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)

Part one of TETRACTYS explores the rhythmic space between two discrete octaves of tempo, quarter = 160 to quarter = 40. Via

4:3 (4th) to 120 
3:2 (5th) to 80 
2:1 (8th) to 40

In contrast, part two (forthcoming) explores the decidedly non-Pythagorian irrational aspect of the same two octaves of tempo, but now with continuous glissandi based on the 5th root of 2.

GOD _ 
plays drums _ _ 
so should we _ _ _ 
10 hands as one _ _ _ _ 
solo/tutti, simple/complex, and back. 
_ _ _ , _ _ , _

TETRACTYS, study for 5 drummers / 10 hands, part one...

PART III begins just as the second tape interpolation ends. The transition should be seamless. Listen for the woodblocks on the tape: 1 2 3 _; 1 2 3 4 5

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 Edgard Varèse, part III ASKO Ensemble, CLIFF CREGO conducting

DESERTS, by Edgard Varèse, part IV ASKO Ensemble, CLIFF CREGO conducting

ASKO Ensemble, w/ CLIFF CREGO conducting. PART IV begins just as the second tape interpolation ends. The transition should be seamless. Listen for the high g crescendo into the initial attack to the snare drums...

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 4, CLIFF CREGO conducting

EVENING & THE LENS WHICH LOOKS BOTH WAYS . . . 

EVENING, the Rainer Maria Rilke poem featured below, is one of those handful of verses that till this day German speakers may know by heart. The images are striking, and, as is so typical of Rilke, they find a deep emotional resonance with most listeners,or readers, moving from a row of trees, to a stone held in the palm of the hand, to the most distant star.

Bucky Fuller, that great poet of design, frequently would stand in a certain way during public lectures to demonstrate how he could sense "the turning of the Earth," and go on to explain how important that was to his work. "Spaceship Earth," or a sense of the planet as a round, not flat, living whole. Mountains are the place par excellence where we can perhaps learn to sense this movement best. The ever-changing angle of the light, lifting out and bringing to life ridgelines that were just a moment ago completely flat; the play of shadow and light is nowhere so sharp and extreme in its contrasts; and as we learn to return, time and time again to the same, favorite spot, like a small lake or
meadow, then the rock formations themselves work as a kind of primal clock, marking the movements of the day as they ever have, going back almost to the beginning of time itself.

Bucky Fuller was also fond of quoting the great American transcendentalist, Emerson: "Poetry means saying the most important things in the simplest way." He went on to generalize Emerson's magnificent insight in is whole philosophy of design, creating the now iconic geodesic dome—-we alpinists use and depend on them everyday—-strongest of structures, weighing less then the air they contains. 

Rilke can help us here, too, in that he holds the frame of the poem—-his titles are very much like the frames around paintings--perfectly steady, while moving from one image to the next with amazing virtuosity. It is as if the poet had a secret magic wand, turning with a single tap one metaphor into the next, all the while looking both outwardly at the world around him, and inwardly at the psyche that perceives, like a lens which looks both ways. 

Here, Rilke might help us come to grips with the question of "what is a good photograph?" This is no longer as self-evident as it once was now that a camera's onboard digital computer make a clear, clean shot almost too easy. Perhaps a "good photograph" has something to do with giving us a sense of the living Earth as it turns, and this "lens which looks both ways."

PHOTO: EVENING, last light at Hidden Lake, Autumn, Eagle Cap Wilderness, Oregon

Text is at: http://picture-poems.com/photoweek/evening_hidden-lake_2b.html

DOWNLOAD: #FreeFriday RILKE IN THE WALLOWAS 80 new tr. & 120 photos, by CLIFF CREGO pdf 212 p/ 208 Mb http://bit.ly/mA3Ly7




EVENING / ABEND, a Rilke classic, tr. by Cliff Crego

In five parts:

(1) Here’s the little 32-step poem “walk around,” from as many points of view as possible:
Religion? No book. No authority. Heal the break, the loss of resonance with the ground of truth, the circle of life, the sacred.
[musical interpolation from EPIGRAM…]

