oops. a strange one this morning. wonder where it came from? maybe i should hide under the bed today.

but noooo. i'll go out into the world instead, because it is either part of me, or i am part of it, or (as always) both.

it snowed.

thanks and a tip of the hat to miss nancy for this bit of redundant news:
Internet Explorer at Zero-Day Risk
"The proof of concept is so basic that all it does to trigger the crash in IE is very simple script that looks very innocuous on the surface. In fact it can be triggered with background color or link color code attributes."

here is pic of the day, thank god.

and check out mp3 player below. as soon as i figure out how to squeeze it in to a sidebar it will be available daily, with new selections.

migrating to picture a day format. stay tuned.

trying out an audio player here. let me know if it works.

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i finally got a picture up. the effort has convinced me to change the nature of this blog. a picture a day. keeps the doctor away. maybe a sentence or two along with it.

i know i have been mentioning this from time to time. but this time i'm really going to change the daily offering.

however it will have to wait until i get a few technical, hardware and software details worked out.

go here to see what i'm dealing with.

another day of impending stuff. everything i do is temporarily - i hope - unraveling.

truck folks looking for an obscure part. if they can find it and install, then they will know if it will be worth going further.

another happening is that i find out final adjustment on false teeth will cost $600 that i thought had been already paid for.

and i cannot upload picture of the day.

i did manage to read my email.

not sure if i can post this yet.

maybe i can make a snowman tomorrow. maybe a snowman can make me.

what can i say? it's a rotten day. i'm not whining or complaining but remeber that saying that used to appear on UNIX terminals years ago? "time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once"? it seems it has become inoperative.

there was another saying i used to get on bootup: something like "you are trapped in a maze of twisty twirly thingys".

i've got computer glitches, a truck that may never hit the road again. audio problems. wet paint. my toe hurts.

i think it's a test of character. how many times do you have to flunk it to pass?

or something like that. made it downtown last nite. and even back, though barely. the ritual shenanigans i couldn't hardly watch. the corporate - in the sense of the middle ages - neon barely visible, one of us is fading and the sun is so far away.

got truck to mr. fix-it.

beautiful day for a walk.

all i have to throw up here today. it's an oil i just finished. i think i have a selection of tubed colors that will work in a lot of limited palette situations, and am allowing myself to splash around and learn how some of these handle. it's kind of a relief because since they are "probes" (m. macluhan), not anything else.

i'll be going offline soon for a month or so. i have the obscure intuition that i need to clear my head, work with something more tangible than bits and bytes. so i will. at the moment i am driving truck to mechanic, hoping that if the pvc pipe and grommet can be fixed i'll be mobile once more.

this morning's wake-up exercise. i'm getting to where i do these things in my sleep. good thing because i don't think i'm awake.

i want to redo this blog because it isn't a blog anymore. what can i write about? politics? a miasma.

popular culture? who is allison keyes?

music? not any more.

etc etc so i want to reconfigure (= change) this site to all image, sell postcards, and hang daily postings off in the distance somewhere. but then i keep saying that over and over. doing that or anything seems beyond the horizon at this point.

today's psychogram. i think it means i'm in the wind. like a leaf that's got no sail. driftin and driftin.

an observation: i saw a program on pbs about china's pollution problem. i noticed thruout that the expression "protecting the environment" was used. this expression has become a cliche.

it might be more meaningful to talk about this using some form of ken wilber's holon concept. humans disappear if the ground they stand on disappears. we have been called "the crown of creation". as such, if the body and head that wear/support the crown dies, the crown is no longer a crown but falls into the junkpile that is left. in other words protecting the environment is protecting life, and that's what humans are.

Holon (philosophy) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
"Ken Wilber comments that the test of holon hierarchy is that if you were to remove a type of entity from existence, then all other entities of which it formed a part must of necessity cease to exist too. Thus an atom is of a lower standing in the hierarchy than a molecule, because if you removed all molecules, atoms could still exist, whereas if you removed all atoms, molecules would cease to exist. Wilber's concept is known as the doctrine of the fundamental and the significant. An hydrogen atom is more fundamental than an ant, but an ant is more significant."

i'm awake. you may have seen this pic before, but it was not this version.

it began as a doodle i did one day at an intel meeting. that of course was when i worked for them. intel is famed world-wide for meetings 24/7 and i disliked them intensely. a subject for another time.

anyway the doodles i did on that day or any other were not a reflection of any local situations. i have always doodled. i doodled my way thru collage. i cannot sit and absorb information (understand what is being said) in a formal setting without doodling. it's no big thing to me, i just know it works that way.

today i wonder about what is created, the creator or the creative moment, the "now". also about attention deficit anomalies and what is the opposite of that state, attention surplus?

here is a message about local doings should you be in the area this coming saturday:
BlogAsheville: Blog Asheville Reunites

picture of dr. nard (professor of electricity) from the old days. this is a redo of the only cel i ever painted, ink on mylar, gouach on the reverse side.

