VISTA SUCKS

VISTA SUCKS

rainy raw day. above. this morning's trick, is a reflection of this.

what did i learn during the past year?

in our world there is no absolute truth. there are, however, partial truths. a partial truth is one that can be validated within its own domain.

for instance within the domain of common-sense science, the law of gravity can be presented as true or false.

in the domain of subjectivity, i can feel "blue". within that domain, i "know" that this is true.

today this situation which is part of being conscious is in the curious situation of slowly becoming apparent. but right now the culture and our heads are lagging behind and we cling to the enlightment focus on the manifest world. so if existence stumbles on a problem, the solution is sought in science or law. some problems cannot be successfully treated this way. the "war" against terrorism, crime, drugs and poverty are examples of this approach.

i flipped open "i and thou", a book i've been reading for 25 years, and found this:

""He who takes his stand in relation shares in a reality, that is, in a being that neither merely belongs to him nor merely lies outside him…The I is real in virtue of its sharing in reality. The more full its sharing the more real it becomes".

how do relate to the invisible, the unmanifest, the "is" that is. not thru DNA or the law of the land.

mmm.. not bad for a day's work.

just kidding. spent the day unpacking, some changes to systems, all types, and finished oil. above was part of a little cyber house cleaning.

i made it back, a trip filled with surprise. had a little time to spend with 3 children and 3 grandchildren and the time spent was such a relief. like our ancestor's they can handle it whatever "it" is. good thing too.

battery developed some weirdness. the big wheel tilted and the local spirits called the shot as i was about to fill the gas tank and head west. out of nowhere truck wouldn't start. had this happened, say, between mocksville and statesville on a very raw and rainy afternoon the story would not be this story. this story is about finding and losing things. got truck to good mechanic and spent some time at dr. j's atrium counting the leaves on the ground.

i feel the need to make some statement, some summing up, i guess because year digits will increment soon. i'm not going to think about it so it may happen.

leaving tommorow to have lunch at daughter nicole's, been working on revamp of site by next year. wish i had more to say but "i've already confessed". st. augustine or bob dylan said that. anyway to everyone

have a good one

now her is a guy that has something to say about silence

"Likewise, looking deep within the mind, in the very most interior part of the self, when the mind becomes very, very quite, and one listens very carefully, in that infinite silence, the soul begins to whisper, and its feather-soft voice takes one far beyond what the mind could ever imagine, beyond anything rationality could possibly tolerate, beyond anything logic can endure. In its gentle whisperings, there are the faintest hints of infinite love, glimmers of a life that time forgot, flashes of a bliss that must not be mentioned, an infinite intersection where the mysteries of eternity breathe life into mortal time, where suffering and pain have forgotten how to pronounce their own names, this secret quiet intersection of time and the very timeless, an intersection called the soul. "

ken wilber
-- Integral Psychology , p. 106.

blog is falling apart. lost posts since this one.

photo taken about 2-3 weeks ago. things have changed.

heading west. yesterday.

monday hardly happened. i camped out again last night. inside sleepinbag all is well. warm and comfy. but a problem is fluid shifting bags and supplies. can't reach out in dark and locate this that and the other. some stable shelving and storage next step. last night i skipped a med that i couldn't locate, misjudged some insulin requirement and pretty much stayed in bed all day while grandkids were at school and children at work. not well.

so i'm leaving tomorrow and regroup in asheville.

right now watching the fox news channel, bill o'reilly. circuses and clowns. claptrap. noise as form. kill your TV. really.

there is a man on a white horse loping across the dark beach at morning light. he is in a race with the guy who drove coast to coast in 36 hours. we will forget the outcome and stare at the mystery dust hanging in the air after they pass.

went from t-shirt mode to raw wintery phase when i got to peidmont. slept in camper last two nights. sleeping bag etc very warm and comfy. jim gave me termorest which combined with mine makes good sleeping. one slight leak discovered (it hasn't stopped raining since i got here). reading at night ok but needs adjustment. listened to mystery cd driving down, i think it is by r.l.burnside. excellent, up there with personal messages from the clash.