(2) I talk about Sir Karl Popper’s work, especially “The Open Society and its Enemies.” https://www.amazon.com/Open-Society-Enemies-Princeton-Classics-ebook/dp/B08G3J27MN/ref=sr_1_1?crid=248MRKGSQLKKW&keywords=karl+popper+the+open+society&qid=1686948316&s=digital-text&sprefix=Karl+popper+the%2Cdigital-text%2C225&sr=1-1 And the saying, “The tolerance of intolerance is the end of tolerance.”
The piece i refer to is NOTHING / NADA https://soundcloud.com/cliff-crego/nothing-m4a
(3) The Eagle of Freedom….the eagle of freedom only soars when its two wings, freedom TO & freedom FROM, are in perfect balance… I mention Douglas. Here is a link to a free ebook of a classic work of his, “Of Men & Mountains.” http://picture-poems.com/photoweek/topo_douglas-lake.html
[musical interpolation marking the center of the dialogue is from EPIGRAM, the Hannah Arendt “On the Origins of Totalitarianism.” https://www.amazon.com/Origins-Totalitarianism-Harvest-Book-Hb244-ebook/dp/B004Q9TLJW/ref=sr_1_1?crid=8L2VGLASD99A&keywords=hannah+arendt+the+origins+of+totalitarianism&qid=1686949656&s=digital-text&sprefix=Hannah+arendt+on+the+origi%2Cdigital-text%2C229&sr=1-1
(4) The essence of conflict? Studying the religions of the world. Questioning the whole of organized religion.
DAO DE JING, ch. 8 “The virtue of language is its honesty. The virtue of government is peaceful order.”
[musical interpolation is from SPICA, the drumkit 5th movement]
(5) Boiling down the best of the BIBLE, and getting rid of the rest.
The BIBLE should be heard, like music. Not read. Here’s a good recording of the classic KING JAMES version https://www.amazon.com/Holy-Bible-James-Version-Testaments/dp/B085LR6DJ9/ref=sr_1_3?crid=R1XXLAYXOZB7&keywords=king+james+version&qid=1686951375&s=audible&sprefix=king+james+version%2Caudible%2C420&sr=1-3
Watch Chris Hitchens in action in the excellent IQ2 debate, “Would the world be better off without religion?” https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DIR7_X-ahy4&pp=ygUqd291bGQgdGhlIHdvcmxkIGJlIGJldHRlciB3aXRob3V0IHJlbGlnaW9u
[musical CODA is from the final movement of StarCYCLE DUO, Eltanin, for two timpanists.]

POEMS TO LIVE BY, “Religion?” Freedom of religion, or the freedom to be free of religion…

The Elderberry (Sambucus cerulea) wood Dave is harvesting, member of the Honeysuckle family, is a large shrub which grows up to about ten meters from a chaotic cluster of crowded stems. It is a signature species of the montane zone, providing shelter, food, and much more. Flowers around Summer Solstice. Dark purple berry-like drupes used for wine and jam.

The Children’s Choir heard at the end of the tape are the kids of NKWUSM—The Salish Language Revitalization Institute—singing a wonderful visitor's welcome song. LISTEN to the whole interview, also on Soundcloud, at: FIELDNOTES: I report on "Salish learning Salish," Jocko Valley, Montana https://soundcloud.com/cliff-crego/fieldnotes-i-report-on-salish-learning-salish-jocko-valley-montana

Slideshow, videos and more at “Nkwusm-The Salish Language Revitalization Institute } SALISH LEARNING SALISH”http://picture-poems.com/photoweek/nkwusm_9-29-10_1bw.html

FIELDNOTES, I report on my friend, Dave Clemens, harvesting Elderberry wood for flutes…

IMAGE: Climate Breakdown basecamp, the WALLOWAS, OREGON

Photo / text of poem is at bit.ly/f5czpb

WATCH…“i’m too poor in this world, and yet not poor enough…after RILKE” https://vimeo.com/845195766

I’m too poor in this world, and yet not poor enough…after RILKE, a soundpoem

IMAGE: House on fire…
“KRATOS, images of protest & conflict…” on #Vimeo https://vimeo.com/847187605 

