Motley Kamuka

Heather Cox Richardson in a professor of history in Boston. She writes a substack based on current events. ( Wikipedia ) Pete Buttigieg has been doing the news show rounds, including The Daily Show . He is the secretary of transportation. ( Wikipedia ) John Oliver has a show called Last Week Tonight . ( Wikipedia ) These are 4 truth speakers in a age of disinformation.

I recently posted Hiromi  ( Wikipedia ), a Japanese pianist and composer.  Been listening to Eloy a German progrock band who have put out albums from 1971-2023. Listening to Cassiopeia , the band has changed iterations and it's currently on Cassiopeia P4, who have 3 albums out now. That got me into the drummer  Akira Jimbo .  Also been listening to Hot Fuss by The Killers. Not sure if I mentioned I was into Frank Zappa's Hot Rats . Kind of Green  (2010) by Pylf is amazing. Pepper Adams Encounter! (1969, but must have been changed and updated to get 1996 on Spotify ) Eliane Elias has a new album out on Spotify . There's an article on mellow piano music . I'm listening to Nils Frahm on Spotify . And  Lubomyr Melnyk . Makes me think of Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou. I created a playlist .  Listening to a playlist of Elvis Costello Covers . That got me onto a Norwegian band Elektrisk Regn ! They existed from 1978-2008. I watched They Shot The Piano...

"It turned out that the Yangshao Culture, as it was now known, included settled communities extending along most of the length of the Yellow River and its tributaries 6,000 to 7,000 years ago. According to inferences made from settlement and burial practices, women played the dominant role in these communities. They were matriarchal. It wasn't until the Yangshao Culture was replaced by the Lungshan Culture 2,000 years later that men began playing the dominant role in society. What changed things was war. As long as the focus of life was on reproducing and finding enough food to eat, women were more important than men. As soon as enough children survived long enough to become adults and there was a surplus of food, men started going to war, not because they had to, but because they could. Testosterone. Men have been controlling societies around the world ever since." p. 120 The Yellow River Odyssey by Bill Porter. 

"The popularity of Sungshan's western peak wasn't due so much to the scenery as it was to one particular Buddhist temple, namely, Shaolin, known far and wide as the home of kung-fu. Actually, the ch'i-kung exercises essential to all martial arts were developed much earlier by Taoist masters. And in the past, whenever martial-arts competitions were held between Buddhists and Taoists, the Taoists of Wutangshan invariably defeated the Buddhists of Shaolin. But Shaolin Temple had better PR, and it was located within a few hours of two major population centers, namely Chengchou and Loyang, whereas Wutangshan was in the middle of nowhere." p. 108 Yellow River Odyssey by Bill Porter. “Changes in the climate since the last ice age coupled with the constant warfare waged over the past 5,000 years between the Chinese and the various nomadic groups in the region had resulted in extensive deforestation and loss of ground cover. Areas that were green as recently as several hu...

Hiromi Uehara (piano, claviers) Adam O'Farrill (trompette) Hadrien Feraud (basse) Gene Coy (batterie) YouTube

There's a fascinating exercise in the New York Times , to look at a painting for 10 minutes. They put up text for a minute so to me it was only 9 minutes because I read for a minute. But it was interesting. I noticed a lot and I really liked it.  BTW that painting was Nocturne in Blue and Silver by Whistler, in the Harvard Museum. It was a meaningful experience for me. I want to learn more about Whistler. But today I came across Death In The Sick Room , by Edvard Munch, and I looked at it for quite a while. I think my favorite is Train Smoke: I read there's film about him from 1974.

I'm watching the HBO 7 part special about John Adams. The wikipedia entry is interesting, I'm kind of ashamed I don't know much about him. Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney are quite good.  Joanne Freeman suggests you remember that they didn't know what was going to happen and that the conditionality of the unknown future does make it more dramatic.  The most recently history I studied was Transcendentalists, Emerson, Thoreau and Fuller. Thoreau entered Harvard in 1833, John Adams started in 1751. We're going back in time here. Thoreau was born in 1817, the year after they didn't a summer in 1816 . His mother didn't drink tea, and I wonder if that's a legacy of the revolution or if it's thrift.  He felt bad he didn't join the French and Indian War . He's the only founder who didn't own slaves.

