5.31.5

this is one of the first watercolors i ever did, maybe at my cousin bob's ranch in colorado. there is so much i don't remember.

i'm really in a funk lately, can't seem to concentrate much. maybe it's the antibiotics i'm still taking. bad vibes.

so i'm going to leave this one up for awhile. i'll post again when i have something to say.

there is big change around the corner, i can feel it.

the gangsters that have kidnapped the government are the least of it.

saw a bumper sticker i liked today:

"speak your mind even if your voice shakes"

5.30.5

what....

5.30.5

piece of a picture that is 5 years old, at least that's the time stamp on the file.

haven't seen or talked to a soul this holiday. depressing. i feel like busting outa here. i feel like i'm done with this place and time.

big deal.

so what else is new? well, i'm throwing stuff out like crazy: clothes, cassette tapes, papers- lots of papers. cobwebs. dreams. books. cardboard boxes.

finally fixed whatever was keeping me from listening to wilber's conversations with the frothy edge 2 per-cent. but i'm not very into it, maybe was 20 years ago but i didn't know anything then about it. i was too frothy.

snippet from email today:

"...we are collectively discovering what "dharma in the West" really looks like. He goes on to explain that for the first generation of Western teachers, the cultural disjuncture between their Eastern training and Western heritage was so intense that perhaps 70% of them crashed and burned, to one degree or another."

not to mention their students.

5.27.5

pencil drawing i did somewhere last week.

while i was in the flatlands i was bit by a tick, looked like ordinary dog tick to me. by the time i got back to the mountains it did not look good, went to doc, thank god for antibiotics. haven't felt normal since, hope i'm coming around.

i spent a lot of time in the woods many years ago, deep woods, deep summer, it used to amuse me how friends from NYC would spook at the critters. never bothered me. now i walk across a suburban lawn and end up taking a ten day course of strong antibiotics.

if i were someone else i think i would go into the study of what's up with the lowly tick. i know i am older and my immune system is a little haywire, but there has been a massive change in their world- and ours.

so i'm feeling poorly and stopped at the library to pick up some light reading. end up with the cobra event by preston, the guy who wrote the hot zone. creepy book about epidemics.

not a bad read though.

5.26.5

i am feeling not so hot, on antibiotics and sleeping a lot. can't get into this posting biz at the moment.

so...

guess who wrote this:

"circumstances never repeat themselves...to do it, you've got to have power and dominion over the spirits. i had done it once, and once was enough."

5.24.5

pencil drawing of my son's family home i drew on recent visit. it's about three miles from a cabin various friends and i lived almost 40 years ago. it was a time and place that still reverberates here and there.

i had a rushed but pleasant visit. children and grandchildren doing well, acquiring wisdom as they wonder through the years.

even tho change is constant, or maybe because it is constant, consistency changes. i found myself driving down roads, mostly 2 lane back roads, where it would dawn on me that i'd been there before, same road, same sunny day, different world.



i have a lot of catching up to do here, but think i will take a day or two of rest. if there is such a thing.

"Recalling former President Richard Nixon's failed attempt to cut the funding for public broadcasting in the early 1970s, Moyers said, 'I always knew that Nixon would be back -- again and again. I just didn't know that this time he would ask to be the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.'"
Bill Moyers Fights Back

neil young:
"'Charming and moving... very likely the peak of his career thus far. One must hand it to Young for his ambitious achievement. Greendale grows richer the more one visits it. HALLELUJAH FOR A TRULY INDEPENDENT FILM!'"
Shakey Pictures

5.22.5

suddenly i am in a new space, called chapel hill. visitng my children and grand children all of whom have got their heads on straight in a warped and wierd world. i'm fine had a pleasant visit w/ jim and right now am going mto draw a picture.

5.18.5

modern peasant will be offline for a few days due to mental health maintenance. as you can see from the above, the massive parallel artificial intuition modules need upgrading, and the visionary algorithm unit is acting kind of funny.

so we will be dead floating in hyperspace so to speak for a few days. meanwhile you might want to take a look at some asheville bloggers, which is where i found these links:

Tools or Actions in Photoshop That Would Prove Useful at Various Stages of a Relationship.:
a relationship with a human, i might add.

