Life, Death and Beer...

In addition to happenings in and about Hayward, I've decided to post some of video. Not necessarily about Hayweird (flicks from Hayward might be coming soon), these are just some of my creations. This first one seems appropriate to a common theme on this site...





This video/poem might need a little explanation. Below you will find the poem and analysis that that I wrote for a "Media and Communications" class I took in Berkeley.

The Players
The 5 elements, the 5 phases in the cycle of Life and Death

The First Element
Where it all begins, the source of life, the blood flowing through every vain.
Brahama, the Creator

The Second Element
The Seed. The Breadfruit. It’s life-force just beginning, essence changing so that it may one day grow tall. Halted in this moment. Dream cut short so that others may live.
Vishnu, the Sustainer of Life.

The Third Element
Just as the second elements life is cut short in the beginning, the fragrant matron’s life is cut short at the end. Before its own seed can come into being. Its essence frozen in this moment, it too has a different purpose.

The Forth Element
The Living, the small lives around which everything else revolves. They live, eat, multiply then die. In the process they change the world around them.

The Fifth Element
The Holy Forge, The Purifier. The end that is the beginning.
Shiva, the Destroyer


The Dance
The Cycle begins as Brahama, Shiva, and Vishnu unite and exercise their power to the 155th degree.

Its hour past, the still born Vishnu is once again transformed. With Brahama and Shiva’s help, its corpse is cast off to reveal a sweet new spirit.

With Brahama holding the spirit of Vishnu, Shiva prepares them by clearing the way for new life.

The third element and its bitter experience of life is welcomed to mix.
Shiva departs with the passing of the feathery flower and the world is calmed.
The great hall, filled with food but empty of others waits for the honored guests.
The hungry hordes arrive, and the door is locked behind them. Reveling in their isolation, they eat and dance until they drop.

Satiated, having eaten all there is to consume and in the process changing the world around them with their waste. The ones that are left are fed one more time so that they may breathe and are then moved to their own private cells. Waiting for the day when a higher being will drink in the results of life and death.
And that, my friend, is the art of making Beer


Analysis
In this presentation the “media” or context of the piece is in the form of a poem, specifically a poem referring to the principles and stages of life, death, and transformation. One of the main analogies I used for this was the Hindu trinity of gods representing the cycle of life - Brahama, the Creator, Vishnu, the Sustainer of Life, and Shiva, the Destroyer.

The “Content” of the piece is the ingredients and process for making all grain beer from scratch. The feeling experience I’m trying to communicate is that this type of beer making is a living process. One in which the brewer, much like and alchemist, is facilitating various transformations in life and death to create a magical new result.

Following is a breakdown of the symbols and references used in the piece.

The five elements refer to the four ingredients of beer making plus Fire, a forgotten but essential element of the beer making process. The First element is Water, the source of life which is attributed to the Hindu deity Brahama. The Second element is Malted Barley, and the lines “life-force just beginning” and “still born” are referring to the malting process where the barley is sprouted slightly to change their chemical structure and then immediately dried. I’ve attributed malt to the deity Vishnu because grains have traditionally been main staples of life and in the case of beer is the main source of food for the yeast. The Third element refers to Hops, which as a flower that is not allowed to go to seed represents an end of the cycle of life. The “bitter experience of life” and “feathery flower” refer to the qualities that hops imparts on the brew. The Fourth element refers to Yeast which ideally is the only thing living in your brew. And the Fifth element refers to fire which is essential to mashing of the malt, the sterilization of the brew and the extraction of the hops.

A line by line translation of the brewing process as follows-
The lines that begin “The Cycle begins as Brahama, Shiva, and Vishnu unite …” refers to the mashing process where the water and malt are heated to 155 degrees for an hour to transform the starches into sugars. The next line that ends “…With Brahama and Shiva’s help, its corpse is cast off to reveal a sweet new spirit” refers to the sparging process where hot water extracts the malt liquid from the grain. “With Brahama holding the spirit of Vishnu, Shiva prepares them by clearing the way for new life” refers to bring the “wort” or brew to a boil to sterilize it and allow for hops extraction (the Third element). “Shiva departs with the passing of the feathery flower and the world is calmed” refers to cooling down the brew to room temperature. The lines “The great hall, filled with food…” and “The hungry hordes arrive….” refer to putting the “wort” into a large sterile container, adding the yeast, and then ceiling it off with an airlock. “Reveling in their isolation, they eat and dance until they drop” – once the yeast starts growing the brew is very alive with the yeast moving and oozing around the large bottle until they die and sink to the bottom. “Satiated, having eaten all there is to consume and in the process changing the world around them with their waste” the yeast eats all the sugars in the brew and leaves CO2 and alcohol behind as its waste. “The ones that are left are fed one more time so that they may breathe and are then moved to their own private cells.” –at the end of the brew you add a little more sugar to the brew before you bottle it so it will carbonate in the bottle.

And of course “Waiting for the day when a higher being will drink in the results of life and death” is opening the bottle and drinking the beer.