download: http://www.seventhswami.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/birdorchestra_part2.mp3

Mounted in a wooden box, this curious diorama was made of wood, mechanical parts (possibly from a clock?) rocks, dried flowers and clay… with stamped metal numbers and letters at the bottom… and most interesting of all… a metal space ship firing a bunch of arrows at some kind of animal.

This psychedelic crafts project was just a bit too expensive for me to justify purchasing… but for some reason i really wanted to.

Then, from even higher in the sky… i see a blue metal railing like the the cage around that device… only this one looks like the kind of those lavender railing you would see at light-rail stations on K street in Sacramento… FALLING from the sky, tumbling end-over-end, and coming right toward us. i holler at people to take cover but it just misses the stadium and falls outside of it… i don’t remember hearing it hit the ground but i start running down the steps to see if anyone got hurt.. at that point i hear the name “Larry David” come from the loudspeakers and i see the actor, Larry David, riding that blue flying rig like a mechanical bull… as it clatters and sparks across the ground like one of those hovering bikes from inside the giant building on that movie, Akira… reminds me very much of the way those things would crash.

This is a “COMMERCIAL?” i ask Emily, realizing that this was an ad for the new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

“Yeah”, she said, “Commercials are getting very involved these days.”

Next thing i know I’m at my mother’s house. Stewart, my godparents’ son who died from pneumonia 15 years ago is house-sitting and sleeping in my mom’s bed. My mother was staying next door at another neighbor’s house (ironically one that she doesn’t like)… They have been watching over her while I’ve been gone. I go there with Emily to try to pick her up and take her home. “Mom…” I say as a shake her arm, “time to get up! I have to take you home!”

“I’m going to stay here…. ONE more week!” she announced sleepily but playfully.

“Did you ASK them if you could stay? You have to ask first.” i tell her and i head to the front room to ask, while Emily stays behind to talk some sense into her.

Upon entering the living room, i realize how long it’s been since I’ve been here. The occupants of the house are getting old and their hair is silvery-gray. The linoleum has been replaced with linoleum that seems to have exactly the same pattern, but is translucent and there are green lights under the floor that seem to be very deeply buried when i walk. By that i mean that the perspective makes it so that the light source stays in front of you while you walk. They tell me that they just turned them on, and that this effect will go away as the bulbs warm up.

The woman of the house, Carolyn, is looking down an itemized list of my mom’s medical expenses and says that she is concerned. She points to a line item highlighted in yellow and asks what it is. I tell her that it’s the bill from the masseuse that the doctor recommended who was not covered by her insurance. That seems to put her at ease.

I go back to the room where my mom was and both her and Emily are gone. I wander out to the garage and there is a futuristic van of some kind parked there… doors on at least 3 sides of it… full to the brim with computers, musical equipment, tools, and god knows what else. Seems like some sort of high tech mobile repair truck. My mother is inside it, poking the keys on one of the midi keyboards.

“I thought i heard Elvis” She says.

“Get the hell outta there! stop touching things!” i say and we head back to her house next door. At this point I’m carrying a bag of bongs for some reason and I’m trying to hide them under T shirts so that people don’t see what i’m carrying.

We get back to the house and things have changed. There is a 4-person team of super heroes or something. Very strange looking. Two of them are very tall, very obese men in red and blue horizontal striped shirts and propeller-hats… like Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. The team leader is a tall muscular African American guy and there is also this nondescript white lady. They are super geniuses. They are showing me a device that they made that looks like a flashlight but the handle looks like 3 long cylindrical batteries held together by packing tape. ON the side is a switch with about 2 inches of travel… and on the tape next to it is a label that reads “Planck Width.” When they threw the switch, fundamental forces of the universe would start to bend and metal objects from all around the neighborhood were drawn to the tip of the flashlight. It is unclear if the device was manipulating electro-magnetism, gravity, or both…. but all these objects were flying in through the windows and stacking up on the end of this device.

