April

By Liam Keane | Published: April 30, 2007

I haven’t written anything in a while so I’ll try to sum up this past month as best I can. Back in late March I wrote a paper, which you can read online, about Buddhist themes in pop music. The essay, when printed, is 35 pages long and is likely the most comprehensive look at Buddhist pop music available today. The paper was for a writing class here at UCSB which required a 10 page paper about pop music.

Easter was great. I went to my grandfather’s home in Los Angeles with my mom, dad, and brother. My girlfriend also joined us which was very fun. All sorts of family were in LA and we had a great time looking for hidden eggs and such. Shortly after, my cousin, Kelly, came to take a look at UCSB. I’ve found that it’s easy to try and sell this school as it is in the best location there is, the people are smart and decent, and the overall experience is generally awesome.

A few days after that, my aunt, uncle and I went to see Adyashanti speak in a satsang. That entire weekend was truly wonderful as a time for contemplation and stillness. I don’t really feel like blogging about it but if you see me feel free to ask about it, as I’d be happy to talk about it in person. If you don’t know who Adya is or just to get a feel for what it was about, take a look at the teachings he has online or the book “True Meditation“.

This past month, spring quarter started. I spent quite some time trying to figure out what classes I would take and found it a lot harder this quarter to work a schedule out. As it stands I’m taking “Cultural Anthropology”, “Global Culture and Ethics”, and “The Channel Islands” which are all pretty exciting, particularly the one about the Santa Barbara Channel. I’m also attending a class about Irish literature just for fun.

I’ve also watched a couple of movies and highly recommend “Bobby”. The film is very inspiring and has great characters (RFK is not really a character in the story).

Here at school, we recently had sand castle day. We built an awesome igloo. More details to follow.

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Buddhism in Music

By Liam Keane | Published: March 29, 2007

Information

License: Creative Commons by-nc-sa 3.0
Whitepaper: download as pdf
Published: March 27, 2006

Audio player


This player features 15 of the songs discussed in this paper, appearing here for purposes of education and commentary. They are intended to be used solely for private study, scholarship or research.

Abstract

Music is an extremely powerful force, a force thought by some to be able to strike a chord with the soul. For centuries, music has been a key part of religious experience the world over and feelings towards music are notably similar to ideas of “the holy”. Gerardus van der Leeuw, wrote in his Religion in Essence and Manifestation of 1938, that indeed, “[t]here is hardly any worship without music” (qtd. in Beck, 2006, p. 4). Although some have discussed the relationship of music to Christian religious experience, there is not a great deal of information regarding other religions’ use of music. This examination looks at the use of music in Buddhist religious practice, in particular the music of contemporary artists. It highlights prominent artists and their works and discusses challenges facing Buddhist music of today.

Read More »

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Amhran na bhFiann

By Liam Keane | Published: March 17, 2007

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

I’m extremely busy right now as it’s finals week here at UCSB but of course Saint Patrick’s Day is a good time for a break and a bit of craic.

Recently in my Anthropology class, “Nationalism and Nation-States”, we took a look at some national anthems of European countries. One of the songs we looked at was Ireland’s anthem and so I’ve decided to include it here today for those not otherwise familiar with it. The following is sung by The Wolfe Tones.

Paraphrased from Wikipedia:
Amhrán na bhFiann (“a-rawn nuh veen”) is the national anthem of Ireland. It is usually sung in the Irish language. In 1907, it was written in English (“A Soldier’s Song”) by the Irish rebel Peadar Ó Cearnaígh and the tune was composed by Patrick Heeney. It was published in 1912 and later translated into Irish Gaelic by Bulmer Hobson. In 1926, the chorus from the Irish translation of the song was adopted as the national anthem of the Irish Free State.
Some recent news regarding anthems in Ireland was the dastardly sale of the original copy of the anthem -a state treasure- at private auction as well as the controversial decision to allow England to play God Save the Queen at Croke Park (the site of a 1920 massacre of 14 Irish players and spectators at a Dublin-Tipperary gaelic football match by the Black and Tans).

Anyway, hopefully you have a great Saint Patrick’s Day. Cheers and good health!

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Alternatives to the Santa Barbara News-Press

By Liam Keane | Published: February 28, 2007

This is a follow-up post to my last entry (detailing the launch of News Off The Press). If you are looking for replacements for the Santa Barbara News-Press, here are my suggestions:

When you look at this list, there really isn’t anything that the New-Press is solely providing besides Obituaries. And yes, I did just link to the News-Press.

