In 12 minutes or less, explore the key concepts of climate science in the most recent work of the best scientists. Upbeat, powered by GEMINI AI, with special emphasis on the glacier melt in the ALPS, sea level rise in the NETHERLANDS,  and hot drought in the rugged high mountains of the WALLOWAS, Land of Winding Waters, Northeast OREGON.

CLIMATE BREAKDOWN reports

This is the quarter-tone movement; it moves in waves of hyper-complex stardust density that can morph into periodic simple rhythmic beat melodies, that disappear just a quickly as they appear. Surreal. Wild. How I imagine “night music.”

StarCYCLE DUO project: alpha PYXIS, for two pianos V “Quantum density waves”

ASKO Ensemble, w/ CLIFF CREGO conducting. PART II begins just as the first tape interpolation ends...

One of the many fragmentations of Western musical practice, as we know it, is the fragmentation of sound and place and time of year. I think that is a mistake. The energy of a piece, if its good, if its powerful, naturally resonates with, or is "in tune" with certain times of day and year. DESERTS, for me, has always been such "a winter" piece. It's a vision of a new musical world with unsurpassed richness of composite sound and rhythmic primal corporeal complexity that seems all the more remarkable if it's played well under the faintly returning light of distant stars. See what you think . . . 

There are many reasons why the music of Varese is still important, still relevant. ONE, is an unsurpassed sense of natural complexity in composite sound, that is, sounds within sounds within sounds. Like Ives & Stravinsky, Varese was never handicapped by what I would call the deadend path and way of thinking of Schoenberg and the Vienna school. ANOTHER, is voice. Both of the INDIVIDUAL, and the COLLECTIVE. The music is always fulling visceral and embodied. Indeed, this intensely primal vocal quality is one of its key features, and also what is most lacking in current contemporary performance practice generally. A THIRD which might be mentioned briefly, is geometric tempi relationships. RELATIONSHIP--in Time & Space, in Rhythm & Sound--is everything in DESERTS. From beginning to end.


DESERTS, by Edgar Varèse, for small orchestra & tape (part 2)

VIDEO for this soundtrack is here https://vimeo.com/912853067

“IF I MUST DIE,” a music of protest, is a tribute to Refaat Alareer (1979-2023). The orchestral sound and pulse of the piece unfold like a slow in- and out-breath from a single vibrating string ground, as do do the vowels and words of the poem; it’s both simple and pure (voice), and harsh and complex (brass and percussion), all at once, and one at time.

Alareer was a leading Palestinian poet, English scholar and professor of literature and creative writing at the Islamic University of Gaza. He co-founded the WE ARE NOT NUMBERS collective that brought together older, more experience authors with younger writers in Gaza; its central idea was and is the power of the human voice and storytelling as a form of resistance.

On 6 December 2023, Alareer was killed in an Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza, along with his brother, sister and her three children.

His tragic death is a great loss to the world cultural community. Anyone who heard him speak in any of his many interviews noticed his perfect, deeply resonant, command of English. “IF I MUST DIE” was his last poem. Poet Mosab Abu Toha has written, "My heart is broken, my friend and colleague Refaat Alareer was killed with his family"

If I must die, 
you must live
to tell my story 
to sell my things 
to buy a piece of cloth 
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail) 
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza 
while looking heaven in the eye 
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze
-and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself-
sees the kite, my kite you made, 
flying up above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there 
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope 
let it be a tale

“IF I MUST DIE,” a music of protest on a poem by Refaat Alareer

IMAGE; Eagle Cap Wilderness, the WALLOWAS, OREGON. Both the music & prose poem were composed here…

TEXT and PHOTOS are here http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/photoweek_9-08_3-09.pdf

The AVIAN soloist featured is my friend the Rock Wren, not singing this year it seemx.

