can always leave a job we find too oppressive or unethical so long as we can find another one fairly easily. Most of us take this to be a fact of life and make the best of it.

In our private life we have greater freedom than at work, but most of us have responsibilities here too that limit our freedom to please ourselves. Again most of us take this to be a normal fact of life.

Yet liberty is a fundamental American value and freedom is widely seen as indivorcible from democracy. A whole western philosophy which is still important in Europe, existentialism, is built on the premise that freedom is a right and we have the further right to expand our personal freedom as far as it can go. Many baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) are practicing existentialists even though they may never have heard of the word itself. The baby boomers benefited from the sexual revolution of the sixties and many would say they have made the world a better place. I would say that too. But this extra freedom has not brought happiness or sanity in its wake. Our world is very troubled now with many people in rich countries scared and tense, many in poor countries just as poor as their ancestors ever were and many in the Middle East only able to live from one day to the next never knowing when a bomb, a religious fanatic or a hostile stranger will threaten them.

The new fashion in self help books is to tell readers how to be happy. Like many traditional philosophies and religions, the new gurus of the happiness movement tend to agree that the root of happiness is making other people’s lives better. In fact we’ve all heard this message so often in so many variations that I have to ask why so many of us act like we don’t believe it. As usual I have a theory!

Although TV, film, radio, internet and big business have globalized the world so no place is entirely strange any more, our face to face communications have not grown with them. Only in a tiny number of countries, such as Mexico or Australia, do people feel OK about talking to complete strangers about issues of the day while waiting in the supermarket checkout line or at a bus stop or in bar. In so many other places, however, all strangers are regarded as potentially threatening and free and easy communication is discouraged. We retreat into our families and close friends; or, if we have neither, we become internet freaks living real life as ‘second life’, or we just lose our compass altogether. Internet makes it much easier than it ever used to be to communicate with strangers safely, but once we arrange to meet a ‘netpal’ in the flesh, then all sorts of fears and warnings are heard. So, internet communication does not substitute face to face community. The connectedness it gives us is largely virtual, verbal and intellectual; not real, emotional and tactile.

I have a small suggestion. Even if you are introverted, fearful or plain shy, why not make a point of saying something harmless to a new stranger every day? It could be the bank clerk at your local branch, the check out person at your supermarket, someone next to you waiting in line for anything. Just say something like “The line is quite long today, isn’t it?”, “You seem lost in thought”, “You wouldn’t happen to know the way to Main Street would you?” They may reply in a neutral or even friendly way and then you’ve done your little bit to cure the increasing alienation and atomization of our modern society. Suppose they just scowl or ignore you? Then do nothing and try someone else a little bit later. If you’re a friendly, sociable, extravert, then do just the same but select someone who looks a bit sad.

