4.30.5

another watercolor from the lost and found. probably belongs as permanently "lost", but as you know i have a tendency to put it all up, the good the bad the ugly.

speaking of which, the image archive is about 2 years out of date. i don't know how many visuals i've put up in the last 2 years, but when and if i finish what's on my plate at present i'm going to include in the image archive a whole lot more of my work.

today, among other things i'm ordering canon g6 7+MP. this will open the door to a whole nother layer of new stuff that i don't have the time to do....

[later] blogger seems to be flakey today. i get a broken pipe when i try to post. if you are reading this i got past it.

[later still] ok i got this up by saving it first as a draft, then publishing it.

just one more occasion where ambiguity and "thinking outside the box" prove to be essential, not optional. besides i lost the box.

as long as i am bouncing around, might as well ramble a bit. i'm reading two essays on analytical psychology by jung. the volume has been laying around for years and i never read it.

my feeling about jung is that even though he was determined to be "scientific" and not a misunderstood artist, he never came up with a hard and fast description of how things work for us humans. had he done so i think his work would be much less valid.

what he did do is meander around the unknowable, not the unknown, but that which is incapable of being "known", pretty convincingly arguing that even so, it affects our world and our lives.

4.29.5

above is 2nd version of watercolor below. i just couldn't leave it alone. but now i will because i don't think i can use it for the miniature prints i want to use on notecards.

one of the habits i have acquired is finishing each painting i start, even if it is a disaster. above is example. great learning experience but it ca, of course, be a waste of time.

i now have 15 ok miniature prints and will shop them around town next week. meanwhile will get together a second series called "postcards from nowhere" which will be a giggle but who knows these days, people might buy them.

or not.

meanwhile i will be finishing landscape oil. another great learning experience.

in case you don't have something to fret about - highly unlikely - check this out:
F-Secure Computer Virus Information Pages: Googkle: "F-Secure staff has found a malicious website that utilizes a spelling error when typing the name of the popular search engine - 'Google.com'. If a user opens a malicious website, his/her computer gets hijacked - a lot of different malware gets automatically downloaded and installed: trojan droppers, trojan downloaders, backdoors, a proxy trojan and a spying trojan. Also a few adware-related files are installed.

The name of the malicious website is 'Googkle.com'. PLEASE DO NOT GO TO THIS WEBSITE! Otherwise your computer will get infected! We have reported the case to the authorities."

4.28.5

another watercolor i found in the reject pile. i promise i won't put anymore up. i thought i could maybe bring it up to snuff for notecard/postcard series but looking at it i don't think so.

still have the noise machine turned down as low as i can get it. you can't turn it off. so i'm not up on the no longer fascinating dance of the sound bytes.

but i do recall that hitler came to power procedurally. and the first group he went after was the judiciary.

4.27.5

another watercolor i found. it goes into the great notecard postcard machine. found it in a box where i keep the duds and sprinkled cyberdust on it.

most rushed day i have had in a long time. the new life book has suddenly become an urgent affair, as these things do, and i spent the morning talking to jeff and nan in myrtle beach about various strategies. then rush into town to the art supply store i like which is, unfortunately the furthest away. then back to take "sacred geometry" class which Started 30 minutes and two weeks earlier than i thought. then to botanical gardens to paint. i did the zen thing, first mark is the best mark, i might finish it in time.

isn't that an interesting phrase, in time?

4.26.5

i found this watercolor i did a while back and added to the famous notecard project. looks pretty good on my monitor.

worked all day yesterday on a couple of projects. finally had sense enough to go outside, perfect spring day. took a load of cardboard to the recycle bin. i had loaded all my oil painting gear with the idea of going to the botanical gardens to work on class oil painting. i did get there, but didn't do anything but sit and draw scene, dark and light, values, and tree branches which will be interesting to paint.

went to "consciousness" class this morning, lecturer talked about meditation. not much new. i mentally disagreed with him when he talked about "stopping the monkey mind", i think it more involves letting it be the monkey mind and not identifying with it.

he had some interesting things to say about the "witness" and how you could become the witness (of your own body/mind). again i differ a little. there is always another witness behind the witness, all the way up and all the way down.

like the beatles said:

"and though she feels like she's in a play
she is anyway".

