Place of Refuge

Place of Refuge
Showing posts with label radio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label radio. Show all posts

29 June 2012

Radio Ruminations


Today I found this little blog called
and I must confess, I was quite smitten by it, and
it's not simply because the guy who runs it
is named Phil.

He has a gallery of radios he has restored,
and he gives plenty of information
on how to restore your own.

I wanted to put Phil on my favorite blog list,
and I will, but I thought I'd also call attention to him
with this modest little entry today.



You see,
I have a little radio problem.
I love radios.
Not only do I think they are one of the most efficient ways
to disseminate information, I also have
utopian visions about them.
I'm not the only one -- when radio first appeared,
plenty of people felt it would be the most
democratic of mediums,
and it would unite the world.  
Well, that task would be left for radio's
younger cousin, the internet.

But I also have
great respect for the way their waves
embrace the earth, in something
like a woven electronic basket.


We tend to be afraid of too much 
radio-activity, but
I tend to think radio waves are our friends;
and we just don't understand how fully they can be --


So many of our recent technologies, in fact, 
have involved working with some form of 
radio wave, taming it for our
own selfish ends.

~ ~ ~

I read somewhere just yesterday
that there is a project afoot to protect the earth
from asteroids.  There's this huge telescope looking for them.


bunsenburner (story here about the telescope)

My question is:
what would we do if we actually found an asteroid hurtling towards us?
Is there some way that the earth can duck?

My simplistic theory is:
use the radio waves.  We can use microwaves to cook,
xrays to see into our bodies,
is there any frequency at which we can create
some kind of shield?

Just thinkin'



This is a pretty modest entry,
so pardon me.
My brain is just not functioning
as fluently as I would like it to.
Too much sun will do that to me.
So let me wish you a happy day,
and move on my way --


(greeninnovation)

. . . and another radio thought:


(just found this on Facebook,
at the FB page "Global Awakening"



22 June 2011

The Human Band Width


So,
let's imagine that it's true --
that on 
the planet Earth,
Sun,
Moon
all the other planets
all align
with the center of the Solar System,
and we realize that this actually puts us
into a rather vulnerable position,
especially with regards to
Unpredictable
solar flares.
And our protective
ozone 
has a hole in it.



Listen,
I'm no physicist,
but I have a crazy idea :
let's imagine that,
the ethereal entity that unites
all humans -- the collective
soul, the breath,
the essence of life
 -- is composed
of something akin
to radio waves.

(To understand this, let me ask you this:
is there anyone on the planet -
brother, sister, mother,
grandmother, spouse 
friend
with whom you feel you have
some uncanny bond?
And do you ever have these bizarre
but wonderfully natural
moments when 
you're both thinking of each other
and one calls
the other --
only to find the other was intending
to call?
Or do you know
when something bad
is happening
to your brother
(sister/spouse/grandmother/
best friend)
?

What is it that links you to that person?

Well, I propose
that's caused by a form of
radio wave,
and you and that person 
just happen to be
tuned into the same channel,
so to speak.)

If you'll actually buy into
this bizarre proposal,
we are all,
more or less,
giant radio beacons,
and we are indeed
"in tune"
with a few of our 
closest family members and friends.
At one time, too, we could also
tune into the entire human life-force,
but now, our collective tuning
is way off.

But it is possible to
tune into a larger collective.

Centuries of deception
and discordance
and distrust of the other
has made it nigh impossible
to actually recognize
that humans all share the same band width.

If we cleaned out the receivers
in our hearts,
so to speak,
and if we could
tune everyone
into the same tone,
well, 
we might produce something akin
to a radio blanket

sort of like a shield of tightly woven
energy
that would protect us against
the hot hot waves
of the maddening sun.

And let's pretend for a minute that this
absurd flight of fancy
would actually work
to save the planet and all of humanity.


So this is the deal,
from 
Radio Makropoulos:
at a certain point in the not too distant future
we should all put ourselves
into the zone of
Selfless Love, and 
this would produce the 
necessary frequency
to imitate the 
ozone layer,
and save the Earth
and all its inhabitants.

(Sounds simple, right?
We just have to love each other.
Honestly.)

Of course, Selfless Love is preceded
by Self Love
because one cannot exercise
Selfless Love
of others if
one does not love the Self first.


So,
using my wildly idealistic and irrational premise,
the best way to save the world from final destruction
is this:

Step One:
Love Yourself.

Step One-A:
If you do not love yourself,
if you think your life is worthless,
or anything else like that,
it's time to give that routine up.
Just give it up.
You've been doing this
all of your life, and all it's made you
is miserable.
Instead,
recognize
that you got up this morning,
and somehow got yourself
to a place where you can read
this crazy woman's rambling.
You're able to eat,
communicate,
most likely move around,
and have an opinion.
And therefore,
you have value.
You are an individual worth loving,
and I love and respect you
for getting through this nutty blog entry.
So, there:
start loving yourself.

And
STEP TWO:
get on with the task of selflessly loving 
everyone and everything around you.


And then, well,
our collective love
will create a shield of
protection.