WEST WIND AT POP CREEK PASS, a high-country prose-poem……

THIS IS PART ONE of an audiobook I'm making of David Bohm's (1917-1992)essential, ON DIALOGUE. It's intended for some of my friends and students, and all those interested in exploring nonviolence, ethics, the destructive and divisive nature of thought and thinking, in a serious, sustained way. Both alone, and collectively. I also feel strongly that such a dialogue circle forms the basis of a radically new performance practice in the Arts generally. 

In addition, I'm using ON DIALOGUE with my THEATER OF THE NEW project: SEE ON TWITTER at: https://twitter.com/theaterofthenew

SEE FULL TEXT at pdf [150Kb]: http://bit.ly/1JIleaE


DAVID BOHM: On Dialogue, part one

JUST A LITTLE field recording I made yesterday, Mayday-Tree-of-Life-Day, V.I.2015. I was out photo-making/mt. bike training, going up a little 400 m. pass just 1.5 km from my little Eagle Valley shoebox Office. I had just stopped as two regular-sized pickups approached in opposite directions. If you bike, you know first hand what I'm about to say; if you don't bike, you won't.

NOISE POLLUTION. 

How is it experienced by the avian world? I'm afraid I can't agree with the great Bucky Fuller, here."Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting." That's true for the trucks emissions, but it's hard to see how that's possible with all the noise pollution of the world.

Just meditate on this a bit. NOISE, here, is the entirely unintended side-effect of two ranchers going in opposite directions in a hurry. I guess becoming de-sensetized to the subtlety of natural, living sound is just part and parcel or a generally horribly de-humanized landscape. I also wanted to call attention to the fact that this is not just a feature of BIG CITY life. And the two counter-singing Meadowlarks (Sturnella neglecta http://bit.ly/1I6qaZW)? Well, I for one can only marvel at their tenacity and strength of spirit. Sing as sing one must, regardless of the racket the rest of the, from their point of view, indifferent world makes.

PHOTO: Sulphur Lupine in Sagebrush (Lupinus sulphureus), just above where the field recording was made . . . at: http://bit.ly/1QYYngB

[LISTENING TIP: try downloading the little mp3 file & putting into a loop w/ iTunes or other player. The density as a background soundscape is about what it is like if you're biking the Oregon outback on asphalt. Once you're on gravel, it's very much more quiet. And once you cache your bike, which is what I do, and head into the roadless wilderness, one only has to contend with the fighter jets overhead.]


FIELDNOTES: Noise pollution in an isolated sagebrush steppe at 700m., w/ Meadowlark Duo...

(1) SUNSIGHT! for Bucky FULLER
(2) RILKE: LOVE SONG / LIEBESLIED
(3) UNHOLY LAND “Where not to kill is a sin”
(4) THE BELL (title poem excerpt) 
(5) LOST IN IDAHO:—A pilgrim’s notebook (brief excerpt)
(6) LOSS OF TRUTH / VARÈSE Deserts (excerpt)
(7) Remco CAMPERT: Resistance doesn’t begin with big words /  Verzet begint niet met grote woorden
(8) StarCYCLE DUO “alpha Pyxis’ IV “Ring nebulae”
(9) TRINITY DAY VII.16.1945 5:30am (excerpt)
(10) StarCYCLE DUO “alpha Pyxis’ V “Density Waves, 1/4-tone pianos”
(11) SUNSIGHT! echo of poem in Arabic & Hebrew
(12) ORACLE, A reader of signs “It took the whole world by surprise”

IMAGE: Cooking on Basalt, SUMMER SOLSTICE fire, Whitebark Pine Country, OREGON

TIMES TWELVE:—music & poetry, side by side “SUNSIGHT!”

Even though I’m doing fieldwork in OREGON right now, I feel a strong emotional and personal connection to this event. The small alpine village where I’ve worked for years—the GÔSCHENERALP—is at the same elevation, only 56km as the crow flies east of BLATTEN. 

