Saturday, May 31, 2003

been feeling good the last few days; abunch of stuff i was doing i finished and now i'm doing another bunch.

visited ira nd goats and dogs yesterday. oscar seemed to like my (chinese) fiddle playing. looked at large format "100 flowers" by o'keefe, inspiring and discouraging at the same time.

cleaned art factory, found surprises etc.

just took a pleasant walk - the skies are cloudy and overcast - with richard.

Friday, May 30, 2003

"When I asked to speak to a lawyer, the INS official informed me that I do have the right to a lawyer but I would have to be brought down to the station and await security clearance before being granted one. When I asked how long that would take, he replied with a coy smile: "Maybe a day, maybe a week, maybe a month."

We insisted that we had every right to leave and were going to do so. One of the policemen walked over with his hand on his gun and taunted: "Go ahead and leave, just go ahead."

from
AlterNet: Patriot Raid

Thursday, May 29, 2003

click here to download a copy of collected lyrics and pictures by yours truly in the form of a pdf ebook.

"State and commercial institutions
have assumed some of the functions
of the public sphere, and political
institutions, such as parties, have
assumed advocacy roles in support of
their patrons.

.... this transformation has led to a
refeudalization of the public sphere.
Large and powerful organizations
such as corporations, labor unions,
political parties, professional groups
and interest groups bargain with the
state and one another -- often out of
sight or mind of the public -- to
allocate resoureces, opportunities,
and patronage.

These institutions still seek public
support and the marks of legitimacy,
but they do this through the exercise
of publicity or public relations, not
necessarily through contributions to
rich public discourse."

Siva Vaidhanathan paraphrasing Jurgen Habermas.
from
BookBlog

Wednesday, May 28, 2003

had an early breakfast with barbara and winnie. then barbara took oof into bookville. she's got another book going.

woke up this morning clear-headed and squirrly. the first day in a long time with no self-imposed or otherwise "must-do-NOW"s. then i noticed french easel had callapsed during the night. not to bad, but patches of thalo blue oil color on the astroturf. worked on it for a while using differant substances. some how i dislodged insulin cannala without knowing it. started feeling bad and when i finally discoved problem, blood sugar was 489. took it very easy allday bringing it back down.

had to present at wilber meeting, really brought out my ADD.
meanwhile check this out:

"May 21, 2003 - A White House Fluent In Language Of Fanatics. I've been racking my brain, trying to reconcile the ever-widening chasm between what the White House claims to be true and what is actually true. After all, we know the president and his men are not stupid. And despite the tidal wave of misinformation pouring out of their mouths, I don't believe they are consciously lying.

"The best explanation I can come up with for the growing gap between their rhetoric and reality is that we are being governed by a gang of out and out fanatics."

from
www.ariannaonline.com

Monday, May 26, 2003

feeling nutty. ragged. blown away. so i took some time out and did this. i feel about the same but maybe i can sleep now.

nutty


had a pleasant outing sunday to a potluck at tom and erin's. nice singing by a group of six ladies. harmony. it's great.

the gathering was in a beautiful setting, reminded me of some of the places i've lived in the past. it could have been the rural 40's.

proto-alzheimer's does not permit me to tell you the name of the singing group at the moment.

speaking of the mind, this sliding IQ thing is getting out of hand. i have been working on some kind of visual representation of ken wilber's thought, and i made every mistake in the book, definitely took the long way around the mulberry bush several times. and didn't know it. maybe i need to watch more TV.

Saturday, May 24, 2003

yesterday was one of those flat blank days. i did get a lot done on wilber project, but it was drudgery. little oil painting, still don't know what i'm doing with this.

so my question is the universal eternal one, why these black moods and days? can't be mercury in retrograde because it's always in retrograde. i don't think it's contrails in the sky because i've been hiding under the bed. maybe i was born under a bad quasar. or it could be that my aura slipped and is cock-eyed. perhaps a stray muon or two tarnished my cellular DNA. could be i was bad in a former life. or good.

it is possible this old painting i found explains things, but i don't think so:

old

Friday, May 23, 2003

nothing much to say today. yesterday was a blur. worked all day with ken wilber content, text. haven't spent a day like that since school or workplace. my understanding did increase though, so maybe i should do it more often. usually i just let osmosis do the work. but quite often it leaks.