Joanne B. Freeman has 6 lectures on the American Revolution on YouTube, there are 25 lectures in total. She recommends Jefferson and Adams letters.  Indeed she goes over her reading list. I have to go to Open Yale Courses and download the reading list. But I'm mostly about listening these days, not as much about reading. There are 25 lectures! The first one is 5 tips to studying the revolution. 1. She reads about Hamilton hating Democracy, and Jefferson not thinking Democracy will work. The way the words mean to us today. Be aware of what you mean and what they could have meant. (I've always thought America could stand for more democracy, there are inflection points, but really having the people rule wouldn't allow for these state restrictions on forcing women to carry unviable fetuses.  2. Founders were people. They're all making it up as they're going along. James Madison tried to study all governments across all time.  3. Not good guys and bad guys, reconstruc...

I do feel a slant in every article about Harris, they're usually disgust at something someone on the right said and sometimes they're about what she hopes to do or some bit of the story, trying to get to know her. Usually those stories suggest she's cool or hip or withit. If you didn't like her--you don't have to say why in the privacy of the polling booth. Trump calls her a liar (haha), Vance calls her a childless cat lady, other call her nasty or this or that. It really does feel like just spite to me, but I have a lot of anger towards Trump, Bush, Reagan. To want Trump is to vote for the death instinct, destruction and spite. You could maybe prefer smaller government, probably more inefficient, less bang for your buck. Or lower taxes, though it's unlikely Trump would lower your taxes. He's said he doesn't care about you he just wants your vote, but that might remind you of someone who's love you wished you had. If you vote on character, the smears...

Al Franken has a podcast , and he has my favorite Heather Cox Richardson , and they have an interesting discussion. He talks about the knife edge. She really explains the Republican strategy. Flood the zone with shit. Alternate facts, and fake news opens up the idea that there is no reality. It's basically reality versus false reality.  The goal is to both get people to back away from politics, and to tell them how to specifically think. Developed in Russia, a system of overturning democracy. Running fake candidates, who switch parties, and running candidates with the same name. Blackmail is a technique. Create a fake reality that people come to believe. They're willing to vote for a narrative is not true, and they're willing to vote away their rights.  You can flip it and use the same tools.You can weaponize social media by ignoring the shit, and fight back against all these techniques. People defend democracy. They're talking about community and caring for people and ...

I was of the mind that all the noise about Biden was all greedy oligarch newspaper owners who wouldn't mind lower taxes, and Russia toll farms. I thought with the ballots freezing in September and the money Biden raised only could go to Harris, meant that it seemed unlikely that he'd step aside.  The history of late drop outs isn't good. Let Trump self immolate. From his lies about a bullet when it was a glass shard that hit him, and on and on, endless lies. He's not a real human being. A long time ago in the primaries, I thought Biden was too old, but nobody stepped forward to really challenge him. An elderly Biden was preferable to a felon pedophile. I've been thinking about all the stupid behavior by Trump and his followers, is just a free advertisement generator. Mistakes make the left reproduce saying, see look at this, and thus they are living rent free in our heads. The right thinks it's smart, doesn't really take all the absurdities seriously. His ba...

 

Gift article from Times about event. Every accusation is a confession by republicans. They're so uninsightful, unintegrated, and weird. So for republicans to accuse Biden of sending the assassin to shoot Trump, we know that the republicans are at least considering sending a Biden assassin.  “Georgia Representative Mike Collins posted simply, “Joe Biden sent the orders,” while Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, a top contender for Trump’s vice-presidential running mate, wrote on X that the Biden campaign’s rhetoric “led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”  Texas Representative Ronny Jackson pointed to unnamed figures on the left whom he accused of being “directly responsible” for the events at Trump’s campaign rally. Collins, Vance and Jackson did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Their posts on X altogether garnered more than 7.3 million views on Saturday evening, according to data from the social media platform.” Bloomberg   Supposedly the crowd...

Like everything Trump does, there's a bit of a sliver, the bamboo shoot under the nail for liberals and left wing people. His whole attention grab is a bit rapey. I'm not going to read project 2025, I'm just going to read snippets and outraged reactions on his pal Elon Musk's twitter . (Musk is a bit rapey himself, forcing a different name on you for twitter, but if Musk can deadname his own children, we can deadname his company.)  I want to be better than Trump and Musk, more ethical, but they drag us into the mud with them, they're doers who need to wrankle some people by what they do. They probably coronate themselves as disrupters, Musk with technology and Trump with politics. And they're both out to get a buck from it, and service genitals.  My right wing friend's reaction to January 6th was, "you won." Democracy didn't win?! He's not shocked at the attempted takeover of democracy, he just saw me as winning, personally. I naively thoug...

