Today is the 90th birthday of Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama . To celebrate this I am republishing, without further editing, the 2014 photo essay about my close encounter with His Holiness at the Kalachakra Initiation in Ladakh, northern India. The Paradox of Our Age , a short but powerful essay credited to the present Dalai Lama, is widely available in Ladakh in northern India, a region known as 'Little Tibet'. The text ends with the observation that: 'These are times of fast foods but slow digestion/Tall men but short characters/Steep profits but shallow relationships/It’s a time when there is much in the window but nothing in the room'. Tibetan Buddhism is widely viewed as an appealing alternative to materialistic Western society, so, not surprisingly, The Paradox of Our Age is widely circulated on the internet and Twitter - see photo tweet below . I bought The Paradox of Our Age on an exquisitely printed little scroll in the Tibetan refugee market in the re...
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I wonder if you are familiar with MacDonald's theory of "midcult." I question the idea that all music is or should be made accessible to everyone. At the risk of repeating Babbitt's "Who Cares if You Listen?" mistake, I rather feel that certain music can only be appreciated by those who put in the effort to do so with their full attention. Yes, future generations might be more visually attuned than aurally, but that does not mean we should give up on helping them to cultivate their ears and practice listening; the brain is amazingly plastic, after all.
I can name plenty of songs that, while musically perhaps not so exciting, became popular because of an entertaining dance or video attached to them. I don't look forward to the day when a composer's success is measured by how much they can spend hiring artists and CGI editors to mask their mediocre music.