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News Off The Press

By Liam Keane | Published: February 28, 2007

If you live in Santa Barbara, you may be aware of the current controversy surrounding the Santa Barbara News-Press. Basically, this billionaire, Wendy McCaw, bought the newspaper in 2000. As owner, she felt she should have a say in the paper and be able to control its content. Some journalists who disagreed with her stance resigned in protest in July 2006. Since then the whole thing has turned into a gnarly mess, which other publications have covered like drivers rubber-necking at an accident. Most staff are in favor of starting a union and many have been fired for speaking out in support of one. Bizarre lawsuits and nastygrams have been sent out all over the place from Ampersand (the New-Press parent company) and the whole thing is getting out of hand. If you want to learn more, please see the Wikipedia article on the situation.

Anyway, the journalists have called for supporters to cancel their subscriptions and a large boycott is in effect. The problem is, the News-Press is the only home-delivered daily paper based in Santa Barbara. There are a few freesheets and weekly papers but they don’t present much of an alternative individually. And that what’s about to change. I have started a website, newsoffthepress.com, that collects the most recent headlines and stories from local print publications, television and radio stations, and blogs and presents them in one place.

News Off The Press benefits both readers and publishers alike. Readers are provided with a one-stop resource to find the latest news; publishers can expect to see traffic driven to their sites. Our name comes from the goal of news found without McCaw’s influence (news that is off of the Press) as well as invoking the idea of news “hot off the press”. Living up to our name, freshly published stories are aggregated by software and presented on our homepage as soon as available.

The project is in beta but the site is up and running strong. If you want to learn more about how it works or how to best navigate the site, take a look at the about page. Comments can be sent to contact@newsoffthepress.com if you want. Alright, let’s banish the bias!

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The Treasure Heist

By Liam Keane | Published: February 16, 2007

Here’s a short film (~11min) that I made two years ago with some of my friends. I’m currently testing video uploading for a project I’m working on and so I’m putting this here. (By the way, youare.tv is awesome!) I, myself, do not appear in the film (as I was the camera operator and director) but you can see my friends Kevin McDonald, Taylor Wilkins, and Chris Rickman as they attempt to solve the mystery of a treasure map that one of them finds. If you watch it, don’t bother watching the credits (they’re super long). click below to play

Also note that we were using the in-camera microphone on a prosumer camcorder so the audio is pretty bad. I ripped this from a DVD (.vob), converted to .avi, and converted to .m4v so all the transcoding has likely affected the quality (it’s really hard to see the dark scenes whereas on the DVD it’s not that bad). Another disclaimer, the acting of the school staff is horrible but, as Taylor says, “What can you do?” Anyway, I really do like the story and am proud of what we made. If you’re wondering about the name “Paramont”, we came up with that for our production company during a separate project as a spoof of Paramount Pictures and since the crew was the same, we kept the name. We definitely had a lot of fun making this film which was, of course, the main point.

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twenty

By Liam Keane | Published: January 16, 2007

I was born twenty years ago on this day. An interesting age, being two decades, one-fifth of a century, and deserving of some contemplation. Every year people ask, “do you feel older?” Usually I don’t feel any different than the day before. And while I can’t say that I feel much different than yesterday or last week, oddly I do feel older this time. Last month, I wrote about how I felt I had “matured a great deal” over fall quarter and today I am more aware of that feeling. I certainly don’t feel old just older. I can’t think of much else to share, just this overall observation.

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Who is Liam Keane?

By Liam Keane | Published: December 21, 2006

So, now that you’re at liamkeane.com you might be wondering “who is this?” Well, I’m a nineteen year old Californian. I grew up in the Santa Ynez Valley and I am currently a student at UC Santa Barbara.*

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet”

Keane coat of arms

Yes, I made this! You can use it for free, under a Creative Commons license, if you credit LiamKeane.com

Every once in a while I do a search on Google for the name “Liam Keane”. This site is usually at the top but there are (as of 12/06) 705 results for the exact phrase “liam keane”. A lot of these results are not about me, but about other people who I share my name with. Interestingly, many of the results are about a man, three years older than me, from Limerick, Ireland who was acquitted in a controversial August 2001 trial after being accused of murder. After seeing numerous documents discussing my infamous namesake, I began to wonder how many other namesakes I might have and what they where known for.