4.25.5

another telegram from the unconscious, void, formless into form, the unknowable. wherever it is it is not on the map.

this image originated on my current NC driver's license.

just a blip.

blipping.

4.24.5

now that i have this picture up, it looks unfinished. back to the bit board.

peeked out of the window early this morning and it was snowing. but not for long.

the usual obscure projects. been circling the vacuum cleaner, closer and closer.

fell asleep for a bit after lunch. in a chair. haven't done that for a while.

the existence of art is meaningful. the content may be whatever, but the fact that a human creates brings meaning into existence. and it does so right now. always now.

now is always new. now is always. now is.

but really it's an hour later now, and i hope i just made a fix that allows you to see this page.

now rocks.

4.23.5

pic was drawn yesterday, sprinkled with magic dust this morning.

went to exhibit opening yesterday with friend k. art with a capital "A", appeared to be the work of collage indoctrinated artists. one artist specialized in combining text with visuals, textures (used coffee filters). this combination is of great interest to me as most of my old friends can attest to. the other artist used bee's wax for an interesting patina, and wax is on my list of endless things to look into.

now here are some quotes i ran into the other day that sparked my interest. i did not know why, but i think it was because of the last item from today's news.

Quote Details: Hermann Hesse: When dealing with the... - The Quotations Page: "When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane.
Hermann Hesse
Swiss (German-born) author (1877 - 1962)"

Quote Details: Friedrich Nietzsche: Insanity in individuals is... - The Quotations Page: "Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
Friedrich Nietzsche
German philosopher (1844 - 1900)"

Quote Details: Edgar Allan Poe: Those who dream by... - The Quotations Page: "Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
Edgar Allan Poe, 'Eleonora'
US short story author, editor, & poet (1809 - 1849)"

if these quotes seem a bit much, check this link out:

ContraCostaTimes.com | 04/22/2005 | As e-hunting becomes reality, state Senate moves to ban it: "SACRAMENTO - The state Senate voted Thursday to bar state hunters from remotely killing animals using a computer and an Internet connection."

4.22.5

got out the old repedigraph last night, and the above is the result.

got this from "good morning silicon valley" news letter. i am very interested in this. how about you?

TERM OF THE WEEK: wiki

(n.) A collaborative Web site comprised of the perpetual collective work of
many authors. Similar to a blog in structure and logic, a wiki allows
anyone to edit, delete, or modify content that has been placed on the Web
site using a browser interface, including the work of previous authors. In
contrast, a blog, typically authored by an individual, does not allow
visitors to change the original posted material, only add comments to the
original content. The term wiki refers to either the Web site or the
software used to create the site.

Wiki wiki means "quick" in Hawaiian. The first wiki was created by Ward
Cunnigham in 1995.

4.21.5

it's one of those extreme days. don't know what else to call it. i have the first of 3 dental appointments at 11:30 which is the beginning of 1) reconstructed teeth or 2) false teeth. arrrrgh.

but to counterbalance this i received this email this morning so everything is cool.

"You have now been approved to collect a total payment sum of USD$970,000.00 (NINE HUNDRED AND SEVEN THOUSAND US DOLLARS ONLY) attaches to file REF NO: CSI/8813/6329-05. We know it will be of a surprise to have received such a notification message due to the fact that you did not purchase any lottery ticket from us and the high rate of internet scam, but be informed here that this is a free promotional/test program from us as a way of introducing our software services and also in promoting the benefit of the Internet usage."

4.20.5

testing goddammit.