#ClimateBREAKDOWN The BLATTEN Glacier Collapse: Climate Tragedy in the Swiss ALPS V.28.2025 mp3 [9Mb] http://www.picture-poems.com/mp3/the-blatten-tragedy_swiss-alps.mp3

Avalanche of 3,000,000 cubic meters rock & ice overwhelms historic high alpine village [in places 200m deep]; debris dams the LONZA RIVER, threatening downstream communities 

[composed w/ GEMINI]

IMAGE: w/ GOOGLE EARTH


The BLATTEN Glacier Collapse: Climate Tragedy in the Swiss ALPS V.28.2025

IN OUR AMERICA panelaço:—A Pots & Pans music of protest

mp3 [33Mb] http://www.picture-poems.com/mp3/in-our-america.wav

score pdf http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/in-our-america.pdf 

TEXT by the “Nasty Women get Shit Done” Collective

TEMPO 160 The 109-step [11,881] full-spectrum rainbow IN OUR AMERICA Flag panelaço

“IN OUR AMERICA [solo master drummer calls]
ALL PEOPLE ARE EQUAL  [collectivo panelaço response]….

[4 x 6beats then repeat]

TEXT by the “Nasty Women get Shit Done” Collective

IN OUR AMERICA panelaço:—A Pots & Pans music of protest

GERMAN version is here: https://soundcloud.com/cliff-crego/die-todesfuga-paul-celan

A new English translation of Paul Celan’s masterpiece.

Just a rough cut. Trying to find the right sounds.

IMAGE: (Muted) POWDER RIVER at 600m, the WALLOWAS, Northeast OREGON

DEATH FUGUE, on a poem by Paul Celan

IMAGE; Snake River, below the BROWNLEE DAM (left OREGON / right IDAHO)

TEXT is at: http://picture-poems.com/photoweek/rolling-thunder_7-20-11.html

THINK OF A RIVER (as something powerful): a flowform meditation (in geometric time)

This is part one of an ANTIPHON or Call & Respone interpretation of the famous James Weldon Johnson hymn. It’s in three parts: (1) poem as speech choir; (2) melody as pure sound, sung with ground tone without the text; (3) put one and  two together, but still pure melody.

I actually perform it this way COLD with random audience as a kind of COMING TOGETHER when I do my slideshows, COLD SPRING MOUNTAIN:—Climate Breakdown in Whitebark Country…

If you have a choir, or lead a congregation, you might experiment in doing the piece this way. You really have to know the poem by heart—fully embody it, have it in your BONES, in your FEET, so to speak—to bring it to life. I don’t mean to be critical, but Johnson’s brother, Jay’s harmonization dimenishers greatly and cheapens the power of the sound. It’s also why most contemporary performers miss altogether, in my view, the striking originality of the songs inspiration: liberation.

IMAGE: Stentinel Whitebark pine, dead already hundreds of years, silent witness of a HOTTER, DRIER climate, key member of what I think of as our beloved Highcountry community. 2500m. The Wallowas, OREGON

LIFT EVERY VOICE AND SING: Part I, James Weldon JOHNSON’S poem as Call & Response

Special thanks to my good friend, Simone de HAAN, Australian new music trombonist extraordinaire…I couldn’t have done this project without his help.

“What Israel is doing today cannot be condoned, and to invoke the horrors of the past to justify those of the present is gross hypocrisy.”

TEXT of Bertrand Russell’s Last letter used here is at http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/russells-last-letter.pdf

RUSSELL’S LAST LETTER, a remarkably clear 1970 plea for peace in the Middle East

TEXT is at: #philosophy A new set of miniatures…

pdf [60Kb] http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/simple-complex_13-miniatures.pdf

PIANO background is from my StarCYCLE DUO, alpha Pyxis for two grandpianos, on Soundloud at https://soundcloud.com/cliff-crego/sets/starcycle-duo-project-alpha

IMAGE: August at 2500m KRAG PEAK Basin, Eagle Cap Wilderness, OREGON

On Simplicity, Complexity and Human Design, a set of 13 metaphysical miniatures

SCORE pdf [51Mb] is here http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/first-amendnent_panelaco.pdf

Can be performed in any way that fits the occasion. All it takes is one mater frummer who knows the 75-step pattern by heart; One run through is one minute. You can break the pulse, and do it as a CALL & RESPONSE People’s Mike. OrYou can march & drum in formation down 5th Avenue!

