Noli Me Tangere

Wanted: Captions

1)

2)

3)

4)

the lion lamb lives

A year or so ago, as sort of an experiment, I tried to write music for a poem by Chris Robins. Of the dozens that he showed me, the strong, unusual imagery in this one caught my eye. Moved as I was, this setting came very quickly. You can hear the outcome here. An easternish version of this song will appear in the St. Paul's Lessons and Carols Service this year.

Disclaimer: No Auto-Tune was used in the recording of this song.

tune me, baby

Some of you have asked me about the evil genius software Auto-Tune that I mentioned in a previous post. Shortly thereafter NPR did a story on the impact the plugin has had on the music industry. There's even an on-air demonstration, which is amazing, especially before it's over-tuned.

If you're interested, you can hear the story here.

Emarito

Happy birthday, darlin' young one. I pray this year brings more married bliss, heart repair, and feline hijinks.

Thank you for singing with me.

sometimes, i taka too much

I have very gracious counterparts across the Pacific, some of whom happen to be fine photographers as well. I like to think of this as a cautionary coming-of-age saga with a happy ending. It might make you simile.

Read from the bottom up.

not too late, please learn Japansese urgently to read such nice contents in my website! But please feel free to put link there, I would do the same.
No idea how Maki knew that, but guess he has special interests for you and search around the internet.
Honestly, it's very difficult to read your Blog for me as there are some technical term and slang,
so I would not allow you to use any difficult words on there for the future.
I'm just kidding, it's very nice to read yours to study lively English for me.
Enjoy your nice weekend,
Takamiya

-----Original Message-----
From: Abe Okie [mailto:........@jpusa.com]
Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 2:18 AM
To: 高宮 崇

Mr. Takamiya,

Your site is very nicely done. Your pictures are especially nice, but I wish I could read japanese. In fact, if I tried to write to you in Japanese, you would find many hilarious errors.

Could I put a link to your site on mine? I think people would find our exchange interesting.

How did Maki know about my site?

Best Regards,

Abe Okie
Specialty Products Division

-----Original Message-----
From: 高宮 崇 [mailto:...........@kamipa.co.jp]
Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 8:12 PM
To: Abe Okie

Morning my teacher Abe, I'm not a kind of serious Japanese with black edged glasses, now I understood what you meant and also enjoyed it! Maki K. told me that you are running a weblog, so I got into there and said WOW when I found my name on it, and had worried if I made some dirty mistake. By the way, why don't you try to read Japanese this time on my web? I can be your teacher in this occasion. http://www.taka123.com/ Nice weekend C;-)

-----Original Message-----
From: Abe Okie [mailto:........@jpusa.com]
Sent: Friday, October 29, 2004 5:49 AM
To: 高宮 崇

Mr. Takamiya,

I just realized you probably read a weblog that I have posted some things on. Now I am a little embarrassed. I think I shared your letter with some friends and family because you spelled "simile" by accident. This word is a literary device, so it just made for a funny sentence, even though it was only changed by one letter. We all understood what you meant, it was just humorous to consider the literal spelling.

Writing or talking in a 2nd language always produces funny grammar sometimes, so I hope you understand this is not intended to be disrespectful in any way.

You must be very internet-savvy.

Best Regards,

Abe Okie
Specialty Products Division

-----Original Message-----
From: 高宮 崇 [mailto:..........@kamipa.co.jp]
Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2004 7:25 PM

OK, Abesan. I will do so.

PS.
How about the idea of sticky matt coated IJ paper? They just have to prepare some normal board, and put this sticky Inkjet-paper on it. It may be not stand so long, but for the usage of sign for just a few days, it may work. A kind of Post-It from 3M.

PS2.
I'm curious in my wrong part in English... smiling and clapping, not so bad expression, no?

Best Regards,
Takamiya

Hear Me Now

I put a couple new songs up on my download page. For some reason, only one is showing up. While I work on finding the other, you can listen to a reworking of Amazing Grace, which I wrote for the church a while back.

this is what i want to do.

