They don't have the best resolution, and I don't particularly consider myself a "photography," but I'm rather fond of these recent shots I've taken in El Paso.
Anytime I hear somebody say, "There's nothing to do in El Paso" or "El Paso is boring" I end up doing a face palm. There are ALWAYS great things going on, you just have to be able to find them. It's either that, or these people are the ones who are boring.
Moving on. I want to promote a great series of events that some good friends of mine have worked hard to put together in order to celebrate National Bike Month. Check out the info below! El Paso Bike Month Press Release
I barely found the website Zen Pencils, but I have enjoyed the comics so far. Please go over to their website and see more amazing quotes turned into comics.
So I will be competing Tuesday evening (April 24) with a bunch of other crazy, talented individuals to crown the 2012 El Paso Slam Poetry champion.
I have never really considered myself a slam poet, but one night I competed on a whim and ended up qualifying for this event. If you’ve never been to one, this is the one to check out. So many talented poets!
There have been countless accounts about the powerful benefits of meditation, so today I wanted to share a very helpful resource. Thanks to the Venerable H. Gunaratana Mahathera, the book Mindfulness in Plain English is available as a free resource to those interested in pursuing meditation.
(From the introduction):
The subject of this book is Vipassana meditation practice. Repeat, practice. This is a meditation manual, a nuts-and-bolts, step-by-step guide to Insight meditation. It is meant to be practical. It is meant for use.
There are already many comprehensive books on Buddhism as a philosophy, and on the theoretical aspects of Buddhist meditation. If you are interested in that material we urge you to read those books. Many of them are excellent. This book is a 'How to.' It is written for those who actually want to meditate and especially for those who want to start now.
Download below:
Download "Mindfulness in Plain English" HERE (right click, save as)
(Distribution Agreement)
The publisher retains all rights to this work and hereby grants electronic distribution
rights to BodhiNet Democratic Buddhist Network. This work may be freely copied and
redistributed, provided that it is accompanied by this Agreement and is distributed
at no cost to the recipient.
If this work is used by a teacher in a class, or is quoted in a review, the publisher shall be notified of such use. If you find this work of value, please consider sending a donation to the author or
publisher, so that these works may continue to be made available.
My buddy Ray, a.k.a. Metafisix is on fire!!! A little while ago he ended up co-releasing a sweet sounding remix of Gotye's "Somebody I Used to Know."
This time around, Metafisix has teamed up with producer Junkie Jay to make the album "Junk Food" (March 2012). Right now, this is some of my favorite sounding stuff coming from El Paso. I think they really hit some nice music/lyrical combinations on many of the tracks. I'm particularly fond of several tracks on the album including: "Blame the Music," "Stars," and "Time Flies." While all of the songs are worth listening to, these several fall under my own specific tastes and quite honestly, I've been playing them on repeat the last week or so. "Stars" for example is brilliantly done and simply just damn catchy -Metafisix' words move so fluidly with a well written instrumental piece. If you haven't done so already, you should go and download this album!
So earlier this week, I noticed that there were going to be an unusual number of poetry related events happening around the city. On Tuesday, I witnessed the most exciting, nail-biting, anxiety inciting, slam to date (at least, that i've personally seen. Apparently, when Portland came around it was legendary). Some of the best slam poets in the city competed in the "Hear Me Roar! Women's Poetry Slam"and in the end, the veteran came out the winner. Congratulations to Jen Shugert on her victory. I will post a couple of photos that I took of the event later.
Tuesday (3/27) at the Percolator
Now, it seems that there will be more poetry events happening this week, including a project that I've been involved with called "Endangered Language." There was a previous manifestation of E.L. consisting of Rob Nice, Josh Fierro, and Mauz (surely, you've heard of them). They didn't play a long time together, but when I was given the opportunity to play a show at The Garage Tequila Bar on the 29th of March, I called Rob up and asked what was up with Endangered Language. I ended up bringing in two other former members of The Hypocrite Orchestra from my time with them and we decided to make Endangered Language a reality once again. Endangered Language is a music group creating improvised and often spontaneous music/poetry for the audience.
Thursday, March 29th, Endangered Language will be playing a 40 minute set at The Garage Tequila Bar. No Cover. Free Pizza served at 12 courtesy of The Pizza Joint.