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall:
the latest snapshot of a modern institution, justice, dying a lingering death:
"A proposed questionnaire would ask prospective jurors to disclose their political party, union membership, whether they've ever had a bumper sticker on their car and what it said, what Web logs they read and whether they ever watch TV shows such as 'West Wing,' CNN's 'Crossfire,' MSNBC's 'Hardball with Chris Matthews,' and 'The McLaughlin Group,' which mostly runs on public television stations."

this from mr. moyer's, bless his heart, who still seems to think that "truth" has a place in the world humans have made:
Democracy Now! | Bill Moyers Responds to CPB's Tomlinson Charges of Liberal Bias: "We Were Getting it Right, But Not Right Wing"

award for the most profound statement of the week:
Idelle Packer >> Body Sense, Inc.:
"'Change involves carrying out an activity against the habit of life.'"

5.17.5

above is from a random snapshot i took somewhere. of course i played around with it.

monday was a marathon. got canon G6 shipped back, sent new CD to old friend michele, worked until 2 on new life book. then drove to unca to deliver oil painting for end of class.

had a chance to ease back and talk to gloria, the instructer and a few fellow students. pleasant interlude. then back here and worked on book photos until evening, when i began to cleanup house.

remember when, a few years ago, the word on the web was content was king? still is, but today i think we are dimly realizing that content without personal face-to-face time can be very noisy. it's handy and frustrating, but in no way similar to the personal discourse that can enhance the meaning of life. notice i did not say supply the entire meaning, just enhance it a bit. when was the last time something you ran across on the web changed your life? turn off your computer right now and go outside and walk a few miles.

when you decide not to do this, check this site out: apparently there is a move stemming from this and related sites of asheville bloggers to join forces and something creative and fun.
Scrutiny Hooligans: You've Got to Get Behind the Mule

5.15.5

from a pencil drawing done during digital photography SIG friday. as an icon for today, it looks about right.

been reading peter fenner on the web:
Radiant Mind | Buddhist psychology and nondual therapy: "The conditioned mind is the mind that thinks, gets confused, has preferences and experiences pleasure and pain.

The unconditioned mind is pure, unlimited and beyond all ego-identification.

The radiant mind arises when the unconditioned mind radiates through the totality of our conditioned existence, bringing peace, wisdom and love to everything we experience.

Most of us live our lives knowing only the conditioned mind. We have a very limited, or even no, access to the unconditioned mind."

what i read last night was a good push towards realizing that listing what i did on this that and the other project on this site is not very useful to anyone but me, and even then it can be a destructive 21st c. habit, occluding other happenings. of course for me it's kind of a relief, i'm scattered too thin.

5.14.5

icon for the day. think i'll walk very slowly and carefully. i might need a white cane.

flurry of obligatory times, places and tasks blew me away this week. and it's not over.

i don't do well in the 24/7 mode. the thrill is gone.

but it's interesting to think that it's said to be the prevailing way of life, post-enlightment (speaking historically, not personally.)

maybe 30 years ago jeremy rifkin wrote time wars, very underestimated book IMHO. the uses of one's time on earth are being whittled away by the culture. fewer conventional options open.

i think this narrowing of choices creates a counter-trend, a growing number of seekers, gurus, practices and talk about "transformation".

5.13.5

can you believe it? i'm still finding watercolors usable for 8X10 prints, not to mention smaller prints for notecards. the above i found yesterday and it prints out beautifully.

started the day with a physical therapist appt at 8 AM. i seem to be losing my balance - physical , not mental, of course - a bit too often.

then spent a couple of hours placing photographs in quark file of new life book. also spent some time seeing if i could use PC notebook to download files from USB compact flash chip in canon g6. i could, but it was more of a stunt than a workable procedure. so tomorrow the camera goes back.

in an hour i'm attending digital photograhy special interest group at UNCA. the subject: histograms. someone there might have a clue as to solving this OS 9 problem with the newer canon software, but i think i already know the answer.

don't worry, be happy.

5.12.5

what's new? still wrestling hooking up canon g6 to apple g4 usb.

applied damar varnish to my first two oil paintings. they are supposed to dry for 6 months or a year before this is done.

it appears the old ken wilber group might reform to experience some of peter pfener's work. cool.

did the above from a snapshot.

do i have anything important to say? not today.

[later}...ooooh, it doesn't look so good on the digital camera front. and i'd really like to turn bhau's book around in the next couple of days.