4.20.5

i've got pictures running riot through my head. spent yesterday cleaning up & finessing watercolor scans, reducing and unsharp masking for mounting on note cards.

then went back through hi-res scans and photoshop creations to find, reduce, mess with resolution and color, and include in poetry book. up till now i had 72 dpi place holders.

both of these projects are returning to life. next step with note cards is to figure out what i want to design and say on back label. then assemble what is called make-ready in graphic arts, ie an rigid assembly which positions notecard and photoprint for permanent mounting.

you probably suspect that i write the above more for me than you. and you're right. now i have a faint glimmer of what to do next.

jeff w. from north myrtle beach phoned this morning, we're cranking up again on new life book. task here is to come up with least confusing way to incorporate corrections into mss. i'll email balaji in india and see if he uses PDF workflow which could save much to-and-froing from quark to acrobat.

but what about the world and it's problems?

i feel them but have nothing to say at this time about it. Intuitively i feel it might be better for us all if noone said anything about the delirium of current events.

if you checked this site and didn't see anything, i put a stop on a post this morning and i guess messed things up more than i expected, be right back.

4.18.5

from a photo i took awhile back at dr. r's place.

yesterday was different. instead of the usual "sunday bath" (wallace stevens), which in my case would have been the Friend's meeting at 10 and the Baba meeting at 4, i hung out and painted. setup outside in the backyard and worked on oil for class.

what i'm painting is a landscape from the botanical gardens down the road. we go to the same place each week and paint from life.

this is a real learning experience for me. for one thing my "portability" increases with each week as i figure out what i really need to take.

anyway the color green... hasn't worked for me yet. so saturday night i got books out and followed some recipes for green. and yesterday tried easing them into painting outside. hung out a little with young folks upstairs who introduced me to some kind of "golf" played with heavy frisbees.

it was that kind of day.

4,17,5

another one from old notebook. icon for the day but i never know what that means.

inner weather report. feel like i'm in a rut. can't start the day without pulling some picture out of air and usually just keep on working all day. as long as i don't have to go outside. which is especially weird because the outside is beautiful right now.

4.16.5

picture above from watercolor in progress. this version went pretty fast.

on my way to pharmacy and to get truck inspected.

i'm painting an oil for class and have really collided with the "green problem". (my own term - hope somebody goggles it.

more on the way. . .

{later} just stunningly beautiful and i haven't been outside. i've printed a hell of a lot of small watercolor prints though, and am working on a recipe from Color Mixing Van Wyk Way to figure out green.

4.15.5

grabbed the above ink drawing out of old sketchbook.

the word of the week is "peak", as in "peak oil". this stuff is scary.
Boing Boing: Peak oil article in Rolling Stone
"James Howard Kunstler's piece in Rolling Stone, called 'The Long Emergency,' argues that the US hit its peak decades ago."

moore's law is that every 2 years the number of transister's per area of integrated circuit (chip) will double. but... and i think this is a good sign, that may be over:
Techworld.com - Moore's Law is dead, says Gordon Moore
"Forty years after the publication of his law, which states that transistor density on integrated circuits doubles about every two years, Moore said this morning: 'It can't continue forever. The nature of exponentials is that you push them out and eventually disaster happens."

uh-oh. more scarry stuff:
BBC NEWS | Technology | Bogus blogs snare fresh victims
"Now it estimates that there could be more than 200 bogus blogs in existence that are being used to attack net users"

4.14.5

was just flipping through Mountain Xpress, asheville's ad drenched tabloid. on page 10, left hand page, there is an ad that says "strive not to drive." on the right hand page 11 there is an ad that says "think. feel. drive."

i seem to be drifting into working with photos again. grabbed this this morning and made it be what you see.

still trying to work out how to get pdf files from quark 5. i've done it before, but must be forgetting something. in desperate times desperate measures, so i got out the manual.

weather is beautiful this morning. saw hand doctor this am, it's cfm arthritis but doing ok.

i feel the need to make some reasonable commentary on the state of whatever, so here it is: i noticed on the noise machine the other night that they are selling some nostrum that is "virtually pain-free". something about this phrase sets off alarms that i can't quite make out.

is it because the extension of this could - & will in my opinion - become "virtually happy" or "virtually graceful"?

and virtually all for sale.

