Archive for April, 2008

Calmness

Today I feel like writing about calmness. A rare gift often confused with “having” or the aftermath of reaching a goal. There are a lot of meanings for this particular feeling, but my personal vision about it is more about considering it a priviledge and a scarce resource. It´s quite difficult to define calmness with words, or try to create a “one-size-fits-all” explanation for such an elusive idea, so strange and so beautiful at the same time.

Nevertheless, I can tell about some things that bring calmness into my life: doing something for pleasure: no clock, no rush, no rules. Pure enjoyment, a relaxed stroll with no particular destination, looking around with beginner eyes, reading a good book, letting ourselves into the story the author wanted to tell, listening to good music (whatever is your definition of it), meditate, sharing time with your loved ones, sleeping with no alarm clocks in sight, eating good home-made food…

I could go on forever but instead, I invite you all to join me for a stroll in one of my favorite spots. A place that, despite being near my house, always surprises and reminds me gently that civilization and technology are not the most important things in life. The old man that walks in front of me for some time remembered me about one episode of “The Walking Man”, my favorite book from Jiro Taniguchi.

NPW5

NPW5 Rainbow

Some weeks ago, I added a new power kite to my collection. This time I chose a 3.2 sq. mts HQ Invento NPW5. I´ve always wondered about how a kite will behave without having “wind slots”, like the regular power kites I´ve flown before, and searching for a while, I found a real bargain on eBay. Some time ago, I had the chance to briefly test it, thanks to a fellow kiter that lent me a home-made one.

Read the rest of this entry »

Direct Note Access

In this video, we take a sneak peek at a new breakthrough technology that will allow musicians to manipulate individual notes inside chords recorded in real time! It will be available as a plugin on autumn, 2008, through its creators.

“Spare” Time

Since I came back from Granada (Journey chronicle is on the way, I promise), I´ve been quite busy with small errands that have consumed a lot of time. So, I had to break the chain, a shame, since I love writing. But I realized that the “spare time belief” is simply a fallacy. There´s no such thing. Considering an unemployed person as idle or with a lot of free time is completely false. In these weeks I have discovered something I call the “Compulsive Time Occupation Syndrome”, that means that the Spare Time concept doesn´t exist.

Read the rest of this entry »

One-of-a-kind drummer