Top Five

Top Five Tenor Saxophonist - in no particular order (I just can bare to number them).
(Basically, the top five "tenor saxophonist that don't play anything that really bothers me right now")

John Coltrane - Mostly later Coltrane. I have to admit...hes just the shit [rhyme]
George Garzone - He is possibly the best "saxophonist" I've heard. Luckily he also plays real music.
Jerry Bergonzi - a.k.a. the jazz mafia (ill explain some other time) a.k.a. the Great White Jazz Musician. To me, he exemplifies educated jazz. He understands every note he plays. Both his greatest asset and his greatest weakness.
Joe Lovan0 - He just plays some beautiful music. Truthfully I wouldn't always put him on this list, but today he gets his place. It's a good day for Joe.
Mark Turner - Basically he just doesn't bother me right now. Besides...I love to listen to him play his harmonic stuff.

I know there are others and I've prolly forgotten someone very obvious. The only dead guy I felt I could put on the list was Trane and only because the music he played yesterday would still be considered original today.

***

I listened to Blue Line (Heartcore). I agree. Why doesn't Kurt blow like that on the rest of the album?

***

I'm still trying to recover from the gig tonight. It would be easier to recover from cancer. It was cancer.

Folk Forms

In my less-perused book of cds i came across Charlie Mingus' Folk Forms. It was given to me by a non-jazz fan, so I had always had the misguided idea that it probably wasn't very hip. I'm kind of a moron sometimes, I guess. Anyway, there is some great Jackie Mclean(i see alot of compositional influence come out on Jackie's Destination Out. He and good ol' Grachan Moncur III were definately brought up with Mingus) and some extremely musical Eric Dolphy on bass clarinet. I actually dig his playing on this a little more than other more stylistically advanced Dolphy i've heard(which i admit is not a real impressive amount). Mingus, of course, sounds stellar. I look forward to spending more time with this record.

New Tradition!! Weekly Top 5's

Top 5 Recordings:
(list subject to change with little or no notice)

1) Keith Jarrett Standards Trio - 1985 Standards Vol. I
2) Bill Frisell - Blues Dream
3) Miles Davis Sextet - Kind of Blue(i'm sorry, i can't help it)
4) Joe Henderson - So Near, So Far(in my opinion Sco's playing on this is the best jazz guitar recorded to date)
5) John Coltrane - 1961 Complete Vanguard Recordings

That's my story and i'm stickin' to it.

Dave Douglas

Last night I listened to Dave Douglas' Soul on Soul.  In his recent releases I have to admit i've been dissapointed.  He is a wonderful trumpet player.  His composing technique is, at times, remarkable.  He has just about the best band you could ask for, not only as a group, but as individual improvisors.  I think Chris Speed (and Potter on Strange Liberation) and Josh Roseman are absolutely top notch on each of their instruments.  And yet, by the overall product, i'm dissapointed.  I rarely feel that i am listening to the music from the inside, but instead feel like i'm sitting outside of the performace passively observing.  This comes mainly from a lack of subtly, and this lack of subtly comes mainly from Douglas' playing.  HE PLAYS TO GODDAM LOUD ALL THE GODDAM TIME!  Even on what I surmised was meant as a ballad he's playing like he wants to rally the quarterback going into the fourth quarter.  This sort of playing seems exhibitionistic to me, and exhibitionism is the usual suspect for leaving the audience on the outside.  On top of his playing, the tunes can feel the same way to me, and he seems to encourage the slightly cringe-worthy side of Uri Caine.
   All this said, I respect him very much and when I saw him a couple months ago, it was powerful just to be in range of his horn.

Arkansas' Best

I went to a jam session at the jazz club in little rock last night and rubbed elbows with Arkansas' elite jazz musicians.  It was a pretty impressive turnout, actually.  Five dollar cover for non-players and the tables were all full.  It looks like every monday they actually have live jazz, and once a month it's an open session.  The first two sets were hideous; lots of bad singers and what not.  The third set finally got going with myself and a few students from UALR.  Quite good players, really.  The house drummer, Dave Rogers, is apparently good friends and used to play alot with Ken Walker(did you know that his sextet is being sent to Australia or something to endorse a new Yamaha stick bass?) and sounds really good.  There were also two very piano players.  One west coast guy who was sure to let me know that he had played with Stan Getz and Richie Cole and had opened for Dave Brubeck and was generally just playing all over the solar system....  Then there was this older guy who was a little less inventive, but a very solid player.  I'm going to play some duo sessions with each one.  Psyched.  After the session, Dave offered me the feature artist gig next monday night playing guitar trio.  Psyched. 

