Communicating in a networked world
I traveled from Brussels to London on Eurostar this week. 295kph. Very much like other fast trains in Europe, and still exhilarating. Didn’t hit 300 on this trip, but always looking forward to that milestone.
295 is just over 183mph, for those who don’t work in metric. I have hit 185mph/300kph on previous trips. Some small airplanes fly slower than this.
“Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.” – Aldous Huxley
Another year will soon start. Lucky to have made it through this one. Huxley’s thought (above) is certainly what I feel tonight. This past week I’ve gone through a fascinating medical procedure (where the sedative didn’t do as I had expected…and so I had some experiences I had not forecast), and I’ve written more music (extended both Beings of Light and Darkness and my Dakini Dances). I want to focus on more music every day. So for the last day of this year I’m going to commit to focusing on writing new music that whole day. And on into whatever my future is. [Read more…]
My latest composition Beings of Light and Darkness is meant to suggest the conflicting information, processes and feelings of being diagnosed with cancer, going through chemo therapy and surgery, and recovering functionality. “Light” and “Dark” are used figuratively in describing events and feelings.
Light, as you know, is energy. Photons flying through space. Our sun, like most stars, emits photons, which rush outward from its surface, and many of them strike the Earth, where they warm our clouds, oceans and surface. But without humans, those photons are just energy transfer mechanisms. They have no inherent meaning. [Read more…]
Starting to get some hair growing back this week. Lost 90% when going through that second round of chemotherapy. Today I shot this selfie which reminds me of the brutalist term as used in architecture. Brutalist concrete white hair beginning to grow straight down from the top. Like an incipient concrete cap. Not enough yet that it can be combed in any direction particularly, but enough to reduce the reflective glare. I originally said losing hair wouldn’t matter much to me, but it did matter in some specific ways. [Read more…]
As a kid, I had the summer off from school. There were, of course, many things to do during the summer, and I always had some kind of adventure. The question most asked on my first day back in school was “What did you do during the summer break?”
Well, the summer of 2016 was pretty remarkable. The day before SFCM graduation, May 19th, I had a minor surgical procedure to investigate and treat some red spots in my bladder. They had been there for a couple of months, but didn’t seem to be a problem. A day or so later, we knew these were not just innocent red spots, but were accompanied by a rare invasive and aggressive bladder cancer. [Read more…]