i hit the road today - not literally - will return the 19th.

a quickie of this past year.

from the same digital photo as the one below.

i've been working my ass off doing xmas gifts. i always make them myself instead of buying. and i always think i'm in good shape fot this activity, and then notice the calendar too late, deadline fever once again.

i plan to drive to chatham county later this week, probably thurday. back around the 19th. early xmas, the actual holy day i will spend on top of one of the local vortexes and soak up some badly needed cosmik influx so i can last the rest of the year.

i'll be converting this site jan 1. a new start. i've got 1800 plus postings buried here. and not much left to say. so i'll be turning it into a people's gallery featuring archival prints of my artwork, some flash, videos and music. i'll hide the occasional blog posting hanging off the side somewhere.

then off to arizona for three weeks during which i will be eased off of this hypomaniac kick i've been on for awhile.

when you don't need nothin', practice doing nothin'.

i replaced the picture here before, it was the result of one of those irritable dyas when absolutely nothing i tried work, glitches, broken, confued - the day not me. it was that way for 12 solid hours. ugly picture i put up. so i put his up instead, just finished it.

a picture a day
it's just my way
to keep thoughts at bay
while i'm away.

this morning's quickie.

t-shirt weather. masked campershell and applied truckbed cover spray. made a whole bunch of vegitables and fruit into juice. did the pic above.

[i eliminated the video - don't like the way it slows down load time - dec.7]
stumbled across this video this morning. the godz were a lower east side band that played the durham civic auditorium in the 60's. the event was to introduce Meher Baba to the crowd, which was done at intermission by rick chapman fresh from india with marching orders from Baba. more than a few boos and hisses were heard. and looking at the video one can understand, the crowd wanted to rock. but it was the beginning of a very robust and still growing group of Baba-lovers.

the apparent contradiction between the avataric injunction and the sex drugs and rock and roll mode is perhaps the reason for the line in the video "god's rock and roll machine".

they left behind a reel-to-reel tape at my house which was 15 minutes of a very slowly rising sine wave as well as a strobe light which i ran during the light show.

pic o' the day not bad. i like it.

today's topic: intelligent design

is not as dumb as we might think. or, to re-put it, is no dumber than than smart. based a lot on hawking's observations that the slightest difference in the big bang and the consequent minute changes in the physical universe would make the present, it's universe and us, impossiblet. but it does exist. therefore the universe as is is is designed for life to exist.

this assumes that the development of the universe could have gone in more different directions than we can know or even imagine. which i agree with.

but the fact that this path was taken out of all possible paths does not mean that it was taken so that we and the this universe exist. the opposite is more likely.

every since darwin there has been an uneasiness about the theory of evolution. not because it seems antagonistic towards religions, but because of some flaw in it's logic.

"evolution" etomologically means "change". no teleological terminus in the manifest world. we're here because we're here because...

if you drown in the ocean it does not tell you what the purpose of water is.

had my yearly checkup with eye doc this morning, very early this morning. seemed that way because i couldn't find an alarm clock last night so i relied on my own self which usually works for me but this morning it didn't and had to move fast in order to get there in time. anyway i got a gold star which is always good to see twinkle.

ok i shut down that annoying "have a good turkey day" audio. but i hope you did have one.

today's pictogram is coming together and will be here soon.

went grocery shopping yesterday and got phone message on return. friend tom's bday so i beat it up the hill to participate. tom e. and e. were running late so r.,d., and myself took a ride up elk mountain, it's really wierd to drive high up and then see mansions and gated communities, all looking picture perfect and empty.

foto of creature that lives in a yard 2 blocks from here.

yesterday i participated in black friday because of my patriotic bent. or maybe idiotic flair. i was aiming for sports store located in formidable emporium complex. gridlock on all enternce roads. poked along got to store. looking for replacements for sleeping bag and lantern. i got out without too much hassle, but have no idea of what i got. the sleeping bag cost a third of what old faithful did, and according to specs should be warmer. it seems to be much lighter but i wonder about how easy it might be to accidentally rip the fabric.

