The 8 pieces of music I have posted above are the eight movements of Messiaen's "Quatuor pour la fin du temps" or the "Quartet for the End of Time" I wanted to talk about this piece for a little because it's very interesting. Messiaen was captured by the German army during world war two, and taken as a prisoner of war to a German WWII camp called Stalag VIII-A. Like any other German WWII camp it was horrific, overcrowded, and unbearable. It was here however that Messiaen composed the quartet for the end of time with tossed pencils on pieces of scrap paper and napkins. Messiaen met clarinetist Henri Akoka as well as violinist Jean le Boulaire and cellist Étienne Pasquier in the camp and ended up composing the piece as a quartet for himself at the piano and the others on their respective instruments. It is interesting that in the midst of a POW camp in WWII when your basic survival necessities (food, water, shelter) are barely being fulfilled that one still wishes to create art. This to me says that art is something that we need on a basic level to survive, we need it just as much as we need water, food, and sleep. We crave creativity like we're hungry. My advice... dig in.
Messiaen said the inspiration for the work was a quote from the book of revelations:
And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire ... and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth .... And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever ... that there should be time no longer: But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished ....
Keep that in mind when you listen to the piece if you choose to.
The Radiohead song titled "2+2=5" raises some interesting topics for discussion out of an Orwell inspired dystopian mindset.
When we pair this with the thought of protesting we must ask ourselves the basic questions...
What are you protesting?... What have you got?
This song raises a suggestion of what can happen when we surrender our reality to another. When we give up hard work and thought for mindless self indulgence, how we can be swayed when we refuse to look at our situation in a cognitive manner. When you yourself become big brother by turning your catharsis into watching tv, using drugs, and even wrapping yourself in leather and having another spank you, with only the safety word dakota to save you.
Why do we choose not to think? The same reason why every person I know "has ADD", because thinking is hard work. It's much easier to pay a ridiculous sum of money to some pharmaceutical company and develop a dependancy on Ritalin (formerly known as Speed), than it is to train your mind to problem solve in real time without a drug. Our government actually supports the slow poisoning of children, that is, inhibiting their potential with this drug. Its the quick "fix", the easy way out. Its the new hip way to cheat in school.
The list goes on and on.
My main point however is not any single whim that people may act on but it is our mindset as a "whimful" (yes its not a real word I know) society. How did we get this way? Why are we this way? Is it intrinsic or instrumental?
Let me take for example our recent infatuation with socialized healthcare (now almost as popular as apple's latest ipod nano). I recognize there are those who actually think that socialized healthcare would work and have had this thought for a long time. While I cannot respect your view I can respect the time you took to think through the long process that led you to recognize "social healthcare" as being beneficial. However we must also look at the vast majority of people better known as "sheeple". Most sheeple have just jumped on the bandwagon giving the subject little cognitive approach, acting out on a whim in an attempt to get a quick "fix" or a short delay problem.
For those who think that government controlled health care will be beneficial I ask you: "do you trust your government with your health?" I certainly do not. I do not trust a government that encourages the use of drugs in school or a government that battles a "war on drugs" that leads to the increased profits of drug kingpins and deaths of innocent people worldwide. a government that forces me to get a very dangerous vaccine for the latest swine flu or avain flu "pandemic" so that pharmaceutical companies, with the government in their pockets, may profit off a synthetic fear they create. I do not support a government that ships young men overseas to fight an old man's war.
So I ask again "Do you trust the government with your health?" The new Socialist fad (I'm speaking only in terms of the latest American trend, I of course recognize that Socialism and its policies have been around for a very long time) of America is only a small text of what our bigger "whimful" ideology represents. If you wish to see a large physical manifestation of this ideology look no further than the source of our currency, the Fed.
Our artificially low interest rates financed by the Fed’s printing money out of thin air overnight unsupervised in turn discourages spending and investment (who wants to save money that loses value every day it’s not spent?) while encouraging borrowing and spending money on whims with no time for well calculated use of our money. How can a country grow when it refuses to save and invest? How long can we expect foreign countries to finance our debt when America, the engine of the world, wants to just run on autopilot.
This whole concept of "let somebody else take care of it" has been around for quite sometime. What we fail to realize by following that ideology is you can't have something out of nothing. Living on falsified interest rates, relying on worthless paper money only lasts just long enough to destroy everybody in the end. Is healthcare a basic human right? Do you have the right to mortgage your sons and daughters futures so that you may have a quick "fix" in the present? What sort of example is that setting for future generations?
On the subject of cake, you cannot eat your neighbor's cake and claim he must pay for it as well.
So before you jump on the recent socialist trend I implore you to think. I implore you to protest. I implore you to question. Are you in favor of socialized medicine because you think it will be beneficial to all people, present and future, or are you just agreeing with a status quo. Its much more easy to hop on the bandwagon than it is to think as an individual.
And Cash for Clunkers... seriously...? If these are the sort of economic solutions that come out of a Government controlled market... I don't think I'll want to put my product out in that market.
-Elliot Downey
(enjoy the video wonderful song by a wonderful band)
21st century music for the most part has been a giant rolling ball of bland poo. The ball has been rolling down the hill for quite some time, picking up I IV and V chords, Hannah Montana Records, and lyrics that inspire the death of inspiration.
Why join the giant rolling ball of bland poo? Its very easy to get in... you just stand there.
It is time to break away from the norm. Protest (if you will) the lack of thought and intuition apparent in music today.
