Science

Joni Mitchell

Chris Jefferies — Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:36:00 GMT

Last night Aurora and I went to see Joni Mitchell. She’s was speaking at the Commonwealth Club a few blocks from where I work. The event was scheduled to coincide with the anniversary of Earth Day. We were surprised to see our friend, Nancy Carroll, atending with a friend of hers.

Instead of being a straight interview, it started out with Joni talking about her world view and how she thinks we, as humans, have gone wrong. At first, she seemed to be a little overwhelmed with the 'big ideas' and with the depth of the subject, but she had some notes to keep her on track and had apparently given considerable thought about what she wanted to say. Her first statement:

“To love nature in this time is to be in terrible pain.“

She described a poignant display of our world condition as seen on the side of the Hard Rock Cafe in Los Angeles where there is a ticker or continuous counter that shows the growing world population juxtaposed with the number of trees being cut down.

She thinks it all went wrong with Plato and western 'logic' or intellect and the focus on western justice which lacks sense. On a poster board, she drew a diagram with a large circle marking North, South, East, and West. These points represented:

North as intellect
South as feeling
East as clarity
West as sense

She thinks that we, in the west, have focused too much on intellect and clarity and have lost our ability to feel and sense. Because we seem to focus too much on intellect and clarity we are, as a result, working with 'half a deck'. What was needed, she said, is a balance and called this balance the “Apple mind“.

She draws her world view from various philosophies including Buddhism, Jungian theory, Nietzsche, and Native American culture.

Her talk was interlaced with anecdotes about her recording career, Larry Klein, and "Iron Eyes" Cody (who is known as the Tear Indian in the famous Earth Day ad from 1971). She was asked to read a letter, purported to be from Chief Seattle, which is included in the liner notes of her most recent album, The Beginning Of Survival.

Some other interesting things we learned about Joni:

She thinks of herself primarily as a painter
She started smoking when she was nine years old and would ride her bicycle out into the country and spend quite time, enjoying nature and her little bag of tobacco.
She was asked who she was interested in musically and she said responded without hesitation, “No one!“
She doesn't listen to music very much and has very esoteric tastes; needs a high level of originality... There was a term she used that I can't recall now. (Update 04.25.2005: Nancy Carroll has reminded me; Joni said she needed a “high degree of divinity and originality“ in the music she listens to.)

Some other interesting links:

Interview by Elvis Costello from the November 2005 Vanity Fair magazine:
http://www.jmdl.com/library/print.cfm?id=1182

Discussion, from ’97 about one of my favorite songs, Sweet Bird:
http://www.jmdl.com/th-sweetbird.cfm

They recorded the talk and I think you might be able to catch it at this location:
http://www.commonwealthclub.org/broadcast/index.html

Eye of Science

Chris Jefferies — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 18:09:00 GMT

Here's a great site found by my friend Brooks Harris. It's called the Eye of Science and it features microscopic photography.

http://www.eyeofscience.de/eos2/index2.html

Here's a gallery site that hosts many of the Eye of Science images: http://db2.photoresearchers.com/cgi-bin/query.cgi?&api=MEC001

Mr Science takes a bag for a test drive...

Chris Jefferies — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 22:47:00 GMT

Check out our buddy, Jim Flowers, in a new commercial for golf bags. It's very cool.

http://www.jumano.com/uploads/cargo_agency_final.mov

Have a happy day of superstition...

Chris Jefferies — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 02:40:00 GMT

You do the math...

Chris Jefferies — Fri, 10 Sep 2004 00:09:00 GMT

Peckinpah Observatory

Chris Jefferies — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 00:21:00 GMT

I put up a new web site on the Jumano server this weekend for the Peckinpah Observatory. Let me know what you think.

http://www.jumano.com/astro/

One, two, ... er, too many

Chris Jefferies — Sun, 22 Aug 2004 01:02:00 GMT

People who have no words for number find it difficult to count... who would've guessed.

Read this article about the Piraha of the Amazon from the Guardian Unlimited:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4997705-103681,00.html

I got this from Creative Chaos - Dina Mehta's Blog at:
http://radio.weblogs.com/0121664/2004/07/07.html#a459

Look deeply into my blog...

Chris Jefferies — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 19:08:00 GMT

No, do not look away. Look deeply, calmly, willingly into the darkest depths of my blog...

See more cool optical illusions here: http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/saishin2e.html

Jumano Forums

Chris Jefferies — Fri, 16 Jul 2004 14:30:00 GMT

I've set up a web forum for discussion threads at: http://www.jumano.com/Forums

Please visit the forums and start up or join a discussion.

Srimp Cocktails in the Sierra?

Chris Jefferies — Fri, 25 Jun 2004 15:27:00 GMT

Freshwater Shrimp Found At Record Elevation in Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite.

http://www.yosemite.org/newsroom/clips2004/june/061704.htm