hangforum.com - The Archive

Aaron writes:

When "Hang" means fist

In response to Frank S's disinformation:


Given how much Frank and I have disagreed in the past,

and how much personal animosity he has accumulated from handpans lovers generally,

it is no surprise that he would, from the safety of his closed guarded forum,

attempt to derail a legitimate conversation here,

and confuse the growing deep concern about the consequences of PANArt's broad (and generally utterly illegitimate) assault on handpan makers of all kinds (professional and amateur alike).


Nor is it a surprise that his strategy would be to personal slander against me, as someone who long publicly opposed his repetitive, baseless, ad hominum attacks on Kyle, the Halo, and other makers;


And it is least surprising of all, that he would clumsily attempt to pin the coming destruction of PANArt's public image, on me.

Laughable.

Sad, also.

Repugnant, without a doubt.

But perhaps inevitable, as PANArt -- in this case through Frank as their proxy, instructed or not -- makes a belated and crude attempt at damage control, as their actions come to light.

In a small way, Frank's panicked assault actually gives me hope -- for it publicly demonstrates that PANArt's posture of being 'above it all,' which was already deeply undermined by public disclosure of the wholesale spying taking place here on their behalf, is in fact an illusion. (Remember: in bitter personal messages, Felix quotes forum members' postings here -- and he makes threats based on what he learns.)

Yes -- apparently PANArt apparently does care what we say here, and why.

And well they should.

Their reputation and memory is in our hands and hearts. And that gives us the only power we have to confront their mistakes and worse.

That they care suggests that if they will not back down from their assault on the flourishing handpan -- they at least they will hear us, when we collectively say:

enough is enough, and,
you are doing harm, and,
regardless of your 'rights,' what you are doing is wrong, and,
I cannot respect you or support you any longer.

Someday, I still hope, when enough voices are raised, they will have to truly listen -- and perhaps that will be enough to make them pause, and reconsider, and take a better path.


A word on why I care:

As has always been the case -- c.f. the well-archived public record -- Frank himself is apparently incapable of conceiving why someone would support handpans and their makers, or oppose PANArt's current behavior, except if motivated by personal gain.

He does not seem to have ever absorbed that I have a full time job and a family I support through it -- and that I assist Pantheon Steel in the margins of my life out of commitment to Kyle's groundbreaking vision.

Nor that the prime motivator for many of the makers currently under attack by PANArt is something beyond money: a genuine calling to develop and play instruments -- not to 'profiteer' off them.

That they must be sold, and the makers and their families live from their work, is a function of our civilization and its economics.

Frank is also apparently unable to distinguish between the infrequent posts I make here, in the service of publicizing information from Pantheon Steel, and supporting customers...

...from my first and primary purpose and voice here, as a player, and advocate for and supporter of handpans generally -- and, still, for now at least, of the Hang (of which I own two, and which I played before there was ever a handpan in the world...).


Let there be zero confusion.

I write here from personal conviction, with my own voice.

I fight on my own time for the survival of the handpan -- any and all handpans, the nascent or poorly made as well as the sublime.

And I do it out of love for the instrument.


As I have written in recent days, in private correspondence attempting to head off this conflict, I feel a personal responsibility and calling of my own: to do what is necessary to protect the growth of the ecosystem of handpans.

I love that ecosystem, in which there already has been, and should be much more, flowering of creativity and music -- and the satisfaction, when PANArt turned inward, of many of the things they themselves taught people to deeply desire, yet no longer have any interest in.

Someone after all must stand up. And so I do -- not for Pantheon Steel -- though I love the Halo and will fight for it also -- but for the garden, for the handpan ecosystem, as a whole.

If no one calls for its defense, if no one COMES to its defense, each person player and project under threat will suffer alone -- and, wearied, afraid, may perhaps bow to toothless threats.

And the world will lose another, different, voice.


Not one voice should be silenced!

All details aside, no matter what irritation or hurt PANArt feels that their much-perfected path was not exactly followed, there is not one hundredth the number of handpans or Hanghang in this world that are needed, even for the small number of people who know of them.

There are not one tenth the number of tuners and makers needed to care for and preserve what already exits -- including the Hanghang PANArt will no longer tune themselves.

Yet the attacks underway, should they go forward and succeed, will destroy much of the little we already have.


I believe that when players and makers stand together, and support one another, the garden must survive.


But something must be done.

The garden IS under broad attack.

Now.


Frank must either not have access to, or perhaps simply does not care for, the facts of what PANArt is currently doing, to whom -- and what the consequences already are, and will be.

