Old Days?. . .

. . . food for constitutionalist thought . . .


(from Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham)

". . . Jefferson wrote Adams in 1816. Jefferson took the broadest of views: "I steer my bark with hope in the head, leaving fear astern. My hopes, indeed, sometimes fail; but not oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy." . . . Adams was always less sanguine. "I dare not look beyond my nose into futurity," he wrote Jefferson. "Our money, our commerce, our religion, our national and state constitutions, even our arts and sciences, are so many seedpots of division, faction, sedition and rebellion. Everything is transmuted into an instrument of electioneering.". . . The past, he (Jefferson) thought, should hold no magical, unexamined claim over the present. "Some men look at Constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them, like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched," he wrote in 1816 . . . "They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well: I belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present: and 40 years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading: and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead. I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions...but I know also that the laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind....We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.". . . "

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Passion . . .

'Flames of Passion' by Mark Henson

Working at the thing you love
Brings peace and satisfaction
That is difficult to describe
To those who have never experienced it

Working at a thing that provides
Economic security (or pays the bills)
But is not an activity about which
You feel no passion or little affinity
Is another thing altogether
Yet familiar to many to experience it everyday


Bosely Beach
©2018 Raymond M. Jozwiak

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Season . . .

The air betrays a chill
That while not unfamiliar
Is new to my summery soul
And the dark overpowers the sun
With a frequency not forgotten
Nor always welcome

Experience teaches me that such times
Must surely follow heat and light
And the seasons like life
Will turn turn turn
Like all the rest my years
As well will run their course

. . . in time

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Another . . .

. . . opus . .

Experience can not be known
The ups and downs
Extremes no doubt
Of breathing, living
In and out
The depths encountered
With a loss
Or simply due to one bad toss
Exhiliration, of breath be robbed
When o'er the crest we pass
And dash into a fall
Which words will fail
To capture
Still a rapture
Does enthrall
If only do we stand or fall
We never know of such affair
If never choose we to
Ascend
The stair

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Plunge . . .

At heaven's door we pick the lock
When all we had to do was knock
Though Alice she rattles her train of chains
The fetters are inward all the same

Take a look as you fall
Passing through another wall
Here is where the corn is cut
The wind comes down
Get off the pot
Get off the pot
Get off the pot

It's your world the way that you live
Eats the smile right off your face          
You're not in Kansas anymore
I am the sheath I cry for more

Biding trends and waves of shock
The turbulence it turns me on
Nonetheless we're born and rocked
By divas, drunks and Barbie dolls

I signed up for high-wired acts
If I lose my balance just cut me some slack
I'm holding out for what can be
Emc squared possibilities

Experience to be alive
The abstract now is literalized
You have dreams and nightmares to explore
Get the goods
Get off the floor
Get off the floor
Get off the floor


Plunge
(Recorded live at Bourbon Street on the Beach on New Year's Eve 2015) by OHO, Jay Graboski, David Reeve and Ray Jozwiak




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Empathy . . .

em·pa·thy
Pronunciation: primarystressem-pschwa-themacron
Function: noun
: a being aware of and sharing another person's feelings, experiences, and emotions; also : the ability for this

(from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mark-barden-obama-speech_568bf575e4b0b958f65cfd29)
". . . Mark Barden, whose 7-year-old son Daniel was killed during the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, introduced President Barack Obama before his Tuesday speech unveiling new executive actions on gun control.

During his introduction, Barden condemned the lack of action on gun violence in the years since the Newtown massacre.

"In the three years since those 26 precious lives were lost at that school, far too many more lives have been lost to gun tragedies in this country," Barden said. "Far too many people right now who are hearing these words are grieving the loss of a loved one to gun violence. As a nation we have to do better. We are better. We're better than this."

"Every gun-related death is preventable," Barden continued. . ."

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Quotes . . .

 . . . on notes . . .

(from http://musicmagic.wordpress.com/2008/07/16/quotes-about-music/)   
A painter paints pictures on canvas.  But musicians paint their pictures on silence. – Leopold Stokowski

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. – Berthold Auerbach

All deep things are song.  It seems somehow the very central essence of us, song; as if all the rest were but wrappages and hulls! – Thomas Carlyle

If the King loves music, it is well with the land. – Mencius

Without music life would be a mistake. – Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
   
Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons.  You will find it is to the soul what a water bath is to the body. – Oliver Wendell Holmes

If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music. – Gustav Mahler
   
Alas for those that never sing, but die with all their music in them! – Oliver Wendell Holmes
   
Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom.  If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. – Charlie Parker

He who sings scares away his woes. – Cervantes
   
Music was my refuge.  I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness. – Maya Angelou

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It's True . . .

