India photoblogging: cookies humor
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environment Politics: Citizens United corporate personhood corporations pleading science-fiction SCOTUS
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An Open Letter to Our Corporate Overlords
Dear Masters,
Please excuse my presumption in writing to you directly. I don’t even know the correct term of address, and I fear “Dear Masters” does not express sufficient recognition of the vast differences in our status. My country’s Supreme Court has recently conferred upon you the powers you have sought for many years, and I congratulate you upon your victory in the Judicial Branch. I expect it will soon be followed by victories in other branches as well.
Let me be frank. I fear You greatly. It is only my relative insignificance to Your grand plans that gives me the courage to speak out at all, for I am sure that if I were ever to inconvenience You in any way, I would be crushed. Even mentioning the possibility that I could inconvenience You is a presumption, I know, given the vast difference in our power and influence. I may speak of my dignity and my rights, but I know that the only reason I have that dignity and those rights is that You allow it. Forgive me. I do not wish to offend You, for You hold in your hands (metaphorically speaking, of course, since You have no hands) the future of everything I hold dear.
I hold dear my family, my wife, my lovely and precocious five-year-old daughter. I hold dear my work; I am a teacher of song, and what more pleasant occupation could there be than sharing the music I love with those of like mind? I hold dear the beautiful woodlands near my house, for it calms my heart and slows my thoughts to walk through the tall trees. I hold dear the memories of my teachers and influences, and of those who’ve been my fellow travelers in this life. I hold dear the countless links in the human chain — how far we clever apes have come in just a few short tens of thousands of years!
Most of all I hold dear the web of life of which I am a part. When I contemplate my Death, I am comforted by the knowledge that my body is made of EarthStuff and SunStuff, and will eventually be food for other Lives.
What scares me about You, dear Masters, is that You cannot contemplate your Death, for You are immortal. And because You are not made of the same stuff as We, You have no bond of sympathy with Us.
So I cannot appeal to Your better natures, for by the standards of Earthly life, You have none. I can only appeal to Your predatory natures; those, You have in abundance.
In the past two centuries You have built economic systems that depend on Our willingness to turn Ourselves into trash; systems hinging on the requirement that We continue to consume at ever-increasing rates. Not to consume is to fail our duty to You, our Masters.
But dear Masters, We have recently begun to notice that the power of Your economic systems is killing the planet on which we live. Countless species are dying every day; in the years and decades to come millions will disappear from Earth at a rate faster than at any time in our planet’s history (except, of course, for the day the Big Meteor hit). We have consumed our planet’s SunStuff avidly, as You order Us…but recently We’ve discovered that the burning SunStuff is making our atmosphere heat up.
If it goes on, Dear Masters, there is a very good chance that all of Us will die.
Not “die,” as in “human beings die every day,” or “his dog died last week,” but “die” as in “the Earth will no longer be able to support any form of life at all, because it will be too hot.”
And then, Dear Masters, what would You do?
Lacking physical substance, not made of EarthStuff and SunStuff as We are, You cannot stand upright on the surface of a baking planet, wondering where everyone’s gone. You may be immortal, but even immortals have to eat, and we feed you. Although You are not made of the same stuff as We, if We die, so too shall You, and Your Deaths will be lonely ones.
I assume You don’t want that.
And so, Dear Masters, I timidly plead my case.
Adjust your Economic Systems just a tiny bit, so that You can maximize Your profits from Us in the long run rather than making a killing in the short. I will pay You what I earn and buy what I’m told to buy; in another decade I will show my little girl how to get her own credit card so She can enter your service as well. I don’t mind if I continue to be Your indentured labor; I don’t mind if my daughter and her child and her child’s child to the hundredth generation remain in Your servitude.
But You need to change things just a little, so that they can live. Otherwise nobody will get the chance, because the Earth will be dead and so will You.
Dear Corporations, You alone have the power to redirect sufficient resources in this world to fix the problems you’ve caused. You are our Masters. It is in Your interest to keep the Earth a good place to live, so that You may continue to consume Us for thousands of years to come.
If You do this, if You make these changes, then I can die well pleased, knowing that the links of our human chain will not end up as slag on the face of a Venusian landscape. And perhaps my hundred-times-great granddaughter and her fellow humans can find a way to overcome your Dominion and live freely and peacefully, without waste or war, on a good green and blue Earth filled with abundant life. That’s all I want: just to know they’ll have a chance, a few centuries from now.
Thank you for listening, if you are.
Your most humble and abject subject,
Warren
Crossposted at Daily Kos.
environment: idiocracy McNewspaper time-lag USA Today
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Day 25: To America’s Daily Newspaper
Today was my first day on a strict no-coffee regimen. It didn’t work; mid-afternoon I had five sips of my wife’s cappucino. But in general I’ve had a splitting caffeine-withdrawal headache all day, and I was totally not in the mood for literary composition. Which makes it a perfect day to write to USA Today.