Ya Ya 3

I've finally figured out what I like so much about Joshua Redman's playing on this album: Brian Blade's comping. I had never noticed before, this album may be one of Brian Blade's best. Blade and Yahel (mostly Blade) paste almost all of the ends of Josh's lines and although many of his lines end on one, the effect is still great. Nothing against Josh...he plays great on the entire album (his best in my opinion), but I honestly believe he wouldn't sound as inspired if he was not playing with such a beautiful musician as Brian Blade. Sam Yahel still disapoints me. I wish there was a musician out there with a balance of Sam Yahel and Joey Defrancesco. I've seen a few trio albums with Jerry Bergonzi, Adam Nussbaum, and a B-3 player named Dan Wall. I'd like to hear him. _______________________________

BTW - I'm going to go ahead and register with myself BMI. It seems like it will be easier in the long run to have each person create their own name. It looks pretty easy. If I run into any problems I'll post them here so you don't have to deal with them.

The Big Mystery

I've been thinking about Bob's last email...

" First night is questionable because of tuning. I really don't want to have to use auto tune. If we
have enough from day two we'll be good."

Considering how impossible it really is to have a whole day of bad tuning, I've decided that Bob must have lost the 1st day. The computer probably crashed and day 1 is gone forever. Maybe not, but I would rather think that than believe that he will be throwing out a whole day of music without our giving us a chance to listen to it. ~

Stirling Newberry

The guy over at Symphony-X has some interesting things to say about the development and direction of harmony and how it is percieved.

• Symphony-X

Heartcore

The last couple days I've spent some time with Kurt Rosenwinkel's Heartcore.  I have now realized that I have no choice but to make this statement:  Kurt's solo on 'Blue Line' is the single most important recorded guitar solo of the last five years.  Not only is it a masterpiece of melodic and harmonic control, but it serves as a window into the future of jazz guitar.  That is how many young guitarists will play, guaranteed.  I also found out that Kurt plays all the bass and drums on the record.  Very impressive pocket playing, and only a couple of times(the last track, for example) it becomes clear that the job should have been given to professionals and not been over dubbed.  Kurt also makes some interesting comparisons between the harmony that occurs in hip hop to that of schoenberg. This is an interesting quote from the vervemusicgroup.com page:

It is in this sense that Heartcore draws from hip-hop, where powerful beats are so often deliberately countered by bubbling, mysterious loops and tracks. In fact, says Rosenwinkel, it is in hip-hop that he finds some of the most sophisticated harmonies around. “A lot of the harmonic moments in hip-hop remind me of what I hear in, say, Schoenberg’s music,” he says. “He’ll create a chord that is very much dependent on the dynamics of the performance - the strings are mezzo piano, the oboe is mezzo forte, and the piccolos are piano piano. Together they produce a harmony that might not work in jazz theory, but works perfectly in reality. You hear the same things in a hip-hop mix. It’s all in the ear – something works because it sounds like it works,” he continues. “Those kind of lessons are very important for the jazz musician. It’s a great antidote for the pedagogical, theoretical school of jazz.”

Amen.

Radiohead

I listened to Radiohead's OK Computer last night.  Overall it's a really powerful and intelligent cd.  The composition is very impressive but it tends to lean towards functional minor kind of harmonies and melody.  The singer is more than i expected.  Kind of where female jazz vocals shoud be by now if she had stopped singing about what they can't take away from her....  The guitarist is a master of textures and soundscapes;  I wonder what it would be like if he put out a solo cd and really played alot.  I can't wait to hear more of this band's work now that i'm in a more receptive place for it.

coltrane blindfolded

on downbeat.com they've got a coltrane blindfold test from '59.  kinda cool.

