immanence

Today’s link dump is devoted to sound, earth, religion, language, and the creativity of friends…

First the sounds. Here’s Science Friday’s Earth Day episode on the origins of music in the Great Animal Orchestra; and what American English sounds like to non-English speakers (hilarious):

which seems loosely related both to recent findings about the origins of language and to this piece of Indo-European music.

Segue via a good review of The Wire editor Rob Young’s excellent Electric Eden (which Andrew at Some Landscapes has also been posting about) to Earth itself:

Follow that with some great articles in Fibreculture’s Unnatural Ecologies issues; Leon’s new book on C. S. Peirce and a Religious Metaphysics of Nature; Antonio at Mediacology on Ecomedia and its corporate appropriation; Werner Herzog on his new film about the Chauvet cave paintings (and see Tim’s other recent posts on… well, everything).

And end with some pieces on Earth Day and religion: from the Wild Hunt, and a couple from A/Theologies, Bron Taylor’s on fears of a pagan socialism (which resonates with my own piece from a couple of revolutions ago), and Jeremy Biles’ on the Scandal of the Cross (the disfiguring of Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ, which seems appropriate to comment on, on an Easter Saturday when the suffering Jesus is resting):

At once pious and blasphemous, abject and elevated, defacing and defaced, transcendent and profane, Serrano’s Piss Christ is a crucifixion that is itself continually resurrected.

Sacrilege to some, reaffirmation of the power of that symbol (and/or of art) to others. A Latourian iconoclash, to say the least.

Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate it. For me, growing up Eastern Rite Christian, Easter Saturday was always an enjoyable, low-key reprieve, full of anticipation, between the intensity (the ritualized solemnity) of Good Friday and the joyous event that was always Easter Sunday. The smattering of middle-of-the-night processions in the East European-heavy west side of Toronto is one thing I miss about it.

What stays with you the longest is the music. (I’ve been looking for digital versions of Ikon Records’ Good Friday Vespers for a long time…)

Thanks to all of the sources for these links, many of whom are either friends or now have become blog-friends…