Fire Sermons

Bridges of resonance, not burning (in spite of the fire): classic texts and TS Eliot.

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Adittapariyaya Sutta
The Fire Sermon
Translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu

I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying in Gaya, at Gaya Head, with 1,000 monks. There he addressed the monks:

"Monks, the All is aflame. What All is aflame? The eye is aflame. Forms are aflame. Consciousness at the eye is aflame. Contact at the eye is aflame. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on contact at the eye — experienced as pleasure, pain or neither-pleasure-nor-pain — that too is aflame. Aflame with what? Aflame with the fire of passion, the fire of aversion, the fire of delusion. Aflame, I tell you, with birth, aging & death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, distresses, & despairs.

Marking the centennial of Alan Hovhaness

"My purpose is to create music not for snobs, but for all people, music which is beautiful and healing. To attempt what old Chinese painters called 'spirit resonance' in melody and sound."

- Alan Hovhaness

2011 is the centennial of the birth of the brilliant and prolific composer, Alan Hovhaness, whose work was profoundly influenced by the landscape of the Pacific Northwest during nearly three decades spent living slightly south of Seattle, in what is now the City of SeaTac. This final period of his illustrious career overlapped his position as Composer-in-Residence with the Seattle Symphony, which he held from 1966 until his death in 2000.

His symphonic works are often programmatic and constructed from lush layers of textured sound. Symphony No. 50, Mount Saint Helens (1982), which I heard performed by the Seattle Symphony earlier this month as part of the Hovhaness Centennial Celebration, is one particularly dramatic example, using mallet percussion, double-reeds and pizzicato strings to great effect.

His chamber music, although lesser known than his symphonic works, is also quite wonderful, exhibiting a range of styles and influences, from Renaissance polyphony to the traditional musical forms of Japan, Korea and the Caucasus Mountains. His Suite for Oboe and Bassoon, from 1949, is one particularly notable selection among many intriguing pieces.

Hovhaness was particularly drawn to mountains, whales and other large, epic elements of the natural world, but any list of his works also reveals an affinity for the smaller and more domesticated natural forms of cats.

But he was not limited to the inspiration he found in the natural world. His Armenian heritage and his explorations of Eastern Orthodox liturgical music had profound impact on his sacred works, which are rich and evocative.

Prayer to Saint Gregory, 1946:



To Hiroshige's Cat (Op 366), 1982:



Excerpted from the Hovhaness website:

"Investigation of Hovhaness’s best music reveals a unique and thoroughly convincing assimilation of highly disparate traditions coming to the fore and receding over the course of his career, including Renaissance polyphony, South Indian classical music, Japanese Gagaku music and Korean Ah-ak music. Of course, many 20th century composers flirted with such exotica, but in Hovhaness they find perhaps the most seamless alchemy of all because it was more than mere flirtation. It was a musical engagement on an aesthetic as well as technical level."

Elbiris (for flute and strings), 1944:

This is not a post about traditional tea culture.

This was taken at Dubsea Coffee in White Center, Washington last weekend.

I did not manipulate the cup to make that ring (which looks suspiciously like a power button) on the table. I just noticed and captured it.

Peter Greenaway: "Nine Classic Paintings Revisited"

Greenaway is considerably more interesting as a lecturer than I would have anticipated he would be.

The Freight Train of History

VOLTAIRE, political philosopher (1694-1778)

"So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men"

“No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.”

"Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats."

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CABARET VOLTAIRE, club in Zurich, birthplace of DADA (1916)

“The symbolic view of things is a consequence of long absorption in images. Is sign language the real language of Paradise?”

"Art is indebted to total skepticism"

- Hugo Ball

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CABARET VOLTAIRE, seminal industrial band (1973-1994)

His head is not his memory.
Visions coming, one, two, three.
Trickle up, trickle down.
Wearily, we come unwound.
In hard times, hard thrills.
Reaching for the chosen pills.
Dragnets will pull you in.
Tell you that you're deep in sin.
Sensoria, sensoria, sensoria, sensoria.
Sensoria, sensoria, sensoria, sensoria.

"Yeah, here it is. Fuck Bush, fuck Blair, get them out before they destroy civilisation."

"It's important to go back in order to go forward."

- Richard H. Kirk

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additional resources:
Cabaret Voltaire, the band



cabaret voltaire and more about dada

The wide reach of the tea community.

It's not at all surprising to see a number of preview articles published before Ryuichi Sakamoto's appearances in ten major cities during his recently completed United States tour. The country is full of arts writers, and the marketing team involved with this particular tour was, as one would expect, on top of making sure that the right coverage happened leading up to the shows.

However, is it a little bit surprising that two of these pre-show articles were written by members of the Association of Tea Bloggers?

The one written by Thomas Conner of Tea Squared, was published in Chicago Sun Times.

The one I wrote was published in City Arts Magazine, and syndicated to Seattle Post Intelligencer. I knew about the other article before I wrote mine, but intentionally didn't read it until after.

This is from Sakamoto's opera "Life," written in 1999:

Fog

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.


Carl Sandburg, Chicago Poems (1916) "Fog"

This seems particularly apt in the current dense overcast weather we're having.