Year: 2014

I read this series of books when I was a teenager-I was fascinated by the descriptions of altered perceptual states, the exercises and the ritual drug use. It’s a weird combination of fiction and reality-the best stories always are, right? I now find it to be funny exercise in cultural blindness, and I like the concept of assemblage points.

Crowley is one of those fascinating characters-reviled by some, worshipped by others. Whatever his character flaws, he sure knew his stuff-Thoth is a description of Tarot, and extraordinarily complex Kabbalah, mythology, and the kitchen sink of spiritual relationships. A must if you’re into Tarot.

Another software book-but it also is great for those who have anything to do with people at work. DeMarco & Lister are giants in the systems development field, and this book is one of the reasons why. It’s practical, funny, and useful-lots of tips, traps and examples. It’s about what they’ve learned about managing people-specifically in programming, but it can be generalized to anyone.

Ambient music is fascinating-music that isn’t supposed to be listened to…but is supposed to be in the background. These three form material that will fill a space with sound that you can live in.

More source material-this time from Buddhism. This is the original Buddhist text. What to do to eliminate the source of suffering in our lives is the crux of Buddhism-all the rest is commentary and embellishment. These aphorisms give a framework for the process of eliminating suffering.

This film is stunning-images and music-no narrative, story or characters-just images and music. It’s a relative of the Reggio material-Fricke was the cinematographer-but expands the language. I think it’s much deeper and less strident. Some of the images are staggering. Watch it in the theater if you can-it’s not played very often. There’s a sequel: Samsara.

Fuller is one of the most original thinkers of the 20th century-he invented geodesic domes and the word synergy. This book is thick, complex and difficult, but valuable to understand, as Fuller builds systems and geometry from first principles. It took me a whole summer to read…and I haven’t even touched the sequel yet.

Gabriel has a storied career-he was with Genesis, left, got popular, and now champions world music and human rights causes. He’s a cool guy. I like his soundtracks more than I do his pop stuff. Passion is the soundtrack to the film The Last Temptation of Christ. It’s amazing, deep, rhythmic, spiritual. I used one track to fly my ballet kite routine to… IV is more of a pop album, but has some great tracks on it-his storytelling is fantastic…as is the music. Birdy and Rabbit-proof Fence are good too.

If you like repetition, get Einstein on the Beach. It’s a 4 CD long opera…very much an acquired taste. I watched the opera online in ’15. Powwaqatsi is a soundtrack and much, much better-I think it’s his best work. FYI, Glass is a modern composer-he works by combining repetition and arpeggios that slowly mutate and change over a piece. It’s trancelike… There’s a DVD of the piece performed in Paris in 2014-I watched it online.

This is early Dead-strange & spacey-there’s not a lot of “songs” on it-just long strange jams. Great for getting away from it all into another space. That’s what I use it for…

This is from the Tibetan monks of the Gyuto monastery. These chants are part of a religious ceremony. It’s NOT music, but worship. Use it to meditate to-you’ll go somewhere else (I did when I saw them, a wonderful experience-they’re really friendly people too). Kudos to Mickey Hart for this!

Here’s a celebration of rhythm. Lotsa drums, lotsa drummers. I like just moving to this one-it’d be good to play in the parking lot of a Dead concert…I wonder why?

For guitarists, Jimi is way, way up there in the pantheon-he changed the way the instrument was played. While I like most of his material, this New Year’s 1969 concert at the Fillmore East is stunning-Machine Gun is staggering. He was at the height of his powers, and months from death. They’ve released a longer version of this as well, but I still can’t find BOG II…

Do you like puzzles, mind games, teasers, paradoxes? Hofstadter is well known for those in his Scientific American column. This is a book about the paradox of knowledge systems. It’s fun, challenging, and provides some perspective on how we see things in the rational world.

More source material-this time from Taoism. This is the quintessential divination tool-64 verses to answer your questions-throw a coin 6 times. They’re also good for just reading for insight… It’s also a 6 bit pattern language…

I love gamelan-I play in one… This is the first gamelan album I got. It’s beautiful, like rain or the ocean. Oversimplified, it’s an Indonesian xylophone/gong/violin/vocal orchestra. It can be strange to listen to at first, and jarring, and the vocals can be hard to listen to, though it certainly grew on me…

Jefferson Airplane was one of those groundbreaking psychedelic SanFran bands-this is the first Starship album-before there was a Starship, and not like it at all. Garcia and Crosby play on it…I prefer the 2nd side…you’re transported somewhere else…it’s dated, but still very good. I recently picked this up again and I still like it-the philosophy is beginning to make more sense-“say goodbye to Amerika, say hello to the garden” and “Only the sun knows what we really need to know/Only the sun holds the secret”. Yummy. The playing is raw and simple and lovely.

More software stuff-this time about how we use computers-and how we should use computers. This is for us programmers-it gives lots of examples, principles, graphics and research results. It’s also sort of a signpost for the future of how we interact with machines.

You can tell that I’m a programmer… This book is about documentation-a style manual for those of us who write manuals. Dated, certainly, but first principles are still valid.

This is from the Mevlevi order of Sufis. This is from a religious ceremony. Like the Gyuto Monks, it’s NOT just music, but worship, too. Use it to meditate to-you’ll go somewhere else. I sure did when I saw them last-it was amazing.