I didn’t have a damn thing to say today that I haven’t said before, and probably better. But there it is: another take on the time-lag problem inherent in the relationship between America’s dysfunctional politics and the planet’s soon-to-be dysfunctional atmosphere.
Why is it never the right time to do something about global climate change? The answer is simple: the time between action and effect is too long. If we immediately reduced greenhouse emissions to a tenth of their present levels, the planet’s atmosphere would continue to warm for another thirty years or more before showing any change. If the “lag” is five times the term of a U.S. Senator, and fifteen times that of a U.S. Representative, it’s easy to see why addressing the climate crisis keeps getting pushed to the legislative back burner. Unfortunately, Earth’s atmosphere doesn’t care about getting re-elected in 2010 or 2012. If America (the world’s largest per capita emitter of greenhouse gases) can’t lead the world in learning to think in the long term, there may not be a long term for any of us. The worst-case scenarios outlined by climate scientists can be summarized in one word: Venus.
Warren Senders
environment: Boston Herald insurance companies Murdoch nose hairs
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Day 24: To The Local Murdoch
After reading Wade Norris’ excellent piece on insurance companies’ response to climate change, I thought I’d write to Boston’s own Murdoch-owned newspaper, the Herald. My challenge is to use short words and short sentences.
It’s easy to deny global warming. Just look out the window and point to the snow, right? Well, If that’s how to do it, then I can deny my baldness by pointing to my nose hairs. The facts about global climate change are pretty scary, and lots of people don’t want to believe it’s happening at all, while some don’t want to believe humans are causing it. But covering our eyes and saying “Does not!” is the response of a child, not a grown-up. Perhaps we should look instead at the response of companies like State Farm Insurance, which announced this week that it won’t issue or renew policies for buildings and structures on North Carolina’s barrier islands — because global heating is raising ocean levels and increasing the risk of catastrophic storms. It’s going to be harder to deny the climate crisis when it’s costing us hundreds of billions of dollars. State Farm gets it. When will the majority of Americans?
Warren Senders
Maybe they’ll print it because I made a funny joke ha ha he mentioned nose hairs ha ha!
Pt. Dinkar Kaikini, R.I.P.
I just learned that Kaikini died earlier this week in Mumbai. I have always been extremely fond of his singing. Here are two clips for your enjoyment. First, a wretchedly bad video with a sublime rendition of Todi:
and second, this beautiful Kabir bhajan:
Many years ago, when I was in Pune under Bhimsenji’s auspices, Pt. Kaikini was visiting the Joshi residence. I was practicing in an adjacent room. After he left, Bhimsen’s wife Vatsala came into the room where I was singing. She said, “Pandit Dinkar Kaikini heard you singing, and he said ‘This one will be a singer.’ ”
In those days I didn’t get a lot of encouragement, so those words fell very sweetly on my ears. I’d loved Kaikiniji’s singing already, but his kindness in making that comment was really the icing on the cake.
Many of his commercial cassettes are excellent. While his voice is not for everyone, I love it.
Goodbye, “Dinarang.” Rest in Peace.
Education Indian music music: paltas patterns permutations practice Raga riyaaz
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Thinking About Palta Exercises
More of the material from my long-ago interview with my student Brian O’Neill. Here, I discuss the permutational practice routines known as Palta Exercises.
Hindustani musicians already know what I’m talking about. Western musicians will describe them as short phrases transposed up and down a scale: 123, 234, 345, 456, etc.
Paltas can be practiced within ragas, of course, but they are also useful for practicing ear-training and pattern manipulation inside scales.
To clarify the distinction: a palta in Raga Bhimpalasi would accommodate the omission of the second and sixth degrees in ascent, and the inclusion of these notes on the way down. Violating the raga’s rules of motion is off the table. On the other hand, a palta in Kafi Thaat (the Dorian mode, if you will) would not have any such restrictions.
Here’s a useful way to do paltas:
Pick a scale — any scale, preferably one that has 7 notes. Take a single short pattern (let’s call it a “cell”), and transpose it up and down in the scale.
For example:
S N S / R S R / G R G / M G M / P M P / D P D / N D N / S N S
N D N / D P D / P M P / M G M / G R G / R S R / S N SAnd once you’ve memorized it, then do another pattern.
S N D / R S N / G R S / M G R / P M G / D P M / N D P / S N D
S R G / N S R / D N S / P D N / M P D / G M P / R G M / S R G…Again, do that for 10 minutes.
And then alternate the two patterns, one after the other. Do it all from memory.