4.13.5

from a snapshot of travis, taken in my place before the earth cooled.

this was during the - gulp - sixties, the time i grew up, down and sideways.

all of us - and there are many - who were inhabitants of the chemical ghetto - and the mansion on the hill - during that time are past questioning what happened. whatever it was you won't find it in the mainstream press. or the alternative press. or radio, TV, etc.

don't know if it happens to every modern generation, but it is appalling to see your youth turned into a global cartoon.

this link contains pointers to a lot of sites with down to earth news about what is really - more or less - happening right now:
CamWorld: Thinking Outside the Box
"all of the various sites I visit on a regular basis to gather up-to-the-minute news and emerging memes. Below is a short list:"

4.11.5

old oil dry enough to scan.

due for dental appt. at 2. apprehensive.

i've spent about a day trying to get quark 5 poetry book into pdf format. done this lots in the past but the eternal present seems to have changed things. no go so far.

more words here later in the day.

more words later in the day

took a short nap after typing the above. raced to the dentist when i woke. gums are in worse shape than i realized. good dentist, good front office, in a few weeks i'll know whether to start shopping for some choppers - with an iPod built in.

continue ti wrestle withe pdf creation.

as far as the world beyond my nose:

4.10.5

backyard. doing a large version of this picture.son eli, melissa and lily's.

new wilber, readable:

Ken Wilber Online: Foreword to The Common Heart: An Experience of Inter-Religious Dialogue
"Studies in developmental psychology over the last few decades show that individuals tend to undergo an unmistakable trajectory of human growth and development, from pre-conventional stages to conventional stages to post-conventional, or from pre-rational to rational to trans-rational, or from egocentric to ethnocentric to worldcentric. Without pigeonholing anybody or any tradition"

4.9.5

today's cyberdoodle.

now that that's done i'm going to clean the clutter around here.

[much later:]

been another one. today much to my surprise i noticed i had enough music for a new CD. and most of it was done the last 2 weeks when i honestly felt like i was getting nowhere fast.

then i printed out a black and white copy of poetry book to proof.

what i wonder is this fascination with creativity another addiction?

looked for quotes on creation earlier today. here's some i found:


Quote Details: Robert A. Baker:
More than ever, the... - The Quotations Page: "More than ever, the creation of the ridiculous is almost impossible because of the competition it receives from reality.


Quote Details: Vida D. Scudder:
Creation is a better... - The Quotations Page: "Creation is a better means of self-expression than possession; it is through creating, not possessing, that life is revealed.
Vida D. Scudder"
Robert A. Baker"


Quote Details: Carl Jung:
The creation of something... - The Quotations Page: "The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.
Carl Jung"


Quote Details: Stephen Nachmanovitch:
The noun of self... - The Quotations Page: "The noun of self becomes a verb. This flashpoint of creation in the present moment is where work and play merge.
Stephen Nachmanovitch"

4.8.5

i was really dragging yesterday. went thru the whole day in a fog, a dense fog. this is very different than in a mist by beiderbeck.

but 13 hours of uninterupted sleep seems to have changed things. i even remember the dream i had which was a visit to something like the exploritorium in san francisco - which i've never visited. this was a handmade non plastic venue where nothing was as it seems. full of rooms vaguly resembling the rooms in the "real" world, but everything was hand made, full of natural textures, almost like fibre art. i spent hours picking things up, like a book, telephone, and realizing that they contained hidden compartments that unfolded to other hidden compartments. it was like living in a soft fabrge easter egg where everything was a soft folding fabrage easter egg. and the place was crawling with parents and their children, all happy to be there.

saw jane fonda last night on the charlie rose show. she has written a memior. i really admired her take on the last third of life. she was right on. she said she has stopped moving laterally, horizontally, and it was time to be concerned with the vertical.

as the infamous baby boomers realize this i believe there may be a cultural shift redefining what old age is for, and it's not going to be living in a gated community hiding out.

now for something about the young: check this out, a sweet downloadable song by a pair of young ladies newly arrived in asheville - the paris of the south.
divineMAGgees : female rock duo : music

i got a real kick out of this. it's a site with short downloadable films, purportedly playable over dial up as well as broadband. the one you want to take a gander at is about an airplane.
IFILM - Short Films: 405

spell checker not working, i'm going to put this up as is.

