John Cage’s 1948 magnum opus for prepared piano, takes the listener through an hour-long journey told as a meditative story. Influenced by the Hindu aesthetic theory of rasa, or emotional character, it intones the listener toward tranquility.
Performance
Performance arts, music, film, drama and literature, creative expressions presented on the world stage seeking earth balance, harmony, dissonance, abstraction and concept.
Stories of a Maya Rebirth: Heart of Sky, Heart of Earth
The documentary “Heart of Sky, Heart of Earth” presents an alternative worldview to industrial capitalism consuming the earth, following six young Maya into their daily and ceremonial life, revealing their determination to resist the destruction of their culture and environment.
Space Exploration: Ray Bradbury and the Mission to the Red Planet
“The Martians were there—in the canal—reflected in the water…. The Martians stared back up at them for a long, long silent time from the rippling water….” –Ray Bradbury, “The Martian Chronicles”
Beasts of the Southern Wild: Bayou Culture Sinking into the Gulf
“Beasts,” a hard-knock ecological fairy tale about the disappearing Louisiana bayou cultures and coastline, highlights the fragility of the region’s hurricane defenses and the resulting devastation of communities living on the flooding margins.
Dirty Realism: The Anti-Social Satire of Charles Bukowski
I go outside – and all up and down the street – the green armies shoot color – like an everlasting 4th of July, – and I too seem to swell inside, – a kind of unknown bursting, – a feeling, perhaps, that there isn’t any – enemy – anywhere
Gonzovision 1970s: Hunter S. Thompson on the American Dream
“America could have been a fantastic monument to all the best instincts of the human race. Instead, we just moved in here and destroyed the place from coast to coast like killer snails. Everybody wants power over a country that’s had it’s day.”
Adams on Kerouac: The Buddha’s First Noble Truth Unveiled at Big Sur
John Adams’ “The Dharma at Big Sur,” composed for the opening of LA’s Disney Hall, references Jack Kerouac’s evocation of the first of Buddha’s Four Noble Truths in microtones, celebrating the freedom of the California coast at Big Sur.