Thursday, November 27, 2008


heard a tale on NPR yesterday about chartres cathedral, modern art, and various other items that might loosly be called numinous. included was a short reading from dharma bums by jack kerouac. this concerned his departure from the fire lookout tower he had spent some months in. on his way down the trail he had stopped, turned around, kneeled down on one leg, and as he had been taught by "japhy ryder" (pseudonym for poet whose name i can not recall at the moment), thanked the cabin he had just left.

years ago i asked jack what the relationship was between his summer on the mountain and the moment we were then experiencing.

he paused briefly and then said "i'm talking to you aren't i?"

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

"Obama's thrilling election—something not long ago many wise heads said wasn't possible—also made more imminent the prospect that the dark night of the worst administration in history was ending. The American people had overwhelmingly rejected the Bush regime's stupidity, cupidity, its wars, its lies, its torturing and its secrecy, its ineptitude and its power grab that threatened constitutional government. The relief was palpable. Washingtonians were simply smiling as they hadn't in years. Something new was coming, and it was to be looked forward to. People felt cleansed."

Elizabeth Drew - NY Review of Books

thanks and a tip of the hat to richard for this piece so appropriate for thanksgiving.

drew's piece very upbeat. smiles are good.

(but)the very next long range and necessary phase is a removal of the power complex that has become enmeshed with all institutions and dominates them. until they are run along lines other than those damned meeting charades complete with power point bullets and decisions already made i don't think anything will change the confluence of power, domination, neoslavery, cheap thrills and the end of the organic. not far down the road.

the only solution is inside the head.

like my favorite line from r.d. norriss on zeke and the big wheel produced in '99:

"hang another millennium on the old clothes line.
we'll greet the next one on our knees,"


grabbed this picture from the vast assembly of "stuff" i have been relocating on appropriate HDs.

you know of course the word bibliomanacy? but do you know how to spell it? neither do i. if it is a word used nowdays it means flipping a book open to a page and and blindly putting a finger somewhere. then read the sentence. like this:

"So far from there being any spontaneous communication under this regime, these electronic media are carefully controlled to make sure that 'dangerous', that is, unorthodox views do not slip through. Such a system permits neither colloquy nor dialogue, as in genuine oral discourse: what takes place is for the greater part only a meticulously arranged monologue, even if more than one person is present on the screen. A population entirely dependent upon such controlled oral communication, even though it reached every human soul on the planet, would not merely be at the mercy of the Dominant Majority but would become increasingly illiterate and soon mutually unintelligible. Thus once again the parallel between the Pyramid Age and our own forces itself upon the observer: here in prospect is actually the electronic Tower of Babel."

Lewis Mumford
The myth of the Machine, v.2: the Pentagon of Power (1966)
p. 298

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

long day. lot of housekeeping (hard drives) (kitchen and front room). finished naomi klein book. interesting what a mind can do today, write a book the subject of which probably could not be found 10 years ago. her's is disaster capitalism.

finishing up lewis mumford's pentagon of power. if i could type i'd throw a few of his observation up here. longest , most penetrating view of where we are today. the culture which has replaced the kosmos as our world. based on power and domination. he argues that today is a replay of the "pyramid age" when monumentality was created through coercion, slavery and the whip. today it is enforced through the descended grid of science, the rise of the THE MEGAMACHINE:
"Before the 19th century was over the New World's promised land was destroyed by the very forces that had created 'civilization': the expanded bureaucracy, the conscript army, the centralized state, the slavery, the rise of imperialism. The mechanical world picture produced an environment in which the technological complex - the Megamachine became an end in itself."

your money or your life.

and just last night the local media used the words "time theft". an example is using email for personal life while at work.

YouTube - An anthropological introduction to YouTube

YouTube - An anthropological introduction to YouTube

Monday, November 24, 2008

this is not the last post to this now ancient blog but i'm getting close. i think i'm thru redoing up the image archive extravaganza. lots of new material. dreamweaver tables that glitched the index page fixed i hope. videos looking good. i'll be replacing some of the music w/ newer stuff on the jamwavez page. kindly take a look and let me know of any surprises and maybe i can put a lid on this thing.

Sunday, November 23, 2008


redoing gallery site have recovered many forgotten images of which the above is one. new gallery will be up soon.

hyperinsomniac night last night. i waited it out. feeling pretty fragile today. radio on turned down low. what did you miss by sleeping?

art bell march 2001 rebroadcast with someone who worked in "tabloid television" at it's inception and wrote tabloid baby. he was knowledgable, soft spoken, recovered, many observations about "reality shows". scary stuff.

followed by coast2costAM 4 hour JFK assasination anneversery special. really scary stuff.

must have mostly dozed after that, while BBC murmered.

then at 7 NPR gameshow (name forgotten). something about marrage being the period before divorce.

followed by lee ann's weekend PBS show. the only thing i remember is something about software that corrects pitch of recorded vocals.

then i got up and started a brand new day.