SF22      I Have the Papers
On September 1^st, 2007, a new law came into effect in China. Promulgated by the State Bureau for Religious Affairs it stipulates that Buddhist monks may only reincarnate with government permission. In the case of the Dalai Lama, China’s State Council, the highest political group, must approve.  The present Dalai Lama has said he will reincarnate in a free country outside China, so, can the danger be avoided of 2 Dalai Lamas; one recognized by Tibetan Buddhists, the other recognized by China’s Communist Party?
I think yes. I have put together the scenario whereby it could happen. Imagine sometime in the next 20 years the Beijing office of the Commissar of Reincarnation is at his desk when a 7 year old Tibetan boy enters….
Commissar:          Who are you, little boy?
Dalai L: The 15th Dalai Lama
Commissar:          You mean the candidate 15th Dalai Lama?
Dalai L: No, I am the reincarnation of all previous living Buddhas.
Commissar:          You are not allowed to reincarnate without a license. Do you have one?
DL:   I am here to get one from you
Comm.:                Are you a ‘splittist’?
DL:  No, I am a Buddhist. I do not want to be a ‘splittist’.
Comm.:                 Then do you acknowledge that Tibet is an integral part if the Peoples Republic of China?
DL:  Of course. That is simple geography.
Comm.:                 And will you promise to obey the laws of the PRC and repudiate any splittist or subversive activity?
DL: Yes I will, but you know monks spend most of their time in prayer. Do you consider that subversive?
Comm.:                 Only if it constitutes a public demonstration, contrary to public order.
DL:  If it’s behind the walls of a lamasery, that’s not public is it?
Comm.:                 No, that should be permissible.
DL:  So can I have my reincarnation license now?
Comm.:                 Well no. According to the Decree of August 23^rd, 2007, monks have to obtain approval before reincarnating, not after it.
DL:  You could backdate the license, couldn’t you? Anyway, I’m not fully reincarnated yet, because, as you mentioned, I’m only a candidate in the eyes of your Bureau.
Comm.:                 That is correct. But then on what basis do you claim you really are the 15th Dalai Lama?
DL:  Because I remember the lives of my predecessors, and, when I was 3, I recognized their possessions from a big bundle of various other items shown me by the monks.
Comm.:                 Where was this? Not in China, was it?
DL:  In India, Dharamsala, where I was born this time.
Comm.:                 Then why are you here now in China, risking arrest as a political subversive and danger to public order?
DL:  Because I am duty bound to end the split between Tibetan Buddhists and the Peoples Republic of China.
Comm.:                 And how do I know you are who you say you are and not some politically ambitious impostor?
DL: Because I have the papers signed by my monks, by the Indian Ministry and I have a valid entry visa – here they all are. Now, how do I know you are the real Commissar of Reincarnation?
Comm.:                 Because I too have the papers properly chopped – here, look.
DL: Good. Both our papers are in order.
Comm.:                 So it seems.
DL:  So now will you give me my license?
Comm.:                Well I will certainly recommend it to the Secretary of the State Council – it is up to the Council to make the final decision.
DL:  OK if I wait here for their answer?
Comm.:                 No. It could take several weeks; the members of Council are very busy men and women.
DL:  I have time and nowhere else to go in the meantime.
Comm.:                 You cannot stay here. We have no suitable accommodations.
DL:  I can sleep on the floor.
Comm.:                 No you cannot. It is not permitted.
DL:  Then what is to be done?
Comm.:                 I have authority to issue you with a temporary reincarnation permit. Come back in two months to hear if the State Council approves your reincarnation.
DL:  Can I ring first?
Comm.:                 Yes, here is my card with my number on it.
DL:  Can I have the temporary permit?
Comm.:                 Yes here it is and I will stamp it now. (does so).
DL:  Thank you, blessings and good-bye. (leaves)
Comm.:                 Good-bye.

SF 23 Whatever Happened to Common Sense?

I don’t know if Common Sense was ever all that common but it is virtually extinct these days.  Long suffering the wasting disease, bureaucratitis, Common Sense could soon die out. It will be remembered as having taught such lessons as: knowing when to come in out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm, life isn’t always fair, perhaps it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by such simple, sound financial policies as don’t spend
more than you can earn and simple managerial maxims such as put adults, not children, in charge. Common Sense began to feel alienated from our society when we allowed well meaning rules to be misapplied as badly as if we Taliban or Soviet Commissars. For example, there was a report of a 6 year-old boy being charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate, of teens suspended from school for using a mouthwash after lunch and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student. More and more   parents attacked teachers for doing the job they failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. Sixty Minutes recently featured the results on some members of the generation born since 1980 it called ‘The Millennials’, incapable of taking instruction, of maintaining attention or of coping with life’s normal setbacks.

Schools were required to get parental consent when administering sun block or a plaster to a student but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted an abortion. Common Sense looked to emigrate once   you couldn’t defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.
Common Sense finally gave up on us after a woman failed to realise that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.
 

It is easy to fall into the trap of regarding Common Sense as practical, conservative, material, rational and scientific and therefore hostile to progressive New Age values. Such a trap was foreseen by the great interwar writer on Qabalah, Dion Fortune. Her ‘Sane Occultism’ book is still the clearest demonstration that Common Sense and Spirituality can and should work together. She and other writers on the Tree of Life, such as Gareth Knight, Warren Kenton or Colin Law, reconfirm the traditional attribution of the virtue of “Discrimination” to the base Sephirah of Malkuth. To develop spiritually, to climb the tree of life, the gateway requirement is discrimination – the ability to distinguish fact from opinion, to distinguish appearance from reality and to distinguish moderation from extremism in response to provocative situations. Discrimination is a single word that in this context means the same as common sense.