course it's been hanging around here and there for many years.

i redid it for the logo of my new biz, tatoos while you wait.

and wait.

c-o-o-o-o-old day today.

shop around noon.

i'm about 2 weeks behind living in the new year.

i must be catching up.

it's a good thing i can't type well.

i might say something.

note:
i really can't type. failed it twice in technical school. and i was really trying. what's the deal?

dyslexia in my opinion. same reason i use both hands when i paint.

everything is a trade off: what am i trading for what and more importantly with whom?

beautiful day yesterday, missed my walk by the usual diversion of "fixing" a few things on computers. sunday i was pretty fatigued w/ all too familiar day of fix, reboot, surprise, fix again, reboot. if i was young i would say this is the sign of a wasted youth. if i was old, a sign of elderly obsession and cognitive slow down.

i finally phoned my ISP late sunday, the second call i got a pleasant young lady who walked my thru a bunch of things. this was a multi-hour session, she was willing to go the limit, and i was possessed so it worked out fine.

picture is of yours truly taken around... 30 years ago?

life makes no sense. i think this is icing on the cake and a good thing, but that doesn't make it make anymore sense.

meta-graffitti i did sat. night.

all day today spent trying to get back online. i think i did but not how i thought. i reset modem so many times i think its circuitry drifted off to the far side of the nebula.

now i have 2 computers that won't talk to each other but both can, with a little cable switching, access the net.

a vast improvement. that's what kludges are for.

so really i have spent this whole year - so far - following ariadne's thread. it may or may not lead somewhere, but it's something to hang onto.

so i let it go.

meanwhile i have lately had the pleasure and fun of:

taking walk w/ t to massive djembe in the dark. very pleasant.

saw children of men

last night caught iris dement at the gray eagle. she is so beautiful, down-home, melancholic, quirky, and so is her art. if anybody reading this gets the chance to hear her, do it. she seems doomed to live her creative gifts, and accepts it, well aware of the misteps that happen every minute along with beautiful, sad epiphanies.

our town is not a bunch of nostalgia: more like a heartbroken goodbye to the worlds that be. or could have been.

and not because we leave the world - more like the worlds are leaving us.

best thing that's happened to me all year.

mmm... pretty colors. maybe it will be a nice day.

did you see mr bush last night? communication as presentation. and i thought he did pretty well as far as stylized, brand name, shuffle logos goes.

as far as meaning is concerned it didn't mean much.

except impeach the guy - because he is a law breaker - before he pulls some high tech stunt against iran.

i've never quite been able to clearly describe this language thing that has developed in my lifetime. i'll give it a another try.

language continually changes, but the speed of the change has and is increasingly increasing. (you know what i mean). so we have developed the habit, probably from the entire world's population being somehow included in the discourse, of a new symbolic method of communicating. surrounded, pushed, and pummled by the corporate mediated flashing glints of words, acronyms, code, with every perspective dominated by the written word turned display (look around your house; how many logos do you see? maybe one on your shirt?) language no longer has meaning as such, but rather denotes pecking order, marching orders, attitude readjustment, "are you in or out?".

this is the mode of all media and increasingly used by humans. if it were to become exclusively used, with no other mode available for personal communication, the experience of being human would change drastically. the heart naturally has a pull towards expressing itself which is hard enough to do (takes a whole lifetime). in this implosion of noise it is a categorical imperative for each of us to preserve as much as possible the activity of easy conversation with the other.

from saturdays walk and this mornings doodling.

i continue to have a hell of a time attempting to establish home network. i guess it doesn't matter, in fact i know it doesn't. but i get real fixated on a technical problem i can almost make work. this trait seems to accompany the creative in humans to some degree. crossword puzzle solvers are one example.

i've put off a string of errands for the lass two days so off to west asheville i go.

back yard. taken at night i think.

reminds me of a quote i used to like:

but i can't remember it now so here is what it became after rattling around in my mind for decades:

"the fearful symmetry of dirt". i guess something like that is by blake. i am thinking of a similar quote by gary snyder maybe.

a few words about the branded world soap opera we are surrounded by - some of us - or maybe part of all of us - even defined by.

the president thinks

a new PR offensive. the worldview was casting bush as an incompetent jerk, cluless, someone you would avoid by crossing the street if you saw him walking towards you. the reaction: a dedicated and publicly announced period while he would "thinK".

yesterday was overcast and wet. the day before - the beautiful day up and down the east coast - i took a walk w/ bobby up sunset mountain and this foto.

friend T called yesterday urging me to see movie children of men which is playing in town and i'd never heard of. even w/ all the quizzical but positive reviews, from what i can guess, there is more to this movie than meets the eye.

still monkeying around with reconfiguration of modem and router; if i don't answer email or you don't see new posting here, i'm offline longer than i want to be.

money is a scarce commodity so far this year. if it weren't i'd buy a mac notebook and at last migrate from OS 9. i think i've pushed it as far as it will gracefully go.

