The Alan Sondheim Mail Archive

Proving

http://www.alansondheim.org/proving.jpg
http://www.alansondheim.org/proving.mp3
http://www.alansondheim.org/proving2.mp3
http://www.alansondheim.org/Lombok.png

The qin's difficult; sometimes I have to prove to myself,
after hating what I've done, misshapen, out of tune,
grotesque, but not in a way I want - that I can still
play the instrument, that with the proper concentration,
things will work out, more or less, and this small corner
of the world will feel inhabited once again. Here there
are two qin pieces, one (proving) using hands and arms in
the usual position, but moving quickly through difficult
improvisation, and the other (proving) with cross-arm
movement, playing in reverse in other words. Ah, so here
are two pieces working in my favor. The Lombok image is
a topographic map of the homeland my gambus, perhaps
more on that later.

update - self portrait on the edge

$ grep happy texts/*.txt | wc
      615    7579   52027
$ grep sad texts/*.txt | wc
     1246   13125  100544
$ grep depress texts/*.txt | wc
      907    9390   76103
$ grep life texts/*.txt | wc
     6378   78392  563486
$ grep death texts/*.txt | wc
     7237   81186  588440
$ grep birth texts/*.txt | wc
     1840   14977  133161
$ grep love texts/*.txt | wc
     5311   63614  444504
$ grep hate texts/*.txt | wc
     1981   23835  172829
$ grep peace texts/*.txt | wc
      477    5140   37485
$ grep " war " texts/*.txt | wc
      780    9547   63741
$ grep suicide texts/*.txt | wc
      707    6791   52392
$ grep mother texts/*.txt | wc
     1289   15229  110099
$ grep father texts/*.txt | wc
     1113   12329   88325
$ grep annihilat texts/*.txt | wc
     1149   13133  106133
$ grep tortur texts/*.txt | wc
      546    4574   44096
$ grep hell texts/*.txt | wc
     2105   22525  161341
$ grep heaven texts/*.txt | wc
     1071   10380   74819
$ grep happiness texts/*.txt | wc
      151    1430   11226
$ grep misery texts/*.txt | wc
      325    3155   25080
$ grep anxiety texts/*.txt | wc
      164    1587   14039
$ grep wound texts/*.txt | wc
     3776   40644  311790
$ grep pain texts/*.txt | wc
     2528   29548  216028
$ grep -h sick texts/*.txt | wc
      904   10245   62184
$ grep -h health texts/*.txt | wc
      475    6693   40839

done Sat Oct 18 23:37:47 2014