Saw a terrific movie last week.  It was a documentary that won the Academy Award for best documentary (duh!) in 2013.

It’s About the Music

The movie “Searching for Sugar Man”  is about a folk musician/ singer songwriter named Rodriguez who released two albums in 1970 and 1972.   The story focuses on the fact the albums never sold in North America but were multi-platinum sellers in South Africa.  He was introduced to the South African market during the period of apartheid when the country was isolated under sanctions from the rest of the world.

For me, a bit of an aficionado of music from that time period, what blew me away was the quality of the music.  The lyrics and the melodies were extraordinary not just for one song but for every song on the movie soundtrack.  Why had I not heard this before now?

After watching the movie I acquired the two original albums – “Cold Fact” and “Coming from Reality” and was amazed to find the quality of the songs applied not only to the soundtrack but to every song on the albums.

What was missing?

The major question for me is what happened?  If I had been exposed to these albums on radio, record store or word of mouth I would have snapped them up, along I suspect with millions of others (like happened in South Africa).

I should note that although not  mentioned or explored in the movie Rodriguez albums sold five time platinum in Australia and he toured there in 1979,  The movie focused on the South African story mainly following the search by two South African fans in the early 1990’s for Rodriguez who was working construction in Detroit at the time.

Great movie, great music – recommended.

With the onset of social media sharing pictures of your children as they grow up has never been easier.  Photo’s are great ways to capture a moment in time.  Typically as I grew up photo’s were more a historic record, a way to reminisce fondly on the past or even for others to remember you on death.

Tracking our lives

Today with tools like Facebook, Instagram and myriad of other social media applications we can share our happiness (and sad moments) instantly with thousands, even millions of others.   Photo’s are easy to take and in the digital world relatively disposable.  You can take hundreds of shots, pick the best and delete the others – all just in minutes.  Not so with film cameras.

For me, the biggest impact of this change in the way pictures are both taken and viewed relative to children moving through the various phases of their lives – baby, toddler, adolescent and so on.   My wife and I feel a part of the joy as we see our grandchild grow up in pictures and videos, almost daily.

Of course, being at arms length is great most of the time, but there is no substitution for real face-to-face time and we do have that opportunity as well although far less frequently (phew!).

Spread the News

The ease which you can memorialize an event and share it not only provides the opportunity to share joys and sorrows with others, but it’s a great way to spread the news – marriages, births, deaths.

I am not a huge selfie fan nor addicted to social media (twitter, instagram, facebook) but I certainly recognize the benefits.

As remembrance day approaches I recall the poem I wrote in grade twelve.  It was published in the school newspaper and then again in the school annual for that year.  Remember this was the early seventies when I wrote this (probably still resonates today though)

The Poem

Lucky

Oh aren’t we lucky

Living as we do

Between the second world war to end wars

And the coming third world war

Which will!

Remembrance day is not directly about war, but remembering those who fought in wars .  I cannot argue this is important and worthwhile.  I wonder though why we need to fight wars at all.

Wars are basically people killing people both purposely and as effectively as they can.  Human history is littered with aimless conflicts.  I say aimless because I struggle with associating any real value with war.   Soldiers are a key component of these conflicts, no soldiers, no wars.

Peacekeepers

One key problem is if one side has soldiers who can take control by force and the other side has no protection, they will probably lose all (unless they have Samson to defend them).  So, we need armies and soldiers to keep the peace.   Unfortunately, this practice in itself sustains the ability to wage war.

What if there were no conflicts.  What if life was not only considered sacred but the taking of others life unthinkable/ impossible to do.

This is a utopia and in the words of John Lennon something we can “Imagine”.  If we can imagine it we should be able to make it happen.  Probably much easier to dream than make a reality but not impossible.

Remembrance

So while I honor those who have fought, who have sacrificed much, in defense of a cause.   I wonder though “why can’t we all just be friends”.   This is another reference to a song by the ironically named pop rock group “War”.

My office has an infestation of black flies.  Apparently the fly’s seek warmer environments as the weather gets cold.  This includes things like crevices of trees and other places that will provide some protection from the elements, like our warm leaky building.

Older buildings leak heat and this attracts the flies.  If your building is near open fields or parks where they breed in warmer weather and your building is not well sealed, as could be the case for many buildings on a historic university campus ( lots of open fields and areas fly’s like to breed as well), you could be at risk of an infestation.

What to do?

Apparently one good alternative is to fumigate in the fall (i.e., around now).  This will clear out the place and given there are not many new fly’s hatching outside in this weather, the problem is put off until next fall when the new batch of spring and summer fly’s seek warmth and the cycle starts all over.

Of course, you could upgrade the buildings envelope to improve it’s seal against the outside coming in.  This would be an environmentally sound approach as well reducing the amount of energy required to heat and cool the buildings interior.  Probably more environmentally sound than pesticide as well.

Oh Pesticide

One fine colleague pointed out that there are no known or documented cases of disease transmission by black fly’s while pesticides probably are not good for you.

I guess if you don’t mind having black fly’s wander on your sandwich at lunch time or sit on the rim of your coffee cup they could be tolerated.  I mean you probably won’t get sick, I find it a bit unappetizing though and that cup of coffee, well – down the sink.

So if I weigh pesticides versus tolerating these little black pests I do lean toward pesticide.  My preferred solution though would be better installation of the building.  This would reduce heat leakage which attracts the fly’s as well as reducing their entry points to the building.

At a religious service I attended the other day, I was surprised to hear the word contemplative used used as a noun.  This was new to me,  I had thought this term to be exclusively an adjective.

On checking it out I found several references to use as a noun, referring to someone who has dedicated themselves to religious contemplation ( there seemed to be some correlation with Christianity but this was not absolute) .

So a contemplative (noun) practices a specific type of contemplation (the adjective), that is,  thinking quietly and seriously about religious matters.

Thoughtful, long consideration or observation

Although there are Roman catholic orders specifically made up of contemplatives,  focused on spiritual contemplation related to god, the act of profound thinking about something is in itself contemplative.

Recognizing Spirituality

The service that got me contemplating about contemplatives (noun) was led by a Roman Catholic priest and the his references were made about an individual who did not believe in Catholicism, as an organized religion put a great deal of thought and consideration into religious practices and spirituality.

Religious/ spiritual contemplation, how and what it is turns out to be an enormous topic, with a massive amount of reading material made up of on-line, articles, books, manuscripts and on and on.

Hearing the word used as a noun in reference to a spiritual individual who was a deep thinker (but not part of an organized practice in any way) started my investigation of this topic.

It is quite fascinating and I wanted to share with my readership.  You may be interested in doing some research on your own  – maybe even become a contemplative.