Joe Cocker – With A Little Help From My Friends

Amazing video.  B&W, lots of crazy camera tricks and angles, excellent.

Tom Waits – Eggs and Sausage

A capella in a greasy diner.  Very Tom Waits.

Steely Dan – Deacon Blues

My favorite Steely Dan song, great performance and quality recording.

Sa Re Ga Ma Pa (or SaReGaMaPa, I’ve seen it both ways) seems to be some type of singing competition in India. I’m not entirely sure as I’ve found little information about it. Anyways, YouTube suggested the above video to me, and I was quite impressed. I believe the girl’s name is Smita and from what I could gather she’s somewhere around 12 years old.  The song she covers is from the Bollywood film Hare Rama Hare Krishna, which so far is the only Bollywood film I’ve seen.  The song, which I’ve seen listed both as I Love You and as Hare Rama Hare Krishna is my favorite from the movie, and this little girl does a fantastic job singing it.  I hope she does well in the contest!

Here for comparison is the original:

Classic Ike & Tina Turner.  I love how raw this one is, lots of crazy camera angles, two spotlights, B&W.  This one also appears on the film Sound of the City: London 1964-73 which I previously mentioned.  Love those Ikettes!

Chain saws… you didn’t know an electric chain saw was a small appliance did you?  Well, It’s got chain saws in here, electric ones.

This Ebay seller’s videos on YouTube are really great… I just love listening to him describe the various wares he has for sale as he goes over them in great detail.  He really makes sure you know what you’re buying.  The above video for a small appliance repair manual was my favorite, but he has several others that I loved as well.  Everything from rifle shell pens, motorcycle frames, wire strippers, pen boxes and a pretty dish with lid.  His videos are all very down-to-earth, honest looks at the products he sells, and for me at least they have a certain personal charm to them that I think was more prevalent on Ebay in its earlier days, before all the whole sellers and mega-auctioneers took it over.

This excellent performance by Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen touring band is featured in the concert documentary Sound of the City: London 1964-73 (alternatively titled Rock City in the USA.)  It was recently shown on VH1, and my God, it is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen.  I might be exagerated a bit, but it really is an impressive look at the London music scene is the last 60s/early 70s.  The video is very raw, and that’s exactly what I love about it, it really gives a feeling of being there.  Modern concert videos are so well planned and produced that they end up feeling more like movies than concerts.  Besides Joe Cocker, this movie featues the likes of Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Ike and Tina Turner, Pink Floyd, Rod Stewart, and many others.  I only caught about an hour of the movie, and I can’t wait to see the entire thing.  There are several complete performances, plus a few interviews here and there.  It’s a rare film, hard to find, but The Video Beat has it and  you can order it here.  I did, and I’ll be sure to add what I think about the quality of their DVD transfer here when I do.  For more information, you can check out the NY Times review, but trust me: there’s nothing like actually seeing it for yourself!

“Seeing is not thinking.  The sun rises there… if you think about it, you miss it.  Because while you are thinking about it, you are going away from it.  and in thinking you can move miles away; and thoughts go faster than anything possible.  If you are seeing the sunrise, then one thing has to be certain: that you are not thinking about it.  Only then you can see it.  Thinking becomes a veil on the eyes.  it gives its own color, its own idea to the reality.  It does not allow reality to reach you, it imposes itself upon reality.  It is a deviation from reality.  Hence, no philosopher has ever been able to know the truth.  All philosophers have bee thinking about the truth.  But thinking about the truth is an impossibility.   Either you know it, or you don’t.  If you know it there is no need to think about.  If you don’t, how can you think about it?”

-OSHO

To see things without thinking about them or judging them is a difficult task indeed.  Many find themselves unable to, and many more never even try.  But this is the root of meditation: being in the now, in this moment; taking it in fully without thinking about it.  I myself have what some would call a rather nervous constitution, and it’s because I am constantly thinking about things and making judgments about them.  This is good for me, this is not.  Worse yet is judging that which has yet to come: this may be good for me, but it may not.  To overcome this constant analysis of everything is what has drawn me to meditation.  To just be in reality, and set my thoughts aside.  To just sit, or just walk, or just work.  To just relax!

The last couple posts were pretty heavy, so let’s lighten the mood.  If you’re not familiar with Exotica, it’s the genre of psuedo-tropical music by caucasian American composers popular in the 50’s and 60’s.  Now, I know from that description that it sounds a bit corny, and to some (many?) it probably is.  White Americans making tropical music records featuring cheesecake covers doesn’t exactly sound like “serious” music.  But it doesn’t have to; it’s fun, and that’s what counts.  It is also a very relaxing genre of music, and fits in perfectly with a nice cocktail on a hot day.  The big three artists of the genre are Lex Baxter, Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman.

My first taste of Exotica came from Thievery Corporation’s DJ-Kicks mix album, with the song Tropicando by Les Baxter.  It is a very relaxed song with some fantastic instrumentation from his album Que Mango! My research into this song led me to learn more about Exotica, and I became hooked almost immediately.

So far, the two albums that have really stood out for me are 1970’s Que Mango! by Les Baxter (with 101 Strings), and 1964’s Paradise by Arthur Lyman (re-released on CD with bonus tracks as Pearly Shells.)  I’ve also enjoyed Martin Denny’s 1959 album Quiet Village.

Here are some videos from YouTube for those curious to learn more about Exotica.  Enjoy!

Martin Denny – Quiet Village

Arthur Lyman – Yellow Bird

Waitiki – Adventures in Paradise

Waitiki is a modern-day Exotica band from Boston, MA.

“So here you have an absolute conflict.  Here’s the potential, the possibility, the natural growth of that particular unique individual; and here is how that individual is expected to be, is persuaded to be by parents, teachers, the society; all with the best intentions.  Nevertheless, that inevitably causes conflict.  And all conflict, which is in the mind, is bound to be reflected in conflict in the body, all conflict creates disease; prevents the individual relaxing into their own self which is where true relaxation can happen.

Meditation by contrast allows a gap, allows the individual to get a space from on the one hand all the expectations of people around them, and their inner-self; something which is uniquely them which is the space where they can develop their own potential.  Ultimately, where they can be themselves and inevitably, we’re going to be more healthy; a better sense of well-being.”

-John Andrews, M.D., from the above video

“The body is the servant of the mind.  It obeys the operations of the mind, whether they be deliberately chosen or automatically expressed.  At the bidding of unlawful thoughts the body sinks rapidly into disease and decay; at the command of glad and beautiful thought it becomes clothed with youthfulness and beauty.”

-James Allen, from As A Man Thinketh

“It’s been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.”

-Carl Sagan, from a public lecture given on October 13, 1994 at Cornell University

If you’ve never heard or read Carl Sagan’s reflections on the NASA photograph known as The Pale Blue Dot, you owe it to yourself to do so.  I feel it brings into light our incredible smallness in the vast universe better than anything else I’ve ever heard, read or seen.  When I think of the many horrible things that happen on our small planet everyday, and I think of this photo and Carl Sagan’s words, I just can’t fathom the reasons that so many people have for the horrible things they do.

The quote I included above came from this page, where I originally learned about The Pale Blue Dot.  You can read the entire thing there, which I suggest you do.  Wikipedia has a similar talk given by Mr. Sagan, taken from a different speech in 1996.

Finally, the following video from YouTube features Carl Sagan’s words in his own voice, taken from the audiobook edition of his book, Pale Blue Dot.  I have not read it, but it’s on my list to check out some day.

(via The Consumerist)