AUGUST 1 - LUGHNASADH

Lughnasadh, (pronounced loo-na'-sa,) is the Celtic harvest festival on August 1st and takes its name from the Irish god Lugh, one of the chief gods of the Tuatha De Danann, giving us Lughnasadh in Ireland, Lunasdál in Scotland, and Laa Luanys in the Isle of Man. In Wales, this time is known simply as Gwl Awst, the August Feast. Lugh dedicated this festival to his foster-mother, Tailtiu, the last queen of the Fir Bolg, who died from exhaustion after clearing a great forest so that the land could be cultivated. When the men of Ireland gathered at her death-bed, she told them to hold funeral games in her honor. As long as they were held, she prophesied Ireland would not be without song.

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Because Lughnasadh is a celebration of the new harvest, people cooked special ritual and festive meals. This is when I fix an authentic garden dinner. All items are from local gardens. (We used to have freshly caught rainbow trout when my Native American neighbor attended. Fishing pole? Please. This Indian used his hands.)

I usually have tomatoes, cucumbers, cole slaw, fresh sweet corn, apple cider in the chalice, fried squash, spring pea salad, new potatos, beans & cornbread, a fruit cobbler, and/or a fruit salad. Whatever is ready to harvest. Once someone voluteered to bring the corn and it turned out to be feed corn -- the tough kind you feed to your cattle and horses. We gnawed on it anyway. Along with the homegrown food, we also have homemade libations which are uncorked, (or unscrewed in the case of the corn liquor,) long before we break cornbread together. It's really a favorite celebration.

I hope you enjoy Lughnasadh, your new harvest.

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Animeditaion - "Metasphere is consciousness of the septenary metaphysics of reality." An interactive site showing how every thread of consciousness will run through every sphere of reality.

via: 60s Beyond

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I have seen my share of modern wars, as a researcher at Human Rights Watch. In Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, we found many civilian casualties due to bombing campaigns. Civilians fleeing attacks were hit by mistake. In Iraq, US bombs often hit civilian homes, hours after Saddam Hussein or members of his inner circle had left, missing their legitimate targets but killing civilians.

In Lebanon it is a very different picture. Time after time, Israel strikes at civilian homes and civilian vehicles attempting to flee the besieged southern border zone, killing families without any military objective in sight.

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"And still, it continues ...": Lebanese bloggers react to massacre at Qana in this collection of posts.

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Although you don't hear much about it here in the US, global protests were held this weekend for Lebanon.

STOP THE BOMBING NOW!

Round up of weekend events for Lebanon
July 28th –July 30th 2006

In the UK - these links are of protests around the globe

1/ Edinburgh: link
2/ Prestwick Airport: link
3/ Leeds: link
4/ Norwich: link
5/ London (Downing Street): link
5a/ London (Trafalgar Square): link
6/ Birmingham: link
7/ Brighton: link

Around the World:

8/ Beirut: link
9/ Pebble Beach, USA (Blair and Murdoch cosy up): link
10/ New York City (Brooklyn): link
11/ Portland, Oregon: link
12/ Perth, Australia: link
13/ Warsaw, Poland: link
14/ Tel Aviv, Israel: link
15/ Ireland: link

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Official site for the movie "The US vs John Lennon."

The US vs John Lennon tells the true story of the US Government's attempts to silence John Lennon, the beloved musician and iconic advocate for peace. Featuring extensive interviews with those who knew him best, this powerful new look at the life and times of John Lennon captures the mystique of the man, the ideals he fought for, and the price he paid for simply trying to make the world a better place.


The Back Story
The Lennon FBI files document an era when rock music seemed to have real political force, when youth culture, for perhaps the first time in American history, was mounting a serious challenge to the status quo in Washington, when President Nixon responded by mobilizing the FBI and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to silence the man from England who was singing "Give Peace a Chance".

Throughout fourteen years of FOIA litigation over the files, which began in 1983, the FBI maintained that its surveillance of Lennon was not an abuse of power but rather a legitimate law enforcement activity.

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Thirst for knowledge gets you high

Neuroscientists have proposed a simple explanation for the pleasure of grasping a new concept: The brain is getting its fix. The "click" of comprehension triggers a biochemical cascade that rewards the brain with a shot of natural opium-like substances, said Irving Biederman of the University of Southern California. He presents his theory in an invited article in the latest issue of American Scientist.

"While you're trying to understand a difficult theorem, it's not fun," said Biederman, professor of neuroscience in the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

"But once you get it, you just feel fabulous."

The brain's craving for a fix motivates humans to maximize the rate at which they absorb knowledge, he said.

"I think we're exquisitely tuned to this as if we're junkies, second by second."

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OK. I'm off to cop me some more knowledge.

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SAY NO TO DRUGS - Or try to say no before you get this far gone.