4.7.5

found this one. pretty cool, huh. i like it. i think the notecards and prints i do for the tourists this summer might all look a little this way.

everywhere i turn, even though i have turned off all media - except for the radio which is on all night, AM land - i'm hearing that our country is no longer a democracy. heard jeremy rifkin say as much touting his new book.

we need words. new ones. we need to create a discourse to get at what the country is, we know what it's not. post-modern oligarchy? fascism with a patina of populux? the biggest banana republic in the world? maybe rube heaven?

whatever it has become, my take is let it roll into oblivion. play with it. don't be afraid. don't not be afraid. be what you are becoming, a real human with a consciousness that is not only your right to be, but your moral responsibility. lose the modern persona that has encapsulated you. suffer. have fun. it's all going to go away, evaporate, because it's just a bad movie made by maniacs. have nothing to do with it.

turn away from the shadows and say hello to the light.

for example, why is this the case? it's wrong, we all know it:
MediaChannel.org - A Global Network of More Than 1,000 Media Issues Groups
"Due to unprecedented media ownership concentration, just five companies own most newspapers, record labels, concert venues, movie studios, cable companies, billboards, book publishers, and radio and TV stations. They control almost everything we see, hear and read. And the most important parts of the media value chain -- artists on the one hand, and communities and consumers on the other -- unnecessarily suffer most from these unholy sleeping arrangements:"

4.6.5

this picture was taken from colorado driver's license circa 1969. i cleaned it up quite a lot.

it was taken in a small basement stone chamber at the then pitkin county courthouse. present were myself, a policeman and dr. hunter h. thompson.

i look different today. so does hunter. but at least he has some plans for the future:

CNN.com - Thompson's ashes to be shot from cannon - Apr 5, 2005
"DENVER, Colorado (AP) -- Hunter S. Thompson's ashes will be blasted from a cannon mounted inside a 53-foot-high (16.15 meter-high) sculpture of the journalist's 'gonzo fist' emblem, his wife said Tuesday."

4.5.5

drew this while watching unc win final four.

did not wake up in time for class today. wonder what i missed. something about the brain i suppose.

doug dropped by on his way to yancy county. we talked about the usual from our separate but quirky point of views. for me, living in this time and place is like living in china and not speaking the language.

and maybe knowing too many other languages to attempt to learn a new one with the hope that something meaningful will come of it.

which is why it's always a delight to talk to an old friend from the same world - time & place - no translation required. try to watch television and do that. doesn't work for me.

it's a quarter to four and i'm about to eat breakfast. daylight time changes seem more and more monumental as i grow older. not trivial.

not much in the air today, total transparency equals nothing to see. which is ok, i've seen enough.

4.4.5

sketch i did yesterday at the riley's house during a gathering of Baba folks. julie and rusty from nashville were performing, piano and guitar. ( that's rusty's mike stand you see in the sketch).

really nice folks. a large gathering, a few folks i hadn't seen for awhile. beautiful spring day.

earlier i walked for about 2 hours, went downtown to card shop to see what the local artists were selling in terms of note cards. decided that the ones i had put together here were too small, so i'll be redoing the lot.

when i got home about 8, there was a message from dougie the nail who just blew into town, so i drove to steve and rachel's to visit.
two very different worlds.

couldn't sleep when i got home, so stayed up working on oil pastel and composing a piece of music which i'll listen to in a minute, have no idea what it is.

easy week coming up. at least it seems that way at the moment. i'm set to move on digital camera purchase. it is non-optional for me, must have seen a dozen beautiful shots during walk yesterday.