One more shot at Ashlee

This is mean, but it's pretty funny, too.

Thanks to Crabby for the link.

poli-sci

I listened to the "kids" trading election wisdom this morning in music theory. They were, by and large, excited about the process but a little fuzzy on the details. I didn't tell them I probably wouldn't vote, in part because I feel kind of bad about it. This is no kind of example for old people to set for our youth.

George Carlin was on NPR this afternoon, and he said something that I think contained a lot of truth. In explaining his decision not to vote, he said that it doesn't matter who gets elected, the same groups of powerful people will still run the country. Couple this with the fact that I don't really identify with either party, and the fact that Bush will carry Georgia anyway, and you've got a recipe for a pretty thick layer of political apathy.

Most of the people that I know will be voting for Bush. I voted for him last time around and I think he is a good man and a decent leader in some ways. But I've grown concerned about some directions he's taken us. This is why I'm conflicted today:

1) There's a very uncomfortable irony in the fact that the "pro-life" party has killed 100,000 civilians in a war of dubious legitimacy (dubious in terms of consensus at home and abroad). I cannot, in good conscience, throw my support behind this. And maybe the war is, in fact, necessary. I certainly leave that option open since I don't have all the facts. But to sell it incompletely and manage it poorly are failures in their own right, and frankly, Bush's clumsy refusal to admit mistakes is at best, poor leadership. At worst, it's dishonest and immature.

2) I'm open to correction on this, but I tend to think that environmental issues compete with other forces for political concessions. Typically, we think of the environment as a good thing that conflicts with a) money and b) industry; we take care of the environment until it's expensive, or it hampers business. If this is the case, I cannot, for the life of me, understand why the "christian conservative" position seems to favor profit over creation. I'm not advocating nature-worship, but evaluation of priorities. Is the american church not wealthy enough? Is that the problem? I believe the government needs to be vigilant about these matters because I know that the heart of man is short-sighted and selfish, and he will take and take, even to his own detriment.

3) As much as I find comfort in the knowledge that our president subjects himself to a higher power, I'm concerned about the face of christianity the rest of the world sees. I'm concerned that as he is known as an evangelical, he's also thought to be stubborn, arrogant, warring and uncompassionate. Bush seems to me to be well-intentioned, and I believe him to be mostly sincere. But as an ambassador for America, and for Christ, I find him lacking. Being unpopular for your faith is one thing; being unpopular for your leadership is quite another, and I hate that his political positions are taken to be 'christian' positions. This is why mixing religion and politics is a dicey game; it's not so much bad for politics as it is bad for religion, and given a vote between the two I'll take bad politics any day. I almost think a godless Kerry administration would clarify things a bit.

4) Deficit. I'm more Green Spandex than Greenspan, but this just seems bad.

I come down hard on Bush because I feel as though people expect me to vote for him, because I'm middle class, white, christian. He's one of my own, and if he's going to invoke Christ, we need to hold him to a few things.

And so I turn to Kerry, who has done much less to worry a voter, but proportionately less to earn my vote. He strikes me as opportunistic, hopelessly political and generally uninspiring. I also have lower standards for him, since he is less vocal and purposely vague about his 'faith'. In the end, it comes down to this: do I have any real reason to believe that his presidency would be markedly better than Bush's? No, not really.

There is one factor that I think is unique in this election, and that is the likelihood that the next president will appoint several new justices to the supreme court. I tend to lean conservative on judicial matters, and to think that Roe v. Wade came down to a single vote is mind-boggling.

Plus there are other important things to vote on, as Zellyn will probably point out. So at the last minute, after all this political indigestion, I'm beginning to realize I should vote. I'll regret it if I don't. But alas, I cannot find my registration card. And maybe, if I'm the kind of person who is either unwilling or unable to allocate a special 4-yr storage space for my voter registration card, maybe I don't deserve a vote. It's too late for me, but you still have time. Please. Vote for me.