Life crushes and impressionist art

I recently spent a few weeks in Western Europe with my wife and son.  We had a wonderful time.  I found insight in the Musee d’Orsay – an art museum highlighting works from the impressionist and post-impressionist eras.  I was struck by the idea that so many of the talented artists were great friends with one another and great friends with many of the thought leaders and revolutionaries of their day.  These artists drew inspiration not only from the ideas of other’s but from their relationships with people that inspired them and helped them see the world in new ways.

I think that each of us should be friends with a few people that energize and inspire us.  A friend who helps you come alive, helps you reset, helps you redirect, helps accelerate you.  I will call these friends a “life crush” for lack of a better term - someone who you platonically crush on for life. You can speak about things with your life crushes in ways that you can’t speak to anyone else because you think differently around them than you do when you’re with anyone else. Even between the years the relationship is fresh and revitalizing; even when distance and circumstance are such that you see your life crush only every several years.  I am grateful to crush on many people – both men and women – that inspire me and bring me to life.

Jumping back a paragraph… artists in the impressionist era and other areas drew inspiration from their life crushes and shared perspectives that helped them form revolutionary beliefs and ideas.

We live what we believe.

-Michael

Alternatives to mass media

Today I read a really fascinating blog on media consolidation and the lack of media choice. While none of the information presented here should be too shocking to anyone, it's worth a quick glance and some thought:

http://frugaldad.com/2011/11/22/media-consolidation-infographic/

This infographic left me thinking about how inexcusable it is in this digital era that we consumers continue to gobble up the high-fructose garbage we are fed by the mass media. I am not trying to say that commercially successful media is always bad media (though it often is). Rather, I am arguing that we can and should seek alternatives. As I write, I am acutely aware that many of the world's people are still left behind in the information age and truly have little choice as to what media (if any) they consume. But this simple exchange in which you and I are engaged -this simple, yet amazing digital exchange- is proof that at least we don't have to be passive consumers of media. We can seek out good film, literature, news, and music without sitting in our highchairs waiting to be fed. We can decide for ourselves which media are valuable and then we can choose to share with others.

Michael and I have both expressed on this blog the desire we have to offer something new and unique through our music. We now invite you to do the same. Share with us a favorite film that wasn't released by one of the major studios. Share with us a song or a band that we wouldn't hear on the radio. Share with us an important article or story that didn't catch the attention of the major news agencies. Tell us about an amazing visual artist that we might not know. Tell us where you discover new ideas and new media. Enlighten us.

You can post your thoughts as comments to this blog post or you can post on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SongsBecomeWater

The Frightening and Wonderful Process of Discovery

“Sometimes I want to see beyond all this haze; sometimes I wish I'd never cared enough to open up my eyes.”

These are the opening lyrics to Luna sin Moonlight. I wrote the words as a young college student trying to find my place in the world. They expressed a longing to return to innocence without descending further into ignorance. For years, I struggled with whether or not to record the song. I felt like the lyrics expressed a more cynical view of innocence than I would have liked them to. At the same time, I didn't feel like I could change the lyrics without discounting the real and raw emotions I was feeling when I put pen to paper.

In 2009, a couple of years after writing the song, my son Noah was born. His birth restored in me a sense of wonder and amazement in the world that had long been missing and helped me to appreciate the beauty of pure hope, pure faith, and pure innocence.

These childlike emotions are encapsulated in the music box -the child's toy- heard throughout the song. They are woven together with the very real emotions of confusion, doubt, and disbelief. In order for the song to be complete (and as part of a creative quest for honesty) all those emotions needed to occupy the same space.

As I watch my little Noah grow up, the song has begun to take on new meaning. I realize that his own beautiful state of innocence will soon pass. The frightening and wonderful process of discovery awaits him, just as it awaits us all.

Wherever you are in your own path of discovery, I invite you to read the lyrics to this song carefully. I then invite you to listen. The instruments are admittedly unconventional and it may take a few listens, but I think you'll find it worth the effort.

-Danny

"Who are you to tell me how to live?"

As I was driving in my car today, I was listening to a radio interview with the philosopher Alain de Botton that caused me to linger a moment in my car and ponder before going in to work.

De botton was discussing his new book, which urges non-believers to embrace some of the positive aspects of religion. Himself a committed atheist, de Botton was arguing for the secular world to be bold enough to teach and guide people to live better lives. All of us -whether we believe in the supernatural or not- need guidance to live the best life possible.
 
Speaking of our obsession with individual freedom, de Botton says "freedom basically means I want to be left alone and no one should guide me, no one should teach me anything. I am an adult, and being an adult means not listening to anyone else about the art of living." As traditional moral institutions crumble, we are constantly asking anyone with any advice at all for us, "who are you to tell me how to live."

