saul williams artist's anthem to beings of sound

now this would have been more apropos for halloween, but only just found it, so I guess it kinda works for dia de los muertos tambien

googling for crossroads - hecate being my alter-ego

greek goddess at the
interdimensional nexus of hells, heavens, the eARTh we wander on,
all of This simultaneously once

(once is the double pillars of eleven in spanish too)

although at the end of the world party/movie in NOLA march 29 I played Lilith

you know Saul Williams? hip hop poet, when i grow up i want to be a hip hop poet

i love his artist's anthem, this only a snippet of the whole thing called Coded Language

now this is a man that knows we are each unique frequency signatures expressing the symphony of life itself in all its multidimensional octaves

i think Saul sez Coded Language, he means the whispering la langue des oiseaux

"the language of the birds" - the secret alchemical hieroglyphic language of the troubadours

anyhow here's the part and version i like:

"We claim the present as the pre-sent, as the hereafter.
We are unraveling our navels so that we may ingest the sun.
We are not afraid of the darkness, we trust that the moon shall guide us.
We are determining the future at this very moment.
We now know that the heart is the philosophers' stone
Our music is our alchemy
We stand as the manifested equivalent of 3 buckets of water and a hand full
of minerals, thus realizing that those very buckets turned upside down
supply the percussion factor of forever.
If you must count to keep the beat then count.
Find you mantra and awaken your subconscious.
Curve you circles counterclockwise
Use your cipher to decipher, Coded Language, man made laws.
Climb waterfalls and trees, commune with nature, snakes and bees.
Let your children name themselves and claim themselves as the new day for
today we are determined to be the channelers of these changing frequencies
into songs, paintings, writings, dance, drama, photography, carpentry,
crafts, love -- and love.
We enlist every instrument: Acoustic, electronic.
Every so-called gender, race, and sexual preference.
Every per-son as beings of sound to acknowledge their responsibility to
uplift the consciousness of the entire fucking World.
Any utterance will be un-aimed, will be disclaimed, will be maimed - two rappers slain"

p.s. Experimenting. Find flows for me to write as if I'm jotting an email to you, a singular friend, rather than writing to an amorphous audience.

Bonus: November 1st album released. WTF? $5 is just not enuf. I prefer Radiohead's pay-as-you-wish model. I heard about Saul Williams and Trent Reznor's new collaboration on Twitter first (thanks, @spin). This NYT interview has much to muse on as far as biz models for full-time artists still paying rents and all that jazz:

Saul: From the start, I remember Trent saying, "Let's give it away for free." At first, I was like, "This dude is out of his mind!" But then it really started making sense, and, of course, with Radiohead doing it, we were like, "What the fuck? The idea that we had was great, and we should really follow it through."

Trent: I think it's just an awkward time right now to be a musician. The reality is that people think it's okay to steal music. There's a whole generation of people, that's all they've known. I used to buy vinyl. Today, if you do put out a record on a label, traditionally, most people are going to hear it via a leak that happens two weeks — if not two months — before it comes out. There's no real way around that. I'm truly saddened because I think music has been devalued, so that it's just a file on your computer, and it's usually free. But we can't change that. What we can do is try to offer people the best experience that we can provide them. Will it work? I don't know. But I think it's a great way to get music out to people who are interested. At the end of the day, all I care about is the integrity of the music, and that the feeling of those who experience it is as untainted as possible. I'd rather it not be on an iPod commercial. I'd rather it not be a ringtone that you have to get with a free cell phone or any of that bullshit.

ART Gothic vampire girl via Pan Historia

Comments

[Marilyn]

"...we can't change that. What we can do is try to offer people the best experience..." Amen to that. The music 'business' hits close to home...and I see no point in continuing to funnel anger toward the corporate machine. I loved what Radiohead did...and I commend Saul and Trent for choosing an amount that makes their offering readily accessible to many. I hear you when you say "$5 is not enuf"...yet I wonder if we can all shift our thinking around money and the arts. I have no answers...just lots of questions. The $5 price has me wondering if they're coming from a place of: THEY value their work abundantly, so it almost doesn't matter what dollar value others place on it.

[Princess Haiku]

"Our heart is the philosopher's stone." I like this and it will be my alchemical muse of the day. Interesting post.