To the beauty of simple things, like that of this beautiful Spanish Sparrow

SPARROW

Noodling around with a little repeat phrase on a felt piano, it decided it wanted to be this.

Passage

Piano and Strings musical original composition : @syntaleta
Guitars and Mix : Neno J.

No More (Collab w Syntaleta-remastered)

Piano and Strings musical original composition : @syntaleta
Collab with great composer and piano player Syntaleta. @helen_dolgova: 
Electric guitars and Mix : Neno J.

In Solitude (Collab w Syntaleta)

I was a bike messenger. It never leaves you. 

________________________________________________________________

40 quarters
in your pocket
strap your helmet
grab a lane
asphalt pinball
in the morning

rocket on
marathon

trucks and taxis
coming at you 
double dance move
get away
asphalt pinball
it’s a hustle

canvass bag
cargo tags

cop in bike lane
traffic ticket
time is wasting 
run away

open car door
broken window
glass on pavement 
shitty day

chain links clicking
through Manhattan
red light running
all the way
asphalt pinball
burning muscles

it’s the same
in the rain
_______________________________________________________________

photo by Max Bender via Unsplash.com

Thanks to Wheelwright for his sage suggestion to include backing vocals.

Asphalt Pinball

(Free WAV Download available here under '••• More'; and eventually, as part of a future solo album)

Happy Sunday my SC friends. I’m having a great time revisiting my favorite books and movies, trying to find inspirational material for these liner notes. The author I want to share today is one of my greatest influences in life (and one many of you know as well)… Ram Dass.

I’ll be sharing some of my favorite quotes of his momentarily. But before I do that, I would like to mention why he was so inspiring to me. 

What makes Ram Dass a unique esoteric/spiritual voice is that he actually started out as an Atheist. But he openly struggled with not knowing the answers to life’s most profound questions, and he was willing to pursue alternative ways of thinking, and update his beliefs based on his direct experiences. 

While he was still Dr. Richard Alpert, he began his explorations through the use of psychedelics while teaching at Harvard University. He joined Timothy Leary in these studies; but Harvard wasn’t thrilled with this potentially scandalous exploration, and fired them both. He then decided to take his spiritual explorations to India. This is where he had a perspective shifting, unexplainable first encounter with Neem Karoli Baba (who later became his guru, affectionately known as Maharaj-ji). He was given the name Ram Dass (servant of God) by his guru; and after spending several years at Neem Karoli Baba’s ashram, he became one of the leading voices of the 60s counter-culture movement. 

For me, his is a voice of love and humor and acceptance. And when I read his books and hear him speak, the feeling I get is ‘Hey, I don’t have it all figured out just yet. But I’m willing to put in the daily practice, and see if I’m a better person tomorrow. Do you want to join me on this adventure, fellow traveler?” And that is so refreshing when you just need the gentle, loving voice of a compassionate friend. 

Here are some of my favorite thought provoking quotes (many from his book, One Liners):
_______

“In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight.”

“You can’t be free if in any fashion you’re holding the hand of fear.”

“It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.”

“Treat everyone you meet like God in drag.”

“At the moment when there’s nothing more to lose, the Ego breaks open—and then we see who we are behind who we thought we were.”

“A feeling of aversion or attachment toward something is your clue that there’s work to be done.”

“To materialist eyes, India is a developing country; to spiritual eyes, the United States is a developing country.”

“If you think you’re enlightened go spend a week with your family.”

“Our journey is about being more deeply involved in life, and yet less attached to it.”

“Everything changes once we identify with being the witness to the story, instead of the actor in it.”

“We’re all just walking each other home.”
_______

Those are just a few of my favorite quotes. If you enjoyed those, you’ll love his books and recorded lectures (easily found on YouTube) as well. His voice has been a kind and gentle presence for me since my teens, and his passing back in 2019 was a sad day for me. But it’s like he said, “When someone we love dies, we get so busy mourning what died that we ignore what didn’t.” His ideas will live on in my heart for the rest of my life, and that is a priceless gift. I hope you enjoy ‘Upgrading My RAM So DASS Will Launch’. :)

WTF! The Musical

Upgrading My RAM So DASS Will Launch

This is an instrumental made in 2016 for the 3rd album of La Dernière Mesure, my hip hop project for more than 10 years.
You can listen to the original track here: https://ladernieremesure.bandcamp.com/track/marylou-suite-et-fin
I think this instrumental is the best I've done for this project, so I'd like to give it a second life through Zuunzug...
If you're an MC and want to use it, just contact me by DM. 
Artwork by Malka. 
Ceci est une instrumentale réalisée en 2016 pour le 3ème album de La Dernière Mesure, mon projet hip hop pendant plus de 10 ans. 
Vous pouvez écouter le morceau original ici : https://ladernieremesure.bandcamp.com/track/marylou-suite-et-fin
Je pense que cette instru est la meilleure que j'ai produite pour ce projet, je voudrais donc lui donner une seconde vie à travers Zuunzug...
Si tu es un MC et que tu veux l'utiliser, contacte-moi en MP.
Visuel réalisé par Malka.

Louise

The extracted and altered picture shows NATO razor wire in detail, source: Wikipedia


The Bulky Latch

in
(This is how we look like our borders)  (4)

1
Here it goes no further
Thanks to "strategic partnerships“
And with a lot of financial support
High fences
NATO barbed wire
And trenches
Detention centres
Uniforms and armament
Identification and
Exploitability checks
Exclusion, exclaves

ref
And sun and sand and waves
And sun and sand, waves

2
Onrushes
Distribution keys
Control of crowds and masses
By all means necessary
No more loopholes
Don’t talk about the rest
This is how we look like our borders (rep)
Exclusion, exclaves

ref 
And sun and sand and waves
And sun and sand, waves (2)

out
This strangeness in me
(just a part of the tragedy)
Oh there is a strangeness in me
(just a part of the tragedy)

The Bulky Latch

Maltas – Starlight Drowned

The ocean is not water, but silence.
Stars flicker once, then sink into the abyss below.
Their light does not vanish—it is swallowed, absorbed into a darkness too vast to resist.

Starlight Drowned is a descent into shadow,
where time is suspended and silence becomes its own kind of roar.

A soundtrack for solitude, for wandering ruins, for gazing into the infinite.

Find more of my work here:
https://linktr.ee/maltas22

Starlight Drowned

goes with the untold story of a secret love that once lost is never mentioned again

Miyamoto loves Aki.mp3

Today I looked at the Horizon over water and could see the curvature of the Earth.  It's subtle but its there.. spread out over the entire space of the planet.  A sphere.  

Erik Hartmann 

Ponder at the Lake

Guitarist, multi-genre composer, keyboard & bass player (mostly self-taught). Music librarian and philosopher.
Music is new dimension of life.
“That is an artist as I love artists, modest in his needs: he really wants only two things, his bread and his art - panem et Circen.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols