electricity disappeared for about 5 hours yesterday. it seems to have mangled preview function on a couple of os 9 apps.

so the evening was dark, moody, and dead quiet.

i can't hear out of right ear. must fix.

but i have to put garbage out right now.

i have no idea what it is. done yesterday morning.

it's about 10PM & i just got back from my first half-hour walk, i mean the first of a series that will last the rest of my life.

ninian visited today, it rained, we did get a walk in up sunset mountain. played a little music.

didn't go to Bele Chere yet. plan is to catch it tomorrow morning. i just want to visit the art vendors, see what's up.

this post is going to straighten out archives. or not.

{later} not.

in the slave new world of rebranding, if it's not one thing...

my son eli communing with the spirit of linville gorge.

if i can get thru the day you will find news, opinion, urban myth, and other assorted items of the day right here.

mainly about the Criminal Overworld.

treasure map found near toe river. i didn't pick it up, i may be crazy but i'm no fool.

lately i've been overwhelmed. by everything. i think it is probably a passing phase. but then isn't everything?

the archives to this site stop around april. i must have blundered over some numerical limit.

this means you can't see the pictures i've done on a daily basis since then.

some of the best i've done IMHO. so my next step is to redo the image gallery to include them and while i'm at it add a lot of color prints i've been turning out.

otherwise out of it, isolated, solitary, in a dream (wasn't that the name of a bix biederbeck hit?).

modified pencil drawing i did a few days ago camping out at toe river. besides hauling stuff back and forth across the creek, i did absolutely nothing but one pencil drawing, the results of which you see above.

ever thought about "toxic institutions"? i have. why are they toxic? they developed into a form where the negitive aspects of this manner of organizing human effort have shoved out the positive. what are some of these aspects? power without judgement, turf battles, back stabbing, gossip, refusal to listen, group non-think. like your worst memories of high school.

what could in a sunny fair world replace institutions? govt., education, hospitals, corporations?

just because i don't know the answer to the question does not mean there is no question.

all i can see to do is on a personal level nourish and practice the frail sprouts of compassion and fairness that struggle to grow under the towering canopy of sleaze, greed, and situation comedy we all know so well. create space for the conciously personal and ignore the crumbling institutions.

remember the 60's? "turn on etc."?

now it's time to "turn off your tv".

pictire taken awhile back thru window of yancey county fortress of solitude, hideaway of "the nail". i am aiming to get there today and spend awhile.

when i get back i'm re-doing this site, music, pictures, animation, maybe a quasi-blog tucked away somewhere.

today's pic, drawn from a hat and played with. it's hard work as the bushoid says.

haven't heard from son eli, whether this weekend we'll meet somewhere to camp in the mountains. my fall back is yancey county sunday for 2 or 3 days. finished sealing camper with foam. lots of foam. i lost the little spray nozzle so had to go into tight places w/ can upside down and made a mess, although i hope it's a water tight mess.

went to DDL last evening, hadn't been in awhile, what a pleasant group of folks, all busy doing "creative" stuff. attended prescreening of 25 minute documentary by jaime whose last name i forget. great title which i also forget, but right up my alley, something about "fast slow". the arc of the story line was pretty clear, and it definitely left one wanting to see and hear more (a giant plus). some of the captioning and fade to black transitions seemed inconsistant and one abrupt cut where it played like something had been chopped out of interview were the only nits i noticed.

watercolor i finished yesterday. went pretty fast.

what doesn't?

have large used canvas primed and sanded. i'll start some kind of landscape tomorrow.

yesterday - or maybe the day before - i happened to be working with the radio down low in the other roon tuned to wncw playing the matt mattan talk show. don't know much about him, don't listen to his show, but he comes across as right of center. anyway he went off on a long diatribe talking about why fox would call the war bush's war.

this delighted me and made me realize what a powerful cultural influence this blog is, since i suggested calling the war bush's war a couple of years ago.

interesting item on would be car thieves who were stopped cold by manual gear and clutch:

"'The kid was just sitting in the car trying to start it but he had no idea what to do. '"

so if you are over 20 and baffled by the tech world, remember it works both ways.

nicolas jon, newly arrived on the planet. first son of my nephew jon and kindra. i'd like to talk to him in about 70 years, just to see if either one of us has much to say at that point.

fortunately i'll probably get the chance before then.

mr. d. playing "things have changed". don't know how it will fit on page but let's try it. i'm learning this song on keyboards, watch this space.