5.11.5

yesterday was loaded with fresh cold air, afternoon thunder rumbling in the distance, the patter of rain. i had a full day, beginnign with book group meet. this is always a pleasure talking with well read folks, sharp too,. Lowell showed up from wherever he's been this winter - Costa Rica?

then left early for doc's appt which i made. it was a more successful than yesterday's visit when i showed up a day early. stopped at grocery store on way back, but was awake enough to cut it short when my vision acted up, figuring i was probably low glucose, got home, and i was.

jumped into finishing class project, an oil landscape, which includes an arched wooden bridge i finally started. really messed up perspective to a bothersome degree. this afternoon will be last on location session, finished the day fooling with digital camera whose software won't run on OS9.x. a few elementary workarounds didn't go, so it's up to canon now or return camera.

somebody drove back to asheville w/ new life mss marked up. when i get it i'll have to roll, typical wait and hurry up job. last night i recorded dobro and fooled with sound. i bussed the track to 2 other tracks, copied it and bussed it to 2 more. then i shifted the first @ 300ms later than the second, filtered and panned the different tracks. Sounds ok and i'm going to use it for flash sountrack.

and resequenced last CD.

being busy is such fun. and at times such spirit-killing drudgery. playfulness makes the difference.

5.9.5

another rescued watercolor reject. i don't remember when i fell into this business of taking unsuccessful watercolors to see what could be done with them. but it has been educational. and some of them make beautiful prints. live and learn.

had a strange episode last night. i went to the gray eagle thinking i had gone to high school with one of the musicians, tim o'brien. i got a couple of notes to him in the green room, thinking we could swap war stories since i had not seen him since 55 or 56.

but it wasn't him.

so now i am more confused than usual.

memory is a trickster. sometime this week i'm going to track down what successful musician i was thinking about.

i stayed for most of the first set, full house, pretty good picking and great harmonies.

i stopped at friends barbara and george on the way back home and had a pleasant interlude.

earlier in the day i drove to botanical gardens with oil painting and took a pencil and drew on it. details of an arched bridge over a creek that i'll try to fake here at home. the painting will be hung a week from today and it is by no means finished.

gotta go to doc's appt, more later.

[later]--> made it to appt w/ doctor. but it is for tomorrow, not today. (my) memory really is a trickster and working overtime. then i missed turn on the way back.

so i believe i will move very slowly for the rest of the day.

found out what i was confused about at concert last night.tim rose was who i went to high school with, not tim o'brien. i think i have rambled on here about the time he took me to see flatt and scruggs inside the martha white big top tent. we were in high school and eisenhower was president. i am saddened to find out he passed on a few years back. i guess there are worse things than a flakey memorie.

5.8.5

i'm having a bit of fun seeing if i can salvage some watercolor rejects, this one was at the bottom of the barrel.

took a walk with hiking group yesterday. pisgah forest. luck enough to ride back on parkway. at the higher elevations there is still time to get spring photos, probably head back that way this week.

working my way out of a couple of months real isolation. many days when i did not go out the door even once. very productive period, time to back off and get loose now. going to a concert tonight at the gray eagle, mostly to see tim o'brien who i haven't seen since we went to george washington high in alexandria va.

if you need a reminder of when and where we live check this out:
The Ed Schultz Show

5.6.5

here it is, the icon of the day. words are useless to describe it. in case you are not fluent in limbic pataphysics, it's been great so far.

the rest of the day is kleen-up time. i've already found a forearm brace that dr. windy informed me i probably should wear the rest of my life unless i need to take it off to play music or paint.

been slowly getting digital camera up and running.

and i'll do the same with a couple of window AC units. the sun has come back from wherever it has been, and rays are bouncing around like lost puppies.

5.5.5

yesterday lasted from 5:30AM to 3AM. most of that time i was doing what most of us do nowadays, running from deadline to appt to deadline to appt to class etc.

the last scheduled event of the day was being picked up by my friend janice for a delightful visit with some like minds out in the country.

i got home around midnight and then had to change insulin pump cartridge etc.

i turned on TV and watched some late night stuff for the first time in a long while.

what i saw was jimmy kimmel (i think that is his name) late night talk show or whatever we call these things these days. i caught the tail end of the show, which to my astonishment featured a funky jazz group playing low down and dirty while a stripper romped around, ending up in tassels and very small panties. she seemed to be able to vibrate any body parts on demand.

then some sort of backpacker travel show featuring india. the travelers were young british men and woman talking to the camera about where to find $3 a night lodging and such. but the camera work was out of sight. really stunning, covering a lot of disparate parts of that large country. i watched the whole thing. i know regrets are not in fashion today, but it made me really regret that i did not spend a lot of time in india back when i still had my walkin shoes.

then went to bed with the radio on and turned down low. a whole lot about the coming war with iran. that's what the airwaves said.

woke up this morning to hear a bible-belt preacher. he was pretty good. the only thing i can remember him saying was "zero with the rim rubbed away". a striking image.

just got back from dentist, miss kitty is in my lap purring up a storm, it's a tad raw outside.

the rest of the day will be dedicated to recovery.

i almost forgot: one of the night voices said watch out for a big event in the next 20 days. i think he actually said "i can say no more".