found one of my first watercolors: here it is:

trees5.jpg

Tuesday, May 20, 2003

installing software today. dizzy. gotta turn computer off. but i am finding old images like this one:

aprilmandala

Monday, May 19, 2003

moday monday. spent all day transcribing ken wilber notes for mega-pixalated animated song-and-dance series of charts. really hit it hard, flashes of my past buried in some cubical, fingers barely working, a thousand thoughts fighting for primacy in my addled mind. anyway i should be finished inputting text tomorrw - words like "holarchic fulcrum 3 subphase-2 centauric vision-logic pathology".

but i went grocery shopping also, a major accomplishment these days. last few hours i've been tuning er-hu, someone with an ear could probably do it in two minutes.

meanwhile for your delight and delectation, i pulled this out of the "what do i do with this thing now?" heap. started out ages ago as a charcoal drawing:

rocks

Sunday, May 18, 2003

communication. after 3 hours of sleep - no i was not having fun, just tossing and turning in bed - or twisting in the wind - came across this stuff. it all relates in some way or another to a mega-graphic i'm constructing to explain 800 pages of ken wilber.

the first is about a parrot.

"The fact that these experiments statistically prove that N'kisi's use of speech is not random also gives evidence of his sentience and intentional use of language. Though our work is just beginning, N'kisi has already shown aspects of intelligence that animals were thought to be incapable of, particularly a species that shares so little genetic similarity with humans."
from
Nkisi Project

then this:

"You can trust your audience to infer your full meaning from their knowledge of the situation, taken together with what you actually said."

(if they trust you.)

from
HOW DO WE COMMUNICATE?

and then i wondered into this which i think i will blowup and print and hang on the wall where i can spend hours staring at it. by far the best one of these i've seen, maybe because it relates to human conciousness and not who won a war:

imhoFAQ timeline of knowledge-representation, part 1

ended the evening at a very pleasant gathering of Baba folk, i really needed it.

Saturday, May 17, 2003

bill o. from the old days dropped by. he had a tape we recorded here in town maybe '82. real artifact and i realized that once i could play the guitar, at least one evening.

this just in: (thanks tharpa)

"Zoloft is most commonly prescribed for the
treatment of depression and anxiety disorders,
but it would be ridiculous to limit such a
multi-functional drug to these few uses," Pfizer
spokesman Jon Pugh said. "We feel doctors need
to stop asking their patients if anything is wrong
and start asking if anything could be more right."
from
The Onion | Pfizer Launches 'Zoloft For Everything' Ad Campaign

Friday, May 16, 2003

busy day. nice day. restless night. started oil portrait which should be a hoot because it's pretty unknown territory for me. worked a lot on wilber chart. more about this later. i'll put up a link to poetry art ebook later. right now it is 2MB and i want to get size down. visited dave Mc, my old high school teacher. made phone calls trying to straighten out tax problem...yuck.

oh yeah. big breakthrough: discovered tgat the low string on chinese fiddle was tuned down an octive. sometimes life in the manifest world assembles such small delights. conciousness disconnected from the real, we putter till we don't. distracted by hallucination and tone-deaf to boot.

ran across this: i'm afraid it is not parody but true:

"The growing popularity of the World Wide Web is slowly but surely transforming the lives of human beings who are beginning to make the sad transition from being thinkers to becoming "clickers.""
from
From Thinkers to Clickers: The World Wide Web and the Transformation of the Essence of Being Human

Thursday, May 15, 2003

center2.jpg
finished this one yesterday. started it at the Baba Center and kind of blew it, but feel like i pulled it back from the rejects pile.


saw bobby dylan last nite with richard, debbie, and lots of young people. the concert was just about right for me: no epiphanies, just a nice leisurely performance, comfortable seat, great view, sound very good except bob's voice a little loud and his keyboard mixed way down. the sound and playing of the band was superb. so was bob's singing, i like the way he is using his new old voice. couple of songs i'd not heard before, one i really liked, "things are changing(?)", i think from a movie. his grammy stood on an amp near him. "like a rolling stone" filled me with emotion and memories, the lights sweeping the crowd and making it clear who was being asked "how does it feel?" "blind willie mctell(?)" was really played nicely, a little dark, nostalgic. great evening.

Wednesday, May 14, 2003

fuzzy mnt
fuzzy mountain

finally finished this watercolor, started it at the center. should finish the 2nd i started there today.

about ready to upload e-book of poems and illustrations. it's been a learning experience.

i've been trying to fix a vacuum cleaner for a week now, throwing in the towel and taking it to professional today. today is drive around town and do errand day. tonight is go to dylan concert and hope for small epiphany (any size will do).