Thursday (3/29) at The Garage Tequila Bar
Following Endangered Language's re-debut, on Friday there will be another poetry slam as Free Hole Slam presents: "Thunderdome! Poetry Slam to the Death."Nationally recognized Poetry Slam Teams from Albuquerque and Silver City will be headed down to battle it out against El Paso's own slam team. To the Death refers to the act that the winner of this event will automatically be accepted to Poetry Slam Nationals. This year's team consists of Jen, Ray, Serenity, Krystal, and RJ. This is definitely worth checking out. Yours truly, will be hosting/MCing the event.
The BWOMS is a multilingual event that celebrates free speech through the arts, and that allows community members a platform from which they can express their poetic perspectives and unique voices in any genre of music or art. Hope to see you there.
I don't event want to hear "There's nothing to do in El Paso," anymore. Those people are just lame. Come on out and support the Arts!
Come on through El Paso! Free Hole Slam is putting together a second annual all women's poetry slam. Come on out and see some of our best slam poets!!! Hosted by RAS.
Unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to update or write any new blogs in the last couple of weeks. It happens. Somehow I've managed to maintain some traffic to my blog despite this (probably due to my Star Wars and Lord of the Rings posts, which are quickly become the most hit blogs on this site). Expect a couple of posts in the near future including several music posts.
Until then....enjoy this opportunity to get motivated:
The destiny of the world is determined less by the battles that are lost and won than by the stories it loves and believes in. —Harold Goddard
Credit: 20th Century Fox/Lucasfilm Ltd.
I'll readily admit it. I often get extremely involved in some of the stories that I read and watch. Involved? Yeah, I mean in the extra emotional sense. I am one who is easily drawn to tears from a story that is well told. I have no shame in admitting that; after all, as one of our most famous aphorisms reminds us, "without our stories, we are nothing."
Nothing against Nothing, of course. I've always been fascinated with the subject - from Seinfeld to Shakespeare the concept has planted a firm grasp in our cultures. Along those lines, it seems that what had made both Seinfeld and Shakespeare truly famous was in fact, the pure act of the narrative, the storytelling. Sure, after studying Shakespeare to any extent, one will realize that most of the source material from his plays had already existed. This is not a point of contention. What truly set Shakespeare apart from others and established his literary legacy was what he DID with all of those characters and plots, telling them like no one else could. I think this is something very much to be appreciated.
Then there is fandom. In many circles, it is considered cool to seem detached from everything. Forget THAT! If you truly enjoy the craft of something, whether it be a novel, a show, a band, a movie, an art piece, then you should be moved by it. I recently shared my experience of seeing Tolkien's Middle Earth be adapted to the big screen in my blog entry, "An Unexpected Journey: The Hobbit Hits the Big Screen," which included my recounting of tearful reverie upon seeing the cinematic trailer for the first time. The fact that I had thoroughly immersed myself and simply enjoyed the stories of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series was the main reason why upon seeing that trailer, had meant so much to me in the movie theatre that day.
To a degree, I can say the same thing about the Star Wars Universe. Okay, okay. Lucas has received a lot of "fanboy" hate for all of the changes made to the series over the years, from CGI, 'new' scenes, Jar-Jar Binks, and the whole "Han Shot First" fiasco. Okay, okay...maybe people weren't too impressed with the acting choices for the three 'prequels,' but In the end, I still accepted it.
And then recently, I saw the entire Star Wars saga from a new lens. I stumbled across the film world's Drew McWeeny, who had decided to start a series of blogs based on sharing the entire Star Wars with his two young sons for the first time. The premise is simple: What happens when 21st century kids finally watch the biggest myth of the 70's?
Credit: 20th Century Fox/Lucasfilm Ltd.
I don't want to spoil the content too much, but I was entranced reading about a father's bonding over the entire Star Wars saga with his two sons. Reading about how the children reacted to all of the characters and plot developments really made me think about the story with a new perspective. To these kids, they were seeing many different actions of human behavior for the first time. McWeeny decided to show his sons the series in a unique way - deciding to begin with 'A New Hope' and then just before hitting 'Return of the Jedi' going back to the beginning and watching 'The Phantom Menace' and the rest of the "prequels." I'll have to say that this was an interesting choice, but in the long-run it seemed to make a lot of sense. I really think that this is how I would show my own children some day if I were to partake in such a venture. Below is the viewing order of the saga:
1. A New Hope (Episode IV)
2. The Empire Strikes Back (Episode V)
3. The Phantom Menace (Episode I)
4. Attack of the Clones (Episode II)
5. Revenge of the Sith (Episode III)
6. Return of the Jedi (Episode VI)
After reading his explanations for doing so, along with his children's reactions to the saga, I am firmly convinced that this is a highly favorable approach. Because the kids had already been watching the episodes of The Clone Wars (television series) they were already familiar with some of the characters, namely Anakin Skywalker. In episode IV, when Luke meets Obi-Wan Kenobi for the first time, Kenobi shares the story of his father Anakin and how Darth Vader killed him. The kids were devastated by the news, immediately disliking Darth Vader and really hoping that Luke "get him good." Then as the series progresses more and more keeps on happening.