Papa Bill

As I often do when I need to clean a lot of shit out of my ears, I listened to Kind of Blue last night.  In listening to Blue in Green, I decided that Bill Evans is basically the father of contemporary harmony.  It's largely the concept of taking the individual chords and milking them for all they're worth extension- and upper strucure-wise(same thing, really).  Furthermore, I feel like Evans presented the future musicians with two great lessons.  1) How to exploit all the colorful harmonic possibilities of a chord.  2) How to do so in an extremely melodic way, showing that the true reason for harmony is to elevate the meaning of melody.  Every note he plays on Blue in Green is just the melody those chords are singing at the time.  I think that it is the second lesson which finds itself to often lost on the more recent generations, eclipsed by lesson number one.  This is part of what is so drab about Branford's playing; he gets so excited about the chords he's blowing over that he forgets to really play anything exciting.
Cannonball makes me cry.

RH Factor

Ok, RH factor is a pretty good album. I'm really not thrilled with every thing Hargrove plays, but the band is pretty killin'. Track 8 is exceptionally hip. Hargrove plays some suprisingly Randy Breckeresqe material on a few of the tracks, but it doesn't really do a whole lot for me. Sadly, very little of his playing ever does. Check it out. The hip hop stuff is nice and the R&B tunes are really pretty good. I just wish ol' RH would have risen to the occation.

It was a Long Long's Journey

Well, I'm back. Back to the blogging and back from Longs Peak. I left Caleb's house last night at 3am, drove home, ate a few microwaveable burritos, and headed straight for Long's Peak. I reached the trailhead at 5:30 and started to hike. It was a very cold any windy morning and I was could already feel the lack of sleep kicking in. The first mile hurt, but the second and third carried me towards exhaustion. My legs were still torn up from the run to Ft. Collins. By the time I had completed my 3rd mile I wasn't sure if I would be able to get back to my car let alone the Boulder Field or the Summit. All I could do was keep moving, so, in almost zombie like fashion, I made my way forward. My mind was unusually clear. This level of exhaustion had taken me to a place somewhat similar to meditation. This "meditation," though, was different than any other I had experienced previously. I had reached high levels of awareness through activity before, but that was through excellence in the activity. A good race or a hard practice. This place had been reached through tiredness and pain. Steadily, I moved forward. About 3 hours later (I had made it in 2 last year) I reached the Boulder Field. Almost instinctively, I found a small camping area and fell sleep on my backpack. I was cold and there was a lot of wind, but I slept very deeply. Nearly 2 hours later I awoke. The pain and exhaustion had left, but the my mind was still clear. I was still "meditating." Looking towards the keyhole I decided to continue my ascent since 2 hours of sleep seemed like enough =). The sun came out and the wind stopped as I easily crossed the Boulder Field and and stepped through the keyhole. Until this point I had felt comfortable. The skys were blue and the day was beautiful.but as I reached the backside of the mountain, everything changed. Clouds could be seen coming toward the mountain, the wind had started again, and the sun could no longer be seen. It was as though a line had been drawn and on either side stood the opposing faces of nature. One was nurturing and the other deadly. Masculine and Feminine. The experience was shocking. I moved along the back side and experienced the power of nature. The clouds which were once in the distance were now too close for comfort, moving at incredible speeds. The wind which once blew gently now struck viscously. Perhaps the most surprising trait, though, was the ice. This ice was not only remarkably cold but exceptionally slippery. The wind had polished it into almost frightening pockets of danger. I kept pushing forward until the clouds stood almost directly above me. Storms almost religiously blow in at 11 and since I had wasted my best climbing window sleeping I was forced to turn back. As I made my decent the exhaustion began to show up again. Two hours of sleep undoubtably wasn't enough. Eventually I reached my car and made the trip home. I ate and almost immediatley fell asleep. I'm happy to be back.


--------Side note ---------
Between the run to Ft. Collins and the trip up Long's peak, I've traveled close to 25 hard miles in the last 3 days. What the hell is wrong with me?!