KRATOS =  strength grounded in truth…

KRATOS, images of protest & conflict….a soundtrack for the video

SEE performance SCORE & INTRO at 
pdf http://bit.ly/1u9OuiC  
performance model mp3 http://bit.ly/1u9MiI9  

Performance models are with the StarCycle PROJECT
important. Why? This is because they explore a wide
repertoire of new species of musical movement. So
computers are needed, in a way, to make them manifest,
just as computers are needed to make the new geometry of 
FRACTALS visible. So, paradoxically, the machine reveals
a new dimension that potentially helps us transcend the
otherwise dehumanized rhythmical landscape of what much
of Classical Music has become.

StarCycle Project: REGULUS Regulus "The Little King" for piccolo solo

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

PHOTO: Arinica (Arnica montana) & Butterfly, the Alps

POSTER is at: http://www.cs-music.com/features/cards/poster_sonnet-XIV-2.html

POSTER pdf is at: http://www.cs-music.com/features/cards/poster_sonnet-XIV-2.pdf

DOWNLOAD: #FreeFriday RILKE IN THE WALLOWAS 80 new tr. & 120 photos, by CLIFF CREGO pdf 212 p/ 208 Mb http://bit.ly/mA3Ly7

RILKE: Sonnets to Orpheus, XIV [second part], German/English, tr. Cliff Crego

(Glaucidium gnoma) NORTHERN Pygmy-Owl duet? Well, this is an objective reality report filtered through the working hypothesis of my ignorance. I bird by ear. Not with my eyes. I generally sleep at basecamps with my finger on the record button. This happened last night. 

I am assuming that the female is the distant voice, about 30m away. (Again. I didn’t actually see them. I was in a tent, trying to remain as incognito as possible.) Her music always ASCENDS; The male’s music always DESCENDS. (Note his percussive high F-pops at the beginning of each phrase.)

Ah, the joys of OBJECTIVE REALITY & MOTHER NATURE!  Where, unlike me, everybody makes an honest living, there’s no endless suffering based on organized religion’s troubling of morality, and there’s no confusion about, well yes:—gender.

IMAGE: Wikipedia

Northern Pygmy-Owls, male / female hunting duet…V.27.2024 /23:20 NT at 1330m

FIRST, we see time is not a line.
THEN, we see time is a circle,
a circle turning, in cycle within cycle
within cycle. The birds and plants
have always known this. Only we,
have turned away.

AVIAN soloist: European Backbird; Northen Pygmy Owl hunting duo.
IMAGE:  American Dipper, Hurricane Creek, Eagle Cap Wilderness, OREGON.

ORACLE, a reader of signs….“It took the whole world by surprise”

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……

COMPOSED AROUND 1906, "Love Song" is without a doubt one of the finest love poems in any language;  It's a poem to learn by heart, and take along as a close friend on the journey of a lifetime. Notice the wonderful sense of sound and movement, as the images -- relating all to resonance -- follow quickly, one upon the other. Truly remarkable....

PHOTO: Rilke with Lou Andreas-Salomé (1897). On the balcony of the summer house of the family Andreas. (Near München: left to right: Professor Andreas, August Endell, Rilke and Lou Andreas-Salomé, a life-long friend)

TEXT in German & English is at: http://www.picture-poems.com/rilke/features/1000diamond.html


RILKE: Love Song/Liebes-Lied, read & tr. by CLIFF CREGO

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

AN EARLY POEM, read & tr.  by Cliff Crego, English/German. TEXTS are at: http://picture-poems.com/rilke/features/summer-meadow.html

PHOTO: August Summer Meadow, the Alps at 1,100 m. [Believe it or not, this is HAY, just a day or two before cutting. Traditional meadows are cared for to this day without artificial fertilizer, and are cut with a scythe by hand. Believe or not, this is HAY that -- I actually counted them I'm afraid! -- is a subtle weave of some 120 native herbs and grasses. Subtle, indeed, like the sound and rhythm of Rilke's poetry...