finally ordered paints. it took a month for me to see what i was out of.

working on a small movie, trying to figure out how to burn a dvd with all the trappings, menu, etc. it will take some time.

i'm going to check the news now, the first time in a long time. i've noticed that the tv ads are all pushing "events", which i guess were called "sales" back when the earth was cool. in the distant past i recall discussing w/ friend d. the changeover to "systems", ie an instrument to shave with was called a shaving system.

do you recall the phrase "land poor"? someone with a lot of land and no other resources like fat bank account. i think we are event-poor today. plenty of events, disneylands, sham news, sports extravaganzas, celeb gods, soap opera events, new guiness book or records records, news cycle blips etc. but perhaps very thin personal experience, i mean really personal and not the mock personal of style, fabricated identidy and dumbing down of the day to day.

if i wasn't so impulsive (and i'm not) i wouldn't put this greeting up. damges my "professional" image. but what is is and the code that surrounds the picture looks kind of... cool? sloppy?

yet another cyber doodle.

now that the dreaded x season is here, i am wondering how to let it be. i don't want to hide under the bed. been there done that, it doesn't work.

the day after t-day i understand is the biggest shopping day of the year. doing my part will be fighting my way to frugal camping supply outlet and buying sleeping bag. my old faithful was stolen. i think i'll take my camera and document my trip.

i have been pulled into turkey day at the quaker meeting place which is a pleasant and unexpected surprise. now if i can just finish cooking the merianated and blackened baked alaska by the appointed hour everything will be what it is. if not, it will still be what it is.

hey guess what?

today i'm going to kleen the house again. lost my keys.

nothing new. i can recall a time about 40 years ago when i lost another set for two weeks, and the entire time i was expected to show up in this very town for a visit to a friend in need. never made it.

worlds are dribbling away
while algorhythms scribble
and epiphanies are
bought and sold like giggles

sun day. appt. w/ doc tomorrow. need prescription change bad. hope there is one.

reading ox x manual, radiant mind by fenner, finished postman always rings twice by cain this morning. i liked the 30's atmosphere of the latter altho so far don't think he surpasses jim thompson a bit. want for the first time in a long time to see a movie, no country for old men. i encourage anyone who is reading this to read the book first, it towers over most of todays lit IMHO.
No Country for Old Men : Review : Rolling Stone: "No Country doesn't have to preach or wave a flag - it carries in its bones the virus of what we've become."

since i already read it i'm ready to go.

had a wonderful day friday with r & d, just strolling thru the falling leaves, gentle breezes, the fearful symettry of earth and the hieroglyphics of stone, air, and woods.

almost forgot new flash twinkie i posted recently. form form everywhere but not a drop to drink.

Grace Marie Parsons born today. Angela, Eric and Grace all doing well.
five pounds plus, 18 inches tall, and trailing clouds of glory. c-se3ction after a day plus of of induced labor didn't work. my fourth grandchild. coincidentally just listened to del macoury singing wonder where the years of my life has gone."high on the mountain."

today's image doesn't look so healthy to me. genomes mixed with algorhythms. springtime in chernoble. after the bug's arrive.

friend t paid a visit, he has been in california. he will have to tell you about it, i can't.

i'm out of the door to grocery shop.

is thinking you are not thinking
any more impossible
(this is not the time to get into the question of whether something can be more or less impossible - or more or less possible - than something else)
than not thinking
you are not thinking?

pretty mellow day. this afternoon's idiotgram seems to reflect this.

i spent yesterday doing what i do, digging myself out of a hole i can't see. rounded up every frame and canvas in the house and had the added bonus of finding a few forgotten works. squaring away piles of stuff, now i have piles of piles. today kitchen and rumpus room and i'll be ready to hide under bed for the holidays.