 SF 24 Fitness – missing

SF25

TROPIC OF CAPRICORN

This piece is the first in this series where I look at an aspect of my life rather than an aspect of everyone’s. I won’t usually do that. That is what blogsites are for and this not a blogsite. I’ve just made such a major move, though, that it’s pretty likely it would have resonance for a number of readers. Let me know.

I was born and raised in England, lived 3 years in Singapore, 11 years in Hong Kong, 3 years in Australia and another 3 just now in Macau, Asia’s Las Vegas. At the end of January I finally settled back in Australia on the Tropic of Capricorn which is my own sun sign.

I didn’t decide this for astrological reasons though. By astrocartography I ought to do best in the sea off Papua New Guinea.

Most people regard home as the place where they were born or the place where they are raising their kids. I tried hard to do that but it never rang true. I thought a lot about what home means over the years. Most people seem to be comfortable with their birthplace as their home. It is where they feel comfortable, secure, familiar and where things are more or less predictable. It could also be loving and supportive too, if you are lucky. Virtually all of us keep in touch with people from our childhood, be it parents, siblings, school-friends or neighbours. This network of long standing relationships becomes our psychological and spiritual safety net.

A minority of people grow up in a place with which they feel no affinity and any relationships left from their early years are free standing – they do not anchor deeply into a sense of home. For this to happen, childhood does not necessarily have to be unhappy, just somehow devoid of the usual roots. Of course an unhappy childhood will prevent birth home feeling like a normal home, but hometown could still feel like hometown if you joined a local team or gang in your teens and had fun and a sense of acceptance in the process.

Before we are born we are homeless, but one of the things we write into our life script is where home is going to be this life. So, even if birthplace is not home, somewhere certainly is and we cannot help but search for it. Before we were apes, reptiles, fish or crabs, we life forms on this planet were plants. Our deepest biological need may be the need for roots as a result, deeper even than the need to reproduce. Just as some workplaces feel much more comfortable to us than others, so some towns and countries are better candidates for new home than others. The sign on the IC of our birth chart may be a pointer to the kind of place we will feel at home. It is usually interpreted as the feeling we have about the home we actually came from, and I think that is sometimes wrong.

In these days of globalization, cheap flights, world wide net communication, it is only security and visa barriers that prevent us settling anywhere else in the world – a very big ‘only’ admittedly. For me then, what I wanted was the kind of place England thought it was but really wasn’t – a place of courtesy, fairness, direct talk, can-do practical optimism, basic decency, hygienic, work hard play hard lifestyle, more sun than rain, not too impressed by money, as fond of animals as of people, and a team player in the world community. Australia for me is that kind of place. When I worked before, I asked for a sign I would be able return. Later on I was driving to the airport and an echidna ran across the road. I stopped the car and ran back, found it and had it stand on me, just to be sure. Echidnas are very spiny and very nervy so this was a big ask. It was as calm as an angel.

Ever since then I’ve tried to find a way back, but had to wait a full Jupiter cycle of 12 years before the door opened. Now it has and I feel at home. On my first day back, I was driving to my motel when a lovely and rare brown and white striped lizard about 18 inches long just stopped in the road in front of me. Thanks, I said, as I drove past.

FERAION

SF26

A Dream of Red Mallards

I was at a fairground stall,

At midnight, in Wuhan.

The stall had pyramids of porcelain ducks,

Heads facing me.

I had ten golden hoops to throw.

If my aim were true,

I would win the prize

Signified by the pewter label

Hung round every head;

Different duck, different prize.

Letters of sparkling orange

Spelt out an object of possible desire

Or a state of probable contentment.

Those to my left had labels for things

Like a

Black stretch limousine with a chauffeur;

Palazzo looking out on Venice’s Rialto;

Controlling share in a ‘telecomonopoly’;

Those to my right had labels for events

Such as

Discovering on Madagascar dodos still breathed;

Writing the screenplay of a Spielberg blockbuster;

Coining and popularising the next great ‘ism’;

Those in front of me were more abstract,

Promising answers to such questions as

How do we go faster than light-speed?

To what is Ebola an evolutionary adaptation?

Which bit of today’s metaphysics is tomorrow’s physics?

