Thursday, September 30, 2004

misty foggy morning, the way i like it. started reading dylan's visions of sin by ricks who is heavy-duty english academic. from the first 20 pages or so it comes across as trippy word play a la dylan.

don't know what i'll do during the superbowl tonight. from 7 to 9 the author of why bush must go is speaking downtown. he is an episcopal priest, maybe bishop, i don't know, who has retired from atlanta and come to the center of the universe, aville nc.



i do want to watch the superbowl, as an observer of the cultural, memetic mish mash we live in, and it starts at 9. maybe i'll go to a redneck bar (there are a few left here from the pre-green days).



today, among other things, i am going to finish oil painting i have been fooling with for months. i screwed it up again yesterday. it is apparently a portrait of my anima, the muse who keeps me amused - and confused. i am going to finish it even if i have to paint it black. have not acquired the knack of handling oils.



phoned the garbage dept. - i forget the official name - and found out they will pick up 2 spare computers i have laying around that are too old to sell or give away. it was a relief to find this out.

Wednesday, September 29, 2004

bw



another recycle job, in honor of mr. d. who i understand will be answering questions tomorrow at newsweek site. what question would you ask?



meeting last night at the ken wilber group. very enjoyable, what a great group of humans.



spent yesterday, in addition to being chained to computer, vacuuming house, cleaning etc. i consider this a major success. it took me two weeks just to find bag for vacuum cleaner unit.



reading from beirut to jerusalem by freidman. five stars. here's an excerpt:



"indeed, instead of entering lebanon with a real knowledge and understanding of the society and its actors, israel simply burst in with tanks, artillery, and planes on one hand and a fistful of myths in the other - myths about the nature of lebanon as a country, about the character of israel's lebanese maronite christian allies, about the palastinians, and about israel's own power to reshape the middle east. it would take three months, but eventually these myths would undermine all that the israeli military hardware achieved."



at least it only took them three months...

Tuesday, September 28, 2004

i was pretty tired last evening, sitting blankly in front of TV, not really watching ABC news which was winding down. but i swear i thought i heard someone say - it could have been hourly news on radio - something like the following:

"the FBI did not have enough evidence to arrest him, which is why they deported him."

Monday, September 27, 2004

lightwc



latest out of my head.


the weekend. saturday i took 2 walks, total time about 3 1/2 hours. both were more or less unplanned. afternoon way too hot. went to peace rally downtown. my impression: not very impressive. in terms of any effect. didn't stay long. attended meeting of small group of men who are interested in starting men's group.. all Baba lovers. may go, may not, but saw some old friends and met some new ones.


strange that after all these years i attended 2 of these things in one week. still don't know what they are for, going on instinct.


leaving i backed into drop off in the dark, got stuck, phoned for tow truck, it was saturday night etc. maybe i already wrote about this. had a pleasant time waiting for tow in the dark, feeling light breeze and listening to the night sounds.


sunday i packed 2 computers into truck and went to friends meeting. i was going to give them to george for garage sell they have once a year but forgot he was on retreat with a lot of group.


invited to salon by janice, very pleasant interlude on back porch, great potluck, good people, excellent break for me.


expecting big rains today and tomorrow, i'll just take it easy and hide under bed.


things more important than my daily meanderings: incipient fascism, semiotic dilemma of communicating to "us" that the junta has stolen the republican party, bush's war helps the terrorists bigtime, and the difficulty of talking to the "crowd".


if you talk to a human face to face that's one thing, if you talk to the entire population of the USA that's another: sound bites and icons is about all the tools you can use. in this context the meaning of meaning is changed, which accounts for the folks who think bush is the more capable leader. my question: if you were in the jungle, surrounded in the dark by snakes and alligators, and people who had survived this environment for 5000 years and who were bent on killing you, would you want to be led by bush or kerry?

Friday, September 24, 2004

9.23

early morning errand this morning. hauling boxes of books to book sale around the corner at UU church. sale starts in a couple of hours so i gotta roll.



of course last nite i was tossing books every which way into floor piles. made a number of interesting discoveries. one was a translation of the tao teh king by archie j. baum. i first ran across this book in psychedelic days, and still think it is the best translation i have encountered. what is weird is that he was a philosophy professor at u. of new mexico, not a poet. a few lines:

------------------

"if Nature is inexpressible, he who desires to know Nature as it is in itself will not try to express it in words



"to try to express the inexpressible leads one to make distinctions which are unreal."

------------------

"nature is the formless source of all forms, and yet it remains unaffected by its forms.



"thus it appears to us as mysterious.



"no matter how closely we scrutinize its coming toward us, we cannot discover a beginning.



"no matter how long we pursue it, we will never find its end."

-----------------

"intelligence consists in acting according to nature.



"nature is something that cannot be seen or touched."