5.4.5

went to the last "explorations of consciousness" class yesterday. a very nice in the best sense of the word biologist talked of his theory of what is what. this from a book he wrote that i guess is circulating in mss. form.

his theory seemed to be that consciousness - or the "ego" which he defines somewhat differently than the common usage - is the result of a collision between the culture, starting out with mommy and daddy - and the "true self" which he likens to the nucleus of a cell in that it gives the appropriate instructions to the ego which is the cell, the cell wall being the interface between it and the outer world.

the title of the book is the recovery of the true self. from what i could tell i would have some serious quibbles with his description of conscious life, but the title describes what i bet half of the false selves hanging out today are thinking about. in asheville maybe 80%.

when i got home about 3 i ate lunch, layed down for a minute, and had the most delightful nap i've had in a long spell. deep sleep and then i woke up, not groggy but ready for anything, full of energy. so i worked on painting for class today. this morning i see i really screwed it up. so this morning i'm going to paint out a tree and hope it's will dry enough to work on this afternoon in plain old air, ie on location.

after 8 weeks taking spring courses at the center for creative retirement (UNCA) i don't know what to think about it. it is a great resource, much activity.

but the make up of the members is pretty monolithic: pre-baby boomers, middle class and up. behind the patina of energetic well dressed oldsters you can sometimes get a whiff of the basket-weaving mode, give them something to do.

more than anything i think it is an affinity group. a place to gather, eat lunch, talk. think about it: a large body of folks, most all uprooted and moved here for the last act, strangers to the disappearing local hillbilly ethos. i think in the near future there will be an increasing need for something like this as people end up stranded on the island of old age, dislocated in a time when isolation prevails.

of course like any group who all seem cut from the same experiences and therefore identical in outlook, there are a good number of vital interesting folks - like myself.

jeff and nan have been busy in myrtle beach working on new life book, we talk most every day and i am being deluged with photos to replace photos (electronic files, not the photos themselves). right now i am totally confused as to what goes where, but will figure it out tomorrow.

CNN.com - E-mails�'hurt IQ more than pot' - Apr 22, 2005: "Workers distracted by phone calls, e-mails and text messages suffer a greater loss of IQ than a person smoking marijuana, a British study shows."

Good Morning Silicon Valley: "The last remaining doubt that corporate America is utterly incapable of guarding sensitive data disappeared into the Internet's thriving black market in Social Security numbers on Monday."

Macworld UK - Apple's Tiger leaves Microsoft in the dust: "Apple's Tiger leaves Microsoft in the dust."

Macworld UK - Apple becoming hacker target: "Apple becoming hacker target"

5.2.5

the week has started. and on not so good a note. woke up this morning w/ BG - blood glucose - in the 600s. and i traded out 2 infusion sets yesterday because there seemed like an occlusion was keeping the pump from performing correctly. i'm getting ready to replace all plumbing, something ain't right.

then a few moments ago my phone stopped working. i replaced phones, cables and that stuff, still no dial tone. and DSL is coming thru fine.

i did manage to come up with a signature thingy and printed out a few cards with it. also got it plugged into back label, so i'm ready for some physical cutting and pasting.

except i have doctor's appt. and 2:45.

today we are all trouble-shooters.

5.1.5

about 20 - 25 years ago i lived with my family in the mountains west of here. during those years i got to asheville maybe 3 times, it was the big city. some of those visits were on mayday. it was on one of those visits that i saw the first maypole in action that i'd ever seen. every since then i've associated this day with this area.

maybe i am picking up on whatever vortex has since blown in a plethora of neo-pagans, aura technicians, sufi-meisters, edgar cayce aficionados, dog therapists and other assorted 21st c. seekers, not to mention artists and musicians. check here to see what i think i mean:
Asheville, NC New Age Mecca