Yanagisawa

Many ex-wayers, myself included, chafe at the term "Liiteral According to Usage" simply because it drips with jargonish insider-speak.

That said, I have come to appreciate the Bible for what it is: A collection of literary genres that inform us of God's thoughts on a variety of subjects, but all pointing to a redemption through Jesus Christ.

It is NOT a magic book, grimoire, or recipe book. It was NOT produced by way of mechanical dictation or a scribe in a trance.

It is very human and beautiful in it's ability to co-exist with a reader's mind and experience, yet it is more than cold history or imagination. There is a life force that teems throughout it.

Any doctrine of innerrancy does damage to this notion.

All this to say I believe there is room for at least the concept of "literal according to usage", a concept that puts the onus on a reader of the Bible to reflect, insert one's own thoughts, experiences, and opinions.

The Pope, The President, The Prime Minister, The Premiere.....they all shop at the same store of vapid moralism designed to say nothing and keep the broken down power machinery limping along for a bit longer.

There will be no change from the impotent, unimaginative wax figures that represent mankind's best until a real Head of State comes charging in on a white horse (figuratively...or not)

Until then we will hear the despairing watered down crap we hear from anyone who speaks, or aspires to speak (and doesnt' election season concentrate the tripe?) ex cathedra from a throne floating on the blood and tears of a race hoping against hope that maybe this time they'll get it right.

Working in creative fields of digital music, video and graphics there is, in my opinion, no comparison between PC and Mac.

This is just a hunch, but maybe Mac's features attract the type of creative personality that is often mistaken as aloof and/or snobbish.

Funny. I just pulled down some Chick Corea this week expecting to be transported back to a glorious day gone by. In my opinion it didn't seem to hold up. Sounded dated and loud and unimaginative:

Stanley Clarke is a fast blues scale player. Okay, once in a while I hear a pentatonic.

Al DiMeola cranks out mass manufactured notes - thousands per second- with the sterile efficiency that would make any factory owner proud.

Joe Farrell, although I like his flute and tenor tone, didn't have much to say on his solos.

Chick presides over the whole "faster, louder, higher" fiasco because it's his band and his Fender Rhodes goes to 11. (That would be one louder wouldn't it?)

I don't delight in my assesment...I was looking forward to getting sent. They took me nowhere. It's pompous, lifeless, shiny on the outside, vacuous noise that's big on athletic displays and feats of strength but void of any soul. There's a lot better jazz, even fusion, than Return to Forever.

Man that's too bad.

I loved "Peggy Sue" and "That'll Be the Day".

hey lay off none other than the great Jack Kerouac actually had his typing paper put in one big roll as he was composing ON THE ROAD so he wouldn't lose his train of thought or stream of conciousness having to think of the minutae of new paper and paragraphs and commas and all that needless stuff so he could get down to the reality of Sal and Dean diggin' life as searchers David Ulin says in Book Forum that "even the most frantic of Kerouac’s writings were really the sagas of a solitary seeker: poor, sad Jack, adrift in a world without mercy when he’d rather be 'safe in Heaven dead.Kerouac was this deep, lonely, melancholy man and if you read the book closely, you see that sense of loss and sorrow swelling on every page. John Leland, author of Why Kerouac Matters: The Lessons of On the Road (They're Not What You Think), says "We're no longer shocked by the sex and drugs. The slang is passé and at times corny. Some of the racial sentimentality is appalling" but adds "the tale of passionate friendship and the search for revelation are timeless so don't be bounded by form man cause its the substance that we're digging for

Did you know that before Newton published his Principia many people believed the cause of the earth's rotation was angels flapping their wings?

Are we to believe that the demonstrable chemical interactions that cause a physical body to become dependent on a substance is purely the work of invisible malfactors?

"Wise guy, eh? "

Perhaps the most powerful of Moe Howard's quotes.

Talk about social (and professional) ineptness!

I was sent WOW to Muscle Shoals, AL. I was twenty four years old. Through a process of networking and audition I received a call to play with the Muscle Shoals Horns - a renowned studio horn section that had recently toured with Elton John.

I told them I could play with them but had to be home and in bed by midnight.

yanisagawawaniawha-who

Bears weather-I dont think so. I worked on the same road where they train all year, in Lake Forest,Il. Halas Hall..I grew up there, rain totals are the same for Indiana for the year..

strecthin it alittle..