READING: About my book of translations, RILKE IN THE WALLOWAS http://bit.ly/1sWqMe4

DOWNLOAD: #FreeFriday RILKE IN THE WALLOWAS 80 new tr. & 120 photos, by CLIFF CREGO pdf 212 p/ 208 Mb bit.ly/mA3Ly7



RILKE: [You don't have to understand life's nature] / [Du musst das Leben nicht verstehen]

Philosophically, the idea of END TIMES itself is so bad that it may well indeed create the END TIMES to which it refers. Think of that the next time you take your instrument out of its case….

NOTE: SOUNDS moving in SPACE. Headphones required!

(1) WAVE deterministic chaos
(2) FLARE constant variables
(3) HYMN with interruptions (BACH BWV38 “Aus tiefen  Not schrei’ ich zu dir”)
(4) ECHO call & response…
(5) SCHERZO with polyrhythms
(6) PEDALE melody unfolds into harmony
(7) CODA one as seven/ seven as one

IMAGE: A masterpiece of composite German / American design, the brass bell of a classic BACH trumpet. Much could be said about the flare of the bell and the geometrical flares of timespace featured in the music, but I’ll leave that for a layer date. I sold the last three I owned in 1978—a set of B-flat, C & D instruments—in an unfortunate moment of deep financial chaos in SISTERS, OREGON. I hope somewhere in the world their signature, free, resonant sound is still blessing the Universe.

CYMA, for a circle of 7 C trumpets in 7 parts “Deconstructing Apocalypse”

IMAGE: Dave is playing his “EAGLE SONG, for Kevin Two-Eagles” on one of his beautiful, much-loved Elderberry flutes..,

The EAGLE SONG poem…

Hear my prayer
Hear my prayer
This I ask of you
I ask of you

I will fly again
I will fly high again
Hear my prayer
Hear my prayer
I ask of you

SEE also FIELDNOTES, I report on my friend, Dave Clemens, harvesting Elderberry wood for flutes… https://soundcloud.com/cliff-crego/fieldnotes_sambucca-fl-mp3

EAGLE SONG, for Kevin Two-Eagles, composed & played by Dave Clemens

IMAGE: Whitebark pine Sentinel Snage…

SEE ALSO: DAVID BOHM: On Dialogue [audiobook], & other related texts... https://soundcloud.com/cliff-crego/sets/david-bohm-on-dialogue

The FOUR NESTED REALITIES & the GROUND OF TRUTH, a dialogue tape…

BRECCIA III, for #violin & #cello score http://bit.ly/1v0uRiA pdf http://bit.ly/1v0uRiD mp3 http://bit.ly/1Ddv7xB

There's also a version for two violins at: http://bit.ly/1DVg0YM mp3 http://bit.ly/1FPnag4

BRECCIA I is also on soundcloud at: http://bit.ly/1Dqq62f

The X-country STRING QUARTET project [soundcloud bit.ly/1Dqp9XP] is an initiative/idea of mine, to form a string quartet that bikes cross country, giving concerts, lectures,  demonstrations of a wide repertoire of new music in small rural communities about every 40 of 50 k during the spring and summer months. 

PHOTO: A Jaspar Breccia, a rock with distinctive, sharp, angular segments that are cemented together, forming a naturally complex composite 


BRECCIA III, for violin & cello, for the young performer, part the X-country STRING QUARTET project

Looking to the East, over this small tarn [above] in the center of the German-speaking Alps, it seems so self-evident that it hardly needs saying, that the land, and the love of the land, are both the source and the beginning of all poetry. And yet, the Alps are still awaiting the new sound of a poetry that seems to fit the spirit of our time -- one of a revolution of consciousness, perhaps -- as well as our new-found relationship with the living Earth herself. 

Rilke can perhaps help us here. 

The uncollected masterpiece offered below is in every regard, I think, remarkable. Let me just mention here the magical way -- as if tapping with a sorcerer's wand -- each image folds into the next. This is Rilke, the most disciplined of composers, stepping briefly out of his usual sonnet form, which was, it might be said, both midwife to his creativity, and yet at other times we sense as listeners, a kind of straight-jacket. But here, we breathe a lighter, alpine air... moving from the open steppe landscape of Spain, perhaps, to an intimate evening side-street in Paris, sensing the presence of a beloved, always so close, yet always so far away, like a wild and wonderful mountain 
horizon that forever eludes us, as we come near....