SEE ALSO the other panelaço of the set, IN OUR AMERICA…https://soundcloud.com/cliff-crego/in-our-america-panelacoa-pots-pans-music-of-protest

FIRST AMENDMENT panelaço:—A Pots & Pans Protest Music

TEXT download pdf is at http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/on-love-and-learning.pdf

BACKGROUND music: VIRIDITAS, a soundpoem for Strings, Harp, & Two Trumpets on Hildegard von BINGEN’S “O noblissima viriditas”
And: from the StarCYCLE DUO “alpha PYXIS” for two piano, the Thelonious MONK movement

IMAGE: Native Balsamroot, flowers first appearing in Spring, the WALLOWAS, OREGON

On Love, Learning and the World-wide Tragedy of Public Schools, 18 miniatures

(0) INTRO (1) DESERTS part II (2) oral history (3) AMSTERDAM BY NIGHT, w/ bits of PHAROS (4) more oral history (5) CODA from StarCYCLE DUO Eltanin, for two timpani players

IMAGE: A page from SCHLIEREN, recorded in BAMBURG SDR May 1974

Other CONNECTION STREET chapters… 
(1) CONNECTION STREET: "Against Gaudeamus," or why composer's competitions are worse than useless... SoundCloud anhören https://soundcloud.com/cliff-crego/connection-street-against-gaudeamus-or-why-composers-competitions-are-worse-than-useless

(2) CONNECTION STREET: Music, Politics & Anarchy in the Amsterdam of the 1970s https://soundcloud.com/cliff-crego/the-connection-street-music-politics-anarchy-in-amsterdam-in-the-1970s

CONNECTION STREET: ASKO | SCHOENBERG at 50:—remembering the founding of a great ensemble…

IMAGE: Unnamed tarn at 2550m above Pine Lakes, Eagle Cap Wilderness, the WALLOWAS “Land of Winding Waters”, OREGON….Where this TALKING HANDS intro was recorded

TEXT: for INTRO is at http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/talkinghands-intro.pdf

MUSIC: StarCYCLE DUO “alpha PYXIS” for two pianos, the DENSITY WAVES 1/4 fourth movement; CODA: StarCYCLE DUO “Eltanin” for two timpani players. Both projects are on Soundcloud….

TALKING HANDS, a vocal yoga:—INTRO: The 14 basic 14-step daily warmups

#SWISS climate researcher Sonia Seneviratne awarded German Environmental Prize 2025

Here’s a summary I generated w/ GEMINI of her work on how dry soil affects large-scale climate

mp3 [3Mb] http://www.picture-poems.com/mp3/From_Swiss_Soil_to_Oregon_Fields.mp3

TEXT (German) http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/Prof.%20Dr.%20Sonia%20Seneviratne.pdf

The catastrophic political influence of #AI caused by the new techno billionaire Anti-Christ culture of Silicon Valley is a tragic corruption of AI’s scientific potential.

This report was generated
w/ #GEMINI. It’s not bad.
Musically, the rhythm of the
duo counterpoint is remarkable.

#ClimateBREAKDOWN

IMAGE: CAMAS Overlook at 1300m South WALLOWAS, a landscape under profound threat from a HOTTER DRIER climate. To understand the changes unfolding before our eyes, we need to monitor with great care the seasonal changes of soil moisture content. Both their rhythm, and how they are being affected by rising temperatures.

The Soil ECOLOGY of a HOTTER DRIER climate: The work of Swiss researcher, Dr. Sonia Seneviratne

CONCLUSIONS fight;
QUESTIONS ask.

This is a rambling (too long) two part overview of 14 Chapter INTRO to the new Talking Hands / Talking Feet FLORILEGIUM: 100 texts, poems, aphorisms & rhythms to learn by heart.