So, using Google to perform an exact phrase search as well as other wildcard searches, I found a few additional references to those using this name. It appears there are at least 30 Liam Keanes and these are just the ones referenced on the internet; there are likely many more not online. Here are the results: Read More »

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Hiatus

By Liam Keane | Published: December 20, 2006

Well, where to begin? I have not written here for some time (in fact, my at-least-one-post-a-month format has been broken). This quarter has been extremely busy, hectic, and distracting and I just haven’t felt like journaling. Adjusting back to college life was a bit of a challenge and getting things situated took some time. At this point though, things are going well. Personally, my new roommate is awesome, my girlfriend is a lot of fun, and the rest of my friends are also really cool. Spiritually, I have taken a great interest in the ideas of Quakerism and the philosophy of Thich Nhat Hanh. Comfort-wise, Santa Barbara is a wonderful city and one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Health-wise, I have been feeling kinda sick since July but have recently been giving some medicine that should sort things out (this was one factor that made parts of this quarter hard). I feel like I’ve matured a great deal (but don’t worry, I’m still as immature and silly as ever). I’ve been very fortunate as I’ve had a lot of time to contemplate things and I enjoy continuing looking for who I am or whatever. More stories to follow.

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One year later

By Liam Keane | Published: August 30, 2006

Today marks this site’s first year of operation. A year ago I wrote the first post and I just thought I’d mark the date. I had fun typing up stuff about what I was up to and although updates may have been scarce, I was able to publish at least one entry per month which was pretty cool. Thanks for stopping by and thanks also for the kind comments and feedback. I hope to continue to bore you throughout this upcoming year.

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Summer Half Begun

By Liam Keane | Published: July 31, 2006

Finally updated!
So. I haven’t spent that much time on the computer recently because (1) I’m at home and we only have dial-up (which has recently been unreliable due to some sort of problem with the phone lines) and (2) because the hard drive on my laptop died and so I have to use the family computer which is sometimes in high demand.

I have however been having a great summer. After experiencing Chilla Vista, I was lucky enough to attend another music festival, KCBX’s Live Oak 2006. I’ve taken numerous trips to Los Angeles and have been able to hang out with family. We went and saw Who Killed the Electric Car which was incredibly frustrating (yet hopeful). My aunt and uncle shared a movie with us, called The Secret which provides a very interesting outlook on the power of thoughts. I spent a few days in Santa Barbara with friends, which was a blast.

Added Aug. 12
My friend Kevin was home for a week and we had a lot of fun. We went to A Scanner Darkly, an interesting commentary on drug abuse that uses Rotoscope animation, and to Talladega Nights, Will Ferrell’s awesome spoof of NASCAR. Kevin, his sister, and I also dressed up in outrageous clothes from the 70s and hung out on State Street which was pretty nifty. Kevin and I also drove up to a shooting range and shot his Colt .45, which was an interesting experience. Kevin’s uncle was a Navy SEAL and now Kevin is training to be a real American hero in the Air Force. I feel differently about the use of violence and I am unfamiliar with weapons, particularly handguns. It was fun though. Nothing like the smell of gunpowder and the loud crack of a gunshot to soothe your stomach. We also went to Magic Mountain and Hurricane Harbor. If there is one thing of those I have stated that I would recommend doing, it would be going to Magic Mountain to ride the newest ride, Tatsu. Of the rides at Magic Mountain, Goliath is the most thrilling roller coaster, X is the most disorienting ride and Tatsu is the most fun experience. Basically, “after the rider is in the seat’s safety harness but before the ride starts, the seat is rotated 90° from the upright to a face-down position. The face-down position is kept for the duration of the ride” and this feature allows the ride to simulate flying. It’s crazy because for eons, man has wondered what it must be like to be a bird, Peter Pan, or Superman. And suddenly, you can experience that!

My family went to the Mid-State Fair in Paso Robles and we had a great time. We attended the Charlie Daniels Band concert and they played The Devil Went Down to Georgia which was impressive (although I prefer Tenacious D’s version myself).

Kevin went back to the academy and another friend, Carlyle, returned to the valley. We’ve been hanging out and doing crazy stuff too. Like getting Oreo shakes at Carl’s Jr. for example. Or buying candy at Tom’s Gas. And other really cool stuff.