Everything these people would make, looked aesthetically similar. They were electronic components held together with matte-brown packing tape, with labels written on them in black pen. I get the feeling that the van in the garage next door is their mobile command station or laboratory. Suddenly this person in a high-tech metal suit of some kind materializes in the hallway and begins fighting with the team leader guy. He sort of “unfolds” from a single point in mid-air… very reminiscent of the smiths from the Matrix… but instead of transforming from other people, there were sort of unfolding, dimensionally, from points in the air. The fight is pretty brutal. Something about their suits makes them very strong.

I decide it’s time to bail on the house and i find myself driving north up Freeport blvd in Sacramento… on that stretch between pocket road and florin. Except that there is farmland to the left… an irrigation ditch where the center-divide should be, and hundreds of cars parked perpendicularly, facing the ditch. I slow down and park to see what all the commotion is about. There are emergency vehicles and bystanders trying to offer help. I see more of these blue-framed metal objects submerged in the ditch, just below the surface of the water. I jog down the road to find someone who looks official, so i can ask what happened and if i can help. There is a man on a bulldozer. I try to flag him down and he tells me “there are elevators stuck under the water.”

“How did they get there?” i wonder but he is already driving off. I run back the other way and see a guy in a hard hat yelling into a walkie-talkie… “I need to locate tractor-team leader NOW!” he shouts.

“Hey is there something i can do to help?” I ask.

“Have you seen tractor-team leader?” he responds after barking more orders into the radio.

“Is that him?” I point to the guy on the bulldozer who is several hundred feet from us now, and dragging what appears to be half of a carcass of a giant rat under the bulldozer.

“I don’t know…” the man replies. “Can you go find out?”

“Sure i say” but before i can run in that direction, a hail of bullets blisters the dirt road in front of me, causing red bursts against the ground as they hit, and sounding like machine gun fire. I run a zig-zagging course and come to a sliding stop behind a parked car. Seems like I’m on the wrong side for this so at the next available moment i run to get behind another car, on the south side of it. The bullets are still not stopping and i am amazed to not be dead already. That’s when i notice that more of these armored agents are appearing out of thin air and attacking us. One of them is standing in the middle of the road with this giant futuristic machine gun and spraying it in long bursts straight up in the air… which accounts for these bullets seeming to be coming from the sky.

I run back to the house… and right upon entering the hallway another agent appears right behind me and jumps on my back…wrestling me to the ground. Somehow i get the upper hand and i yank this guy out of his suit… he looks like an inflatable doll… not a person. I start thrashing him against the walls…. and then i wake up.

I think it started somewhere in elk grove where there was this motorcycle cop with a metal jaw that was falling off or something… this is the haziest part… i had to go find something I think. anyway i end up in the jungle… felt like Peru but the trees seemed decidedly “norcal”… authorities were coming and i had to hide this DMT or Ayahuasca which kept shape-shifting into a leather bound book-of-secrets or something… which is an interesting metaphor. I end up sliding down this slope of leaves on the forest floor and the bag/book is at the bottom. I cover it up with my body and suddenly this family of pygmy camels comes and curls up next to me… drawn to the bag/book/thing.

i enter this cabin where i am followed by a person. I have the bag (now definitely fees like a bag) in my pocket and he seems to not have any idea that i have it. He goes to the door at some point to go get another person (this is all very non-threatening) and i quickly stash the bag in a black file cabinet… top drawer… i find the key in lock on the bottom drawer and use it to lock both drawers real fast (but i can see the top drawer is bent and the latch is probably not going to work) … stash the key in my pocket.

People enter this cabin. it’s night time now. I recognize some of them as my friend Jay Schneider (and old-money dude who went with us to burning man in 06) and some guy named john who i recognized in my dream but not now. Also a strange old Asian dude dressed kinda like the actor, Victor Wong in the golden child. and a few other men and women. Looks like a travel group of some kind. They’re all kinda dressed like this but not as red as in the golden child. more earthy colored burlap and what not. I give people hugs and I’m amazed to run into them down here.

