New entry on OplusS.com - The Beauty Of Urban Decay
The Creative Impulse
“In strange and uncertain times such as those we’re leaving in, sometimes a reasonable person might despair. But Hope is unreasonable, and Love is greater even than this. May we trust the inexpressible benevolence of The Creative Impulse.” - Robert Fripp
One of most beautiful things I’ve ever heard. (S)
Discipline, pt 2
I need a diet. A total mind/body diet. I’m sure everyone recognizes that nagging feeling when it’s time to reset/rethink/renew. Sometimes you listen, sometimes you don’t. I often put the moment off, because to really commit to excising the things I need to would put me uncomfortably out of step with the people around me. But I couldn’t be more removed from my loved ones, friends and peers than I am right now. Inside and out. So why not? Tomorrow morning I will start a 30 day behavioral diet and exercise program! From June 1 till July 1 I will forego: all intoxicants, meat (including poultry and fish), coffee, magazines & television (barring catastrophic world events or urgent local news). That’s the diet part. The exercise part is: 30 minutes of silent meditation daily; 30 min of running and/or calisthenics; 1 hour of musical play/writing. I’m interested to see what kind of changes might happen by following these rules for 30 days. What bad habits can be broken, and which good ones formed? How much extra time can be freed up by eliminating some obvious trivialities?How much viable music might actually come from a daily routine as opposed to “inspiration”? Tomorrow morning we’ll start finding these answers and more… (S)
Discipline
I feel like tonight is New Year’s Eve. Like tomorrow morning I will wake up with both a reset hourglass and an edict to grapple with newly made resolutions. Why do I have this feeling? Because I feel like life has been an insane fever dream for some time now, and it all came to a head today. Something broke, and something has to change. More on all that at a later time. How will this affect O+S? I’m not sure yet. But if I’m able to follow through with my 2 strongest urges - to adopt a daily meditation practice & a daily writing/recording discipline - I suspect the effect will be great. David Lynch, who had such an influence on how we approached writing the songs on the first O+S album, is coincidentally inspiring me in these matters as well. I’ve been reading his book ‘Catching the Big Fish’, and the relationship he describes between meditative life and creative life is compelling. GOD knows after the events of the last few weeks reflection and creativity are much needed in my life! I’d like to use this space to talk about these things - the world of spirit, the world of creation and the world of O+S - until we complete our next album. Then we can evaluate whether we continue or stop. Neither I or Orenda has blogged before, so please bear with us while we figure out what it’s all about! Should be interesting… (S)