"They told me, 'You're going to lose your arms if you continue to use drugs, we’re going to have to amputate them', but I just can’t stop." These shocking photos show the terrible toll that heroin addiction has taken on 27-year-old Rachael Keogh.

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Grease up, kids. We're going to a Wankathon, or Masturbate-a-thon. The organiser of the event, the San Francisco-based Centre for Sex and Culture. BBC's Channel 4 is to bring mass public masturbation to the small screen.

In what must surely be one of the summer's more bizarre events, hundreds of people are expected to gather in a hall in central London on August 5 to pleasure themselves in aid of charity.

On your mark-- get set-- start whacking! Am I a prude or is this just a leetle bit bizarre? [via]

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Ambershay on Flickr - Such a beautiful group of photos. Go. Now.

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FROM GAZA WITH LOVE

As a mother, I fear for our children. I can see the effects of the continuous sonic booming and artillery shelling on my daughter. She is 13 years old and she is restless, panicked. She is afraid to go out, yet frustrated because she can't see her friends. When the Israeli planes break the sound barrier, which they do at all times of the day and night, the sound is terrifying. My bed shakes tremendously. My daughter usually jumps into bed with me, shivering with fear. Then both of us end up crouching on the floor. My heart races, yet I need to pacify my daughter, to make her feel safe. Now she knows that we need to pacify each other. She feels my fear. When the bombs sound, I flinch and scream. I can't help myself. I am a doctor, a mature, middle-aged woman. But with the sonic booming, I become hysterical. I am only human after all, and we all have our threshold for fear and pain."

Dr. Mona El-Farra is a physician by training, a human rights and women's rights activist by practice, in the Occupied Gaza Strip, Palestinian Territory. See the Gaza Strip through her eyes.

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I'm certainly not taking sides in any Middle East conflict nor am I skilled enough to debate it. I just find it more interesting to hear a Mother's viewpoint than a newscaster's.

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HAMELL ON TRIAL - Songs For Parents Who Enjoy Drugs

Pursuing an original, unique folk-rock style that positively bristles with punk energy and attitude, singer/songwriter Ed Hamell has what Frank Zappa once called "no commercial potential." A self-proclaimed loudmouth with leftist tendencies, Hamell has never shied away from confrontation, both with himself and the powers that be. Songs For Parents Who Enjoy Drugs, Hamell's sixth studio effort, finds the songwriter's observations as keen and as deadly as ever.

"Inquiring Minds," a conversation between father and son, is spot-on -- funny and smart and all-too-true-to-life for many of us of the "lost generation" between the boomers and Gen X, while "Values" reveals the child's innocent wisdom.

Hamell likes to tease the bear at least once per album and "Coulter's Snatch" takes the fight to the Conservative Right's reigning bottle-blonde pin-up queen. The artist's story-songs are generally populated by the junkies, dealers, whores and petty criminals that exist on the fringes of polite society, and most songs eschew political correctness in favor of sex, drugs or political binges.

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I've not heard of this guy before, but the Coulter song and some others sound intriguing.

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MONDAY | WebTrail - Sicko, Name Game, FreakFest, Awww!

Michael Moore works to complete his upcoming feature film, Sicko. (NOT a movie about George Bush) With 75% of "Sicko" now shot, Moore describes the film as "a comedy about 45 million people with no health care in the richest country on earth." link

What makes some people change their perfectly normal names to something different? I've seen Rheamond for Raymond, Mathieu for Matthew. Steve becomes Stephán, accent on the "phán". Some just flip it from James Miller to Miller James. You want to be someone else, but are afraid to fully commit. Why not go all the way with something a little more creative like Bocephus Bimbledick or Shaneequa Onoshedidnt? Get a legal name change and celebrate the new you.

Arthur Magazine is sponsoring another mondo boffo event this week called Hypnorituals and Mesmemusical Miracles Hanging in the Sky, on July 18-22. It features Devendra Banhart and everyone he knows. Banhart points out some of the impending Hypnoritual Mesmemusical highlights on LA Alternative.

Today's Quote
The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"
--Jack Kerouac

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We Need More Harmony!
WEHT Harmony Korine? He blazed a path in the subterranean world in the mid 90s as a film director and screen writer and everyone wanted to work with him. I'm just a little surprised he's not made more films. He's currently listed as Director of a film called Mister Lonely on IMDB and some of those photos, including one of the great Werner Herzog who's also in the film, can be found here.

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Random Ten Songs on MP3 Player

1. Wings Made Out of Noise - Neon Blonde
2. Everybody Daylight - Brightblack Morning Light
3. Viscera Eyes - The Mars Volta
4. Lantern Marsh - Brian Eno
5. Two Organs - Jim O'Rourke
6. It Took The Night To Believe - Sunn O)))
7. Dead Queen - Espers
8. Something Came Over Me - Throbbing Gristle
9. Cold Criminals - Pink Mountaintops
10. Some Boys - Lydia Lunch & Thurston Moore

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Bush Condoms --For the dumb fucker who doesn't know when to pull out.