It may seem like everything’s been above peachy. And it has been. But at the same time, my family’s living situation is somewhat uncertain. The farmhouse we live in is over 100 years old, and while we find it suitable, the owners apparently have decided to destroy it (possibly to open up the property for development, but that’s speculation). So we have to move and don’t know where to go. My parents have been really nice by letting me just enjoy myself while they worry about our future and work hard to figure things out. Anyway, it is an unfortunate situation since we have been living here for twelve years but things could be worse. At least our house has not been bulldozed by Israeli forces or shelled by Hezbollah fighters. Some people are not as lucky. You have to remember to put things in perspective.

So yeah, life is good.

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First Year of College

By Liam Keane | Published: June 21, 2006

I am happy to say I am done with my first year of college. I completed my last final on Friday and am currently enjoying my summer break. My first year was very interesting. It was nothing like I thought it would be but it was a lot like how I hoped it could be. Basically, I was very impressed and it went much better than I expected. A lot of its goodness came from the amazing Cienega House community. Our wonderful RA, Carlos Perez, was seriously the best RA on campus. Everyone in Cienega was really cool and the relaxed atmosphere made for a very comfortable year.

When I started writing this entry, I wrote about the classes I took. It seemed the logical way to sum up my first year in college. But then I realized that’s not what this year was about for me. Sure, Professor Raccuhaus was really cool and I watched some interesting movies in Film 46. In fact, I probably actually learned something this year. And while that’s certainly important, I feel like this year was more about the experience. By experience, I don’t mean the normal stereotypical “college experience”. By experience, I mean adjusting to living away from my family, making new friends, and interacting with a community of 20,000 in class and around campus.

So I started this journal entry over and began making some sort of timeline. I planned to break down the year into events and talk about going home on Halloween, setting up a tree on Christmas, turning nineteen, getting written up by some staff for tossing a chair off a balcony, going to the end of the year dinner, building a sand castle and so forth. But even these stories didn’t really cover what happened this year.

The best way I can explain how I spent my year is quite simple. I spent my time pulling pranks on Carlos, playing Frisbee with Sarah, joking with Andrew, talking politics with Chrissy, getting food with Nico, getting coffee with Elina, listening to Ian, laughing at Katie, fighting Santosh, teasing Maura, hanging out with Randy, smiling at Lauren, chilling with Sasha, flirting with Giuliana, practicing le parkour with Brady, and flying kites with Eva. In short, it was a great way to spend a year.

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Slay the Lizards

By Liam Keane | Published: May 30, 2006

Douglas Adams wrote in his book, So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish, about an ancient democracy where lizards ruled the people. Ford Prefect attempts to explain to Arthur Dent how the people allowed this to happen:

“They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.”

“You mean they actually vote for the lizards?”

“Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course.”

“But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?”

“Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in.”

This is a terribly depressing approach to democracy but it seems to be true. When looking at the top Democratic candidates for Governor I can’t say I’m too excited. Angelides is a developer and based on his campaign funding, I cannot support him. Westly looked like an awesome candidate and I was all fired up to support him. I really admired his pledge to run a clean campaign but then he broke his promise by being the first to run negative ads. I feel betrayed. If you are going to publicly state “I pledge not to be the first candidate in this primary campaign to initiate any paid advertising in this primary campaign that attacks the other candidate by name” and then you go ahead and do so anyway, you lose your supporters’ confidence in you and you lose the public’s trust. Westly’s website no longer links to the pledge he made and he seems to want to pretend he never made such a promise. As such, I can no longer support Westly.

To find out who to support in the primary, I visited VoteCircle.com where I looked at a list of the Democrats running. I visited each one’s website and in the end I believe the choice is clear. I am very happy to endorse Michael Strimling, a true progressive running for Governor of California. Please, don’t vote for a lizard!

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The best classes at UCSB

By Liam Keane | Published: May 27, 2006

As I sign up for next year’s classes, I’ve found some opinions by fellow Gaucho’s to be quite interesting. Take a look at the discussion about UCSB’s best classes.

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Busy Lately

By Liam Keane | Published: May 2, 2006

Sandcastle Day 2006Sandcastle Day 2006, Cienega House team (winner of the “People’s Choice” award)

You have four years to be irresponsible here. Relax. Work is for people with jobs. You’ll never remember class time, but you’ll remember time you wasted hanging out with your friends. So, stay out late. Go out on a Tuesday with your friends when you have a paper due Wednesday… The work never ends, but college does. — Tom Petty on college

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