-------------------



as i remember from 40 years ago you need to read this translation from beginning to end because it builds on itself, rather than being a series of enigmatic verses.



also found a piece of paper dating back to 2002 with a short verse i had scribbled:



a wink of the eye

a flash in the pan

there i was

here i am

god's odd moments in between

breath going south

if you know what i mean




might look good on a gravestone.

tf3


a funny day, saturday. put out about the last of 8x10 color prints. next i reduce them all to 4x6 postcard thingys. made 3 trips to UU church to dump books for them to sell. while there i bought a few, of course. still space is blooming here and there in the bunker. ran errands all afternoon, driving truck here and there.

[by the way, after a good night's sleep, i realized i posted this on friday. damn, it sure seemed like saturday.]

listened to air america most of the day. fascinating.

air america was also the name of CIA secret airline in the orient after WWII.

tomorrow i go to peace rally downtown. these days there is no chance of blowing a 50 amp fuse at these affairs. maybe i can wind surf.

got a call from steve t. who wants to start a men's group tomorrow. i told him i'd go, even tho i went to one tuesday.

watched a TV thing about freud and c. s. lewis the other night, part of it anyway, before i nodded out. one thing that struck me was lewis saying that agape was a question of volition, not feeling. in other words, whereas erotic love "happens" to us from time to time - the greeks called it madness - agape is a choice and you might not feel blissed out when you make it. just do it.

Thursday, September 23, 2004

yesterday was a total loss. after 2 hour morning walk up - and down - sunset mnt in the morning i was way more wasted than i would have liked. BG - that's blood glucose for the non-type 1 diabetes among you - way too low for the rest of the day which i mostly spent wondering around apartment trying to accomplish this and that not too succesfully.



this should be a new paragaph by the time you see it. now that i can post to this weblog there are a few formatting glitches.



had air america on the radio on most of the day. it shares with the right-wing radio talk shows way too many advertising spots and a sort of hysterical manic tone. but you do learn a lot.



case in point: talk with clark who was anti-terrerist czar under seven presidents. (doesn't sound right but i think that's what they said.) some of what was said was truly astounding, and you won't know a damn thing about it unless you read his book which i intend to.

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

bak

i think i'm back anyway. won't go into the intricacies of what has kept this weblog off line for over a week, but i think and hope it is fixed. one thing i realized while fooling with this thing was that my technical expertise is not what it once was.

i am definitely puttering around at this point with using software & hardware. by the seat of my pants. Intuitively.

just messing around in other words. it has it's good side, creative novelty, surprises. bad side is when i have to remember how to do something. if my fingers don't remember it i have a problem. just the way i work it.

discovered the left's answer to rightwing talk shows yesterday. it's been on AM radio in these parts for 2 weeks. it's much better than i thought it would be when there was talk of this move last summer.

and it's a clear channel station.

Tuesday, September 21, 2004

mmm... ok i sprinkled all the magic dust i have on this rig and will try one more time to post.

[microseconds later] that didn't work. maybe this will...

[microseconds later] ok i vacuumed all of the magic dust out of the bits and bytes. i'll try again.

[many many microseconds later] hmmmm....

Monday, September 20, 2004

last nite i dreamed i was young again. unusual because i don't remember many dreams these days. i dreamed about donna, an old love of mine: we were both young, engaged with the world, everything was possible. we were in love in that mysterious hard to talk about way, both mysteries to each other, both not caring that we were a mystery.

was the world ever this way? for real?

------------------

i'm still trying to post this stuff. it's not working

------------------

ditto.

Saturday, September 18, 2004

what with floods and all, no water last week and no electricity quite often, i have not been able to fix whatever is keeping these posts to my site.

used the forced downtime when utilities were out, put it to good use. restrung chinese fiddle - er hu - tuned a bunch of things. cleaned things, added to throw away pile. started very casual watercolor, pouring washes. rearrainged furniture. looked at sky the color of copper. that is just a hint, a glow, of strange color.

Thursday, September 16, 2004

"What we need to search for and find, and what we need to hone and perfect into a magnificent, shining thing, is a new kind of politics. Not the politics of governance, but the politics of resistance. The politics of opposition. The politics of accountability. The politics of slowing things down. The politics of joining hands across the world and preventing certain destruction. In the present circumstances, I'd say that the only thing worth globalizing is dissent."
- Arundhati Roy

Monday, September 13, 2004

check this out:
New Scam Tactic Hits Online

how the democrats are losing the election

the republicans have leaped over the dems during the past 40 years in learning how to communicate to the crowd. they have done this by early on pumping millions into the verious neo-con foundations. these foundations, among other things, have made an ongoing study of public relations, brand-name advertising. they began this after goldwater and were pretty good at it by the time reagon was elected. they have excelled at the quick pitch and defining the language of political discourse during most of my lifetime.