Reflecting on the idea of watching the Star Wars films with his kids, Mcweeny writes, "When we started this, I admit that I wasn't really thinking about it as a pivotal moment in their filmgoing lives. I had no idea what sort of impact the films would have on them, even though I knew what kind of impact the films had on me." I really enjoyed reading this short series and highly recommend it, dear reader.
Overall, this short blog series made me re-think many aspects of the Star Wars franchise. I think McWeeny said it best when he wrote, "You can complain about "Star Wars" and problems you have with the films all day long, but this silly space opera has led to some of the most intense conversations with my kids that I've ever had."
Today I wanted to share an artist that I've found particularly worth checking out. Michael Kiwanuka is a soul/blues musician heavily inspired by the likes of Bill Withers and Otis Redding. While this song hit me on a personal level, I think all of his other songs are worth giving a listen.
Okay okay, hold on a second! Before you jump to conclusions, Chico's Tacos is not opening a store in New York City.
I just wanted to share a funny incident I came across on facebook recently. Thanks to facebook's *cough* "stalkerfeed' I was able to see one of my friends leave a comment on a stranger's photo. My curiosity was piqued. The photo was a picture of a Chico's Tacos cup taken in New York City with the caption:
I'm walking home from work & decide to grab a slice of pizza at the corner of 8th and 25th. I get my pizza, ask for a drink & then they hand me this.. I stared at if for a second & then asked the employee, "Where did you get this?" The employees had no idea but said they have hundreds more in the back. What!? My curiosity is driving me mad...any theories?!
photo, 2012, taken from user on facebook, used without permission. Sorry
It seems more than likely that the company who makes these cups simply made a mistake and shipped the wrong order. Perhaps, there was something more powerful at play here and the Universe was trying to send this person a message (cue dramatic, "dun, dun, DUN"). Either way, it made for an interesting conversation starter, even if only for the briefest of moments.
Chico's Tacos, of course, is one of El Paso's unofficial institutions. Many people just absolutely LOVE it, while others find it to be particular disturbing to stomach. Often, the chance to dine at a Chico's Tacos restaurant affords locals the opportunity to say they are "home." I've even heard of people buying Chico's in order to ship out to homesick El Pasoans. Whether it is the nostalgia, the taste, or simply the glory of the 'name,' I think that it is fairly easy to say Chico's Tacos is most definitely an "El Paso Tradition."
Bonus: The "What X Thinks I Do" memes have been flooding the internet for the last couple of weeks now. Sure, I enjoyed it at first. I am sure everyone was able to get a kick out of seeing their own profession/career in said style. To further insist on the relationship between El Paso and Chico's, one doesn't have to look further than the popularity of this version of the "What X thinks" meme.
I'm currently suffering from the Beat City Blues; a symptom of being lost in the process of writing my Thesis.
I'm trying to get "super-"motivated to get this done with. I started reading blogs about authors/books/poems related to my paper and stumbled across a particularly fascinating remix of Jack Kerouac's "Lucien Midnight" done by DJ Bamboo. Take some time and listen to this interesting mashup of sounds.
Thanks to the awesome people at the Pizza Joint, there will be FREE PIZZA at The Garage Tequila Bar tonight (Feb. 16, 2012) including live music from Tyler Dudley, Handsome Rob, The Hypocrite Orchestra, Villain's Kiss, Brian Johnson, Ross Fleming, and Omar Cuellar.
By the way, this is something that the MLA/APA handbooks don't teach you. Whenever the words "free" and "pizza" are used consecutively in a phrase, the two automatically become full-on-capitalized in order to reflect mood: for example, FREE PIZZA.
I'll be jamming with The Hypocrite Orchestra, and hope to see you guys out tonight!
Free Hole Slam presents: The Photobooth Tour feat. Jersey Poets: Joshua Ballard & Chris Rockwell.
Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2012
The Percolator Cafe, 217 N. Stanton
Workshop @6pm
Slam @ 7pm
Follow up:
As it turns out, both Joshua and Chris are some cool cats. I was lucky enough to hang out with them on Wednesday night. My favorite moment is when we busted out with a freestyle cypher at the Hoppy Monk. I started to beatbox (poorly) with the music. Joshua and Chris were quick to jump in with their own beatbox, which led to me dropping some free flow poetry. The jazz that night was also great.