(from http://edwardwillett.com/2009/03/science-shows-musicians-really-are-more-sensitive/)
'Researchers at Northwestern University have found that the more years of musical experience musicians possess, and the earlier the age at which they began studying music, the better their nervous systems are at interpreting the emotional content of sound.

The study was led by doctoral student Dana Strait, who conducts her research in the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at the university (and who is herself a pianist and oboe player).

Strait points out that scientists already know that emotion in speech is carried less by the specific meanings of the words being used than by the sound of those words.

. . . Strait and her colleagues enlisted 30 right-handed men and women, with and without music training, between the ages of 19 and 35. The ones with music training were grouped using two criteria–their total years of music experience and whether their training began before or after the age of seven.

Participants watched a subtitled nature film to keep them entertained (“entertained” is apparently a loose term) while listening through headphones to a “scientifically validated emotion sound”–specifically, 250 milliseconds–a quarter of a second–of a distressed baby’s cry.

Sensitivity to the sound, particularly the more complicated part of the sound that contributes most to its emotional content, was measured through scalp electrodes, which allowed the researchers to track brainstem processing of the sound’s pitch, timing and timbre. . . '

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At The Risk. . .

. . . of repeating myself. . .

Countless books, websites, magazines, classes, seminars, clubs, associations, and organizations exist (Google provides about 15,100,000 results to a search for the word 'Songwriting' alone) to "assist" the struggling songwriter.

Should be easy to become instantly successful.  Right???

As one intimately involved in such creative endeavors as both a participant and a spectator, I have decided that I, too, will join the ranks of the faux academics and offer my services based upon the credentials earned in my vast  'professional' and my amateur experience.

What makes my assistance particularly valuable is the price.  It is being offered to you, RIGHT NOW, possibly for a limited time (that is, unless I decide to repeat myself yet AGAIN in the future) only. . . and that price is . . .

. . . NOTHING!  It is FREE!!!

OK.  Here goes.  When performing your original material, irrespective of audience size, disposition or demographics, venue, sound systems, backing band or lack thereof, compensation or lack thereof . . . irrespective of all of that. . .  Do NOT (I repeat) do not (no matter how funny, witty, clever or intelligent you are [or THINK you are], do not, (did I say DO NOT??). . .

Do Not talk too much!!! 

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Happiness. . .

(from http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200501/happy-hour by Carlin Flora)
". . . The things we expect will bring us lasting joy rarely do. Whether it's losing 25 pounds, getting a major promotion or watching a troupe of perennial losers finally win the big one, long-anticipated events give us a swell of glee... and then we settle back into being just about as happy as we've always been. Most of us have a happiness "set point," fixed by temperament and early life experience, which is very difficult to shift. Whether you win the lottery or wind up in a wheelchair, within a year or two you generally end up just about as happy (or unhappy) as you started out.

Yet the quest for happiness isn't futile. Psychologists now believe that many of us can turn the well-being thermostat up or down a few notches by changing how we think about anticipation, memory, and the present moment. Our sense of well-being is intimately tied into our perception of time. The problem is that we usually get it wrong. Memory tricks us—we don't remember our experiences properly, and that leaves us unable to accurately imagine the way we'll feel in the future. At the same time, expectations mislead us: We never learn to predict what will make us happy, or how to anticipate the impact of major life experiences. . . "

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New Consciousness. . .

(from "Reclaiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World" by John Shelby Spong,
 ©2011 John Shelby Spong)
". . . As post-Darwinians we now know that there never was a perfect creation.  All life has evolved from a single cell into our present self-conscious, enormously complex human life, which is, for the time being at least, at the top of the evolutionary ladder.  Since there was no perfect creation, then there could not have been a "fall" from perfection.  One cannot fall from a status one has never possessed.  If we have not fallen from perfection, we do not need to be saved, redeemed or rescued.  So the way Jesus has traditionally been interpreted vanishes into irrelevance.  One can artificially resuscitate a dying form only as long as the presuppositions undergirding that form are still believable.  The human experience, however, still cries out for some other explanation of this experience.  What is it?

We are self-conscious creatures.  All living things are survival-oriented.  Plants stretch to receive the light of the sun in order to live.  Animals fight for life or flee danger in order to survive.  Neither plant life nor animal life, however, is aware of its survival drive.  Human beings are.  When self-conscious creatures make their own survival their highest goal, they then organize their world around that need.

Paul's experience of human life was correct.  His explanation was wrong.  His experience of Christ as life-giving love was correct.  His explanation of how that love was manifested in Jesus' life was wrong. 

Can one find salvation by being rescued from this fatal flaw in our humanity, as Paul seemed to believe?  I do not think so.  We can, however, find wholeness in the experience of being lifted beyond these boundaries.  I am now convinced that this experience of being lifted into a new consciousness was the heart of what the Jesus experience was and it is this experience alone to which Christians must witness. . . "

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