Was it better to aim for one specific duck

Or blindly throw where no man had thrown before

And hope some invisible wind would

With superordinate wisdom speed

The hoop to where it would best

Fulfill some supernal strategy?

Or better yet

To mix these two:

First, aiming like a basketball player with turns 1 3 5 7 9

Then, throwing blindly with every even turn?

Yes,

Why choose one when both are available

So first I aimed left to the dodo duck,

Most carefully.

It was a perfect shot.

It came down around the duck’s neck

So strong its clang

The head fell off the duck

The duck fell off the stall

Taking down the pyramid of porcelain fowls

Onto the ground in many pieces.

“Do I get my wish?” said I.

“Do I get my ducks?” said the stallholder.

SF27 As Above So Baloney

 In New Age circles the axiom of Hermes Trimegistus is often heard and almost universally believed; “As above, so Below’. It is said that we can raise our vibration and achieve enlightenment by recognizing supernal patterns in our mundane lives, especially in our repeating relationship scripts. Further, it is said that when we die, we will recognize our friends, relatives and loved ones on the other side because they will look up there similar to how we knew them here. Akashic records are kept in libraries that look like the Supreme Court Building whose own architectural roots lie in the Athens Parthenon. Guides are Amerindians, old Chinese or Swamis. It’s all quite comforting and familiar. In fact the main difference between here and there is universal love and light up there as opposed to pain, frustration and benightedness down here. I too, believed this for most of my New Age life. It is such a basic belief in this scene, after all.

Then one day I was passing the Caesars Palace aquarium in Vegas. I was admiring the Picasso-fish, clownfish, sea horses, sea dragons, morays and multi colored coral, all looking so beautiful, so peaceful and so harmonious. I looked down at a pair of white catfish feeding off the bottom of the tank and they looked at me. I had the sudden impish thought that no matter how high these two raised their vibration, they would still be fish in water and I would still be human in air. Conversely, if I dived into the tank in a wet suit, I may be like a god to them or a highly advanced alien visitor, but really we would just be two species eyeing each other. Even if I rode a dolphin to walk and we telepathised at a deeply bonded level, attunement at the exact same vibrational level would be possibly only briefly because our souls like our bodies are strung differently. A violin, trumpet and piano can all play the same note, but they can never be the same instrument.

In fact, as I contemplate the visual tableau vivant of marine life, I ask myself why a fish would want to raise its vibration anyway. Would an ascended shark be a vegetarian? Would an enlightened sting ray heal instead of poison with its tail? Should everything be immortal then? Bit overcrowded and polluted, would it not be?

Consider the human voice. Do you prefer soprano to contralto for women, tenor to baritone for men? Do you think people on a lower register should raise their vibration till they sound like the Bee Gees on Helium? You may like to get high occasionally but while you have a body, it is inevitable that what goes up must come down. Down to where> Earth, the very place we’re trying to ascend away from. Earth the very place that is the below of so above. Earth, the place of mass starvation, pointless war, and interminable injustice but also where the angel fish swim alongside the gouramis and the scarlet kapok tree flowers after the purple jacaranda. Why does Earth have to be a copy of heaven anyway? If it already was a copy, then heaven also has our problems and in that case why go there? If it is just an aspiration, to make heaven right here on Earth, like in Belinda Carlisle’s song, we really don’t have much idea what we’re aiming for or of how to get it. If it was a simple matter of just loving, just forgiving and getting rid of all negative thoughts, why incarnate here in the first place where such obstacles are guaranteed, general and severe?

I do not see why or how the afterlife, the bardo or heaven would be very much like Earth at all. I also do not see the point in raising one’s vibration from the spiritual proletariat to the spiritual aristocracy, as I see no moral or ethical merit in sprigtail wealth being as unfairly and capriciously misallocated as material wealth is. After you die, you will ascend anyway, your soul being lighter than a feather. Just wait for that and enjoy what you can of Earth meanwhile. Make it better here, even if only for yourself. How? My starting point would be – a little more honesty, a little less baloney.