I was referring to the confines of a temperature-controlled dome vs. the weather that whips off Lake Michigan

Yeah, that soft finesse Colts team sure had trouble sticking it up the Bears' arse all night long (in Bears weather no less)!

Colts - not even close.

Michael Brecker, the most influential jazz tenor sax player in the last 30 years, died on January 13 of complications from a rare blood disease that often leads to leukemia. He was 57.

Although I never had the pleasure of personally meeting Mr. Brecker I felt I knew him from the solos he blew. The first thing that would hit you was his tone - and I mean hit you. It was balistically powerful, but was coated with a smooth velvety glove that felt so good as it washed over you that you'd say, "Shoot me again, Mr. Brecker!"

The second thing was the absolute stamina of his solos. They were the viagra of jazz. Beginning with a sparse thematic and rhythmic foundation he would continue to build to the point of wonderment and beyond - absolutely burning until the listener was forced to say, "Stop, I can't take any more!"

To me he is the model of someone who found a passion and dedicated himself wholly to it...to the betterment of all jazz artists and technicians. He will be emulated for years to come.

HEY MIKE:

John Polkinghorne espouses a "limited foreknowledge of God" view and I dare you to call him a "blind theoogian" or a "shallow thinker"

I have been a musician for years...sometimes full-time, sometimes part-time

I have never called it work...I still say "I'm playing tonight"

When I feel like saying "I'm working tonight" I come to my senses and kick that gig to the curb.

Improvising jazz is my sacred space...my playpen.

Chas:

If you really want to take it to the next level get a Mac G5 and use Final Cut Pro. For what you are interested in doing it is, in my opinion, far and away the best.

It will handle anything you want to do.

Absolutely not!

Only that the Enlightenment & Age of Reason that swept through Europe, with it's with it's skepticism and eventual disavowal of the presumed authorities of Medieval Europe (most notably the presumed authority of clergy and Scholasticism) did not take hold in these cultures.

The Modern Mind was birthed in the climate of secular rationalism and scientific inquiry brought on by the likes of Descartes, Locke, Hume, Hobbes, Kant, Liebnitz. This tradition was bequeathed, whether good or bad, to America by way of it's founding constituency.

This tradition did not seem to infiltrate the Muslim cultures - thereby forcing them, to this day, to live in a Medieval world view of authority and truth.

A history of philosophy teacher of mine said many yrs ago, " This is an example of a culture that did not experience The Enlightenment and the ensuing Birth of the Modern Mind."

A confederacy of dunces

I can see my house, and my car and my wife....wait a minute - that's not my car!

yeah boy, i've wrestled with this one, but i seem to always reach the conclusion, at least for now, that there is something invisible and powerful with a life and will of it's own that can, under the right cirmcumstances, influence humans.

my main problem with TWI's version was that it was too general and far reaching - a bromide for any "unacceptable behavior"

i believe a better word for "possession" is "demonized" and it's effects can exist in a range as mild as being influenced by the lies and deceit of a cultural message (ie - images of "Volvo driving, professional, good-looking, six pack abs sporting together guy" as the icon of success) to complete surrender to a particular malevolent force.

No less a subjective investigator than Scott Peck came to these conclusions after observing the phenomena of evil. His book People of the Lie along with his recommendation Hostage to the Devil by Malachi Martin shed some light on the subject for me.

I'm not married to the notion of spirits and "possession" as true, but at this point in my investigation I would have to say I believe.

On my wedding night I sat my wife down and told her:

"Let's get one thing straight! I am the boss. I expect you to be 'the little woman' and cater to my every whim."

I proceeded to read a list of rules and various things that "bless" me.

Well, I didn't see my bride for about two weeks....

...then it got so's I could see her just a little bit through my left eye.

I seem to recall that a few of the urbane and sophisticated "higher ups" had some real cutting edge culture happening at their cribs:

Photography - Ansel Adams

Jazz - Chuck Mangione

Dance - Flashdance

Wine - fresh out of the box

Let's not forget the ubiquitous calligraphy...or the Beta tape player.

I lived with a Limb leader who, though nearly illiterate, bought The Harvard Classics because he thought they looked impressive in his office.

My advice as one in the DVD authoring biz? Save up your money and buy a Mac G5. Then save up some more money and buy Final Cut Studio suite.

There is absolutely nothing comparable.

I ditto Evan.

Took it 10 yrs ago and it was personally enlightening and liberating in ways that I needed at that time.

It's not for everyone...that's the beauty of being an individual...one man's trash can truly be another's treasure.