CHAPTERS (1) breathing (2) pattern (3) measure (4) time space (5) listening

(6) metronome (7) tanbura (8) ears-not-eyes (9) feet-not-hands

(10) complementarity (11) homunculus  (12) becoming native to place (13) journal keeping (14) composing

IMAGE: Bighead Clover (Trifolium macrocephalum), unique leaf geometry, CAMAS OVERLOOK, OREGON

TALKING HANDS 2.0:—An overview of the 14 chapters of the new FLORILEGIUM INTRO [part I & II]

From the perspective of the high alpine terrain of Northeast, Oregon, where I am currently doing compositional and photography fieldwork, the Pacific Ocean seems impossibly far away. And yet, from the perspective of both climate and daily weather, it is very much present. Coming into Fall Equinox, we are experiencing here in the Northwest extended unprecedented hot drought conditions.

So I thought—in the spirit of trying to understand what climate scientists call tele-connections—I would work with GOOGLE’s AI-model Gemini to generate a report just to help me, and others who are interested in these matters, understand these new relationships.

It is refreshing, working with AI to generate climate breakdown reports. It transcends the current world-wide political climate of anti-science / anti-culture dissent into barbarism, the same barbarism, which, in the 20th century in Europe, gave us both Hitler & Mussolini.

Ironically, the tragic mistake of the remarkably small cohort of billionaires that has profited beyond all rational proportion from the digital revolution, is that it has backed to the hilt—simply out of runaway self-interest—a new US-style species of reactionary. This is a reactionary, both Democrat and Republican, that we might describe as a holding-the-Bible, wrapped-in-the-flag, climate-denying, Judeo-Christian fundamentalist techno nationalist. They will soon discover, I think, that they have undermined the very open society and foundational science that made the great promise of Artificial Intelligence possible in the first place. Tragic, indeed.

Cliff Crego
North Pine Lakes
Eagle Cap Wilderness
OREGON

IMAGE: Fall Fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium) A circumpolar species. Sentinel Peak, Eagle Cap Wilderness, OREGON. Flowers open bottom to top. Once fully open, a good calendar for “here comes the mountain snow”.



The Blob & Beyond, or the extreme warming of ocean waters off the coast of OREGON

IMAGE: Last light, Fall Equinox, Whitebark Pine Country, OREGON

TEXTS Latin Dufay, Flos florum & 3-fold Revolution

ANAPHORA, flower of flowers….

Before we jump into this Gemini-generated DEEP DIVE into climate breakdown, ponderosa pine trees, and the increase of Dwarf Misteltoe infestations killing trees, here’s a little climate meditation I rehearse everyday while doing composition and photography fieldwork in the high alpine WALLOWAS; it helps me “keep WOKE”, ear widen open, so to speak, and focus my energy:

RIGHT ACTION IN THE FACE OF RUNAWAY CLIMATE CHANGE.

The root of Climate Change isn't carbon; It's the destructive nature of thought itself.

I wrongly divide myself from the world; Everything other I either ignore or fear, or seek to control or destroy.

The Geometry of Life is not two guns pointed at each other; it's a circle. 

We’re all Brothers & Sisters, you & I, the Rock, the River, the Tree, the Sky.

Our war against Nature, against ourselves, only ends with a revolution of thought and consciousness.

IMAGE: Dwarf Misteltoe infestation on Ponderosa Pine at 1300m, WALLOWAS, OREGON

Climate’s Deadly Grip, or an increase of Dwarf Misteltoe on Ponderosa Pine In the WALLOWAS

The basic idea of CLIMATE BREAKDOWN Reports is to use the power of AI to generate the kind of urgent, ethical, science-based journalism that a real climate emergency demands. 

In the summer of 2024 I did a bike-hiking tour of Idaho that lasted 120 days with 80 different camps. I was especially interested in exploring the Snake River, Clearwater & Salmon River watersheds. On the ground from the climate breakdown perspective, the effects of a hotter drier climate can be seen everywhere, noticeably with declining snowpack—down 50% since 1950–together with declining mountain forest health. This is especially self-evident when you travel at a slow, natural, I would say more human pace from Mount Borah—at 3859 meters, the highest point of Idaho—on around to the West through the magnificent Craters of the Moon National Park, and then up North again along the Big Wood River into the world-famous Sun Valley. 