I've found this list of 100 films from Italy from between 1942 and 1978 that are to be saved. I've seen about 4 of them that I'm aware of, and I could see those movies again, except I remember 1900 (1976) was really long, 4 hours.  I read about The Battle of Algiers (1966) when I was watching it, and I thought it might be French, but it wasn't on my great French movies list . Set in and about Algeria, you could say it was Algerian. Spoken in French during the occupation by the French, there is some French in it. The production of the movie is Italian, so it's a combination movie. This is the first movie I see on the list, and then I look for movies from newest to oldest. L'albero degli zoccoli (1978) or The Tree of Wooden Clogs. Amazing film. It's set in a farm in 1898 Italy, with stresses and beauty. The ending is gutting. I look for lists of films: There's a good one of Iranian films recommended, one a year. German film list on Reddit . Best Spanis...

Bill Porter's father robbed a bank and went to jail. When he got out, he sold the family farm and went into hotels and made a killing. Porter lived in luxury until his father divorced his mother. He went into the military and college, and ended up a monk in Taiwan, then a radio interview, travelor, writer and translator.  Inspired by  Yasmin Nair to mention publishers outside the big 5, I'm reading Yellow River Odyssey by Bill Porter, which is published by Chin Music Press  from Seattle. I've read Road To Heaven, South of the Clouds, The Silk Road, Zen Baggage (as Red Pine), and his poetry translations of Cold Mountain, and Stonehouse, and others. He's by far one of my favorite writers that I'm really enjoying. He published many of his works through Copper Canyon Press . What I've liked about his books is that I go online and read more about the things he mentions, and it really enhances my feeling that I'm reading a book, and gaining knowledge about Buddhi...

"...authors are compelled to write in ways that conform to gendered and racialized expectations or the apparently unrelenting public desire for more trauma memoirs. By reinforcing in its content the worst trends in publishing, the Book Review ultimately perpetuates the material inequality so prevalent in the publishing world." Here's what I got when I googled gendered expectations. "girls and women are generally expected to dress in typically feminine ways and be polite, accommodating, and nurturing." from Planned Parenthood . I guess I learned something.  What are radicalized expectations? Subvert the status quo, could be good, could be bad.  "perpetuates the material inequality" um, so whatever the publishing industry does, the books reviews do the same thing because they perpetuate the system.  I probably share the radical left wing hopes she has.  Maybe this is what she wants, got this from her tweet : My review of the review review in Current Affa...

On the Escape of a Dream (from No Voyage  1963) Trees pull up their polished roots and run; Rivers, if they please, pause in their flight. Birds hover and sing in syllables; Lovers and friends, in curious masks, glide over the lawn. The moon and stars wander the sky with the sun. And I am persuaded how all these familiars, that seem In some awful pressure to speak and fear of telling, Have turned earth into the heart’s empirical city, And hide in gallop and gilt the thread of logic Offered in the rapid illogical lectures of dream .. . I remember traveling in a gingham land: I see the dragon in the dragonfly; I open up the wind-wry fruit and find The paper heart of apples. Only the blood Reads it like sediment, can understand. I remember spectrums flooding my blinkered gaze. I dance with creatures wrapped in dominoes, I marvel the high trees in which, unheeded, In anagrams or arabic, the birds Sing on, sing on the chapters of my days. And when the birds splash in their leaves a...

I'd vote for wilted lettuce over the pedophile felon rapist insurrectionist, state secret selling criminal Trump. The history of Lyndon Johnson stepping aside wasn't good. America likes to get to know candidates over time. It takes a while to embody presidentiality to the public. The Vietnam War was a horrible chapter in American history, what the Vietnamese call the American War of Aggression. Circumstances are different. Nixon would actually be considered left wing in our current scale of left and right in this country. That's why when the shit hit the fan, the republicans didn't all line up regardless and prostrate in loyalty, like they do against Trump. The right is infatuated with rule breaking strong men. The felon Trump has gone right past shattering left wing norms into actual grift and crime, that maybe his best skill is evading accountability. His run for president is about avoiding justice.  People worry we're criminalizing politics. Not so. It's acco...