Obviously, these traditional institutions have often abused their persuasive powers and earned our distrust. We are now left with not only a reluctance to follow on moral matters, but a reluctance to lead as well.

As de Botton put it: "Some of the people with the best ideas will retreat and say, 'well, it's not for me to influence anyone.'" When artists and intellectuals have abdicated their responsibility to use their wisdom and insight to influence others to be better, the voices of our consumer culture are ready to fill in the void.

This problem is one that Michael and I have often discussed. As lovers of art, music, and literature we feel deeply the absence of voices advocating for a better way of life. As musicians, we feel an urgency to offer an alternative to the pervasive nihilism of popular culture in a way that is meaningful to both believers and non-believers alike.

In doing this, we don't wish to be preachy. We aren't trying to persuade anyone to accept things they don't already believe in. But as de Botton put it, we all need to be reminded from time to time to act on those things that we already believe to be right.

-Danny

If you'd like to hear the entire interview with Alain de Botton on Radiowest, follow this link
http://radiowest.kuer.org/post/religion-atheists

Something beyond... Remembering a Great Writer

In a previous post, I shared with readers the profound effect Spanish and Latin American literature has had in my life. I was saddened to learn of the recent passing of the great Mexican writer, Carlos Fuentes. While reading his obituary, I came across the text of his final tweet and felt it was worth posting here. It may seem a grave injustice that such a prolific writer of novels, short stories, essays, theatre, and cinema would be honored here by a tweet. But once you read it I think you'll understand why:

"Debe haber algo más allá de la masacre y la barbarie, para sustentar la existencia del género humano y todos debemos participar en su busca."

"There must be something beyond slaughter and barbarism to support the existence of mankind and we must all help search for it."

May we all have the courage and strength to continue the search.

-Danny

Stepping Stones through the Underbrush

Many of our dear friends and family that have listened to our song Upwards, beyond the Onstreaming have found some of the lyrics unsettling. Admittedly there are elements of the song that are a little uncomfortable, and they are there by design. Asking really difficult questions of ourselves is not a comfortable exercise, but it is one that is crucial for personal growth. The greatest art, literature, and music can force us to confront these darker aspects of human nature while still urging us to seek the light. Perhaps no one did this better than Dostoevsky, whose work has influenced both of us greatly.

If you have not yet heard the song in it's entirety, we invite you to give it a few very careful listens. If you have listened to the song already and felt uncomfortable, we invite you to listen again and to read the listening notes provided below. We hope that our own thoughts on the song will help provide stepping stones through the underbrush of dark and dangerous emotions and eventually lead you to the real message of the song: "Love as you would be loved."

Listening notes

"The title from this song is taken from the short story, Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Jorge Luis Borges. Although the song has little to do with the esoteric ideas of Borges, I feel that the title describes beautifully the surreal and distant place that the guitar takes me when I play the song. A place where it is safe to be ourselves.

In my interpretation of the song, that distant place is not real. The darker moments of the song even question if it's possible to continue dreaming of such a place. Michael's interpretation of the song and his added composition infuse a degree of hope that such a place is real, even if it always seems just beyond our grasp."

-Danny

"To sing this song I imagine I am someone else. The words grow my empathy for others. They are not my words. The words awaken me to other’s stories. They grow my appreciation for the individual challenges we each face and further my respect for the human experience. The words remind me to love."

-Michael

lyrics

Contributing works

-Borges, Jorge Luis. "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius." Ficciones.

-Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment.

-de Unamuno, Miguel. Abel Sanchez: Historia de una pasion. 

-"The Rhetorics of Religious Violence." Radiowest. KUER, Salt Lake City. 15 February 2007. Radio
C59YM7963346

300,000 Tons of Plastic Shopping Bags: Thoughts on resolution

Three years ago I made a firm resolve to stop accepting plastic shopping bags at the grocery store.  Americans send over 1 billion plastic grocery bags to landfills each year, adding 300,000 tons of unnecessary landfill waste. I find this fact both disgusting and striking: - striking because reusable shopping bags are such a viable solution.  The average American throws away 4.5 pounds of trash each day. I believe that we need to identify the most accessible solutions to cut back on waste creation and plastic shopping bag reduction is clearly a low hanging fruit.

I bring all this up to give context to a phenomenon.  It took me nearly a year after I made this resolution to actually stop accepting plastic grocery bags. One year! Why does it take us so long to change our behavior?  My wife and I now always keep reusable bags in the trunk of our car.  Why did it take me a year to get in the habit of storing reusable bags in my trunk?!

The song Words Leave Out The Rest was born out of the desire to actualize resolve.  To be who we know we are and who we know we should be.  To walk the walk. To follow our sense of right.

-Michael