There are not a "few" cases -- that I promise you. That is blatant disinformation.

Hopefully they will all come to light -- the sooner, the better.


Frank may well know, but do you know why the variety of threats are not public already? Have not over many months been made public as they arrive?

Because many makers need (and may not have) time and money to pay professionals to learn what rights they have -- including whether it is even prejudicial to their defense to let it be known publicly they are being attacked, however unjustly.

And because some no doubt hoped -- baselessly, it appears -- that some amicable solution could be had, without bowing to illegitimate demands -- AND without unnecessarily tainting the pubic image of PANArt.


The variety of threats being made is not yet known publicly. But some of them I have learned of privately. And there are too many first-hand examples to otherwise explain what is going on.

The inevitable conclusion is this:

PANArt is engaged in a strategy of intimidation and threat, resulting -- as we can only assume is intended -- in a growing climate of fear.


I have talked to makers at every stage of their development personally threatened by PANArt.


More troubling than those threats, perhaps, is that I have also recently spoken with those not yet threatened, who are now questioning their ability to EVER publicize what they are working on, because of the hanging fear of those threats.

What may have begun out of understandable irritation at perceived opportunistic copying, is now a broad assault -- one limited, apparently, only by pragmatics and (for now at least) personal relationships.

This assault accelerated LAST WEEK -- and that is why we are discussing this now.

And it continues now, while Frank sows doubt.


The climate of fear this assault is creating MUST be dispelled.

It can only be dispelled by public disclosure and awareness of what is going on.

And, then, finally, by the pressure public opinion will have -- both to sustain those under attack, and to subdue those attacking (hopefully to the point where they rethink this needless course).


For those unclear about the basic situation,

PANArt invented, but did NOT originally patent, the Hang. Instead, they described in detail the principal of its operation and how to make one.

Inevitably, people inspired by the Hang starting making them -- or rather, something not exactly the Hang. Handpans.

Such was predicted and arguably explicitly encouraged in PANArt's own publications.

Yet they now regret that they do not and cannot control the evolution of these not-Hanghang following the unpatented basic design they once freely gave the world.

They regret this for reasons they have never disclosed or explained. (I have theories... but it's immaterial, in the end, because they did not patent the basic design.)

And so, they have subsequently obtained (or are attempting to obtain) belated, secondary protections, like 'design' protections intended to prevent counterfeiting of luxury goods and the like -- which they are now bending into use as weapons against handpan makers.

Today, now, RIGHT NOW, they are now going after people making instruments that do not adhere to their ever-narrowing view of what a Hang should be, regardless of whether those weapons they hold are appropriate or applicable.

To put it starkly, unable to control the evolution of handpans directly -- they are resorting to threats, spying, and bullying.

History not to forget: not so very long ago, PANArt began denying tuning and repair of Hanghang owned by those whose only crime was to dare to own, play, even publicly comment approvingly, of any handpan.


Always I ask: why? What do they think they are protecting, even as they destroy everything that matters?

It is no matter of money, for sure; they could not satisfy us with ten times the number of Hanghang, and they can ask for it what they please... what, then?

Their greatest legacy is right before them and they do not see it. It is exactly what, like Saturn consuming his young, they seek to destroy: their own children.


And now, regrettably, we have the next step down into darkness -- Frank's attempts at disinformation and distraction.



In all seriousness I ask: is it really entirely coincidental that the instruments they now make have left behind harmony...!?



Things to consider, if you think despite the lack of patents, handpan makers should have 'known better':

PANArt did not and cannot patent the Hang. The basic handpan design is part of the public domain.

Yet, even when it became clear that an increasing number of people would try to make handpan outside of the Hang-model they approve of, they never spelled out the courtesies they would appreciate, and rights they feel entitled to, from makers.

Makers who absent their current threats would have had much reason to respect them -- including the fast-waning love they deserved.

Their proxies, including Frank, confused matters further, by relentlessly attacking both the Halo -- for being too different from the Hang -- and BEllArt's BEll -- for being too similar.

Though they would never say so explicitly, the implication as obvious: despite its lack of any legal restraint, no one should dare to make a handpan that was not, in fact, a Hang.

PANArt did not and does not now offer a mechanism to contact them, should someone even WANT to discern what they consider (regardless of their legal rights) appropriate or respectful.


Instead there is blankness and silence...

...out of which now comes their raised fist.


The meanness and grasping motivating that fist is of course a total contradiction to the generosity demonstrated originally by the decision NOT to patent the Hang.