I was especially struck by the barren general aspect of Mount Baldy, at 2800 meters the center of Sun Valley‘s ski industry. It has an historical reputation of being an anomalously rich snowfall area. But one glance to it’s south facing aspect is enough to convince an over-the-hill mountaineering skier like me that this can’t possibly be the case, at least not in the new hotter drier climate. (Its more recent wildfire history would also confirm this view, but that is the subject of another report… ) interviews with local skiers revealed that Baldy is now sustained by more than 900 snow cannons, a figure almost twice as high as that cited in the GEMINI-generated AI audio clip below. But that’s just a detail. The fact that commercial media does not want us to see is that commercial skiing is now unsustainable. With great emphasis, I would like to add that this deception—whether deliberate or not—is in “perfect harmony“ with the nonstop undeniably  objective reality of Hydrocarbon Man Car-Culture that roars 24-7 along the still beautiful, eminently bike-friendly, State Highway 75.

So with this as background, let us listen to our Deep Dive about engineering our way out of the snow pack decline problem not just with snow cannons, but now with larger scale cloud seeding weather modification techniques.  

CLOUD SEEDING, or when the ILLUSION OF CONTROL becomes reality…

Read the full CLIMATE BREAKDOWN Report “A Sentinel of Change: The Enduring Work of the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory” [generated w/ GEMINI AI] 

pdf http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/rmbl.pdf

RMBL, Gothic COLORADO, at 2800m, the highest biological research lab in North America

IMAGE: Winter ski mountaineering in the WALLOWAS, Northeast OREGON

Text pdf http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/the-amplified-cryosphere.pdf 
A key aspect of the CLIMATE BREAKDOWN Reports is both learning and 

developing ‘on the fly’, so to speak, a new DESCRIPTIVE LANGUAGE of climate change. This is a language that is at once general and qualitative and relative when we ZOOM OUT for a landscape point of view; AND, it is a language that is specific and quantitative and absolute when we wish to ZOOM IN for macro measurement detail. Both aspects are seen as scientifically vital and complementary.

Another aspect of CLIMATE BREAKDOWN Reports is that the language we develop becomes essential to the wider circle of what we might call a new living Earth awareness. This is awareness as we undertake the joyous, life-long work of becoming native to a place. This is an awareness that always looks two ways, both OUTWARDLY into the relevant features of the natural world like snowpack or temperature or elevation, and INWARDLY, looking at the coherence of questions and theories conditioning the eye that perceives. I see this two-ways style of seeing as part of my daily philosophical / yoga practice. A key part of this practice is learning to learn, is becoming spiritually independent, and is healing the loss of natural sensitivity caused by hydrocarbon man culture that has caused the climate crisis in the first place.

This edition of the report addresses the fascinating theme of reflectivity or ALBEDO, or how WHITE surfaces reflect energy back out to space, and BLACK surfaces absorb the energy. Or why skiers wear black in winter, and hikers wear white in summer.

Specifically we explore the implication of Dr. James Hansen’s recent proposal that Earth, when seen from space, has become a very much darker place.

Here’s a quick summary of his work. Don’t worry if you don’t yet understand all the concepts and details. That will come with time. 


• 0.5% albedo reduction: 

Since the early 2000s, precise satellite data shows Earth's albedo has decreased by about 0.5%. This has "staggering implications" for the climate system.
• 1.7 watts per square meter (WimP): The 0.5% albedo decrease corresponds to a 1.7 Wn increase in the amount of solar energy absorbed by Earth, averaged over its entire surface.
• Equivalent to 138 ppm of CO2: Hansen notes that this 1.7 Wm7 of absorbed energy is so huge that if it were a direct climate forcing, it would be equivalent to increasing atmospheric CO2 by 138 pm. However, he clarifies that most of this change is a climate feedback rather than a forcing.
• Over 100 ppm CO2 equivalent: In a January 2024 paper, Hansen and his colleagues wrote that the albedo decrease since 2015 is equivalent to a sudden CO2 increase of "more than 100 ppm". 