SF 28

 Sex after death

 What is the most exciting physical activity during incarnation? Jogging, fighting, eating, drinking, washing, anything else or sex? Most people probably would say sex. Our sexual receptors have more nerve endings than any other receptors and orgasm is therefore the greatest physical ecstasy normally available to normal people not on strong recreational drugs. Many men and some women spend much of their day thinking about sex, nights dreaming about it and lives chasing it. For some individuals, the pursuit of happiness is effectively the pursuit of sex. Arch materialist Richard Dawkins posits the view that our dominant sex drive results from our enslavement by our genes whose primary impulse is reproduction. Implication; – no genes, no sex drive. Dawkins, as a materialist, has no patience with a belief in the afterlife. For the rest of us, our immortal souls don’t have genes, genes being a strictly material matter, but can we therefore assume the drive that plays such a huge part in our incarnated lives is entirely sourced in the body and is of no interest to the soul at all? Does the soul, as the higher self, not have such a drive? Is it all pure sexless love up there, distributed evenly from all souls to all souls, in some kind of ethereal communism? I don’t know, but wouldn’t that be like the air down here. Something we all need, all thrive on, but very few actually appreciate?

We all know that even the greatest sex is brief, vapid and unfulfilling without at least some affection, and preferably some intense passion, and ideally mutual love. Both parties can come 24 times in as many hours, each climax more intense than the last, but without some real emotion there, it’s still hollow. Sex without genuine feeling for the partner is like enjoying Mount Everest after flying up to it in a jet plane, whereas sex with feeling is like reaching the summit after climbing there. I doubt if Dawkins and his selfish gene theory really explain all of this difference. I think it more likely that the soul is right in there with the body,  getting a big charge out of the polarity, electricity and tantra involved in loving-sex.

So is there sex after death? The books on the afterlife do not say yes, but they do not so no either. I guess points of light would not have sex as we know it, but do they meet, do they touch, do they intermingle? If yes, that’s sex as far as I’m concerned. And is it likely that souls out of incarnation would keep their distance from each other, like nineteenth century English gentlemen, when they’re supposed to live in an atmosphere of overwhelming love? Far more likely that such love has as one of its manifestations the touching and intermingling that comprises sex whether incarnate or discarnate. Wouldn’t you prefer it that way? I certainly would.

FERAION

 SF 29 

1967

 The New Age began in the summer of 1967 with hippie flower power in San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury neighbourhood, London’s Portobello Road and the Beatles’ discovery of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. I lived just off Portobello Road for the second half of 1967; my friends delivered International Times and dealt dope from LA to Kathmandu, from Reykjavik to Marrakesh. The slogan of the day was “Tune in, turn on and drop out” but most people I knew only did the first two. Only the very brave, very screwed u or very rich dropped out. “Laid back’ was the greatest virtue and ‘uptight’ the greatest vice. Even outside of an acid trip, much of life was lived like a Monet painting, shimmering, glistening and comforting with no hard edges. The contraceptive pill was less than 5 years old and if you were good looking and groovy you scored free. If neither, you could feel so alienated from the beautiful people that you kind of sympathized with the rednecks in Easy Rider a couple of years later. Of course the Beatles appropriated that too, when they asked “How does it feel to be one of the beautiful people?” in ‘Baby You’re A Rich Man.’

After 3 of the Beatles discarded the Maharishi in 1968, many hippies and young people in general continued homage to Hindu, Jain and later to Buddhist practices that continued and grew steadily right up to today. Hippie communes were the first green food producers in the industrialized world and hippie philosophy was green 20 years before Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace etc (most of which were begun by ex hippies). The long hair, bell bottoms, Indian cotton dresses and sugar cubes may have faded into history long ago; but the ideas, mindsets and self development practices started in 1967 are very much alive. 1967 was therefore a real turning point in western history.

If you were living in China, however, you were suffering the excesses of the Cultural Revolution begun in 1966 and continuing to 1976 or you may have been one of its perpetrators. Maoist fanaticism looks ugly and cruel from here and now, but it inspired some high idealism that was neither racist nor fascist. China after Mao is China reacting strongly and bitterly against the Cultural Revolution and that reaction has yet to run its course. I challenge anyone, however, to listen to the operas of the period or to the Red Guard anthem, The East is Red and not feel stirred – and that involves your soul, not just your aural receptors. The idealism was real.

