Two weeks now after the Oct 21st Hymn to the Universe event, and, y'know, I'm really very surprised to see how little traction this received in the web-o-sphere, all things considered. For starters, the show itself was about the inevitable spontaneous emergence of a global network of awareness, aka The Noosphere, yet almost slipped by under the radar of the one present global network which most likes to call itself the real noosphere, and where it was noticed unanimously missed the point and purpose of the show.

Then again, that is maybe not all that surprising: as most any tribal dance/performance, Hymn to the Universe was Bill Coleman's telling of a story, a re-telling of an old myth handed down to us by the legendary archaeologist and Jesuit rebel Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. It is the story version of Teilhard's scientific observation of the arrow of evolution, and his extrapolation of that arrow of intent into a phenomenon he called Hominization which itself would lead inescapably to a single self-aware sense and heart of the planet, the Noosphere, the sphere of knowing. The cold info-intellectual Internet reviews fixated on details, on solos, on costumes, on pace; I was reminded of McLuhan's comment (on Wm S Burroughs), that such trivial distractions were like criticizing the grammar of the person banging on your door to tell you that your roof is on fire.

sun ra arkestra
noosphere
jazz

Bill, Laurence and company wanted to tell you that your heart is on fire, and that it is about to go brilliantly super-nova, whirling you, me and all of us together into a fantastic Tomorrow's World where an awareness of Us as the whole of Gaia will become as obvious as you now saying you have to comb your hair, as if it was a part of you. Because it is. Marshall Allen and company have been telling us all for 50 years how, of all the cosmos, it is only Planet Earth that lacks this awareness, and they were present that evening as per their long-ago promise, We'll Wait For You.

The event was not intended to cause noogenesis. These people were here to tell us the Noogenesis is inevitable ... and immanent.  read more »

Tonight is Samhain to the Celtic world, the official end of summer harvest season that inaugurates the start of the new year, and to Latin America (mostly Mexico) tonight is the eve of the Day of the Dead when the netherworld of ancestors is closest to the superficial mundane world of everyday, but to much of the western world, tonight is Hallowe'en and the windows are decked in pumpkins and witchery and the children are skulking about the twilight seeking treats. But what is Hallowe'en?  read more »

I saw a ghost last night flickr'd by TeledyN

It will be some time before I really put it together enough to post a proper review, and I won't pretend to have understood all of it (like, who were the big puff hats? And the marionette?) but suffice it for now to say the Palais Royale, once home to the likes of Fletch and Lady Day, was well honoured last night, and those ghosts and spirits approved.  read more »

I don't normally post tech-industry hot-links from the pop charts, but in this case I couldn't resist the temptation to rub this one in the noses of all those startup tech geniuses who rejected my expert advice back when I cared to offer advice on such things, because if they had, who knows, one or two might have still been in business today. So here it is now a mere 7 years later, and net-celeb angel investor Roger Ehrenberg lays out the new rules he now uses to decide who to back with his portfolio  read more »

Millions of recordings on LP and 45, a life-time work of collecting and cataloging popular culture as a labour of love, a $50M collection with more rarities and limited pressings than you can imagine from 1887 to now, now about to be swept away because, well, who cares?:

The Archive from Sean Dunne on Vimeo.
[ "The Archive" ]  read more »

"I think that one possible definition of our modern culture is that it is one in which nine-tenths of our intellectuals can't read any poetry."

Some topological geo-poetics, courtesy of Owen Sound's poet laureate Liz Zetin, maps the power of words across the national landscape. Someone should mash this with Google Earth and take it global:

"I encourage you to find a way to insert poetry into the everyday. Feast on these poems. Follow the links. Share them with your community, for poetry is truly a community beyond borders."
[ Poetry Map of Canada ]

Scenes from the Tilburg ZXZW festival last month, where the Arkestra held residency for master classes, where Marshall Allen was award an honourary diploma and where, of course, space sounds abounded:

Those in the mood for more space-fire magic can catch the Arkestra in Toronto October 21, 2008 when they open the X AVANT "Space is the Place" Festival

This is your brain on TeledyN:

[ Wordle - blog.teledyn.com ]