a peek into my digs.

the radio in another room playing low, they're talking about the weather. no, they're talking about the climate.

i got a phone call in a dream last night.

there was an actual person on the other end, i mean it was not a tape recording.

thanks to bobby for droppin by yesterday. got me out. we walked the sunset mountain route we used to. i took camera. those of you who have walked with me when a camera is in my hands know what that means.

did not get to the grocery store.

pretty ugly, huh? looks to me like an xray of troubled confusion. nothing to do with me of course.

this is one part postscript file i hand coded when it first came out and i was trying to learn it, and another part painted cel a la disney, ie ink on mylar, flip it and paint inside the lines with guach i think. i did them both about 25 years ago.

this year is shaping up for me like the old blues statement "like a ship without a sail". so far every day spent messing with new internet wireless connection which does not fit my elderly system like a glove.

as i wrote my son eric this morning, it is a habit of mine, when engaged in a deadline driven project, or a tech conundrum, to be focused entirely on it and let everything else around me slide into a miasma of clutter and chaos. i long ago supplemented this mode by always on completion of task cleaning up the debris.

today i am taking some time off to do just that. and grocery shop. and walk outside, see which way the wind is blowing.

picture of the past, i don't know how far passed, let's just say awhile back. looks like steve and rachel's' yard to me.

i'm off and on the net these days. hooking up the various musical devices and apps i have on very different operating systems is more than i can handle. so half the time i my net access is gone. patience, play, practice, and puttering might get there but if it does i probably won't know it.

I've got 11 or 12 new muzak pieces, they are starting to come together. or maybe drift down their particular paths. when i finally finish one that works i'll put it up.

this is what comes from new software i don't know how to use: endless fascination: what's this? what did that do? why doesn't it work?

it's funny: if in such a situation i am bedazzled by possibilities, the seemingly endless learning curve doesn't bother me, it's just another carnival ride.

but if it is something i don't have that instinctual pull towards, i fluff around lost, disinterested, and dare i say it bored and frustrated.

a little bit of both lately.

i have no idea what this morning's metagram might indicate. it is from one of the first digital pictures i took. i believe the window is bartok's window. he stayed in the room behind the window - unless i am mistaken as to where i took the photo - when in asheville for a psychiatric tune-up. asheville was at that time a center for wealthy lunatics, or more kindly put, the elite who were suffering various psychological conundrums. remember zelda?

anyway the story goes that he was working and had hit a block, couldn't get past it until he happened to hear a bird sing outside. he then finished the piece.

no bird song this morning so i winged it. i have spent the last few days configuring equipment so it can talk to itself. so far no luck, but about 24 hours ago i had cords, cables, boxes scattered every where and could not access the net. i have been doing a music piece everyday using a whole new methodology which is keeping me interested.

after lunch, in order to keep the kosmos evolving, i'm going to drive up to the parkway. because it's there.

this morning's psychograf indicates... dead of winter dream? too much saturation? where have all the flowers gone?

i don't know. but here is how the present morning methodology goes. boot up. check email. grab pretty much at random some image on my hard drive that i haven't monkeyed with, much less looked at much, open it in pshop and see what happens.

which is why i am seriously considering turning this into picture blog. with a link to the few words that are circling around my head at the moment.

this, like everything else, will take the time it takes. in fact it's not even on the "toodoo" list, it will happen and i'll go along for the ride.

meanwhile: yesterday totally taken up w/ 2 activities. one was connecting some hardware. result so far is room full of cables, boxes, scattered documentation, ie paper all over the place.

the second sorting thru room where i paint. i forget why, but for some reason - probably to find something - i piled a lot of small thing-units on the floor, stuff like rollers, bowls of staples, glue gun, old rubber cement. you get the picture, this was all squirreled away on a shelf which after i emptied it could be moved.

more interesting was taking drawers of artwork, old, new, indifferent, worth saving, none or all of the above, and emptying them onto living room floor which i will slog thru today. intention is to lose stuff and be able to locate what remains.

i have the pull of the parkway happening, feel if i take a short drive up the mountain after noon i would somehow be playing a game that the kosmos is waiting for me to play.

ain't that wired?

today's doily. crafted from the 468th picture i took with digital camera.

i got revision of whistling in the dark up. much time taken, very little changed.

i'm trying (way back in mind cavern) to let a new layout emerge for this blog. turn it into foto/picture/icon/puzzle a day with any chatter hung off the side.

and a small storefront where ? some form of visuals can be bought. postcards?

it will be a fun project.

or it won't happen.

how can this be? "another" and "new" contradict each other. don't they? something new, novel, is a surprise experience. or else it is an "old" one.

when nothing is new, there is no experience, no participant, no presence.

as long as there is human experience, there is change.

this can be a delight as well as very painful.

every "now" (including this very one) is new.

happy is another question entirely.

it is in many ways beside the point.