TEXT in both German & English is at: http://picture-poems.com/photoweek/eye-of-moor_june.html


[You, beloved / Du im voraus verlorne Geliebte] a RILKE 1913 masterpiece, read & tr. by CLIFF CREGO

TEXT & PHOTO are at: http://picture-poems.com/photoweek/little-eagle_south_1-19-09.html

INAUGURATION, composed 1.20.2009, Stonepine Butte, Eagle Cap Wilderness, OREGON

A 17 seventeen-step poem is a kind of generalized HAIKU. How it is notated in the score isn’t relevant. Only the 17 steps as we hear/sense/feel them as a dance, a pattern of movement, is important.

A SEQUENCE strings 17 of these seventeen-step poems together, like strings of lights on a Christmas tree. Each string has a different color or theme or center.

There are 17 SEQUENCES. Here, we hear the first nine.

Each numbered pattern we hear is a single image or experience from a bike packing pilgrimage made through the mountains of IDAHO and OREGON. 120 days / 80 camps. Many more, new special places and new friends.

TEXT of SEQUENCES I through XI… (rough draft…) is at http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/lost-in-idaho.pdf

IMAGE: My bike packing rig, MISSOULA. I cache the bike, and periodically change over to boots and backpack for wilderness photography work, and then hike back out to my bike.

LOST IN IDAHO, A pilgrim’s notebook….Sequences I through IX

Thomas Paine famously wrote in his pamphlet "Common Sense" that 

"For as in absolute governments the King is law, 
so in free countries the law ought to be King; 
and there ought to be no other." 

This still resoundingly rings true. But the present Project 2025 Coup orchestrated by an international rabble of Billionaire dictators wishes Mr. Trump to play the role of King in the unfolding drama.

Elon MUSK: “The fundamental weakness of Western Civilization is empathy […]” This remarkable thought comes straight out of the reactionary philosophy of Ayn RAND, which is a rather simple-minded and self-consciously provocative [ie., in current lingo, “disruptive”] INVERSION of the traditional Christian system of values. In other words, reciprocity or the Golden Rule “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you” is for suckers. (It is also the source of another common Neo-Conservative inversion of meaning I would sum up as, Public BAD; Private GOOD.) As a public persona, Mr. Musk acts very much like a hero who walked straight out of Ayn RAND’s 1957 novel, ATLAS SHRUGGED.

+++++

SECRECY is to DEMOCRACY what mercury is to spring water:—an insidious, invisible deadly toxin that sometimes takes years to infiltrate from the single cell to the whole organism, but can, if allowed to proliferate unchecked, eventually corrupt the whole ecosystem, head to toe. 

A free and open society depends on the free and open flow of information.  This is what makes it essentially self-correcting. This only works when people mean and do what they say. This is the foundation of trust and truthfulness at any level, without which representative democracy quickly becomes dysfunctional and collapses.

IMAGE: Entering the great commons of public land. Northeast OREGON, USA.

THE FOUR RUNAWAYS: Musk, DOGE & the Trump Coup, a dialogue circle

Four tracks: (1) BUNKERS ON THE BEACH (2) MONEY (3) CYME (4) I’m too poor in this world…

“RESISTANCE is CREATIVITY & CREATIVITY is RESISTANCE.” Sephane HESSEL (1917-2013) adaped from TIME FOR OUTRAGE…

IMAGE: V2 Rocket, designed by NAZI scientist, Herbert von BRAUN; built in NAZI slave complex, PENEMUNDE, launched from NAZI firing site in Scheveningen, The Netherlands, 1945, against LONDON, final days of WWII.