Next thing I know I’m sitting under the stars outside the cabin with cliff who asks me if i remember this conversation we had the first time we did acid, in which he saw a diagram of the structure of an atom and claimed to suddenly understand “how it all worked.” I told him I remembered. He pointed up to the stars and told me to imagine a bunch of concentric circles that rotated in alternating directions and I could suddenly see this in the sky… then he drew these big figure eights in the air with his hand and all these orange sparks followed his hands… he said something like “it goes left like this… then right like this….” and was creating stars and somehow I understood this.

I touch his arm and tell him to be quiet because people are coming. I see in the distance another cabin with people in it. I assume that they’re other people on vacation. a man holding a lantern approaches. as he gets closer I see that he’s a tree-person. Not like the Asian dude you see on TV but he looks like part oak tree or something… he’s Jay’s nephew. We go up and talk to him and marvel over his skin. He says “yeah people keep telling me it’s warts or something but I’m not like that guy on TV.” We go to another part of the cabin and there is a man sitting there who is half kiln. By that I mean he’s a fucking human kiln. He’s too big to move and he has a fire burning inside of him and there is pottery all around him. I grab a piece of pottery and ask him if a piece of his body breaks off can he just fire a new one and graft it back on? He says no, he cannot but he can make me anything I want.

Next thing I remember I’m on a boat, floating down a river and the Asian guy from the cabin is with us. it’s just me, him and Emily now. He is teaching us how to use these blow-guns that shoot little hardened metal arrowheads that are cone shaped but double sided. about the size of the sharpened end of a pencil but with a shaft in between that is probably 1/8″ long… Emily and i start discussing the shape when the Asian guy catches one out of the air that was being shot at us. We look up to see who is shooting and the Asian guy says “pay attention.” I look out at the water and see that it’s a small monkey floating down the river, with a blowgun. I marvel at this fucking monkey.

Suddenly the river is full of boats… canoes… rowboats maybe… definitely not inflatables. There are people in these boats from what looks like every time period. I see a woman who looks like Cleopatra… people from ancient Rome… people from India… you can tell by their faces that they’re not all from this century or locale. I am told that this is a kissing festival and i see people leaning over boats to kiss their neighbors. Not like a make-out party… but just a light ceremonial kind of kiss. There is the sound of legions of people all singing the same song which sounds very Indian. The river is so full it feels like the Ganges River or something during a pilgrimage. The sky is overcast and everything has a white/gold aura… I get the strongest feeling of bliss like this is heaven or something. I intuitively know that neither Emily nor I can or will be jealous about this because it’s very not sexual. We paddle closer to a boat with the roman people.

I fall overboard and swim up the boat but the Romans have been replaced with Hindi folks. I try to hold onto the side but people push me down under the water. I’m not upset about it because it’s very playful. I decide to swim lower to look at the bottoms of the boats and then swim sideways for a bit before surfacing. When i surface i am totally separated from my boat. I am not worried though because I feel like when i get where we’re going, it will be easy to find Emily and whoever else. We drift for a while. I am in total awe of the spectacle.

The next thing i remember I’m in this house and I’m telling some strange girl that “i’m sorry we never got together but please understand that I was going through a really difficult time back then and the fact that you’re a shape-shifter was just too much to deal with”… she is angry and doesn’t seem to understand… I spend a while trying to explain myself.

a LOT of stuff happened here that i just cannot remember, but the next thing I know I’m back in the cabin… daytime… total silence. the dreamy quality in the air is gone. no more sparks in the sky… no more strange outfits… no more white/gold glows or auras. I think I’m alone. No idea how I got there. I wander around looking for clues. Everything is dusty. The floor is made of 2x4s and there is a rocking chair in one corner of this room. Suddenly the Asian dude walks in. I ask him what the hell happened and he tells me “you did some suicidal kind of act but you’ll be ok.” I’m disturbed and confused by this. “Suicide?” I ask… “Why would i do that?”… He says “you were under the influence… it’ll be ok. You’re back now”… I’m still confused. “Under the influence of what?”… He replies “DMT of course.”

