Metropolitan Museum Concept Map

While my aunt and uncle were visiting, Mom scored free passes to the Met.

I got the idea of making a concept map before I went, knowing that, as at the Exploratorium, there would be far too much to see in a visit. Again and again, I was struck by the presence of beautiful craft. How many farmers toiled, soldiers risked their lives, merchants schemed to assemble the civilizations that drove and supported such art! Perhaps with the exception of ancient pottery from modern-day Japan.

I was delightfully surprised to find the Cyrus cylinder was on display there ahead of its tour stop at SF's Asian Art Museum. I was stilled by the age and significance of the small clay piece, and after moments of regard, bowed to it. It wasn't crowded but there were always clusters of people around it, mostly Arab or Central or South Asian.

I didn't bother with the audio tours (or really any self-guided materials) when I decided to seek out the collection of musical instruments, so I spent half the time being weirded out by the lack of sound. Of course touching the instruments was prohibited. Most of the collection was behind glass. I was extremely amused by the "archaic" Javanese metallophone with nipples on rectangular keys because it's a hybridization of the gamelan instruments used today. Bunga means flower and daun means leaf, the traditional names for round and rectangular keys.

Speaking of craft, I lashed together some scraps from around the house: 

Why let professionals have all the fun? This is my approximation of a Balinese penjur pennant. I've been feeling the need for some extra love and kindness for my family, so while visiting Mom's house I put this up. Send the well wishes!

Awareness and the US Farm Subsidy

As a composer, I'm in a period of perception where unintentional sounds can be delightful and provocative music at almost any moment. Often I find myself looking around for the source of interesting sounds, task at hand forgotten. It's a wonderful state, and I'll be working to capture some of it to share with you on SoundCloud this summer.

This is similar to another awareness practice, around the global significance of one's daily choices. When I consume or witness consumption, I often wonder where the resources came from: corn in a tortilla, noodles in my soup, potato in a compostable fork. I try to buy local to reduce energy waste in transport, but often local farms are the most wasteful. Current Congressional attempts to reform farm subsidies underline the irony that our resources waste our earned income.

You can find great graphics about it at the EWG Farm Subsidy Database. My attention is also drawn to the irony of the "ruin" US food aid brings to farmers in devastated regions because of existing rules that prioritize shipments of domestic produce over buying what's available there. Surely in the original democracy of the time, our voices count? I've been writing to my reps. It's easy to find yours.

Open letter to my representatives in government

You can write yours too! Many reps have forms on their websites instead of an email address. Go to lwv.org for details.

Dear Mr President,

I continue to be impressed by the way you handle distractions from real issues. I support your continued attention to the shame of Guantanamo; controlling and regulating lethal weapons; and keeping efficiency and renewable energy options high-priority. I support your use of all executive powers to work around an extraordinarily obstructionist Congress and unjust campaign finance system.

I care about issues according to their impact on the world and people, not in proportion to media coverage. Your administration's candid acknowledgment of the impacts and limits of the drone program is a sign of your genuine commitment to virtue. I am writing to my representatives urging them to support your initiatives. Congressmembers' extraordinary truculence requires extraordinary means. I urge you to engage firmly with our priorities in your final term and beyond.

Sincerely,

Qian Li

Creations from Gender Reel festival

As I mentioned in this post I gave the audience at the opening night of Gender Reel art supplies. Here's what I salvaged from their hands.

 Those little dangly bits on the sides of my pants were these (below) which an author taped to me. They themselves were torn strips of rubbing from a vent on the floor.

Journalism in China, again in the news

Yowzer. Since I whined about the poor quality of journalism in China no effective and innovative organizing had caught my ear. Until this: press freedom row erupts over censored editorial.

The British Telegraph reports: "Yesterday hundreds of people converged outside the Guangzhou newsroom of the Southern Weekend in a rare street protest. Photographs posted on social media showed demonstrators carrying signs calling for 'free press, constitutional government and democracy'." Interviews also illuminated the incident on PBS Newshour.

Following the awkward and mysterious succession of Xi Jinping to the highest rank in Chinese governance, small moves to straighten crooks in power and to narrow internet access blew up with an otherwise unremarkable order to replace criticism with a Party-cheering editorial piece in a regional newspaper. What's more, lay people supported the journalist strike and authorities invited them to return to work without persecution for protest. Capitulations like this perk up the most jaded of China watchers, but what about Chinese citizens?

Despite the paper having been allowed to go to press "as normal" today editors still fear reprisal from the government for statements to foreign reporters. What can we do to support press freedoms and legal treatment of dissidents?

A lesson from Buddha

In Buddhism we learn to bypass the pendulum of suffering and satisfaction with equanimity for life's ups and downs. Just two blocks from my Buddhist meditation center an SUV honked at me and sped down a fork in the road. After the usual series of large-speeding-vehicle close shaves on my bike, it frightened and angered me so much my only relief was in fantasizing about shooting electric pulses to shut down his computer system, stalling the car. By the end of a half hour meditation, I wished him love and safety in sincere compassion. I had found a gentle kindness toward myself which spawned kindness toward everyone around me. If only I can balance survival instincts with compassion in my everyday life.

I have an older friend who looks a generation younger than he is. He sheds his suffering and ecstasy by exploding them instantly from his body, keeping his vitality and a light heart. For those around him, though, the unfiltered expressions pass anguish from his body and heart to theirs. Perhaps this is the old "drama" I've criticized before. What can this teach me?

He is teaching me that bottling up my emotional responses to fit my standards of appropriate behavior and of identity harms me. At the same time, I have to be mindful about the solution so I don't simply transfer the harms to empathetic friends around me. This brings us back to my experience of kindness.

If we can feel unconditional kindness (love, compassion, or any other name) toward ourselves, then we can extend it to those around us and still the pendulum of suffering. We need to confront the barrage of distraction: money, information, relationships, household, judgment; in order to return to our fundamental selves. Self care is a growing value. Identity, though, can be a distraction itself, putting up barriers and drumming up defensiveness and judgment. Buddhism and many other practices offer generosity as a solution.

It's not generosity as reason, e.g. giving to this needy organization fits my ideals, but as instinct. That same empathy that shakes me up when I'm near my explosive friend gives me peace when I can share my security and kindness with others.

Written In Stone

Remember how I was fascinated by the Permian-Triassic mass extinction? I had an awestruck moment yesterday finding out about a four-winged bird of prey from a more recent, Cambrian period who hunted with great agility in forests.

Imagine witnessing such a place with all the foreign and familiar sounds of animals and wind and leaves, before the "Anthropocene" story had been written in industrial destruction. On Radiolab I heard an untested hypothesis that voice vibrations could have been written into ancient Roman vases when they were spun and we could read them with modern equipment. (Seek to about 9:20) So imagine being able to read those prehistoric sounds with future technology!

This opens up all sorts of cans of worms: when a tree falls in a forest 120 mya, does it make a sound for the first time now as a fossilized recording? Is aleatoric sound less spontaneous heard on playback? In what context does the dichotomy between live and recorded music cease to exist?