richard and i went to see dave olney last night. dave is an old aquaintance from before the earth was cool. he played with a guy whose name i wish i could remember. just the two of them. some of the best music i have heard in aville. dave with rock solid rhythm guitar and beautiful vocal delivery, the guy on the telecaster complimenting him perfectly with impossible low moans, quiet feedback, transparant fluid lines of startling vertuosity. basic stripped down r&r and a hell of a lot of understated but clear passion.

and the songs: olney is indeed a master song writer, playing off the great american songbook with lyrics that seemed to beam themselves into the center of my head. seemless. all with a subtext of a lifetime on the planet, a wide awake observer of and participant in modern times, a member of the lost tribe of poets with roots going back to the now transfigured heavy duty era we were once lost in.

"if it doesn't kill you it makes you stronger."

in our lifetimes it has done both.

i'm in a rut with RAW. here is third image from same file. what fun.

still playing with RAW format. this image is from same file as the image below. whoopie.

this post is a test. i guess i will have to put blogger out to pasture. i've way exceeded the number of posts allowed, cannot access or modify the archive index page, or posts since april 07. want to see if i can post which i can if you are reading this.

there is a little more to it: above image was taken as RAW file. the format is used for print but i fooled around with it and and got this 36k jpg yay also made it to doc appt without insulin pump will try again tomorrow and i wonder what would happen if you googled "wwIII" and i'm going outside to remove A/c cause it's way past time to button up the bunker.

i am back. had a pleasant time visiting, altho as always it was a hurry up and wait situation. children and grandchildren doing great as far as i could tell, colliding with the world of one million things 9updated verbal description of maya; things have changed in the last few millenia,

my departure from aville was a classic, between rounding up stuff and stowing it in camper for first time and a slight swereve in medication which delayed and confused me, the one night i slept in camper i discovered, after dark, that i had forgotten sleeping bag and lantern. did without and spent a confortable night anyway. drive back, like drive down, was a new experience in 2001 dodge ram, great highway ride. when i got back after daer i realized sleeping bag rtc had not been forgotten but lifted from truck during the days here i was figuring out where to put things. no lock on camper which didn't seem very important. i only hope whoever got my stuff needs it and is using it, andwas not some kid acting out the outlaw.

so i decided to unload truck on arrival here and did so. couldn't find medicine and spent some time locating it. the last touch was to lose my keys so i went to bed and found then in the morning.

then yesterday my landlord pointed out that the camper door handle was covered by a plastic cover, under which was a ... keyhole. so it's off to the locksmith today, a few months late.

drove to outfitters discount w/ richard to replace missing stuff. we got totally turned around and did a grand tour of highway system, missed outfitters altho we must have passed right by it.

i mention all this as an example of the difficulty of keeping up with the world of "stuff". we are surounded, and can't circle the wagons because the wagons are what is surrounding us.

got back in town last nite. pleasant trip to visit children and grandchildren. at some point during sojourn, or maybe before, a lantern and sleeping bag and a day pack containing small cook stove and a bunch of batteries were lifted from the camper. of course with my scattered wits i figured i had left them home.

bent creek
from last week's outing.
reminds me of a joke i heard no it was a bluegrass song that wafted thru the media winds the other day. chorus went:
"i may not be broke
but i'm badly bent"
didn't make trip. mid case of something or another for two days.

i'm out of here back before end of week.

sat around noon packiong etc slowly ninian spent the night n the way to brevard. i'm running l al a la a tt ee.

[later]
pretty kryptic huh?
i was just getting ready to go when i started feeling not so good delayed trip until tommorrow. to make it even more confusing this is yesterday's post.
it's all good.

yesterday's excursion to deep dank overcast forest. i loved it. the celt in me i suppose.

played a lot of dobro while camped. i am more and more intrigued by this instrument,

<
took foto this morning yancey county. i think i'm going into retreat mode and drive to chapel mon.

from saturday's trip to the parkway. i'm leaving in an hour to camp out in yancy county and maybe talk to a waterfall. back wednesday.