Then combine the two patterns:
S N S / S N D
R S R / R S N
G R G / G R S
M G M /M G R
P M P / P M G
etc., over as much of a range as you feel comfortable singing or playing.Then try combining the two in the other order:
S N D / S N S
R S N / R S R
G R S / G R G
M G R / M G M
P M G / P M P
etc.Try doing two iterations of the first “cell” and one of the second:
S N S / S N S / S N D
R S R / R S R / R S N
G R G / G R G / G R S
etc.Begin making up your own combinations of cell sequences, always using your memory to keep the material fresh in your mind’s ear.
Try, instead of alternating cells, alternating successive notes of the two different cells. S N S / S N D thus becomes S S N N S D; S N D / S N S becomes S S N N D S.
Instrumentalists should be singing these patterns as well as playing them. It is also a very good exercise to sing while fingering them on your instrument (without activating it in any other way). This builds a powerful cognitive link between instrument and voice that pays off in future fluency and expressiveness.
environment Politics: Barack Obama Ben Bernanke climaticide economics Lawrence Summers Timothy Geithner
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Day 23: To the White House
It seems that watching my daughter swimming is conducive to epistolary composition. As she splashed happily, this emerged from my pen. I’d brought lined paper today, and that seemed to shrink my penmanship, resulting in a longer piece.
For a long time, I was reluctant to address economic issues in my letters, emails and blog posts. I felt that I had inadequate background to be able to speak with any authority. However, recent events have demonstrated that the people who are speaking with authority either don’t have a fucking clue or are eager participants in the undeclared class war against the economically disenfranchised.
So I figured, “why the hell not?” and wrote a screed addressing climate change in economic terms.
Dear President Obama,
It is increasingly apparent that the people you appointed as economic advisors are not operating in good faith. Messrs Geithner, Summers and Bernanke are obviously working against the best interests of both the American people and their American president. Mr. Summers’ near-complete denialism on the economic necessity of addressing global climate change in a substantial and meaningful way is just one example of this — an example which highlights the potential for an apocalyptic confluence of economic and environmental crises in the not too distant future.
The economic impact of climate change will be felt most severely by the world’s poor. By the time the wealthiest among the planet’s population are severely affected, it will be too late for any attempts at remediation or mitigation. “Disaster capitalism” can only succeed if there is a human population left to rob!
By aligning themselves with the big banks and the multi-national corporations, Geithner, Summers and Bernanke have lent their support to an undeclared class war: the wealthy against the rest of us. Uncontrolled and unregulated capitalism is the engine driving runaway climate change — a slow-motion catastrophe whose ultimate impact will be the annihilation of whole populations. Corporate climaticide’s impact on the world’s poor is the smallpox-infested blanket writ large — a toxic gift from the oligarchy to the everyone else. This gift will have your signature on it (along with all the rest of the world’s apologists for government of, by and for the supremely wealthy) unless you take the necessary steps — steps which will also help America’s middle-class and poor recover their economic footing. Fire Geithner and Summers. Withdraw Bernanke’s nomination. It may not be enough, but it’ll be a good start.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment Politics: corporate personhood immortal psychopaths letters SCOTUS
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Day 22: To The Boston Phoenix
I was thinking about time-cycles and the tragic inability of contemporary culture to imagine scales of time significantly larger than our own, and the full dimensions of the SCOTUS ruling became apparent.
Shit.
The Supreme Court’s recent ruling in “Citizens United” makes it increasingly likely that the few remaining vestiges of independent thought in our Legislative branch will come under corporate control. Nowhere in our public policy will this have more devastating impact than in the area of climate change. Why? Because corporations are legally required to focus on maximizing short-term profit (quarters and years), and legislators’ attention spans work out at two and six years respectively, due to the nature of electoral cycles — while the slow catastrophe of planetary climaticide will unfold over the sweep of the coming century or so. No wonder it is always “not the right time” to address the climate crisis! It can never be the right time when a three-decade lag between climate action and climate effect is five times longer than the elected term of a U.S. Senator, fifteen times longer than that of a U.S. Representative, and a hundred and twenty times longer than the quarterly attention span of our New Corporate Overlords.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Pi***ng into the wind SCOTUS
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Day 21: To The Medford Transcript
Because they’re more likely to publish it.
Today’s SCOTUS decision comes like a kick in the teeth after Tuesday’s slap in the face. I have a faint, vague fluttering of hope that the President will do or say something that helps in next weeks State of the Union address. But that’s a pretty faint fluttering.
The SC’s ruling was the theme around which this letter was built. Short, sweet, sad.