In a future post, I will share some of their creative endeavors for you to follow.
I've realized that my philosophy to music listening/enjoyment isn't exactly the same as others (which is totally acceptable, by the way. I wouldn't accept anything less). While I have my favorite artists and genres, I simply have to be exploring for new music constantly. I have several websites where I'm always taking music suggestions, but mostly I really love to see how artists approach, create, and sometimes re-create material. When it comes to music, I really love it when people can get together and collaborate. I'm talking about original content, avant garde-genre defining, enigmatic, "mashups," remixes (see my "Rainy Dayz" post, for example), "bootlegs," homages, and so on.
My buddy Ray, a.k.a. Metafisix worked with DJ Kue to make a very enjoyable remix of Gotye's "Somebody I used to Know" feat. Kimbra. You can listen to the original here: Somebody I Used to Know. I had first heard this track during one of my very own "musical safaris," and happened to really enjoy both the song and video very much. I was amazed to first hear of my friend working on a remix project with this awesome teaser video released last week on facebook:
Make sure to support both artists, Dj Kue, who you can find on his website, and Metafisix, who is a member of Fuyaradio.
"'Beauty is truth, truth is beauty' wrote Keats. But nothing quite beats
that feeling when you get out of your seats
and explore the universe, its people, and the songs in the streets"
- (R Marrufo, freewriting exploration, 2/13/2012)
I admit that several of my main influences when I "create" fall under the subject broadly described as "The Universe." I'm talking about stars, planets, cosmic debris, science, astronomy, the music of the spheres, the poetry of the cosmos, etc.
As technology continues to become more advanced, we are able to slowly and gradually open just a bit more of what Blake called "the doors of perception."
Of my favorite free-time activities, one of the most profound and exhilarating (to me) is spending time in nature - whether it be camping, fishing, or hiking. Aside from just being able to "unwind" and ideally spend time away from the pressures of society, these activities allow me to observe and truly study nature in its many manifestations. I can become deeply contemplative, meditative, and most interestingly, wildly creative. I feel a fire within me to share my feelings of exhilaration as I experience the Sublime. (Of course, I'm speaking in a Burkean sense, rather than referring to the popular band form Long Beach, CA).
Thanks to time-lapse video technology, I can view and experience in a unique way the movement of the cosmos as observed from earth. Photographer, Randy Halverson, has created a brillant and spectacular montage of footage he has collected over the past year. Halverson's work has even attracted the attention of Bear McCreary, who has written the scores for television series such as The Walking Dead, Battlestar Galactica, Eureka, and others. McCreary has ended up contributing an original score for this video, "just for fun."
Please take the time to view this beautiful footage:
Emma Bovary from Madame Bovary. Rochester from Jane Eyre. Keith Talent from London FIelds.
Images created using law enforcement composite sketch software and descriptions of literary characters. All interesting suggestions considered. Include descriptive passages if you can. Read more on the project at The Atlantic.
Here is the fearsome and enigmatic, Judge Holden from Cormac McCarthy's Bood Meridian:
"An enormous man dressed in an oilcloth slicker had entered the tent and removed his hat…He was bald as a stone and he had no trace of beard and he had no brows to his eyes nor lashes to them…He was close on to seven feet in height… His face was serene and strangely childlike…His hands were small."
I’ll be going to the El Paso Playhouse tonight to see “A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant & A Prayer,” the show starts at 8 pm; $10. Proceeds will go to la mujer obrera and the vday organization to support survivors of violence and advocate for the end of violence.
Me playing with The Stanton Street Collective (2010)
In most depictions in popular culture, Sherlock Holmes would enter his “mind palace” by playing his violin (or, at least that’s the way I understood it). It would become a pure act of meditation - as natural as breathing. I can completely understand this; when I play my saxophone, I enter another realm of being - of meditation, of creation. It’s spectacular!