photo from douglas falls walk. today is dedicated to trip to big box for plywood and finishing camper. tomorrow i leave for camping in yancey county, fortress of solitude. later in week head for chapel hill and maybe points beyond.

i'm tired. very active 3-4 days, son eli dropped in, and friend t. headed west.

i'm closing down a blog that has been hanging around for awhile and never really took off, for "harry's 1960's" and while i was doing the image above i was thinking - or at least a thought was bouncing around - of what to put in it's place, like "gone fission".

so
ou sont les nuages d'hier
came to mind (floated to the top).

and traveling right behind it, the answer, an ah-ha moment:
"blowin in the wind".

well i've done my image a day so now i can get onto the nonoptional sublunary endless action reaction tasks, today concentrating on going thru the motions asleep and not caring. it makes it so much more productive.

nothing worse then going thru the motions and fighting it, trying to fix it.

nice photo. no idea when or where. found it in a folder named "oct5.07" so i thought i took i last week. but the id # is way earlier. think it came from a folder misplaced that i dropped into the right place.

one of the very few images you will ever see here not produced by myself. this one is courtesy of ashevegas by way of A girl who wears glasses.

pritchard park, local hangout of the dispossessed. if i existed as a worker bee in an office, i would start an office pool: what date will this space be occupied by a high rise?

meanwhile i am once again reminded of the observation by an european visitor to constantinople around 1000 ad who remarked that the inhabitants of that town all carried on a nonstop conversation about the higher questions, theology, eschatology, fate, karma and other inexplicables we have put into boxes. in the same manner as we today might talk about football or the latest official talking point.

for some reason i am not clear about this links up directly with my recent decision to vote for and work for the election of kusinovich. not because he is an is an eccentric wierdo, but because he is electable! i truly feel he can walk and talk like a human, and at this point that qualifies him.

tossed off this morning. now i'm paying billz.

pretty much finished w/ new & improved image archive. i'll be adding images to it as i find them. the good ones.

rained last nite, a drizzle. i have a little more waterproofing to do on camper shell. don't ever buy one that is 1/2" shorter than truck bed.

first oil painting i ever did. maybe 3 years ago.

as far as cogent incisive quirky cultural commentary, i'm fresh out.

besides having a good time at the 2nd annual blogerama awards, i learned a lot. folks i knew and some i didn't are blogging up a storm. a lot of talent and effort. the video and photo domains are strong and being used with a lot of taste and discrimination.
check out these: while i have been cruising on automatic these folks have been pushing the envelope:

zenography
Stoplight Haiku
Moonmeadow Farm
The Hangover Journals
Flickr: Photos from susanlee828
photos of event
Et in Arcadia ego

for a look at the festivities:
BlogAsheville

an unusual week and week end. music, the breeze before the word, the same eye that sees is seen. and then that pastel dream last night.

perhaps later i can make sense.

visited my 3rd cousin m. & friends yesterday and spent the nite in a spaceship. very comfortable. her mother was visiting who i last saw maybe... quarter century ago? probably not quite that long. a pleasure to sit around the fire and play music. first time i'd played the dobro with others. nice folks whom i hope to see again.

photo taken yesterday on ride to maxpatch. what a relief to get out.

i hear thru the grapevine that iran is setup, all is in place and moving forward, and we better start thinking of martial law, pre-election terrorist extravaganza, no election.

really. if you don't sound like a nut today you are living in dreamland.

a fundimental misunderstanding rampant today is that the junta has made mistake after mmistake over the last 6 years and the populice is pissed about it. the latter part is true, but things are going well for the criminal overworld. not that they planned it out, they are not that smart. just lucky i guess.

another lost and found watercolor. no idea of when i did it.

as most of you understand i have lost, temporarily maybe, my capacity to comment on the culture. some have not:

The Case That the President's Reach Exceeds His Grasp - New York Times:
"After Sept. 11 these efforts would accelerate with astonishing speed, often in secret from Congress and the American public. A Sept. 25, 2001, memo written by Mr. Yoo asserted that "the president's powers include inherent executive powers that are unenumerated in the Constitution, including a right to use military force as he sees fit, regardless of the views of Congress."