Branford

A couple nights ago i put in Branford Marsalis' Requiem.  It had been a while since i listened to any Branford and i remembered Requiem being a refeshingly different recording.  The first couple tunes are pretty good.  Some really interesting, gypsy sounding soprano playing one of them.  The third tune I remember seeing performed on a tv program with his quartet(Joey Calderazzo in place of Kenny Kirkland) and he talked about how the piece was influenced by Keith Jarrett's approach to playing freely with tempo, emulating in some ways the fluidity of classical.  I thought this was vaguely interesting at the time, but now as I return to it I find it is not so much 'influenced' as completely ripped off(go listen to Jarrett's tune, Vapallia).  Not only is it compositionally and concepeptually near identical, they try to add in gospel kind of bluesy licks to immitate Keith's kind of '70s playing.  It's an embarassment, especially considering Kirklands already well developed sense of earthy, Ionian-based playing that he sneaks into many recordings.  It saddens me to see him overreach in such a hopeless way when he had all he needed to make the music his own.  The next tune was an obnoxiously loud funk groove(no, Tain, no!) with branford tastlessly blowing his nuts off.  I took off the cd.
    So last night I figured I'd give ol' Branford a second chance and put on Crazy People Music.  This is some of Branford's most inspired playing, as far as i'm concerned.  This is probably the band high point of their career with Kenny.  Still, I couldn't get through it without a certain level of disapointment.  Branford's playing get's monotonous to me fairly quickly.  The one ballad they play only takes off when Branford takes his horn out of his mouth and Kirkland delivers a little lesson in musicality.  The last tune is a nice straight swinger that stays on a minor the whole time with a nice happy melody.  You can practically hear a big voice talking over the little groove, 'You've been a really terriffic audience.  We had so much fun tonight and I hope...'  Then the unthinkable occurs.  That's right, another shoot-me-in-face-it's-so-goddam-tastless funk groove from Tain with branford actually playing cheesy licks.  I took off the cd.  

Self-Realization and the Art of Listening

One of the great reasons for art's existence is to act as a spiritual mirror for the people of a society.  In every piece of True Art we see a piece, shade, reflection of ourselves.  This is how we tell if an artist is for real or not; and if the artist is not in deep communication with him/herself, this deep, elusive, human truth does not show up in their work.  When this 'honesty essence' isn't present, the consumer isn't moved past purely aesthetic(or perhaps nostalgic) appreciation.  So why so do many pathetic, drooling artistic failures recieve such widespread recongnition when some of the trully genius contributers are virtually unknown and often scoffed at?  Art exists on a higher plane; not only the artist has to find this level of expressive purity, but the consumer also must rise to the level of the art personally.
      High Art is, without fail, created from a space of meditation.  In every note or brush stroke the artist is asking, 'Who am I?' and clearing the channel of the Muse enough to recieve the answer.  This question and answer saturates every facet of their work.  Given this, it is not reasonable to think that the consumer could fully assimilate the work on the normal, scattered conciousness that most people live their lives in.  Approaching High Art from this level of awareness is like standing in front of a mirror with your eyes closed.  You reach your hand out, away from yourself, and feel a smooth hard surface that could be a mirror, but which could also be a window.
    Standing in front of my first original Pollock, I came upon something I soon realized was very important.  I thought, 'If that's Jackson Pollock, then Who Am I?'  And so I began to understand why High Art is High and the level of interaction needed to understand any of it.    
    In meditation, one might ask, 'Who Am I?' and then lunge upward through the forehead in seek of the answer; this happens again and again until they might lunge once more and this time not come down.  Filled with light and disorientation, again the question, 'Who Am I?' but this time the same voice answers, 'Who is this 'I' you speak of?'  At this point the person is merely a place for light, a womb for the Almighty seed, purely receiving.  This is how music must be listened to.  This is how we begin to hear what the great musicians are talking about and why they are great.  The entire body must be transformed into merely a place for sound.

paint

The brand new sounds I remember hearing are painted Orange on my wall

Who carries Masada?

Listening Masada's Live at Tonic, i began to agree that Dave Douglas does constistently out shine John Zorn.  That's his role.  But nevertheless Zorn is definately indespensable.  Even without being the musically outstanding player, I feel like the band still somehow revolves around him.  It's mostly an attitude thing, i think.  Joey Baron, as always, is rediculous.  Anyway, they're a trully killin' band that i really need to see live.
                 
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Strange Phenomena:  I'm in Arkansas with my parents for a while, and today i realized an interesting fact indeed.  When someone speaks to you with a heavy southern accent, it seems rude and snobby not to reply in kind.  ya'll have a good'un naw.
 