In my idealist blogging past, I declared
a trial run, to begin
11/11/11, at 11:00 am or pm,
in any time zone,
it really doesn't matter.

I keep thinking that would be a good idea.

So read my proposal above,
and my proposal for
and then
do it.

I dare you.


If everyone on this earth
would suddenly decide to 
#1: Love Yourself
#2: Love the World Unselfishly,
well,
there may actually be something like
peace
on earth,
and we might have the side benefit
of actually seeing Jesus
face to face.


All Together Now . . . 

22 January 2011

To The Breaking Point



Like a race car driver, 
like a runner, 
like a swimmer,
like a scholar,
we push
in all our pursuits
to exceed
the human made limits:
the limits of the body --
we strive to exceed the mortal, physical body,
and at the moment of
excess, 
we find freedom
                 and joy,
even a glimmer
                             of immortality.

~
Sex is one way,
one artifical way,
but the most sacred
artificial way
to use a technology
(the technology of our bodies)
to help us
exceed ourselves;
it teaches us how, but it is
only an intermediary.


                          There is 
a route to excess
through the spirit
that is just as
                               excessive
as losing yourself to another person.

It is to loss
of self
to
sound
--not words--
but sound

(Are you willing to give up
your rational mind?
Are you willing to just
scream
or chant?)

Approach the sound
barrier
from the other side,
approach it
delicately
and you will find
the moment of breaking
and release
 into 
joy
.




30 October 2010

Brecht was right, but he had the wrong medium (how could he have known?)


Bertolt Brecht was talking about the internet,
I believe,
when he said:


"It is purely an apparatus for distribution, for mere sharing out. So here is a positive suggestion: change this apparatus over from distribution to communication. The radio would be the finest possible communication apparatus in public life, a vast network of pipes. That is to say, it would be if it knew how to receive as well as to transmit, how to let the listener speak as well as hear, how to bring him into a relationship instead of isolating him."

Bertolt Brecht
"The Radio As An Apparatus For Communication"


I was inspired to post this when I found this
other link on a film about Digital Humanities
(being bemoaned by Hitler! -- sorry, this cannot be embedded, so please follow the link),
thanks to the blog Exploring Our Matrix.

Also with gratitude for the blogger Radio Survivor,
who made it possible for me to find this quote
without having to dig through my books!

09 August 2010

NPR does Semiotics




While I was eating my dinner tonight,
I heard this on the radio --
National Public Radio, to be exact:



I'm kind of sad that I can't make a more illustrated link to this story.
It discusses Evolution
(oh, one of my favorite topics)
and how symbolic language
is one of the key things
that distinguishes us from animals.

I don't agree with everything she says --
she's very beholden to Ferdinand de Saussure
and other standard semiotic theories,
and an entry I want to write this week
(hopefully today or tomorrow)
addresses some of Saussure's concepts
directly.

But I just think it's thrilling that 
they're talking about this stuff
on the radio.


I love the radio.



13 March 2010

Radio Makropoulos, Part I

I have a rather curious relationship with radio.  

For many people today, radio is as old as, well, the hills, but I can tell you that in the larger historical scheme of things, the various technologies that utilize radio frequencies are really very young.  And just think of all of them: we can't unlock our car doors these days without some form of a radio wave.  Microwaves, cellphones, sonar, x-ray, my wireless keyboard - - - so much of what we take for granted today relies on some form of a radio wave.  

It was really a little only over a hundred years ago that geeks - as you would call them today - all over the world were tinkering with tubes and wires, and discovering that it was indeed possible to capture the impulses that surrounded us.  Lots of people like to debate about who developed the first radio; quite frankly, I don't think it really matters.  This internet has helped us to realize that when a concept has reached its day, and is ready to be born, many kindred minds all across the world will think it at roughly the same time.  Of all the nominees to be the inventor of radio, I am quite fond of Nikola Tesla, but for very personal reasons.  I met him once in a bar in Montmartre, somewhere around 1881 or '82, and he and I had an immediate attraction.  Well, I think a lot of women were attracted to him, but for some reason, he chose me.  We didn't talk much, but spent an afternoon together in the innkeeper's bedroom.  It still makes me tingle, thinking about the energy that kept our bodies together for so long.  It was an energy I never wanted to lose, and I cried for a week after he left me.  

That was one of several times I realized that my body is capable of actually conducting something that has come to be known as radio.  And since then, I've thought a lot about what those various frequencies were doing before the human intellect evolved to the point where we could actually coopt them and train them to serve our purposes.  No, those radio waves were not invented when the mechanisms for conducting them were invented; they were around us all along, serving the health of the planet in a number of ways.

I found this guy on YouTube who has built one of Tesla's "spirit machines," and what he does with it can give you a little idea of what Tesla (and other early radio pioneers) was tapping.  I like to believe that Nikola understood better than the others how radio is intimately connected to the realm that some of us may call spiritual:



This is all really kind of wonderful and creepy.  But let me ponder for a little what my thoughts on the real purpose of radio waves is:

You see, I think radio frequencies are about as vital to life on earth as air and water is.