today the republicans are using this modality better than ever. the party has also been hijacked. last nite i heard toni morrisn refer to this bunch as "almost a junta" on BBC. they are using the succesful techniques of the past but pushing past the limits into outrageous territory. one hope is that they will continue this trend to the point where the "silenced majority" will have had enough and revolt in the polling booth, but it hasn�t happened yet.

hitler used the "big lie". the present rulers of our nation have developed this into the repeated little lie. that is, understanding the nature of the sound bite, every day they will repeat one line, over and over, until they begin to do the same with a new line. note that these lines do not necessarily follow a logical order, or even agree with each other.

i guess the best example of this today is the "flip-flop" line. i believe it is about 6 weeks old. had it not grabbed hold, the junta would have gone on to another. but it did grab hold, and the dems are still holding focus groups, strategy sessions, and circulating memos about it.

in other words, the junta is using the tried and true semiotic media-based closure of discourse they have perfected over the years, and the dems are stuck to a bunch of tar-babies, kicking, twitching and trying to get loose.

the feeling today is that the election is the democrats to lose, and they are losing. what can they do to change this situation?

new policies, tax plans, well thought out solutions to the medical problems we have, even plans for the future of iraq will not change anything.

but a single well placed sound bite, bumper sticker, or phrase might.

for instance:

flip-flop-->

from the vietnam war to today i have continued to learn, and sometimes changed my mind. haven't you?

critique war strategy = no support for troops -->

the troops have been put in a thankless position by a stratigic plan that needs an overhaul

we are safer as a nation without a saddam -->

that might be true if we had used a more subtle combination of pressures to ease him out, but as it is a by-product of the way we did it is to insure more and more enemies.

homeland defense --> attacking iraq because of 9-11

is like attacking mexico after pearl harbor. it gives the real enemy time to regroup and carry on while our military is pinned down.

these responses could have been made in heartbeat. a war room of media savvy folks could handle it (clinton did this).

conclusion: let edwards loose. he has the experience of fielding a surprise semiotic attack, and can turn it back on itself very quickly. the only thing he will have to adjust is to be brief which is necessary for an effective sound bite.

there is a highly styalized type of public discourse which is dominating the discourse. it has more to do with selling soap than politics. everyone on the "darkside", from the top down, needs to immediately step outside the box of politicalspeak and talk straight and simple.

details, details. it all really gets down to this question: how do you talk, ie have personal relationship with, a crowd?

Sunday, September 12, 2004

yes, those of us who see guaranteed disaster if the bush junta continues in it's naive, xenophobic, "know-nothing" efforts to fool around in geographies they are basically ignorant about are pretty glum today.

Saturday, September 11, 2004

j

now the thing about this picture is that it has passed thru 6 hands over about 40 years. history is sort of scrambled (ain't it always?)

i would go into more detail but i am really suffering through these times. like germany in the late thirties on steroids and digitally enhanced. a lot of my acquaintances seem to be very glum. one thing is that the prospect of 4 more years has so many shadows.
but i think what is even more frustrating is the apparent inability of discourse that includes both worlds.

Wednesday, September 8, 2004

984

new record. i did picture above in 7.5 minutes.

i've been working on jeff's new life book pretty nonstop for awhile. i didn't know it was flooding outside. they're turning water off.

also know of 3 different gatherings plus innumerable conversations over the last week or so about:

how does one approach the election (outside) without crippling consciousness, awareness (inside)?

Monday, September 6, 2004

bellz

from a photo taken on my father's front deck. in arizona.

later today i am going to try and put up the outline of what would once have been called a "manifesto", detailing what is happening with this election. hint: it's never happened before.

Sunday, September 5, 2004

amy

drew this while in the audience waiting for amy goodman to speak friday nite. i had not even heard of her. it was a surprise to me hearing her outline and describe the political and social events we are living thru but not fully conscious of.

she inspired me to step forward and be counted: we are living under a regime that is radically different than any before, and one whose agenda is more profit for the profitable, putting "us" into the category of wage-slaves, deluded and hypnotized by the brand name world.

stop worrying about not talking because of the new taboo against critiquing the state.
disregard the supposed identity of critiquing the war and disrepecting the troops (an old canard dating from the vietnam war).

the bush regime, the new oligarchs, has put a new twist into "the big lie" that hitler used to such great advantage. the regime uses instead public relations, marketing, and small lies repeated endlessly.

we are basically living now in a kremlin-like world, where the "news" is an arm of the rulers (corporate branded world) and must be deciphered like tea leaves. here's two more sources for "the rest of the story":

MoveOn.org: Democracy in Action

Welcome to ZNet

Thursday, September 2, 2004

924

flip flop.

have you heard about flip-flop?

of course you have.

bread and circuses. group-think. multiple reflective amnesia from moment to moment.

does the moon still prowl at night?

the air is turning into jello, and there's no place left to go. pixelated backdrops, can a stage be circular or a state belong?