Taksim - improvisation : A specific sequence of classical Turkish musical forms become a fasil, a suite an instrumental prelude, an instrumental postlude (saz semaisi), and in between, the main section of vocal compositions which begins with and is punctuated by instrumental improvisations taksim
another article I read last month (when I couldn't post to the site), was the Kevin Kelley article "1,000 True Fans" from his Technium blog.
A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author - in other words, anyone producing works of art - needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.
aliak.com site was hacked on thursday night 06/03/2008 - apparently the whole server was hit so many sites were affected. it was around the time of the terrorist attack of the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem
this is great! I installed this greasemonkey script to import Facebook events into Google Calendar by P. Organisciak, so now it's easier to add events to the site! I'm not using the drupal events module any more as it had a problem creating thousands of repeating events (which should have ended), so I linked one of my google calendars - the aliak.com one - into the site instead. plus this way events are easier to import and people can use it easier with their own google calendar (if they have one). perhaps the drupal module works better now I've upgraded to version 5. but adding manual events is a pain - very time consuming which means I miss a lot of them. the google calendar allows me to add them simply from gmail as the emails arrive and now with a single click from Facebook also! I just add the url and adjust the text as I prefer. cool!
I was checking out the NZ Audio Foundation website again today and came across a link from an email on the AF-l about funding from Damian from Frey. it's an interesting argument. I think Australia is similar to New Zealand in this way, but also at a glance I think New Zealanders have the creative support advantage over the Australians, or so it seemed to me at least, as they have MANY! support organisations helping the artists. will have to do some more research to see if my assumptions are founded.
today I went to the western wall and left a note in the wall with my friend Angus' (RIP) name (this is what the Jewish people do - it's their holiest place being the last remnant of the Temple which was destroyed a couple of times) and then went to the Church of Holy Sepulchre (built over the spot where Jesus died so a holy spot for Christians) and lit some candles for him. and I went to Dome of Rock, one of the holiest places for Islam but because it's friday only Moslems are allowed in so I took a photo at the door. (this is the closest I've been able to get to Dome of the Rock - it's always closed when I go). I recorded video whilst walking but the camera was by my leg so most of it is of my legs walking on the stones, so I've extracted the audio. I felt so bad that I couldn't get home to Brisbane in time for his funeral. I've been thinking about him non-stop so I wanted to remember him and leave something for him in Jerusalem. if there is a God and he is close to this spot then I wanted to make sure he was looking out for Angus. I thought of other people close to me who'd passed away too, and lit candles for them too in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on my next visit. this walk was for Angus.
I always get a bit lost in the Old City. the market lanes and labyrinth starts looking the same and I often can't see above to get a sense of direction. so I tend to always go to the Wall first, then work my way in from there. today was the first time I found the quickest route to the Dome of the Rock - which is quite obvious in hindsight but I've always missed it and walked past. not knowing how to read Arabic has been part of the reason on other visits. the Christian quarter area is less marked too. some of the streets have recognisable names but I seem to miss the signs to the Church. today I was determined though and I had less offers from market stall owners to visit their shops. I went in the afternoon when most would be closing up soon. I was thinking of my friend the whole way, sometimes getting a bit teary.
the sound was recorded on a Nokia N95 8Gb phone - it was recorded along with video and I extracted the audio only later. I've left my mini-disc, microcassete recorder and microphone back home in Australia now so I carry less gadgets. I wondered how much disk space would be used up but it was less than 2Gb and I still have plenty left.
jugglers in jerusalem's ben yehuda mall. my friend darren & late friend angus are both jugglers so I took this to show them. my timing was out a bit as I watched the guys juggle for a while then remembered to start filming.
aliak.com is being upgraded this week. some links won't work until the upgrade is complete as I've disabled some modules. the 'look & feel' of the site is currently using a default template which will also be upgraded. the RSS / XML feeds should still be working. thanks for your patience
status:
11/02/2008 - the site is now running drupal 5.0. tomorrow night I'll upgrade to the most recent drupal 5. some of the modules have been reinstalled but you may see some errors until the upgrade is complete.
19/02/2008 - the site is now running drupal 5.1. only a few patches to go ...
14/03/2008 - the site is now running drupal 5.7
15/03/2008 - the site is now running drupal 6.1
there seems to be an issue with page caching in firefox on windows (to reload the page - press Ctrl -Shift-Delete or Tools menu - clear private data, then reload the page)
IE on windows seems ok
also posting articles from a mac seems broken! :(
it seems to be working now. (mac problem was a problem with my net connection at the flat I was staying at)
it snowed in Jerusalem for a couple of days. the first day many of the roads were closed. the stores close - the city shuts down. my workplace was closed for both days (so a long weekend for some!). the second day by mid morning the sun was out and sky was blue.
some Hakim Bey & related links gathered from the MLA forums
Hakim Bey's website - hosts his articles including the well known Temporary Autonomous Zone. The Ayahuasca Reading is interesting, especially since it sounds like it was written in the late 1940s / 1950s? at least written about events during that period. it was originally appeared in the Psychedelic Review in 1965 and Hakim Bey read a reprint of it from the Psychozoic Press on a New York radio program in 1994. interesting since Ayahuasca has become 'flavour of the year' so to speak, with even hollywood stars heading off to South America to experience it.
dpwolf has finished his thesis - you can download it from his site - it's called Vidgets: The Development and Use of Interactive, Network Based Video Works by David Wolf (dpwolf)
I've downloaded it but haven't finished reading it yet. he makes cool live video performances using isadora and quartz composer and the music is made with controllers and max / msp. I'd been to a workshop of his the previous year and that's how I started trying out isadora. (obviously he's more advanced than me ;)
I noticed page 138 has a photo which looks like a capture from a video I took of his & Somaya's performance at electrofringe 2006. I thought I had a photo but can't find it but I have a video. and the other photographer in the room was on the other side of the room as I recall. small world.
one of the workshops we did at electrofringe 2006 was on max / msp with Bruce Mowson
our group made a simple max patch which rotated through a few video clips we recorded of people who were in the workshop. we had limited time which is why we chose something simple - so we had a chance of completing it! we'd asked them to say something about the electrofringe / this is not art festival. the patch was basically a random video player. we only had an hour to make it. we had to show Bruce the following day. our patch worked and we were one of two groups (well our group + 1 person from another group) who turned up the next day to demonstrate the finished patch