Scofield's Lethargy

I sometimes feel like John Scofield is just plain tired.  His recent straight ahead playing has seemed very sedentary a large part of the time.  A break in the chain of this musical apathy is, surprisingly enough, Uberjam.  His playing on this record has the edge and excitement that is very lacking in other recent recordings like OH! and Works For Me(a pretty inspired title right there).  The most frustrating thing about this is that he is without a doubt one, if not the, best jazz guitarist alive.  Metheny is no longer even considered competition in this field(although he has put out some promising acoustic work recently).  Frisell has reached a greater level of personal artistry, but he is so far out of the tradition of what makes a good jazz player it's hard to say he's a more accomplished guitarist.  Kurt Rosenwinkel is fantastic and i think Sco's closest match, but he is so schizophrenic it's hard to say what the hell he's doing right now without seeing him play live recently.  Adam Rogers is a great jazz guitarist but without the depth of Scofield.  I think he rises to challenges(Joe Henderson's So Near, So Far and  A Go Go with MMW) and thrives on challenges and when he's not challenged it comes out clearly in his playing.

Freedom-ish Suite

There are some very basic things i don't understand about the Freedom Suite by Sonny Rollins.  Why did he write such an awful melody for the first movement?  Why do he and Oscar Pettiford feel like the need to end every damn line on the tonic?  Why does Pettiford try so hard not to swing at all on the second movement?  Overall, I would say the first movement sits at about the same failure level as the fusion movement in general.  They're trying to do something they aren't prepared to do.  They're trying to play really hip without trully adopting any of the 'really hip' vocabulary.  Every once in a while Max Roach shows some attitude, but then he'll go back and do the 'swing on the hi-hat' thing that was popularized around 1870 or so and ruin the whole deal.  There are, course, some high points throughout.  Sonny plays some interesting and typically melodic ideas.  Somehow, though, his playing loses impact when you take away one of his biggest weapons: harmony.  Not that it's gone completely, just played very differently.  I want to hear this Sonny and Don Cherry i hear tell of.
     Anyway, that's where i am now with it.  Maybe someday i'll find the answers to my questions(like "No shit the melody sucks, you moron, thats the point."  I guess I just don't get the point). 

Masculine, Feminine

I had my Watsu with Art's wife (Aubrey yesterday. Hard to describe...maybe like meditating with out gravity. Intense shit. During that meditation, images of masuline and feminine began to float through me. Memories of myself and others. I felt truely balanced for the first time. I had an intense moment of clarity in which I saw the 'masculine in feminine' and the 'feminine in masculine.' As we have discussed previously, Masculine is to give and Feminine is to recieve (in the most basic sense). Yin and Yang. I now feel another dimention to that. Masculine is not only to give, but also to take. Feminine is not only to recieve but also to nurture and care for. Aubrey gave me a yo-yo yesterday. I have to go eat. I'll finish this post later.

the past few days of listening

Last night I listened to the John Hollenbeck cd, I,Claudia for the first time all the way through. i would say it is without question one of the most exciting releases of the year and it definately surpasses the first cd compositionally(although i would like to hear a little more Chris Speed blowing on this one). texturally, i believe the band has officially arrived.  Some of it is studio work, but some of the most impressive examples aren't(the transition section on the first tune with just clarinet and accordian dancing around the major 2nd).  Finally, what really killed me was the very end of the last song, moving around the Maj 7 chord in the most ambient way i could imagine, and for minutes on end.  In a high meditation and pity for the ancients and angels, i opened the top of my skull as much as possible so those up in Celestia could hear what i was so blessed with.  i think it worked, but i haven't heard back.
 
Secondly, I spent some time with Dave Douglas' Witness.  It really is an interesting record, but sadly, i wasn't quite up the task that night.  The sixth track is one of the most ambitious improvisation/through-composed pieces of heard, and Chris Speed plays some extremely intelligent and sensitive clarinet.  I dig the avant approach to the record but, like i said, i wasn't in the right place.
 
A good showcase for Peter Bernstein's playing is on his(i think mid 90's) cd, Heart's Content.  The listener is also treated to some great Brad Mehldau outside of his usual BradMold.

On The Turn

The "turn," the moving meditaion done by Mevlevi dervishes, originated with Rumi. The story goes that he was walking in the goldsmithing section of Konya when he heard a beautiful music in their hammering. He began turning in harmony with it, an ecstatic dance of surrender and yet with great centered discipline. He arrived at a place where ego dissolves and a resonance with universal soul comes in.

-Excerpt from 'The Essential Rumi'


You have said what you are.
I am what i am.
Your actions in my head,
my head here in my hands
with something circling inside.
I have no name
for what circles
so perfectly.
-Rumi

No better love than love with no object,
no more satisfying work than work with no purpose.