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WebTrail | Wednesday - Emma, Boho, Wisebot, NASA, Portls, Retro, Mynci, Dead Lay

Emma Goldman Finishing School? link

The Spirit Of Bohemia - Includes a collection of works pertaining to the other side of literary and artistic life - madness, poverty, altered states, & other experiences. - link

If it wasn't so much damn fun to surf the web, I'd first read Robot Wisdom and call it a day.

Nice that satellite tv stations carry the spacewalks live on NASA TV.

MusicPortl.com is intended to be a place where you can get an overview of information about a music artist.

Plastik Fantastic - Retro art prints. link

Mynci's (Gorky's Zygotic Mynci) Gone To Heaven - link

Is Ken Lay Really Dead? Rushkoff weighs in. Since it's out there, I suppose I have to consider it. Being cremated actually adds to this theory. link

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Bush tried cowboy rhetoric and now there's his newfound diplomacy...

~From Mike Luckovich, Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

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All Roads Lead To Music

At times I may be totally immersed in music which leads to endless reading, researching and downloading. I've been obsessed lately since my last computer died taking my music along with it before I took the time to save it.

My musical mining abates somewhat when I run across an outstanding photograph or piece of artwork and I head off to explore all things beautiful to look at.

Next I might be entertained by the meltdown du jour, starring Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh. I'm distracted by this latest clusterfuck until I discover something good like the leaks from The Mars Volta's August 22 release, Amputechture, which sends me right back into music mode via slsk and bt.

All roads lead to music.

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RAPED: Shocking Eyewitness Testimony Of US Rape, Murder In Iraq

The neighbor of the martyred family told the correspondent for Mafkarat al-Isla the following:

"Then I went into 'Abir’s (she was born in 1991) room. Fire was coming out of her. Her head and her chest were on fire. She had been put in a pitiful position; they had lifted her white gown to her neck and torn her bra. Blood was flowing from between her legs even though she had died a quarter of an hour earlier, and in spite of the intensity of the fire in the room. She had died, may God rest her soul. I knew her from the first instant. I knew she had been raped since she had been turned on her face and the lower part of her body was raised while her hands and feet had been tied."

"By God, I couldn’t control myself and broke into tears over her, but I quickly extinguished the fire burning from her head and chest. The fire had burned up her breasts, the hair on her head, and the flesh on her face. I covered her privates with a piece of cloth, God rest her soul. And at that moment, I thought to myself that if I go out talking and threatening, that they would arrest me, so I took control of myself and resolved to leave the house calmly so that I could be a witness to tell the story of this tragedy."

This brings up so many emotions. Sadness and disgust mainly.

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Soma: An Anarchist Therapy

With difficulty walking, and half-blinded from torture by the Brazilian military dictatorship, 79 year-old Roberto Freire continues to develop somatherapy, completing his life's work. Incorporating the ideas of Wilhelm Reich, the politics of anarchism, and the culture of capoeira angola, Soma is used by therapists organized in anarchist collectives to fight the psychological effects of authoritarianism. Nick Cooper travelled to Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Bahia, and São Paulo to find the exercises, principles, voices, and movement of somatherapy. back story

The Soma Documentary is currently touring the country.

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'Fairy Door' Phenomenon

For many, they are merely a passing flight of fancy, flittering about the childhood imagination and dissolving on impact into skeptical adulthood. Who in their right mind believes in fairies? Well, for fairy researcher Jonathan Wright, a 46-year-old storyteller and illustrator, and fellow residents of the quaint but quirky Michigan town of Ann Arbor (all of whom are in full control of their mental faculties), fairies are as real as the tiny doors that have been mysteriously popping up around town - numbering at least 20 to date.

There is a brief history of how Jonathan became involved with the Urban Fairies. There are links to local publications about the Urban Fairy phenomenon. Jonathan is currently writing several books on the fairies in collaboration with his wife, Kathleen, who coincidentally has found a fairy door in her kindergarten classroom.

Ann Arbor, MI, which happens to be one of the coolest cities on the planet, is not surprisingly home to many of these 'fairy doors'.

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Rickie Lee Jones just returned from her tour through Denmark and Norway. They recorded her show in Copenhagen on June 19th and it is now available on Rickie’s web site on CD and MP3.

This is the first live show that's been released in three years and her website says it's worth the wait and that the Copenhagen show was awesome.



Song list:

1. Weasel and the White Boys Cool
2. Last Chance Texaco
3. A Tree On Alenford
4. The Magazine
5. Night Train
6. Pirates
7. Saturday Afternoons in 1963
8. We Belong Together
9. Living It Up
10. Coolsville
11. Stewart’s Coat

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