Now, let’s leap into our DEEP DIVE and see what these numbers mean locally, in both the CENTRAL ALPS of SWITZERLAND, and the WALLOWAS of Northeast OREGON:

500X Baseline: How Black Carbon and Wildfires Flip the Switch on Mountain Snow Melt

A DIALOGUE TAPE celebrating the idea of a LUNAR NEW YEAR & THE YEAR OF THE MONKEY! It's a talk on what some would say the necessity of a LUNAR / SOLAR calendar, and, of course, all the detritus of Western mechanistic culture that's in the way.

"The culture with only one calendar,
is an inherently imbalanced culture."

Is that true? That's what the dialogue tape is about . . . 

MUSIC HEADER & coda is from the 1st movement of the StarCYCLE PROJECT, "spica, for solo percussion.  

INTRO for the entire starcycle is at: cs-music.com/starcycle/intro_spica.html The webscore for this "straight then curved" Movement I is at: www.cs-music.com/starcycle/spica-move1a.html Or get the pdf of first 3 movements at: http://www.cs-music.com/starcycle/pdfs/spica-move1-2-3.pdf

IMAGE: the popular picture-poems.com LUNAR / SOLAR calendar is at: http://cs-music.com/features/calendars/lunar-solar_calendar.html OR the pdf  is at: http://cs-music.com/features/calendars/lunar-solar_calendar.pdf


The LUNAR / SOLAR Calendar, rhythms of the natural year & a revolution of thought

Recorded in my tent during a middle-of-May mountain rain, this is little improvised journal poem, It's a true story, about how I almost got shot in the dark, in OREGON, by a drunk -- a woman -- at the edge of wilderness...

"...They have all the money.
They have all the guns.

Now I know, just a little bit,
about what it is like, to be native,
in North America..."

MUSIC: from the EPIGRAM CYCLE, second movement, "CONFUSION IS PANDEMIC" 

IMAGE: CORN LILIES (Veratrum viridis), a powerful mt. spring emergence event, directly after snowmelt. Corn Lilies seemed an appropriate plant and photograph here. They are both what we 
now call 'native invasives,' gaining ground in the montane zone with the excess nitrogen that comes with 100 years of intense overgrazing, but also, as the Native Americans knew very well, the second most deadly plant in the Pacific Northwest. They used the black root, which is snow white when cut open, as an arrow poison.

NOW I KNOW / just a little bit / about what it's like / to be Native / in N. America...

Check out “TRINITY, a soundpoem: The Devil asked, "Do you want total war?" And their God answered, "Yes."” from Cliff Crego on Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/842979367

IMAGE: Berlyn Brixner / Los Alamos National Laboratory... TRINITY SITE EXPLOSION, 0.016 second after detonation, VII.16.1945. The hemisphere's highest point is about 200 meters above ground zero.

The AVIAN soloists featured in "TRINITY, a soundpoem," are the Tree Swallow, the Spirit or Varied Thrush, & the Hermit Thrush. Recorded at HEARTBREAK MEADOW, OREGON. The former two species no longer return to the meadow in spring, evidently because of the Sudden Aspen Decline (SAD), and other disruptive effects of a hotter, drier climate.

TRINITY, a soundpoem: The Devil asked, "Do you want total war?" And their God answered, "Yes."

Few things embody the elevated spirit of nonviolent protest more than that of song, especially the primal movement of CALL & RESPONSE of the ANTIPHON. The universality of song transcends for a moment all the arbitrary borders of the world. It heals the wounded heart that would otherwise have us hate.

