Thursday, 29 January 2015

Jason Cherkis: Dying To Be Free

...To enter the drug treatment system, such as it is, requires a leap of faith. The system operates largely unmoved by the findings of medical science. Peer-reviewed data and evidence-based practices do not govern how rehabilitation facilities work. There are very few reassuring medical degrees adorning their walls. Opiates, cocaine and alcohol each affect the brain in different ways, yet drug treatment facilities generally do not distinguish between the addictions. In their one-size-fits-all approach, heroin addicts are treated like any other addicts. And with roughly 90 percent of facilities grounded in the principle of abstinence, that means heroin addicts are systematically denied access to Suboxone and other synthetic opioids.
On average, private residential treatment costs roughly $31,500 for 30 days. Addicts experience a hodgepodge of drill-instructor tough love, and self-help lectures, and dull nights in front of a television. Rules intended to instill discipline govern all aspects of their lives, down to when they can see their loved ones and how their bed must be made every morning. A program can seem both excessively rigid and wildly disorganized.

Heroin Addiction Treatment in America - Willpower Over Chemistry

$1009:75 (Wild Horses)

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Africa Express Presents: Terry Riley's In C Mali (Video)

The video to accompany the latest album from Africa Express - the first African version of Riley’s minimalist classic - recorded in Bamako, Mali in October 2013.
Director Roland Hamilton takes us on a journey through the streets of the Malian capital and into the makeshift studio at local youth club Maison Des Jeunes, offering glimpses of the creative process behind ‘Africa Express Presents… Terry Riley’s In C Mali’ with local and Western musicians plus musical director André de Ridder.

“I am overwhelmed and delighted by this CD. I was not quite prepared for such an incredible journey, hearing the soul of Africa in joyous flight over those 53 patterns of ‘In C’. This ensemble feeds the piece with ancient threads of musical wisdom and humanity indicating to me that this work is a vessel ready to receive and be shaped by the spontaneous feelings and colours of the magician/musician. I could not ask for a greater gift for this daughter’s 50th birthday.”

- Terry Riley

Alou Coulibaly: Calabash
Andi Toma: Additional Percussion, Kalimba
André de Ridder: Violin, Baritone-guitar, Kalimba
Badou Mbaye: Djembe, Percussion
Brian Eno, Bijou, Olugbenga: Vocals
Cheick Diallo: Flutes
Damon Albarn: Melodica
Defily Sako, Modibo Diawara: Kora
Guindo Sala: Imzad
Kalifa Koné, Mémé Koné: Balafon
Nick Zinner, Jeff Wootton: Guitar

Tsiprology

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Alexis Tsipras (1988/9)

The 14 yr old volleyball player who grew up to be Greece's prime minister
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The two thousand tenants formed a virtually homogeneous collection of well-to-do professional people -- lawyers, doctors, tax consultants, senior academics and advertising executives, along with a smaller group of airline pilots, film-industry technicians and trios of air-hostesses sharing apartments...
A new social type was being created by the apartment building, a cool, unemotional personality impervious to the psychological pressures of high-rise life, with minimal needs for privacy, who thrived like an advanced species of machine in the neutral atmosphere. This was the sort of resident who was content to do nothing but sit in his over-priced apartment, watch television with the sound turned down, and wait for his neighbours to make a mistake...
In a sense, these people were the vanguard of a well-to-do and well-educated proletariat of the future, boxed up in these expensive apartments with their elegant furniture and intelligent sensibilities, and no possibility of escape. Royal would have given anything for one vulgar mantelpiece ornament, one less than snow-white lavatory bowl, one hint of hope. Thank God that they were at last breaking out of this fur-lined prison...

JGBallard High-Rise (1975)