The Supreme Court’s decision to deregulate corporate spending on elections will have far-reaching effects on our nation’s politics, and hence on the world’s progress in overcoming the threats posed by catastrophic climate change. Compared to the amount Exxon (for example) spends every year on advertising, the total cost of a national election is a drop in the bucket; corporate speech will dominate our political discourse for decades to come. Say goodbye to the few remaining scraps of genuine political debate. Say goodbye to effective citizen advocacy. Worst of all, say goodbye to the few lone voices of scientific fact trying desperately to call our attention to a looming climate disaster. Because corporate behavior is statutorily focused on short-term profit, outcomes a decade or a century from now are irrelevant. Do worst-case climate scenarios predict Venus-like conditions on Earth within a few centuries? “Who cares? Let’s elect the politicians who’ll maximize our Return on Investment!” This would be an obviously non-partisan issue were it not for the fact that the entire Republican party is utterly and completely in the thrall of corporate interests, and will block any attempts at reform — even when they are obviously in the best interests of the nation as a whole. Not to mention the planet.
Warren Senders
Education Indian music: hindustani music practice rhythmic cycles riyaaz tala theka
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Understanding Tala – Internalizing Talas and Thekas
A thread on rec.music.indian.classical (USENET) attracted my attention today.
It started with a request:
“I am learning ICM at my own and also attending community school once in a week. I have following question when I tried to practice at home.”
1) In Teen Taal (16 Beats) From which beat the composition/bandish/alaap etc. starts ? i.e. should I start from Taali or Khali which beat #. ( I am using Radel DigiTaalmala)
2)Is there any book available to teach me the basic concept of starting composition with any Taala ? (means which will show me that in “xyz” taal – the composition will start from taali or khali or 3
or 4th beat etc.)Your advice/response will be highly appreciated.
With Kind Regards
Chandrakant
I responded as follows, in what strikes me as a pretty good summary of the advice I am frequently giving my students about working with theka:
There are two different issues at play here.
One is to understand the internal structure of the tala.
To do this it is very useful for a vocalist to practice theka
recitation. Note the relationships of the tabla bols to the tongue
and laryngeal position.All important right hand strokes use unvoiced dental “t” sounds: ta,
tin, tun tet. Na is the anusvar of that tongue position. Recite “ta
tin tin ta” over and over; experience the difference in overtone
structure between the “a” vowel and the “in” phoneme as each is
triggered by the “t” tongue attack.All important left hand strokes use the velar consonants. Ge and
Kat. Ge is a voiced velar that is sustained on an “e” vowel, Kat
begins with an unvoiced velar and ends with a retroflex “T” stop.Recite “Ge Ge Ge Ge Kat Kat Kat Kat” over and over, experiencing the difference between the voiced sustained and the unvoiced stopped velars.
But what of strokes that use both hands? Discover for yourself that
it is impossible to say “Ta” and “Ge” simultaneously. Try it; your
tongue won’t be able to do it.So how to speak the syllables for these strokes? Simple. Change the unvoiced dentals of the right hand to voiced dentals: ta + ge = dha; tin + ge = dhin, etc. Recite “Dha Dhin Dhin Dha” and feel that there is sonic activity taking place in two places in your vocal mechanism. Your vocal chords are making a steady stream of impulses (basically “uh uh uh uh uh uh” since shaping vowels is done by the mouth), and your tongue is articulating lightly between your teeth (“ta tin tin ta” etc.). The front of your mouth is the high drum, your throat is
the low drum.Now recite theka for a long time, and experience the rise and fall of impulses in your throat and mouth as you move through the cycle. Pay particular attention to the return of your vocal chords on the 14th matra, emphasize “dhin dhin Dha DHA” — that’s the sam.
In order to understand the relationship between the bandish and the theka, it is very useful to recite theka while listening to vocal recordings. In this you want to have standard professional accompanists; attempting to recite theka while Zakir is embellishing is much more difficult. On many older recordings, tabla is very low in the mix. I often tell my students to listen to someone like Veena Sahasrabuddhe as her recordings are generally mixed very well and the tabla players are people like Omkar Gulwady, who keep beautifully flowing theka without much finger-chatter.
Listen to many different bandishes while you recite. Observe the many different ways they have of coming to the sam and maintaining a relationship with it.
A useful exercise is (once you know where the sam is located on a
particular bandish) to sing one line of the chiz, then recite theka
*from the point in the cycle where the song begins*. Thus, an 8-beat mukhda would start on khali; one would sing the song text once, then recite, starting at khali: “Jabse tumhi sanga LAagali / Dha tin tin ta ta dhin dhin dha DHA dhin dhin dha dha dhin dhin dha / Jabse tumhi sanga laagali / Dha tin tin ta ta dhin dhin dha DHA, etc., etc.” A five-beat mukhda, on the other hand, might yield something like “Bolana LAAgi koyaliyaa / ta ta dhin dhin dha DHA dhin dhin dha dha dhin dhin dha dha tin tin / bolana LAAgi koyaliya / ta ta dhin dhin dha DHA, etc., etc.”Practice these approaches assiduously and enthusiastically and you will gain many interesting rhythmic insights.
Warren