The harmony of the piece is generated not from what we normally think of chord changes, but rather from what I call the QUALITATIVE SPATIAL / TEMPORAL GROUND. Much like pushing down the sustaining pedal of a piano, individual voices simply hold onto selected individual notes of the melody and sustain them in a kind of floating collective harmonic cloud. It makes it very enchanting to sing, because you’re both listening to the sound change and actually creating the sound as it flows along, all at the same time…

IMAGE: Native April Spring Crocuses (Crocus alba), appearing directly after snowmelt, THE ALPS. A flower that celebrates the great Circle of Life & Peace.

THE VINE & THE FIG TREE, a peace & climate protest song circle

MUSIC? The one thing humans do
that makes the rest of NATURE jealous...

HEADER & CODA with a winter cohort of coyotes, recorded in the middle of a moonlit night in February on more than a meter of snow. They actually sing directionally into a forested montane bowl and listen to the wood of trees echo their sound.

IMAGE: Composite of a violin's sonogram and rime-covered November Norwegian Spruce, the ALPS

THE VIOLIN & THE NORWEGIAN SPRUCE, a love song, for Carl SAGAN

THE PHILOSOPHER’S LYRE

Philosophy? It only takes one bad idea to destroy a man, or woman, or even an entire civilization.

Philosophy is not just something we think about; it is something that we do—a practice—like music or yoga. It goes after the contradictions, the misplaced, broken strings, and tunes and retunes its lyre religiously, each day, to the ground of truth. 




Philosophy sings its songs in the open—honest, naked, direct—and simply listens to how the sound resonates as it rings out, into the Universe.

THE PHILOSOPHER’S LYRE, a soundpoem...

Should be played without conductor, without music. The tempo tree for the whole is based on the ratio of 5 to 4, which in musical SPACE is the equivalent of a major 3rd. 

Video for this soundtrack is at https://vimeo.com/948286455

More percussion music at www.cs-music.com/drums

The webscore of the simplified study version LOCK 'EM UP is at: http://www.cs-music.com/drums/study_1_1.html

AND the pdf is at: http://www.cs-music.com/drums/study_1.pdf

PARTS of simplified version (without instruments) are at: http://www.cs-music.com/drums/study_1.pdf

“LOCK ‘EM UP!” A music of PROTEST in “4 against 5” for 18 percussionists....

PERCUSSION STUDY no. 5 (1.333...) “What do we want? CLIMATE JUSTICE! When do we want it? NOW!”

IMAGE: After Summer Storm, at the climate change photo basecamp where PERCUSSION STUDY no. 5 in five voices was composed. Eagle Cap Wilderness. OREGON.

More percussion music at www.cs-music.com/drums
Or on soundcloud at https://soundcloud.com/cliff-crego/sets/percussion-cs-music-com-drums

PERCUSSION STUDY no. 5 “What do we want? CLIMATE JUSTICE! When do we want it? NOW!”

Composer. Writer. Photographer. Former conductor & founder of the ASKO ensemble.

On a bike/ski/hike trek of the Pacific Northwest studying native plants & climate breakdown 🌲 from sagebrush sea to whitebark pine. Composing off-grid the whole way.

#Sun2Sound 🌕 on Bluesky

THINKING LIKE A STONEPINE, a soundpoem manifesto https://vimeo.com/844665859

“LOVE & WATER, three thought poems w/ coda, PHAROS for small orchestra, “Nightwind”” https://vimeo.com/847079690 

CURRENTLY on mt bike/ski/climbing trek through Pacific Northwest, working on a photobook about WHITEBARK PINE COLLAPSE and CLIMATE CRISIS. BASES in the WALLOWAS | AMSTERDAM | ALPS. 

WEEKLY photo/poetry updates at www.picture-poems.com & THE CIRCLE IN THE SQUARE new music, poetry & dance performance project at www.cs-music.com

ALWAYS ON THE LOOKOUT for progressive, tech-savy, instrumental virtuosi interested in dialogue & collaborative undertakings.

CONTACT cliff@picture-opoems.com
Or on SKYPE or FACETIME @cliffcrego

MUSIC? The one thing humans do,
that makes the rest of nature jealous.

Cliff Crego

Pinned to spotlight

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