4.3.5

photo i took at my friend sam's place. not too happy with it's present color etc, but i ran out of time with it.

daylight savings time: what a surprise.

one thing about the pope, may he rest in peace: he was the only head of an early 22nd century institution who was man enough to enter the public domain, as a man. might be the last too if i am right about one of my pet theories, the demise of the institution as a way to motivate and organize people.

here is an example - sort of - of what i am talking about: humans vs the collective humans, ie institutions; corporations, the judiciary, schools, hospitals, etc., all when you get down to it fear driven and anachronistic in today's world:
Wired News: It's Not Graffiti, It's Grafedia
"As Geraci puts it, grafedia is chiefly concerned with the idea that the direction media moves in is preordained, but it's up in the air as to who can control it.

Today, companies with big advertising budgets are the main players in interactive media, engaging in activities like online ad campaigns or billboards encouraging some sort of viewer involvement. Geraci would like to change that.

'Grafedia is the option for the little guy to get involved in that dialogue,' he said."

4.2.5

another saturday morning. i can almost remember when i would have said "another saturday night", but that is terra incognito for me these days.

or maybe more accurately whatever the latin is for "forgotten" rather than "unknown".

i spent the whole week in a hurry. believe it or not i have just caught up on the household, truck, and other non-optional tasks, all pressing since i returned from toccoa 2 weeks ago.

i guess that is what the picture above is about. did it last night.

the man we can't quite forget:
Daily News Transcript - Arts & Culture News
"Like his literary role models, Walt Whitman and Thomas Wolfe, Kerouac mythologized the vast land and its hobos, outlaws and cowboys. So he transformed his own life into a national legend that, improbably, sent a restless generation into his own footsteps."

the sufi's are knocking on my door more than ever. various converging events tell me this. here is one item about them:
THE SPEAKING TREE: The Psycho-spiritual Dimension of Islam - The Times of India
"A Sufi can be distinguished from others through his detachment from mate-rial life and his ecstatic devotion to 'The Divine Life', free from pain and sorrow. The Sufis are people who prefer God to everything else and God prefers them to everything else.Sufism or tasawwuf, in Arabic, is the inner mystical or psycho-spiritual dimension of Islam. Today, how-ever, many believe that Sufism is outside the sphere of Islam. Despite its many variations and expressions, the essence of Sufi practice is that the Sufi surrenders to God in love, over and over; which involves embracing with love at each moment the content of one's consciousness as gifts of God or, as manifestations of God."

and this item brings to mind that if i were not such a retrograde techie, i'd be cranking out this sort of DVD flash quicktime statements (or thinking about it anyway):

Disinformation :: Award-Winning Techno-Spiritual Web Epic Comes To DVD
"'Hailed by Wired Magazine as 'Philip K Dick meets the Tibetan Book of the Dead', the mesmerizing 'cinematic literature' style of the Broken Saints series is entirely unique, and the DVD version builds upon the presentation with all-new art, intense visual effects, completely immersive Dolby 5.1 Surround, and acclaimed voice narration from a Vancouver cast that includes William B Davis (Cancer Man from The X-Files)."

go here for a sample:
Broken Saints

4.1.5

i' way ahead of the astrology column this week.

signed up for a month free to integralnaked.org, wilber's site. you get a free month. pretty dense place. much multimedia, definitely broadband only. so far haven't figured out how to hear any of it.

question: what is the "eternal now?"
answer: now.

Frenzy Begins Over Cookie Alternative
"The technology is based on a feature of Flash MX called 'local shared objects' (SOs), which can easily be placed on a user's machine by adding a piece of Javacript to a Web page. SOs are similar to cookies in concept and function. The main difference is Web users don't know what SOs are, and are therefore unlikely to delete them. Additionally, commercial anti-spyware applications do not typically block these files, as they do cookies."