meanwhile my nephew jon and kindra are new parents, brand new baby boy, mom dad and baby all doing super. congratulations to all.

i keep cranking these out. not sure why. i begin each day by building one. maybe i am not yet fully awake and forgotten dreams are at work. maybe it's like morning yoga. post-nocturnal graffitti.

i have a bunch of color prints to make, and would be far more usefully busy were i to attend to these. and i do, but slowly, while the daily mostly low-res images i throw up here are effortless.

the days of summer waft towards dogdays: the mornings are shadowless, no sharp light. toned down. street is empty, few cars parked, no traffic automotive or otherwise. my favorite kind of day, brooding, slow, moody.

it's the celtic in me, drawn towards the mist, the damp, the low spots, springs, hollows, ponds, branches. unknown yet familiar topography of half-light.

perhaps a taste of the formless. i was told many years ago that it would not be so good for me to remain in the formless for very long.

if that is true and i have no idea whether it is or not, i am saved by the hard edges of the day's non-optional activites, too many to list here. i might even get some of them done before dusk.

this one flipped out of nowhere this morning.
it might stick around.

pleasant visit with jim yesterday afternoon. conversation can be so real when it's not pre-fabricated by manners or strictures or structures of the day.

this is scan of watercolor i finished last week. a quickie. finished w/ oil pastels.

pretty clear that it is the result of the urge to "make a mark". like small children do. or the inhabitants of the paleolithic era.

and like these examples, i reckon the ego's part in this desire is present, but does not account for the urge. there can come a time when, deaf, dumb and blind, the ego gives up and hands over the controls to some unkown but felt presence. result: an ochre handprint 150 feet below the earth's surface, in a cave where there is no light.

in a non-human animal, you might call it "instinct".

change of scene: denver circa '68. a bar called "clancey's". i am sitting at the bar listening to a young woman ask an older guy whose paintings hang on the wall how he came to paint.

after a short pause and a puff on a cigerette he said "... well you start as a baby pushing baby-shit around."

crowd watching fireworks from vance square or whatever the main intersection is called in asheville. how i got there is long story but it was a good if quiet crowd.

this morning's effort.

uneasy sleep last night. fell out about six in the evening, couldn't stay awake. around 3 i came too, finally got up at six.

you know i could post from today until i leave the planet the memories of the day before: paid bills, listened to bobby d., looked for my hat. like that.

or thoughts and questions of the day, like why don't i have any questions.

is the question still a question if it has an answer?

you can't have your question and answer it too.

does a dream have a beginning and an end?

what about an endless series of dreams?

neil young: "i am just a dreamer, and you are just a dream". is the reverse equally meaningful/meaningless?:
"i am just a dream, and you are just a dreamer".

who is he talking to? who am i talking to?

is there conciousness without unconciousness? what about form, why does it pull me in and push me away? is the experience of human life part of the changing kosmos or apart?

both.

both what?

exile on main street.

today's virtual blink is from a pleasant visit i had w/ r and d yesterday after running the guantlet of tasks in town. drawing and some photo.

where have all the flowers gone?

the trucks all went thataway, including this magnificent example i drove longer than i will ever drive one again, barring a very unlikely series of events. (tip of the hat to jim for foto);

the great house cleaning, i mean leaning, is about done. i'm down to wondering thru rooms and depositing small loose objects in a basket to dispose of.

maybe i'll find a couple of pocket knives that have vanished.

it has come to my attention that email address on this page is dysfunctional. by the time you read or don't read this it should work.

today's idiotgram. seems a little chaotic. that makes it "spot on".

got a call from karamia this morning. hadn't heard from her in a long time but as iusual she had her own take on the oil painting i put up a few days ago. she liked it, but next time if there is one i better put a little "coral" down. this would put me in the proper stage of development as imagined by don beck.

started a small watercolor last night which didn't work at all. time to get out the oil pastels.

dozed thru the night last night, in and out of coast2coast. art was excited because the release of an affadavit by someone who worked in the military in roswell in '48 and specified that it was not to be released until after his death finally convinced him that we have been visited. he called it the biggest news story in history.

got microphone going again running under windows XP. there was a "mute" checkbox checked about 20 menus down in the spighetti. puttering with movie i'm making w/ vegas, in learning mode, started all over again this morning. washed dishes. mopped floors too.

breakthroughs left and right. i'll spend the afternoon packing and organizing supplies for travel (to anywhere). medications, dental stuff, diabetic stuff in triplicate: i want it all stashed and ready to go.


in case i ever get out the front door.