I think there is much to be said about the connection between 'breathing' and creation, much as it is to meditation. Part of my Master's (and possible PhD thesis) considers the necessity of breath (whether it be literal, or more figurative) in spontaneous arts (poetry, music, painting, dance, freestyling, etc). One of my best friends, helped me think a bit further in this regard after he posted a deep and insightful piece on the benefits of freestyling in: "9 Healthy Reasons to Freestyle"
Even more recently, I wrote my reflections on the passing of El Paso legend, Art Lewis, and after reading a story about the type of connection he had with his music, I understoodit. There is a Zen quality to be realized in those moments in which a musician (or dancer, poet, artist, etc) gets LOST in their craft. It is both an actualization of being in the ever-present moment as the Universe unfolds before you - while simultaneously -- deconstructing the Universe to create a sense of Nothingness, that is, a sense of "formlessness." If you want to see any of the healthy reasons for being formless, please consider reading the "Tao Te Ching" by Lao Tzu, "Free Play: Improvisation in the Arts" by Stephen Nachmanovitch, "Striking Thoughts" by Bruce Lee, or even "The Essentials of Modern Spontaneous Prose" by Jack Kerouac. (Note: This is not intended to be a definitive list; in a much larger bibliography my sources would be more rounded and inclusive)
When I think of that moment of getting lost in the profound depth of creation and innovation, I think back to the certain stories from the age of jazz and bebop; stories that have been told, and re-told, but continue to resonate powerfully through our consciousness because of that small, kernel of....something.
The first is the story of Big Jay Macneely, driving an LA audience wild during one of his legendary live solos in which he ran around, fell to his knees, and played on his back to an audience who was hanging on to every chord, every note, every bop and wail. Big Jay was the epitome of a Pied Piper of Cool...Below is one of my favorite captured images taken that night:
Big Jay McNeely, Los Angeles, 1951 (photo: Bob Wiloughby)
What strikes me as remarkable about this photograph (aside from the sheer excellence in timing and positioning) are the genuine expressions of raw emotion. Big Jay is "in the zone," most likely in another dimension as he plays to a more than grateful crowd. The Pied-Piper of Cool.
My second story, is closely related. It's another story of a legendary saxophone solo that drove the audience to the verge of rioting from pure excitement; one of the most famous solos in the history of Jazz. In 1956, Duke Ellington and his Orchestra played at the Newport Jazz Festival. The band starts playing the song "Diminuendo in Blue," everything seems normal, the band is jiving, and so on. THEN about 4 minutes in, Paul Gonsalves (on Tenor Sax) starts to solo in order to bridge into the song "Crescendo in Blue." Gonsalves enters smoothly, playing as he always does. Second by second, as the solo progresses, people start chanting from the crowd. As legend states, a young blonde woman in a stylish black dress sprung out of her box seat and began to dance. By the sixth minute the audience is starting to erupt - broken from their facades, the crowd rushed from their seats and toward the stage as they start dancing, whistling, and roaring Gonsalves on. Being the musical genius that he is, Ellington notices this and urges Gonsalves to just KEEP ON PLAYING! He went on to play for a blistering 27 choruses and the creation of one of Jazz's best told stories.
Paul Gonsalves, in Milano (Photo: Robert Polillo)
Below is a recording of "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue" by Ellington and his Orchestra Live at Newport on that fateful night:
For many, music is a very powerful event; especially when an artist is able to connect somehow to the listener. For me, when a musician gets lost in the music and vice-versa, every motion, every utterance is the music of the soul made visible. Stephen Nachmanovitch writes:
"there is an old Sanskrit word, Lila (Leela), which means play. Richer than our word, it means
divine play, the play of creation and destruction...it means love. Lila may be the simplest thing there
is -- spontaneous, childish, disarming. But as we grow and experience the complexities of life, it
may also be the most difficult and hard won achievement imaginable, and its coming to fruition is a
kind of homecoming to our true selves."
I haven't even mentioned the drum circle group that i've been playing with for several years! I'll tell the story of how I came to join this group at some other point, but to me, the type of creation and improvisation found in these drum circles invokes the very essence of that concept, Lila.
An Echoes in the Park drum circle, El Paso, TX, 2011 (Photo: Jenna Martin)
Playing with this drum circle group has been exhilarating and life-changing -- it has really allowed me to mature and explore as an artist; more importantly I've created friendships based on a mutual love for expression and rhythm.
Through rhythm we can temporarily leave the plane of language and concepts. This process of liberation allows us to enter a realm of risk, instinct, and improvisation. We are living in the now, the present-moment. It is then that our bodies talk to us, manifested in the forms of art, dance and music.
More importantly, we are connecting to others through rhythm and music. As Nachmanovitch suggests, “Shared art making is, in and of itself, the expression of, the vehicle for, and the stimulus of human relationships.” We must liberate ourselves through self-expression while also relearning how to listen, especially to others. This promotes the integration of the different parts – of the individual or of the group – that moves together from silence into a cosmic dance.
Now...breathe.
When do you feel like you are at your most creative? Please share your thoughts and experiences! :D
