Zen: Fiona Apple's journey

Fiona Apple; Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Indy artist Fiona Apple (Lionel Deluy/NPR.org)

 

Fiona has always been a complex artist on a journey of self discovery overcoming ego.

 

Since "Tidal" through "Extraordinary Machine" to her newest "The Idler Wheel," she has sought to differentiate herself from bad relationships and come into her own. The journey has been intense and emotional.  

 

Extraordinary Machine

Meditation is way to consciously evolve.

"I certainly haven't been shopping for any new shoes. And I certainly haven't been spreading myself around. I still only travel by foot, and by foot it's a slow climb. But I'm good at being uncomfortable, so I can't stop changing all the time.

"I notice that my opponent is always on the go and won't go slow so as not to focus, and I notice. He'll hitch a ride with any guide as long as they go fast from whence he came. But he's no good at being uncomfortable, so he can't stop staying exactly the same.
 
"If there were a better way to go then it would find me. I can't help it; the road just rolls out behind me. Be kind to me, or treat me mean. I'll make the most of it. I'm an extraordinary machine

"I seem to you to seek a new disaster every day. You deem me due to clean my view and be at peace and lay. I mean to prove. I mean to move in my own way and say, I've been getting along for long before you came into the play.

"I am the baby of the family, it happens, so everybody cares and wears the sheeps' clothes while they chaperone. Curious, you looking down your nose at me, while you appease courteous to try and help. But let me set your mind at ease. (Chorus)

"Do I so worry you, you need to hurry to my side? It's very kind, but it's to no avail; I don't want the bail. I promise you, everything will be just fine.

"If there were a better way to go then it would find me. I can't help it; the road just rolls out behind me. Be kind to me, or treat me mean, I'll make the most of it. I'm an extraordinary machine."

• VIDEO: "Extraordinary Machine"
• NPR reviews Apple's latest release
• Journey: Three Simple Steps 
• My life as a monk with Fiona Apple
  

  As I was leaving, I noticed that on the woman's side of the monastery was Fiona Apple, who apparently was having a nun experience of her own. Apparently we had meditated 10 feet from each other for the entire time in the main hall, and I had not known. She seemed like a nice girl. I was surprised initially, then I remembered what Nipun told me last time he was here. His roommate had been Rivers Cuomo, the frontman for Weezer. 
• What are meditation retreats for?
  
  (Oprah.com) Some people go on hikes or meditation retreats to gain clarity. I take a slightly less ambitious approach... A few years ago, when I was thinking about getting out of the music business -- touring terrified me, talking to journalists stressed me out, dealing with the demands of my record company was impossible -- I decided to stay with my mother in New York City. I put on a ratty old bathrobe, parked myself in front of the TV, and tried to figure out what to do with my life. During commercials...

Read More

Combating the Surveillance State (audio)

Glenn Greenwald, Esq. (Salon.com), AlternativeRadio.org (Program #GREG002, 2012)

Spying, snooping, prying, eavesdropping, using a mobile cell phone, call it what you want. The government is doing it on a scale never before seen. Massive corporations are doing a lot to help. Meanwhile, the same government and corporations are more secretive and un-transparent than ever.

• PLAY

Sophisticated new technologies allow for more intrusions into our private lives. Beyond omnipresent smart phones and cell towers remotely tracking/geo-locating, recording, and even predicting all activities, there are increasingly more cameras filming, deep data-mining, nano-second biometric identifying on innocent Americans. Nevertheless, drone aircraft are aiming at them from American skies.

 

The invasive monitoring of public space and the simultaneous erosion of our rights has been largely a bi-partisan affair, from Bush/Cheney to Obama/Biden. State surveillance power, undermining basic freedoms in the name of protecting them, is growing relentlessly.

 

The swelling domestic databases of the NSA (the little-known "National Security Administration," an American Gestapo/Stasi) and the FBI may contain our personal information.

  

And this burgeoning Orwellian apparatus has become a cash cow for corporations providing what are called security services. Comedian Stephen Colbert sarcastically observes, "There are bound to be casualties in the never-ending war on terror and one of them just happens to be the U.S. Constitution."

Glenn Greenwald is a lawyer and the author of How Would a Patriot Act? and Great American Hypocrites. He is the recipient of the Izzy Award from the Park Center for Independent Media for his "pathbreaking journalistic courage and persistence in confronting conventional wisdom, official deception, and controversial issues." He also received an Online Journalism Award for Best Commentary for his coverage of U.S. Army Private Bradley Manning. Greenwald is a columnist and blogger at Salon.com and his articles appear in various newspapers and magazines.

Read More

Studies give a deeper view of DNA

Rosie Mestel and Eryn Brown (LATimes.com, Sept. 6, 2012)

Scientists are beginning to analyze the DNA differences between modern humans and our extinct archaic relatives, the Denisovans (NHGRI/latimes.com)

 
In the decade since the human genome was published, scientists have been frustrated by their inability to figure out exactly how variations in genes promote disease. 

But the information assembled by ENCODE research -- which shows that regions of the genome once thought to be junk are actually stuffed with DNA “switches” that help direct genes in their work -- may help change that, scientists involved with the collaboration said Wednesday. 

  

“Now that we have the switches, we can start to understand why a combination of DNA variants might increase the chances of a particular disease -- we can see which switch is malfunctioning and why,” said Harvard Medical School and Broad Institute pathologist Dr. Bradley Bernstein.

  

Past efforts to figure out the puzzle of how DNA in the genome caused disease had focused on hundreds of genome-wide association studies, which screened genomes of people with particular medical conditions to determine DNA variants linked to those diseases, said University of Washington genome scientist Dr. John Stamatoyannopoulos, lead author of a study examining the connection between gene regulation and disease published Wednesday in the journal Science. More

Dance of DNA

A massive examination of the human genome has revealed that our DNA is  jam-packed with “switches” that regulate the actions of genes  -- turning them on, turning them off, et cetera. The volume of information produced from the effort (called ENCODE) was huge...

Read More