Tuesday, November 27, 2012

The Devil. . .

 . . . you say???

(from http://www.revbilly.com/about-us)
". . . Let’s talk about the Devil. Corporate Commercialism has sped up to a roar, virtually unopposed. Consumerism is normalized in the mind of the average person, sometimes we even refer to ourselves as consumers forgetting that we are also citizens, humans, men, women, animals. We forget that we share many resources, public spaces, libraries, information, history, sidewalks, streets, schools that we created laws and covenants and governments to protect us,, to support us, to help us… The subjugation of these resources and these laws to the forces of the market demands a response.

We are a post religious church. We hold “services” wherever we can, in concert halls, theaters, churches, community centers, forests, fields, parking lots, mall atriums, and perhaps most importantly, inside stores, as close to the cash register as we can get, within spitting distance of the point of purchase.

We sing, we dance, we preach, sometimes we perform small “interventions”, invisible plays, acts of ritual resistance. We exorcise cash registers and remythologize the retail environment, we illuminate the Devil. We make media and send it out around the world. We get hassled by security guards and sometimes get arrested.

Above all we try to complexify the moment of purchase, to snap people out their hypnosis and back into the mystery of being human. We remind people that things come from somewhere, that products have a resource past, a labor past. Someone made It, and It is made of something, we trace the route a product took to get on the shelf, the life it might have when we throw it away. We animate the objects that surround us and in so doing we re-animate ourselves. We become citizens again. . ."




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Monday, November 26, 2012

Oddly. . .



. . .  Christopher means "bearer of Christ. . .

(from God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens)
". . .Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody—not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms—had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as for comfort, reassurance, and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion. . ."




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Sunday, November 25, 2012

Cheery yet??. . .

Where's the cheer
That I should feel
Inside my heart
This time of year
While all the
Televisions
Newspapers
And billboards
Count the shopping days
For me

It appears
To me that
I'm the only one
Who doesn't see
The fine and natural
Attraction to what seems
Part race
Part obstacle course
I believe

Long ago I leaned that we
Celebrate this season
Anniversary of the birth
Of someone named Jesus

Through the years
How my perception of it all
Has gone awry
When so much
Manufactured hype
And pressurized requirements
Make it all seem a lie

How I wish
Since it's the
Time of year that
Dreams can come alive
That you and I
See one November when
Without the retail forecasting
Some peace on earth
Goodwill to all arrives

CHEER(from Black, & White Then Back due April 2013)
©2007 Raymond M. Jozwiak



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Friday, November 23, 2012

. . . and it's getting blacker. . .

Very soon, a tremendous number of the earth's population will observe a 'celebration' of the birth of a possibly historical Palestinian Jew over 2,000 years ago, to whom the origin of a mega-religious institution (and philosophy) is attributed.  This person, whether truly historical or not,  totally human or some combination of spiritual, human, super-human, affected all humanity in the civilized (or semi-civilized) world that followed in some way or another.

What better way to celebrate this occasion than to . . . go shopping?????!!!!!!

(from NBC News.com)
". . . To those who spend the Friday following Thanksgiving doing things like spending time with family, or working, or volunteering, or attempting to construct the world's greatest turkey leftover sandwich, Black Friday devotees are a mystery. Yes, an estimated 147 million Americans plan to go shopping sometime this weekend, according the National Retail Federation. But who are these people, what's the psychology driving them to rise before dawn in pursuit of a deal -- and have they really never heard of online shopping?

"The deals are part of it, but I don't think it's the bigger piece of it," says Jane Thomas, a professor of marketing at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C. "This is the family ritual, as much as eating turkey and dressing is -- it's going shopping as the start of the holiday season together.". . . "




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Thursday, November 22, 2012

Turkey. . .

. . . only goes so far. . .
. . . and although I've been called a turkey before (and even worse things, truth be told),  the annual feast of thanks is now over and it's time to give yourself a break.  So here's your invitation to kick back, take it easy, have some very fine cuisine and enjoy. . .

Ray Jozwiak
Gonzo Piano
Friday November 23 @ 6:00PM
at Bread & Circuses Bistro
27 E. Chesapeake Avenue,  Towson, MD  21286
410-337-5282
http://bandcbistro.com/

Really.  You deserve it. . .






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Point. . .

I think sometimes, probably more so during the year-end holiday season (Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years for all of the 'religiously-persecuted') that we as a species have arrived at a particularly crucial point in our development.

On the one hand,  the more educated and sophisticated we become, the greater our preoccupation with our self-realization.  As this takes place, we find ourselves less involved with the intricacies of our extended families.  In fact, sometimes we find that while we love the members of our extended family we don't, in truth, like them as much as other, more-similarly (within the realms of intellectual, artistic, political, and humanitarian areas) disposed people.

So as we attain greater freedom, movement, awareness and development, we lose the commitment, duty, obligation to care for our family members who, in tribal times long gone, we would have spent our entire lives with- day in and day out.

I don't know what or where the happy medium between these two extremes exists.  I most certainly understand and appreciate the value of existence at both ends of this spectrum.




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Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Thanks. . .

Instead of being gushingly trite, and predictably thankful this holiday time, (not because I don't appreciate many things, but as a result my life's learning to date and my current philosophy, I sense no 'being' [other than many humans in my life] to whom I need to offer thanks) I've decided to be a truly modern, state-of-the-art American and instead, ponder some things that I don't, but wish I DID have.

More money, an opportunity to pursue my passion (music) for a living, time (to devote to all previously listed items and to humanitarian causes). 

It's really not that long a list.  But it's a BIG list.




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