occasional reflections on culture & politics
There's more to this blog - there's also the web site and the YouTube Channel. My energies lately had to be more focused on finishing some other projects: the recently finished longer poem "Qaddish / Sanctus / Bismillah", a meditation on divinity an increased effort to finish my longer poem "The Garden" (not about gardening,… Continue reading µ#11: More Content on philjohn.com
I've finally finished the first movement of Symphony 5: The Defiant. Demo music is available on Soundcloud. Movements 2-5 will follow throughout 2024, hopefully.
We are living in a world with many dangers, threats and uncertainties. And yet, panic, fear or depression would be the wrong answer. The only thing that really helps anyone is cautious optimism. You may ask, how can you be optimistic? It is a legitimate question. On the surface, I seem to be worried about… Continue reading #202: Fear Not: Why We Need to be Optimistic About the Future
The new YouTube Channel for Erratic Attempts is open. It currently contains some poetry, will in the future also showcase my music (which is already available as audio on Soundcloud) and maybe some videos.
It is finally done: Symphony 4: Elegy, demo music available on Soundcloud.
Music in the long form is seriously undervalued nowadays. Especially classical music - typical, but not exclusive domain of the long form - is distorted in public perception into something that is pleasing, calming, soothing, relaxing, inconsequential. Inoffensive snippets and soundbites of Mozart, Beethoven and Bach (and maybe a few others) are what most people… Continue reading #50: The Value of the Musical Long Form
I have struggled all my life with some form of sense of mortality and the definite sense of an ending. That is, I guess, due to a Catholic upbringing, in which the theme of death is permeating everything, albeit counterpointed with resurrection. I have not always been able to reap the benefit of an unwavering… Continue reading #15: Happiness
Erratic Attempts 