Monday, May 12, 2003

mmmm... so much is happening. or is it?

went to ira's be-day party fri nite, first time out late and downtown in ages. aville continues to evolve and the ambience is certainly there.

if i was in my 20's i would be too.

yesterday i took an unexpected cruise with john r. it was a pleasant sunday to float thru some of the lesser-known (to me) neighborhoods kind of like chapel hill 40 years ago.

and i finally got one of thoses scam emails form africa. it's pretty long but starts like this:

"FIRST, I MUST SOLICIT YOUR STRICTEST
CONFIDENTIAL AND TOP SECRETE. YOU WERE INTRODUCED TO ME
FROM SIERRA-LEONE CHANBER OF COMMERCE (FOREIGN
TRADE DIVISION)."

and on and on with the story. but it ends like this:

"PLEASE, FEEL FREE TO REACH ME ON MY
E-MAIL ADDRESS .I MUST APOLOGIZE FOR ANY
INCONVINIENCES THIS MAY CURSE YOU."

this could be the beginning of something new.

Saturday, May 10, 2003

up at 6 this morning, took a long early morning walk. trying to establish this as routine because, due to reasons i do not understand, i have over the years developed a real aversion to heat. summer sun. it physically does me in and, maybe even worse, makes me crazy.

still working on poetry e-book. like any set of production hoops you jump thru, the first time is always touch and go, fumbling around, scratching head, occasional outbursts.

reinstalled viavoice which i hope now works. reason behind this is about 100 pages of notes i need to convert to flash, an interactive visual guide to ken wilber's lines, levels, and quadrents. and i can't type (meta-dyslexica).

today's hypothetical activities: finish a failed watercolor, finish another one that might work, and start on an oil portrait - this last is totally foreign territory. also looking for a native chinese speaker who can translate er-hu info i need to understand. angela from new york who i met at the Baba center and is american-chinese was most amused at my pronunciation of this word. i pronounced it as "air-who", which of course is the post-modern hillbilly manner of speaking. but most important of all i have restarted project i let drop a year or so ago: the yo-yo. my goal is to keep two going at once, left and right hand.

Friday, May 9, 2003

just found out that my old friend jim in oak ridge has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. i'm going to take a long walk.

Thursday, May 8, 2003

slept 13 hours last night. AM radio left on, low volume, lots of UFO babble. worked on poetry book all day. paid $35 for library audio book that vaporized awhile back.

considering the time and place, this is an interesting piece:
Tripping De-Light Fantastic - Are psychedelic drugs good for you?

Wednesday, May 7, 2003

i'm back in the saddle again, but ridng very slowly. currently working on 3 books, one my own, one an extended family photo book. i enjoy working with these small b&w very scratched and faded snaphots and bringing them to life. unfortunately very little info on history, anecdotes and history of my dad's generation which was my initial goal.

it's been mostly gloomy and rainy in the wnc mountains, flooding here and there and scattered mudslides. this is my favorite kind of weather, cool, calm, contemplative. once i heard from someone who was suppossed to know - don't remember who exactly - that rainy weather was "spiritual". but i never heard this on the weather channel. for sure it is wet.

my friend tucker fowarded to me a very amusing letter to the govt. from the Appalachian Coalition for Just and Sustainable Communities. it proposed that the govt. attack appalachia because the area needs the same kind of help post-war iraq does. it included the following tag line:

"Throughout the 20th century, small groups of men seized
control of great nations, built armies and arsenals, and set
out to dominate the weak and intimidate the world. In each
case, their ambitions of cruelty and murder had no limit."


George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003

Tuesday, May 6, 2003

got back. in a couple of pieces. normal nowadays.

my visit to the center was very intense. i felt things that i have not felt in a long time.

my children and grandchildren in chapel hill all seemed solidly themselves.

i'll be on earth in a few days.

meanwhile here is an updated link to jay kinney's site. gotta fix the one in the left hand column of this page. always a good read.

Jay Kinney's JayKinney.com
"Personally, we are convinced that 9/11/01 marked the entry of
consensual reality into a paranoid abyss curiously resembling a
Philip K. Dick novel."

and what looks like a very interesting site belonging to one of tucker's friends. a topic that our generation seems seems to find both disturbing and fascinating.
THE NEWS DISSECTOR
"MediaChannel.org Site"