That’s when my head explodes. not literally… but that’s when I put it all together. the hazy part I just mentioned where a LOT of stuff happened seriously spanned YEARS… at the time it felt like I had lived an entire LIFE and suddenly came back to this cabin where it all started. It dawns on me in waves… that the Asian man was a shaman… that we were all in the forest here on an Ayahuasca journey and that jay was part of my travel group. I am utterly floored. I check my pants to make sure i didn’t piss myself. I remember Terrence McKenna saying that the only danger of DMT is the possibility of being overwhelmed by astonishment. I start running around looking for my digital audio recorder so I can record these memories before they fade away but I remember the I never brought it with me on the trip. So i start looking for a pen and paper and I’m absolutely bawling from the sheer beauty of everything I have seen. It’s all just too much. I get back to the front room and there’s the whole group and they all want to hear my story. I try to collect myself and get my notepad out and right as I begin to tell the tale…

I wake up in bed. I’ve only been asleep for 4 hours. I am TOTALLY FUCKING FLOORED. my head feels weird and I’m farty and I feel like I’m going to throw up. now I’m remembering Terrence McKenna saying that if you’ve ever done DMT, then one day you will have a dream in which you do DMT and you will have a full blown experience right there in your dream… in this case it would be a full blown Ayahuasca journey but this is way different than what I experienced on Ayahuasca. but the time dilation fits the bill. That’s when I remember that I have my digital audio recorder now and I run to grab it and I spend 25 minutes or so telling the tale.

Lost in Electronica
The costs of ‘the chaos of constant connection.’

Can trout be bored? Can dolphins or apes? Are they neurologically complex enough to experience boredom? What might boredom mean to such creatures? Humanity can boast that it is capable of boredom, but there may now be an unhealthy scarcity of that particular brain pain.

Human beings evolved over dangerous eons. Brains formed in response to constant hazards may react with boredom when exposed to the safety of modern life. Perhaps flight from boredom prompts people today to take refuge in constant stimulation by visual and audio entertainments.

Adam J. Cox is a clinical psychologist worried about the effect of today’s cornucopia of electronic stimuli on the cognition of young boys. Writing in The New Atlantis, he says human beings evolved in a world of nutritional scarcity and have responded to the sudden abundance of salt, sugar, and fat by creating an epidemic of obesity. And, he says, the mind, too, now craves junk nourishment:

“Fifty years ago, the onset of boredom might have followed a two-hour stretch of nothing to do. In contrast, boys today can feel bored after thirty seconds with nothing specific to do.”

The ubiquitous barrage of battery-powered stimuli delivered by phones, computers, and games makes “the chaos of constant connection” an addictive electronic narcotic. As continuous stimulation becomes the new normal, “gaps between moments of heightened stimulation” are disappearing; amusement “has squeezed the boredom out of life.” For the hyperstimulated, “the synaptic mindscape of daily life” becomes all peaks and no valleys.

But valleys can be good for us. Cox believes that a more common occurrence of boredom in the young would be welcome evidence of “the presence of available resources for thought, reflection, and civil behavior.” Cox notes that “being civil is rarely fun—it requires patience, forethought, and some willingness to tolerate tedium.” So for the overstimulated, “civility feels like submission.”

Cox worries about the deficits in the communication abilities of young males for whom a “womb of all-encompassing stimulation” induces “a pleasant trance from which they do not care to be awakened.” Hence, perhaps, the “failure to launch” of many young males who, “preoccupied with self-amusement,” struggle to make the transition from adolescence to adulthood. What Cox calls “the unbearable lightness of adolescence” is not new; what is new is an “excess of amusement” producing a deficient sense of gravity.

“Unlike reading and listening to stories,” Cox warns, “the blitz of electronica doesn’t build deeper listening skills or a greater range of emotional expression.” Self-absorption, particularly among young males, may be the greatest danger of immersion in the bath of digital amusement: “Not only does withdrawal into electronica enable them to bypass the confusion and pain of trying to give their emotions some coherence, it also helps them avoid the realities of being a flawed, vulnerable, ordinary human being.” So “the silent, sullen boy at the mall’s game store may be next in line for an underemployed, lonely adulthood if we don’t teach him how to maintain effective social contacts with others.”