"The Big Con" - New York Times:
"Government is no smaller-it is simply more debt-ridden and more beholden to wealthy elites."

oil on gessoed watercolor paper. i've been on slow kleenup the last few weeks and am finding some amazing to me stuff.

i have been wrapped up tight in the coils of cyber-spighetti. far outside my window the idiots in DC circle the inevitable: iran, nukes, if you disagree with someone or thing, don't communicate with them, the criminal overworld wheeling and dealing, the prime directive willfully ignored and so on. you know this, you saw it on the news. columbia university has shot up in my estimation many levels.

so i don't have much to say. others have:

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
Plato

Death is not the worst that can happen to men.
Plato

It is better to hide ignorance, but it is hard to do this when we relax over wine.
Heraclitus,

The road up and the road down is one and the same.
Heraclitus,

It is worse still to be ignorant of your ignorance.
Saint Jerome

Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.
Arthur Schopenhauer

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
Arthur Schopenhauer

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
William James

Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
Friedrich Nietzsche

When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you.
Friedrich Nietzsche

You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.
Friedrich Nietzsche

I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

If people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

long day, thoughts arising and sinking fast, eternal puttering.

friends driving to clemson tonight to see bob dylan. if it even close to his last performance at the ryman auditorium in nasheville it will be more than worth it.

Seeing multiple Bobs -- dailypress.com:
"'The thing I just kept hearing from every account of Dylan was about this life of serial change, in a way far more profound to a culture than David Bowie's different chameleonlike changes or Madonna's that would come decades later. These changes had deep intellectual, cultural, almost physical effects on Dylan's audience,' Haynes said. 'He undermines the things you count on, your touchstones. He shakes up the things that people used to build their own selves on. Every time you grab on to him, he's somewhere else"

i chickened out.

i guess i'm too sensitive, or else i'm getting soft.

i keep thinking it's saturday.

i'm working with a book by peter fenner, radient mind.

did some shopping, hardware store etc.

i like the song "i'm not talkin... tha-a-a-t's what i've got to say." pretty sure it was on first yardbird's lp.

saw movie "life of allen ginsburg" or similar title with tom, richard and debbie. very intense, much better than the cartoon - ie current cultural iconic brand.

"...but things... have changed".

during my lifetime the population of the world has doubled. hey, i didn't do it.

not only that, but everyone's name is known. either by god or NSA.

the effort to know the new before it is the old is rarely successful.

the crown of creation is a baseball cap.

we experience personal and collective life. but do we experience "experience"?

late summer. the dog days are fading. i don't know how many more summers i can take, but i'll takem all.

so i was writing about the coming "big thing", the branded spectacular, iran.

it is apparent to me that bush's war is going exactly according to plan. a long war. nebulous enemy. corporate prescence in the middle east.

except for the grumbling and mumbling of the growing dispossessed, and that seems to be a minor detail taken care of by endless wordplay.

just as bush's war was on the table way before he stole the election (not bush really it was the whole kit and cabel stole it, from the supreme court on down thru the oligarchy), so the iranian phase is not only in place but happening right now. when some spectacular move manifests it might even keep the dems from winning the presidency. not that it matters a whole lot, they seem to have done nothing since bush stole the election, nothing before they captured congress, not much since. topic for another day, but can you say economic pressure, personal blackmail, threats and dirty tricks?

anyway iran will be a whole different thing. probably the most pro-american populice in the middle east. they don't speak arabic but farsi. if the CIA hadn't replaced their government with the shah in the early 50s they would not have dealt with reagon, agreeing to release the hostiges on the day of his inaugeration, but then again they got weapons for this.

today is my youngest son's birthday. nathan: it seems like yesterday when i was barreling down the mountain in a dodge longbed headed for the hospital where he was born about 15 minutes after we got there. i am very proud of him, he has been thru a lot, and i emphasize the past tense: thru, not stuck in some in some zone he could remain in for life.