TIMES FOUR: Music & Poetry, side by side “Remembrance Day”

(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

1) FOUR ROMANCES & MYSTERY FLOWER
(2) RILKE “I am home between dream and day”
(3) POD with Simone de HAAN, trombone
(4) VARÈSE: Integrales (fragment)
(5) BLATTEN: A Tragedy in the Swiss Alps
(6) EVERY VALLEY HAS TWO SIDES, for Konrad
(7) StarCYCLE Regulus Regulus “The Little King” for piccolo solo
(8) EIGHT MINIATURES

IMAGE: Slender Woodland Star (Lithophragma tenellum), a Sagifrage, the WALLOWAS, OREGON

TIMES EIGHT:—music & poetry, side by side “BLATTEN, A Tragedy in the Swiss ALPS”

An experimental composite soundpoem essay

TEXT for study and distribution is at: pdf http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/eagle-of-freedom.pdf

IMAGE: Native Buckwheats at 2400m, Eagle Cap Wilderness, OREGON

The EAGLE OF FREEDOM always has two wings, freedom TO & freedom FROM

A draft text in my rough GERMAN for a Symposium / Dialogue Circle on Fascism as a species of human behavior from a natural historical perspective.

There is enough material here for a full year of reading, discussion, debate, and dialogue.

Draft text is at http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/fascism-times-four.pdf

IMAGE: Sentinel WHITEBARK PINE on WALLOWA Batholith granite, Eagle Cap Wilderness, OREGON

Der Faschismus aus naturhistorischer Sicht: Eine Analyse des Destruktiven im Denken

(0)INTRO 
(1) CASCADIA, a brass fanfare (model)
(2) Limits - Pilgrim - Retronyms - Notation, set of 6 MINIATURES 
(3) TIMBERLINE, three prose poems from the ALPS 
(4) SLEEPWALK / SLAAPWANDELING, a tr. from the Dutch of Gerrit ACHTERBERG 
(5) Keyboard Etude III
(6) FIREBIRD, a long-line sonnet from LOVE IS ROUND,
for Igor STRAVINSKY
(7) DOME, for Bucky FULLER
(8) HILDEGARD'S GARDEN, for Hildegard von BINGEN
(9) PERCUSSION STUDY IV, for 5 voices "2:3 shift"
(10) Time - Plants - Justice - Poetry - Science, a set
of 5 MINIATURES
(11/12) RILKE: Titelblatt / Title Page, w/ soundpoem
(13) CROW & COYOTE discuss the Oregon STANDOFF
(14) The way of FORCE, the way of the TAO, & truth in function
(15) CODA: "The Etiology of War"

PHOTO: Spring Crocus, Ohio Country


ConcertMIX picture-poems.com PODCAST for Spring Equinox 2016

THIS IS A through-composed 65-minute set of new texts, poems & pieces, mostly composed 2017-18, and produced almost entirely in the great OREGON wilderness, almost entirely off-grid. It begins w/ a MANIFESTO, 3-fold REVOLUTION, dedicated to my HURRICANE VALLEY friends, Chad & Christina.

(1) 3-FOLD REVOLUTION, a miniature
(2) "WHAT WOULD YOU DO? the Earth asks," a soundpoem
(3) THINKING LIKE A STONEPINE, a soundpoem
(4) NONVIOLENCE IS ALWAYS A WIDER CIRCLE, a miniature
(5) I CANCELLED MY ACCOUNT & TWO MISTAKES, two miniatures
(6) NIGHT MEDITATION ON THE SUFFERING OF THE WORLD, a childrens' rhyming poem on the Death Penalty
(7) NO CULTURE WILL SURVIVE THIS ABSENCE OF THE SACRED, a soundpoem
(8) AGAINST ENTERTAINMENT, a soundpoem miniature
(9) THIS IS WAR, a soundpoem, on a text by Marilyn WARRING, w/ Simone de HAAN, solo trombone
(10) THE LITTLE CLAVIER, a soundpoem, w/ Simone de HAAN, solo 'prepared' trombone
(11) EPIGRAM, a soundpoem cycle, first (the Hannah ARENDT) movement
(12) EPIGRAM, a soundpoem cycle, second (the CONFUSION IS PANDEMIC) movement
(13) EPIGRAM, a soundpoem cycle, third (the MONEY) movement
(14) SWEET EXTINCTIONS & SIGN OF THE TIMES, a set of miniatures

IMAGE: Rainbow Wheel on Snow

3-FOLD REVOLUTION, a set of 14 new pieces...

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."

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...

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 X

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

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