Cox doubts it is a mere coincidence that “the stratospheric increase in diagnosed learning and attention deficits” has correlated with “the advent of the electronic playground.” When so many Americans meet the diagnostic criteria for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, it “is arguably no longer a disorder at all—it’s just the way we are.”

Yes, “we.” Not just boys but adults of both sexes, too, seem insatiably hungry for handheld devices that deliver limitless distractions. Neuroscience demonstrates that the brain is not a finished product; neural networks can be rewired by intense and prolonged experiences. Some research suggests that the constant short-term stimulation of flitting to and fro among digital promptings can impede long-term memory on which important forms of intelligence depend.

We are in the midst of a sudden and vast social experiment involving myriad new means of keeping boredom at bay. And we may yet rue the day we surrendered to the insistent urge to do so.

There are, however, paragons among whom boredom flourishes. Valerie Jarrett, one of Barack Obama’s closest confidantes, says (as reported in David Remnick’s The Bridge), “He knows exactly how smart he is…He’s been bored to death his whole life. He’s just too talented to do what ordinary people do.” Even regarding boredom, he is a reproach to the rest of us.

Download

SeventhSwami – Live From The Internet by SeventhSwami

Within this mix, look for snippits of Tay Zonday, Keyboard Cat, the Bed Intruder Song, Yosemite Bear Mountain Giant, Senator Ted Stevens, and many others.

Intro – What is the Internet? Featuring “Bed Intruder” by Roomie
1 – Pretty Lights – I Can See It In Your Face
2 – Mochipet – Banana Split
3 – Spoonbill – Catfish
4 – Bil Bless – Ant Sgom Arching
5 – SeventhSwami – Subterfuge
6 – SeventhSwami – Lucidity
7 – Skeetaz – Gators (Lawgiverz Remix)
8 – Kilowatts – Hang Gliding
9 – Lorn – Wake Up Fucked Up
10 – Jahcoozi – Who (Kraddy Remix)
11 – iLL.gates, Stephane Vera & Si Begg- Cut Copy Paste
12 – Opiuo – Chops (Ft. Jess Chambers)
13 – Bran Richards – The Pez Dispensing Seagull
14 – Tipper – Off Kilter
15 – Desrunay – Grandeurs of Delusion
16 – Emil Klotzsch – Geteiltes
17 – Spoonbill – Framed by Funk
18 – Michal Menert – The Coming Age
19 – Freddy25 – I Still Love You
20 – Chris Crutchfield – Best Cry Ever (Hip Hop Version)
Interlude – Tay Zonday on Keyboard Cat: “True Internet Story”
21 – Opiuo – Water Mouth (Ft. Sunmonx)
22 – Mimosa – Pandora
23 – M.I.A. There’s Space For Ol Dat I See (David Starfire Remix)
24 – Bil Bless – Show Me Mercy
25 – Little Dragon – Twice
26 – Ochre – Low Grav Freefall
27 – Moresounds – Cherries
28 – MonkeyMarc – As the Market Crashes
29 – Yosemite Bear Mountain Giant – Double Rainbow
30 – Combustible Edison – Cat O’Nine Tails
31 – Gorillaz – Demon Days
32 – Gladkill – First Light
33 – M83 – Skin of the Night (Of Porcelain Remix)

In these demon days
It’s so cold inside
So hard for a good soul to survive
You can’t even trust the air you breathe
Because mother earth wants us all to leave
When lies become reality
You numb yourself with drugs and T.V.
So pick yourself up, it’s a brand new day
So turn yourself round
Don’t burn yourself, turn youself
Turn yourself around
To the sun!

To the sun, to the sun…
To the sun, to the sun…

]]> http://www.seventhswami.com/2010/08/demon-days/feed/ 0 http://www.seventhswami.com/2010/08/the-bangerz-x-san-jose-taiko-robot-remains-live-performance/ http://www.seventhswami.com/2010/08/the-bangerz-x-san-jose-taiko-robot-remains-live-performance/#comments Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:25:44 +0000 SeventhSwami http://www.seventhswami.com/?p=2645 Now THIS is epic.

Tune just came out today on iTunes as well. FYI.