Animals know that.  I think about how my cats interact with each other, and with me.  Especially my deaf cat.  All I have to do is enter a room, and she'll wake up.  This is vibration of course, but what is vibration but a frequency?  Cats are very frequency sensitive, and it seems to me that when they lose their capacity to detect frequencies with their ears, they use other aspects of their body to help them.  They use their senses to conduct the frequencies in other ways.  And don't forget bats, too, who rely solely on frequencies to survive.  Other animals, too, seem to exist at different frequency levels, utilizing them to communicate and sustain themselves.  I've read that sloths might utilize a low-frequency sound to communicate.

So why are humans limited to only detecting frequency with their ears?  I think it's just that our other frequency receptors have been dulled or have remained underdeveloped.



I've had some rather strange, embarrassing, and sometimes dangerous experiences based on my own ability to inadvertantly conduct frequencies through senses other than my ears.  One of the ways this manifests itself is my ability to sense the presence, or approaching presence (like the thunderstorm) of someone I know or have known.  My sensory perception seems to occur on the level of hearing, feeling, smelling, and, well, just a deep hunch that sometimes manifests itself in my head in words.  I think, for instance of a trip I took to Istanbul about four years ago.  I was with a female companion, and trying to avoid an old lover of mine.  I woke up one morning, and I knew that I would see him.  I told my companion, and she just laughed.  

But sure enough, at around 2:00 p.m., as we came out of the MiÅŸir Çarşı (the Spice Market), near the Yeni Camii (the New Mosque), there he was.  I felt him before I saw him, which was good, because I caught him in profile.  He was buying some flowers.  I hurried away before he could turn and see me, but not before I could point him out to my friend. 

Now, they say that as a woman gets older, she may become more psychic.  I think that what it really is is that she becomes more capable of conducting, receiving, and sending, various frequencies emitted by other people, animals, plants, and even spirits.  My own ability to do that has continued to increase over the past 200 years or so.  This experience that I describe above is really minor compared to some others that I've had.  Just read some of my earlier entries on the Grid message, and voices I've heard.  In fact, I've actually tried very hard at various times over the past century, to dull my senses with petty worries and aches and pains, to block the impulses that come through.  More often recently, though, I just can't help it: I'll be relaxing, usually, and then something just comes flooding in.  

I'd even go so far as to say that sometimes I feel like my body is no more than a transmitter.  I've said previously that these bodies we inhabit are like avatars that allow us to function on our lovely planet earth.  And like the avatars from the movie, we should be able to interact with all the sensual experiences that are associated with the planet.  So why not the various frequencies around us?  Indeed, it seems only natural that we should be able to do this, if animals and plants can do it.

What's unnatural, perhaps, is that we don't transmit, despite the fact that our bodies are designed to transmit.  Our cellular radio receivers may even be confused by the system of artificial transmitters and receivers around us.  Dare I say, we are trapped in an artificial grid when in fact there is a natural one, and it is the natural impulses that we call radio?

Oh, I know I'm putting a lot in this entry, but I want to include one other story of something that happened to me, about four years ago, that might help further illustrate my point.  I was in my kitchen, listening to my radio.  My phone was in my pocket.  I was thinking of my friend, S, and washing the dishes.  Suddenly, I heard a phone ringing.  

Strangely, the sound was coming right through my radio!  There, right in with the 6:30 NPR report, was the distinctive sound of someone's phone ringing.

I walked over to turn the radio off, because I figured I would end up overhearing someone else's phone conversation soon, which I did not want to do.  Before I could turn the nob, I heard a pick-up, and my curiousity got the best of me.

I heard my friend S's voice, saying "hello?"  It was coming through my radio.  I listened to hear who was calling her, but no one spoke.  

"Hello, Hello?"  she said.  I had to reply.

"Hello, S, can you hear me?"  I said to my radio.

"Yes, but you sound like you're at the bottom of a well."  

So I told her I was talking to her through my radio, and she just laughed.  Then I asked her why she called me, and she said "I didn't call you; you called me."

But I knew I hadn't.  Furthermore, if I had, I would never have thought I could do it through my radio.  I had indeed been thinking about her, but that was all.

To this day, I have no physical explanation for that odd experience, except that I may have bumped the phone in my pocket.  But at a certain point during the conversation, I took it out and looked at it, and it was not functioning at all.

Now, there had been a terrible storm about a week previous in my city, and it had destroyed many phone and electrical wires.  When I told a few people what had happened, they said they had heard that lots of electronic devices were fried by the storm.  

"The storm jumbled up the frequencies," someone said.  

My question is: did the storm jumble up the frequencies so much that my own mind was able to project its desires on my radio?  

I really don't think I'm special in this regard.  But what I know for certain is that ever since then, I've had a tendency to not be able to keep a wireless telephone for too long.  They all tend to go dead, or start ringing on their own occasionally, calling people I've been thinking of for awhile, and confusing us both when we answer the phone and are uncertain who called whom.

I have no explanation for this.  As I said at the beginning of this, I have a rather curious relationship with radio.