If you could give up tricks and cleverness,
that would be the cleverest trick!

-Rumi

Mother Russia, John Coltrane

my poor, quavering heart has recently been reassured of the sanctity of struggle, human struggle, by Nikos Kazantzakis. As he diverged from his path up the grassy hill to meet Buddha and arrived in the skin-cracking cold of the breath of Mother Russia and the eye of Father Lenin, i discovered my 1961 complete recordings of John Coltrane. i had only very recently, and only once, risen to these recordings. they were still a mystery to me. as i listened, i realized that what he is talking about is struggle. to some thin ears(like mine, in the past) hear this struggle as the torturings of a novice, a confused student, struggling with music. but at this point Coltrane isn't even talking about music. he speaks of struggle as if he were speaking about balance, he speaks about injustice as if he were speaking about equality. Coltrane is not walking on unbendable grass to find Buddha, he is crushing the gravel of the path under his feet as he slowly ascends with the cross on his shoulders, against his neck.
We are men, and we are women, and so we are inherently unbalanced. everywhere there is too much yin, too much yang. the only hope of the artist is to balance these opposing forces as much as possible. no art is possible with the one and the other. the feminine energy is the driving creative force within us, the womb for expression, and the channel for divine direction. it, perhaps, embodies the Question. the masculine is the discipline of practice, control(quality control), and the sure, unhesitating(don't ask directions, don't go back) footing that is needed for any improvisation. this equilibrium is where Miles playing a ballad and Coltrane playing Chasin' The Trane converge. in Coltrane's playing you can hear the struggle to make these ends meet, and at the apex of the struggle, of effort, we hear effortlessness. He is riding in a flaming chariot across the sky, pulled by two huge mares and in all the twists and turns and ascents the horses make, he is right behind them, slack in the rope, challenging them for more. and so balance occurs; every humble, inquisitory idea is put forth with the force of a gale, uniting the question and the answer into One. this music cannot be listened to by the ears, only the chest and forehead; that is where it comes from.

Qualities of a Musician

On the drive back from boulder today I started wondering what we listen to when we hear a soloist. What makes Mark Turner different from Lee Konitz different from Thelonius Monk different from John Coltrane. I started listing musicians and tried to put each into group with similar musicians. I decided on four basic categories of musical mastery (there are undoubtedly more, but for the sake of argument I've chosen four). All great musicians have hold on at least one. Many have control over a few. Here are the categories and musician who fits mostly in that category:

Melodic - Lee Konitz
Harmonic - Mark Turner
Rhythmic - Thelonious Monk
Spiritual - Late Coltrane

Of course, we tend to listen to musicians who have at least one category "mastered."

Why, then, don't we listen to some one like Mikey Brecker? He is a very powerful melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic player. Tears shit up, you might say. He has a deficiency in the spiritual sense.
If a player is just average in one category but genius in another we are able to overlook their obvious short comings in favor of their brilliance. BUT, a player who has a deficiency in any category (below average) we are unable to overlook their fatal flaw.

Is any category more important than the rest? No! A deficiency in any category is unacceptible. Ned Gould was a very interesting Harmonic and Rythmic player, but melodically he played a whole lot of bullshit. There are examples of artists who have fallen in each category. They are also each prime examples of musicians we do not listen to.

brand new thoughts

well, it's up and going now. that's exciting. i'm excited.
the brand new news of today is i finally recieved Garrison Fewell's new cd Red Door Number 11. Pretty happenin'. he's definately playing an old Gibson-y archtop, but it sounds good. strangely enough, i hear similiar qualities in some of Kurt Rosenwinkel's early tone. his harmonic concept ranges from pretty bop influenced to inposing some pretty interesting 7th chord arpeggios over different changes. something i need to spend more time with. as most things seem to be with Garrison, it was an Italian Job. Attilio Zanchi on bass. very solid tone. everything about him is pretty swingin. Gianni Cazzola on drums. slightly older guy. apparently played with Lady Day back in the 'Day'. The pianist, George Cables, has a raw kind of touch and so blends well with garrison. sometimes something lacking.... A very straight ahead sounding record but with a decent amount of forward thinking in some subtle sort of ways.

Just finished Report To Greco by Nikos Kazantzakis. pure genius. you should read it sometime. started reading a little Rumi. it's nice.