So both the hippies and the Red Guards lit flames of idealism, the former burning still, the latter transmuted into Chinese national competitiveness. The trouble with idealism is it quickly decides that the ends are so noble that any means are justified to achieve them. So red Guards happily kill and beat up children of the rich, dissident intellectuals and individuals showing insufficient enthusiasm for the Great Helmsman. Hippie idealism was betrayed by the corruption, self indulgence and egomania of many of its gurus in the early 1970s, but not so thoroughly that all hippie ideals died out – far from it. Its continuing legacy is the New Age movement of which we are all a part. Where was it meant to end up when it all began in 1967? 

The first Woodstock festival, held in the first flush of flower power,  had its own theme song and in the chorus it says where we should be heading for.

“We are star dust; we are golden;

And we’ve got to get ourselves

Back to the Garden”

The Garden of Eden is the symbolic destination of the Great Work, which the Kabbalists say is to restore Malkuth to the place of Daath on then Tree of Life. Or, in the later words of Belinda Carlisle, we have to ‘make Heaven right here on Earth’. And the harder we try to do that, the stronger will be the abreaction against us. Indeed you could say the rise of terrorism, the continuation of genocide and the general increase in alienation in the last 20 years or so could be seen as a kind of indicator that the forces unleashed in 1967 are very strong. In many ways, this is more the Age of Chiron, the wounded healer, than of Aquarius. There are many wounds. There are at least many healings now. Consider this. Would Live Aid have been possible before 1967? Would an Oscar AND a Nobel Prize for Al Gore? Would the collapse of the Berlin Wall? Would the conversion of Bill Gates and George Soros from tycoons to philanthropists? I don’t think so.

I reckon 1967 deserves to be commemorated like Martin Luther King Day or Holocaust Day or Independence Day, because I reckon it was a really good turning point in human history.

SF30

Beyond Theory Z

Management theorist, Douglas MacGregor, invented the term Theory X to describe the view that people do not like to work so only money will get them to do any work at all.  He contrasted it with his Theory Y which says people need more than money;- namely recognition, intrinsic satisfaction in doing the tasks involved in the job and a supportive social network at work.  Abraham Maslow plotted his vision of human needs as a pyramid with food and freedom from pain at the base and self actualization at the peak. So, for the person who has everything materially and socially, what is left to grab is self actualization. Jane Roberts called it Value Fulfillment. Others call it developing a meaning and (worthy) purpose in your life. Tom Lehrer, the fifties satirist, called it ‘specializing in treating diseases of the rich’. All in all, I like the label Theory Z. Japanese management theorist, Ohmae, invented Theory Z which holds that Theory Y does not go far enough. Best performance on the job occurs when the employee’s deep goals are fulfilled in the work context. Fortune and lesser bizmags often quote the big Silicon Valley firms like Google as exemplifying this.

Theory Z also rationalizes the exorbitant fees charged by the stars of the new age movement for a session of counseling, healing or pretending to starve. Not just the consciousness is transcendental. So is the price. Well, why should we begrudge the idle rich the exercise of free choice to spend their money on things which, after all, we in the New Age movement must approve of? Well, I’ll tell you why. Every fat little cult leader that droves around in a flashy limo, keeps a harem of groupies and generally indulges his body while spouting the pious discourses of the soul scores a home run for the materialists and skeptics and blocks the path of sincere spiritual seekers.

Before the New Age, spiritual practices were associated with monks, asceticism, self denial, poverty and the subordination of things material to things spiritual: Since the New Age began, things spiritual appear capable of being purchased like an ultra chic item from a shop on Rodeo Drive. Even Kabbalah, when appropriated by Mr. ‘Rabbi’ Berg and Mrs. Madonna Ritchie, commodifies the process with its wrist charms that are themselves appropriated from medieval Jewish superstitions to ward off the ‘evil eye’. Every town in every western country has its new age shop with crystals, charms, home crafted demons and opracorns, zodiacal bracelets and other accessories misrepresented as able to improve the energy levels or vibrations of the wearer. This is little different from the medieval practice of selling dog’s bones and claiming they were the relics of saints. The commodification of the sacred is fraudulent whether it occurs in the Vatican, Dharamsala or on Littleville Main Street. Sacred charms, amulets, incenses, talismans etc all require work, focus and action on the part of the owner to charge then up. You cannot just buy them ready for use. Similarly you can go to a thousand spas and get very relaxed indeed, but you won’t get enlightenment or cure your back ache without work both mental and physical on your own part. It’s like trying to find a pill or injection that would cure you of materialism so long as you paid enough for it! Actually I and my team are committed to finding such a pill and bringing it to market as soon as it passes the Food and Drug Administration. We might call it Choprazine, or maybe Oprazine, or Nervana or who knows what – but till then it’s just plain old Brand ‘Z’.