And worst of all it is a sickening invalidation of the sacred relationship with it held by almost everyone touched by it.

I am sure that Frank, even in his protected forum, has heard from Hang players who now have misgivings, or worse, about their Hanghang as a result of the actions now being taken.

Every time I myself pick up my Hanghang I cannot help but think of what is going on, and I ask myself, every time, can I play this instrument? Can I manage to keep it above the darkness its makers are now spreading?


A destruction of PANArt's public reputation and goodwill will come, like this, from their current attitude and actions -- not through anyone's attempt, including mine, to shed light on it, but because that is what the fist will bring.

The pollution of the perceived 'energy' of every Hang will come from their current attitude and actions.

The inevitable ultimate failure of their intimidation tactics offers some consolation.

It will leave them as the prime victim in the end of this policy of aggression and fear.

But so much of great beauty will be needlessly destroyed, or curbed before it is born, before then.

So it MUST be opposed. NOW.



I have spent the last four days attempting, privately, to forestall the coming ugliness, through direct appeals to them via their agent Michael Ix.

But Frank, as ever acting the narrow-minded buffoon, and as ever a poorly-controlled proxy for PANArt, apparently has made the next move -- and seeks to force a confrontation and public quagmire.


If PANArt does not open the fist, a quagmire is surely what they will get...

...and a dissolution of much of the goodwill and love that they have justly won over the last decade.

But that destruction and ugliness will come from their fist -- not from my opposition, or anyone's opposition, to it.


Always have I said, let there be light.

Now more than ever, let there be light!

And to you PANArt I say, again: get out of the darkness, and open the fist, before it is too late, and the darkness consumes you and destroys your legacy.

Damage has already been done.

There is only way to prevent much, much more.

Let there be light.

Open the fist.

aaron

I have seen, that you made a copy of my complete text and post it on handpan.org. First, I was a little bit surprised. Do you know something about "copyright"?
You do nothing against my status as a censored person on handpan.org as an Admin, but now you copy my postings. This is a little bit weird.

And this is the difference @Lino. I was censored, not because people change my postings. If I want to post something on handpan.org an admin read my posting before it was public to read for all. They want decide, if my opinions and thoughts are desired. This is censorship! What else?
But this is not the topic, at the moment.

Frank

aaron writes:

Last week, I learned many troubling things about PANArt's current path of intimidation against handpan makers at all levels of development.

It was a shock to me that things were getting so bad -- and about to get very much worse:

As I understand it, this week PANArt goes into court against BEllArt, attempting I presume to shut down Luis entirely. As I understand it, Michael Ix will testify against him.

(And as Lino mentioned elsewhere, Pantheon Steel also has been the recipient of ongoing demands from PANArt's legal firms...)

Pause for a moment and imagine a handpan world in which PANArt prevails, and both BEllArt and Pantheon Steel are eliminated.


And as mentioned in my other posting, there is more -- which it is not my place to disclose who else has received intimidation.

The potential demise of BEllArt, paired with the other information I learned, pushed me from complacency into action.

And so,

I wrote Michael Ix numerous times, knowing that he is an agent (employee, or confidant and volunteer, I have no idea) of PANArt, and I begged him to press the 'pause' button -- and to consider a better path, and, Allah willing, advocate for it.

My intention in writing him was to try until fully exhausted the path of persuasion, privately -- I imagined even perhaps going so far as to the first time to dare to write Felix directly, in hopes that the tenor of conversation -- or the 'paradigm' -- of relations between PANArt and handpans makers could be changed.

Unfortunately, Frank S went on the offensive and personally attacked me, and offered disinformation publicly, before I came to the end of those efforts.

Whether he was goaded, or inspired, by my words to Michael and to others on that 'side' I do not know. Perhaps it was merely very poor timing on his part.

Comments posted on the Hangforum I would not have known about, nor really cared about -- but once they were posted here, I felt I had no choice but to rebut them. Too many people were giving him too much undeserved credence.

And so, private attempts at advocating for a 'diplomatic' solution were replaced by public conflict.

I regret this, because it forced me to come forward with the severity of the current situation in a a confrontational, negative manner.

That would not have been my first choice -- nor is it still.

Rather, as GotHang wrote recently, energy should be spent on finding a positive solution -- whatever that is.

Personally I believe that the most important thing is for people to be aware of what is going on -- the real risk the 'handpan' world faces right now -- and, hopefully, to be motivated to take, and ideally make, constructive action.

