Klarinet Archive - Posting 000231.txt from 2006/03

From: "Rommel John Miller" <rjmiller@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] it's so easy... (something of a manifesto) insp. by Audrey
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 22:48:43 -0500

Isn't it nice when people like Audrey Travis take time to thank others for
their thoughts, prayers and support during a rough and heartbreaking time?

I think we should all be bolstered with the grace and courage Audrey has
shown and bore throughout this ordeal and period of Shiva.

May HaShem bless and keep you Audrey, may HaShem's face shine upon you and
give you peace.

And let us all learn that being kind, nice and caring is what truly matters
in life, somehow I think just through it all we've become jaded and forgot
that treating Others as you, yourself would like to be treated is the
greatest expression of faith in G-D and humanity that each of us knows deep
in our hearts to be more than just Judeo-Christian.

And the whole thing about it is that we know intrinsically that it is true,
don't we?? Treat others as you'd like to be treated and generally you get
treated as you'd like by others.

It doesn't always work, but I'd say 99.9% of the time, treat an-other with
respect, love and dignity, and that other will reciprocate.

I have a lot to learn from someone like Audrey, but I know too that we can
be a little too sarcastic and a little too biting at times, and that is just
poor manners.

Let us learn from Audrey's strength in her loss, that even if you hurt deep
down inside, it never hurts to say a kind word than it is to snap out in
anger. I'm not saying Audrey is or did any of this, it is just that what I
get, derive, and appreciate from her perspecitve in all of this is that we
can all be nicer, kinder, and happier, even in the midst of adversity.

I hope Audrey played a moving lament to memorialize her mother, the
clarinet's sweetest tones are its deepest. I hope Audrey has grown and
maybe we have all grown in some way of helping her or just "watching" her
(to the lurkers) in her pain.

We just need to practice creative non-violence, and that includes in our
speech and writing too. Violence may give life, and the Universe may have
been borne out of Chaos, but we are reasoning rational beings who know what
we say before we write or say it. So let us think about what we write. And
let us be kind as the Clarinet is kind sounding, for we are all in this stew
called life for a reason and purpose. Spread peace, happiness and love
wherever you go and perhaps one by one a new, a truly NOVEL, world order
might come of it.

All we have to do is try, start and change, to really want to make that
change toward the good, which we already intrinisically know.

Romanticism isn't dead, only the hearts that close themselves off to it.

Somehow we've forgotten how to dream, how to hope, how to gaze in wonder at
a thing, at an-Other and see something radically other in that Other.

It's so easy to get lost, but it is so easy too to find your way back, as
the Wizard told the Tinman and Lion, they had it in them all along, and we
do too.

What was so wrong with the idealists of the 50's, 60's and 70's? The one
I've found is that most sold-out and became that which they protested
against.

But we are ARTISTS, shed off the corporate sponsorships, and free your mind
to what the music was meant to be, not provided by a generous support grant
from Exxon/Mobile, but a breathing living thing with a soul that should be
performed and enjoyed for its own sake. And nothing more.

Think of the Sponsorship poor Walt Mozart had to clamour for, the
sponsorship that any great composer or orchestra has to vie for. And then
think of what corporations like Exxon/Mobile, Halliburton, Honeywell, Dell,
Microsoft and even the corporation behind Bono and U2 are all shills to the
real thing that is music.

And it is all about Musicians and their music, nothing more, we are all
artists in the truly bohemian sense.

We fight, we argue, we cajole, we'd like to punch the Other's lights out
sometimes, but we are living breathing Artists not confined to the corporate
lifestyle. And if you are, then divest, no matter how hard it may be,
divest from the evil corporate machines of business, which degrade all ART
by equating it as nothing more than a commodity, a business, and success
based only on door receipts.

Art for the Sake and Love of Art. Treating Others as we would like to be
treated. Gleaning wisdom from the stalwart suffering of an-Other -- THESE
are the THINGS which make us HUMAN AND ALIVE, let us embrace these things,
and live each and every one of our lives to its fullest, and if all that
means is scales and arpeggios, then SCALES and ARPEGGIOS to the ceiling and
until it fills your heart to the point of exploding!

This is my manifesto, and Audrey Travis -- somehow you have been my muse.

Thank you,

Rommel John Miller
(Hebrew name: Raphael Jochanan ben Avraham Miller)
308 Dale Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21206
410-668-4784
410-967-8994 (cell)
rjmiller@-----.net

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend,
inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
---"Groucho" Marx

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