FERAION

Photo credit to Get Fun Shots

I was listening to Munchcast’s Jello Episode apparently Tom Lehrer invented Jell-O shots. Now this may not sound so exciting to many, probably because you don’t know who Tom Lehrer is, but fret not, I will explain.

Do any of you remember “The Elements” song. The song where some guy rattles off all the names of known chemical elements in the periodic table? It was at the end of some boring ass science video we watched in 8th grade. Well, the guy singing is none other than Jell-O shots Tom Lehrer!! I mean how cool is that? That brings out a whole lot of weird dimensions to our science classes. I wish I would have known that fact in 1999. But that’s not all! Not only did this guy make the song that is the only thing I retained from 8th grade science class AND invent Jell-O shots but legend has it that he did so whilst working at the National Security Agency (in order to circumvent liquor restrictions).

Munchcast by the way is one of the funniest food podcasts ever! I mean if you can get past the fact that the hosts seem like they suffer from ADD and a constant surplus of crack and speed it’s a good show. It’s a podcast I can’t listen to when I’m in public unless I want people to turn and stare at me when I burst out in giggles every 2 minutes.

What is your favorite Jell-O shot recipe? How about do you remember “The Elements” song?

This evening, my friend Linda and I had a discussion about people being rather mean in workplaces where one might expect everyone to be altruistic (museums, in this case).
I don’t remember ever having such illusions but would agree that it is a regretful situation.
Then she sent me links to Tom Lehrer songs on YouTube to cheer us up:

• ‘We Will All Go Together When We Go’ (a classic),
• ‘National Brotherhood Week,’ & ‘When You Are Old and Grey.’

I also caught a glimpse of another old favourite:

• ‘Poisoning Pigeons In The Park.’

I had forgotten how much I enjoyed his songs. Watching the video of him smiling and hearing the audience laugh as he sang of the total destruction of the human race was thought-provoking.

His audience would have been born in, served in, or experienced at a distance, World War 2. Some of his audience may have served in the trenches in World War 1. Lehrer’s performance in this recording was in 1967.

This was 5 years after the Cuban Missile Crisis. There was a real fear that there would be a nuclear World War 3 that would kill most of the human race. So when Tom Lehrer sang that they would “all fry together,” “all char together” etc, the audience are finding it funny even though – or because – they knew that it was a possibility.

For those who were too young to remember or born after the end of the Cold War, it must be difficult to imagine what it was like to live through that period. As children, we were aware of the utter futility of Government advice on what to do in case of nuclear war.

Information poster about the hydrogen bomb produced in 1960s.

Humour can be a defence mechanism. Whilst it would not have helped to defend people against nuclear bombs, it undoubtedly helped them to cope. Laughter can help to release physical tension, to release endorphins; ultimately to give people hope.

Even democratic governments avoided telling their citizens too much in those days. Strangely enough, it seems that many guessed correctly as to the seriousness of the situation at the time.

Tom Lehrer’s songs that tackle the subject of World War 3 do not flinch from the grim reality. What is remarkable about his performance in these videos is that he is getting people to laugh at truly grim situations.

Think about the lyrics. The rhymes are clever: witty enough to make us smile. The words conjure up nightmare images. The tension between those, and between the safe environment of the performance and the unsafe world beyond that room make this humour very edgy.

Lehrer does not directly attack or mock any individuals. His is a warm performance with underlying brittleness; a statement of solidarity with the audience.

We could do with more grown up humour of this nature today.

Youtubesta sattui vastaan Tom Lehrerin Who’s Next –video, joka irvailee ydinasevarustelulla.

I was rediscovering an old folk singer/comedian, perhaps more of a comedian and less of a folk singer. At any rate, for the science buffs in the group (you know who you are), you can hear Tom Lehrer sing the entire periodic table of elements here. The lyrics, such as they are, are animated.

Of course, if you’re into music and science, you probably already know about this.