Just what that action is -- how constructive pressure can be applied -- I do not know. Ideas welcome!

But what those actions might be in service of, I do have my own ideas.

I want to share part of what I wrote Michael, verbatim, as an example of what a constructive and positive change would mean.

As described below, it is only a vision. A fantasy. One that is far removed from the present situation.

But call me a dreamer, even now, it does not seem entirely implausible, nor impossible!

I do not dare to hope that, in the current contentious climate, PANArt will move this way...

...but it is worth sharing the vision, because the more who can imagine it, who share it, the more chance -- however small -- it might have of, at least in part, coming to be.

Obviously, it is not for me to tell what PANArt should do.

But I can tell them what I, for one, as someone who loves both the Hang AND the flowering of handpans, would fall to my knees in gratitude for -- should they chose to do it.

It is not humble to dream this large.

But PANArt has never shied from grand visions!

I hope now only that this is one that they will entertain, even if to consider -- as I wrote -- how it could be.

As this excerpt begins, I am seeking to convince Michael to help steer PANArt to a better path than aggression -- and to do everyone, including them, a great service by doing so...

"When I said that I did not want to see you, personally, on the wrong side of history, I meant it.

What that means is that the entire reason I wrote is that I believe now, still, you have a chance to be a force of great good.

It is not for me to offer or claim that that would be 'redemption' -- but I do think you would, in fact, redeem yourself, and so would PANArt, and Felix, were the pause button pushed now, or soon, without, for example, destroying Luis.

(Remember -- I do agree he screwed up, and has taken the wrong attitude, etc. -- that is not the point...)

If you ask me, what do I want, I would say not these little actions, however, but your aid in transforming the entire context of discussion.

I wish for a 'paradigm shift' in the posture taken by PANArt in relation to the (inevitable) flowering of the Hang-garden.

Just for a moment, I ask you to imagine the likely reaction, if PANArt went public with something like I described above... a policy statement saying, as long as these clear things are not done, we wish makers well and will let them be...

...and, as we originally did in various publications, we are happy to share what we have learned since, this portion of which you may use without license, this portion of which you must license form us, this portion of which we protect and do not now offer for license; and these things which may prove useful variation or alternate approaches for those with different interests or talents...

...and, we hope that, among you, some of great talent will come through their own path to recognize the value in what we have done -- and after toying with less promising alternatives, will understand why we chose the direction that we did...

...and so learn to make not handpans but Hanghang! And carry forward our work...

...but in the meantime, however, so long as our guideliens are followed, we give you are blessing to make your own mistakes -- after all, let them give what pleasures they may to those who (fully informed, and fully aware that they are not getting Hanghang, and why) seek them...


Can you imagine the joy and goodwill?!

Years ago I begged Felix to open the hand... this is a more concrete example of what I mean.

Can you not imagine if your role was not policeman, but shepherd, tutor, teacher?


That is my dream.

I see no conflict between PANArt's IP being protected, completely, and its 'brand' so to speak being maintained -- and this posture of openness!


But, it is far from where we are, today.

Right now the hand is as close as ever to being perceived of as a fist.

I care what happens to Luis because I believe it does not *matter* if PANArt is in the right in this, what wil be perceived is *the blow.*

The minds might perceive the justice, the heart will perceive only the hurt -- and fear it.

What else is there to say.


It is not too late.

The root conflict is not, I submit, even about who is right -- but how real or perceived wrongness is being reacted to.

It is not 'handpan makers' that I care about it, principally -- is is the instruments and their players.

Threats against the former affect the latter.

Also, as I have said, I do care about the reputation of PANArt and the Hang. And, yes, yours.


All I ask is you consider that dream-vision, and even for a moment, think about how it COULD be, rather than why it should not be.


I assume that at some deep level the reason either of us care is that the Hang does indeed exist somewhat outside of contemporary history, and has always been offered to people by different rules.

I see no reason the concept and art of it, cannot also be offered under different rules.

Different rules that might mean that the normal ones are selectively suspended, in the service of a greater vision."

- private letter from Aaron Ximm to Michael 'Ix' Paschko


Let there be light.

aaron

For the public record Frank I will get your permission to post any actual text - in its entirety - in the future.

I'll keep it to hyperlinks unless you state otherwise.

I am sorry if I acted incorrectly. I am also sorry if my tone was combative. (Did I mention it was a late night )

My only goal is to foster communication.

I acted independently. There is no other motive on my part.

in service,

-greenoak (Ray Ford)

And so fare thee well: Thou never shalt hear herald any more.