Friday, November 21, 2008


besides cyberdoodle got two prints done yesterday. still stalking wild DVD authoring.

blowing snow this morning, not a lot here. last night i noticed even the preliminary sealing of air leaks made dwelling esp. in the "front" which in this places faces back. today at high noon or whenever it's warmest i will finish that chore. pick up a few groceries but do not look forward to panic stricken shoppers stocking up to beat the weather. maybe it won't be so bad.

coast2coast had an expert on predicting earthquakes last night. he at least sounded like he knew what he was talking about which was watch out for dec 11-17 or 18th due to i think high tide, full moon, the closest approach of earth to the sun during it's yearly trip, and a bunch of other factors i didn't quite make out. he was talking west coast.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

worked on and finished birthday gift for granddaughter lily. late of course. also finishedfooling with prep for a new DVD, as wellas assembling alternate production suite that i hope works better than the kluge i've been using. matter of fact burning dvd right now.

then whipped into action outside: hardware store (insulation goodies), dropped mail off at post office, setting up for large watercolor.

is there anything significant to say in this post?

just a minute, i'm thinking...

Wednesday, November 19, 2008


among other things i'm reorganizing pictures and images. immediate cause: looking for a shot of granddaughter lily whose birthday i missed. generic cause: slow as i am i work fast in the morning and throw pictures up willy-nilly. ie sloppy. will i ever learn to work in a more organized manner? i doubt it.

anyway found this image and now you have.

explanation of youtube action below: this was posted on more blog's than mine. lots of discussion about whether it was "real" or digitally created. i went for "real". the last (?) word on this ill post below when i find it.

"Will also take this opportunity to note the one winged landing 'For Fun' video I linked to.... Well, it seems likely to be a fake. I thank the many readers for letting me know on this 'one'. It may actually have been done on a Mac (maybe a PC) with a model airplane 'incident' being melded into the reel. Anyway - amazing what you can do with video editing software right at home these days."
from OWC newsletter.

Monday, November 17, 2008

The best Air Race Pilot ever?

perhaps i should explain: i am rebuilding site so i don't post to it every day. so it stands as an online booth where one can buy an image or two, archival everything.

then i ca work on my "statement" about this life. i'm guided by the stars and they haven't let me know yet what is and is not.

i used to know the word shells surrounding, impressing themselves into each world, useful for postcards. not so facile now. nor glib.

fate
doom
sanskaras
fata morgana
samsara

include no map of what is to be much less what is.

so i sleep when i sleep (sometimes). and the converse.

Sunday, November 16, 2008


cold, no snow. daily homily not happening.

social life still contracting.

bits and pieces of "the past" flow past. who was that fast man?

read a little till 2AM last night, meister eckhart.

Saturday, November 15, 2008


dashing down the finish line. a long 12 hours at the image machine. DVDs, MPGs, and weirdest of all dreamweaver plus firefox = glitch on gallery page where picture appears in wrong place until you reload page. it is all quite beyond me. want to make it right and also redo flash galleries before i drive to chapel hill.

tomorrow i take a load to goodwill.

the island seems smaller today. a change in the air, i can smell snow. the light has become a translucent window to dead images, sparkling waves of slow glass like stories of the lizard who daily hides behind my shadow.

Thursday, November 13, 2008


almost finished site touchup.

A Fake Expert Named Martin Eisenstadt and a Phony Think Tank Fool Bloggers and the Mainstream News Media - NYTimes.com:
"Mr. Gorlin, 39, argued that Eisenstadt was no more of a joke than half the bloggers or political commentators on the Internet or television."

Wednesday, November 12, 2008


here is the plan: all of the graphic goodies on upper right sidebar will go away and all be accessible from gallery.

the blog will slowly evolve to something else (again). that will not involve daily posting. rss feed link will be relocated to top so it can be easily found.

then all will be wrapped up tight. need to fix some glitch on gallery page and firefox,
work with the captions in image gallery. and walk away. want to watercolor for awhile.

maybe change blog to a project page where various stages of work in process could be shown and discussed.

did you happen to seePBStonight, a show on dementia in the elderly. very interesting and full of new information.

Monday, November 10, 2008

i am deconstructing this site currently so expect to see goofier things than normal for a few days.


beaverdam lake, yesterday at dusk.

as usual i have very little to say. want to know what i'm going to do this week? so do i.

intentions:

sort through debris in living room, all from art studio (chuckle) which i unloaded last week.

assemble load of clothes for goodwill.

print 10-15 prints and send to denise in denver for her resteraunt.

place about 80 postcards somewhere to sell.

upload 2 12 minute videos and link to new video location.

buy roundtrip airline ticket to phx jan15-feb15.

redo and fix gallery page. pretty shabby right now.

put new link to 2 cd's of mine i found on the net and had forgotten about.

get it together to drive to chapel hill the 18th for short visit.

then hunker down for the most troublesome part of the year to me, the dreaded holiday season. last week driving somewhere i heard the first christmas carol.

Saturday, November 8, 2008


a delightful day in the sun. waves of friendship wafting thru the air. the color of the air.

soon as i do some housekeeping i am going to stop the blog for a week or so. tiptoe softly backwards out of the game tower with a paintbrush in hand. i want to do 12 large - for me - watercolors that are a set. 12 what? disciples, moons, eggs... nope.

so you will see changes.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

This happened in Oakland the other day. School students were protesting immigration raids and a newspaper photographer making a video was bumped by or bumped a police car with her elbow. She kept the camera going as long as she could. The police confiscated the video but later gave it to the newspaper. The district attorney declined to charge her with anything.

click to see clip

the citizenry of USA can be demographically divided in many ways. one very useful division is into two groups:

those who have experienced the sort of outrage the clip shows and

those who find it unbelievable and immediately jump to the conclusion that the embattled reporter must have done "something" wrong.

to the second group i can say that there are good middle class folks who have spent their entire adult life aware that this stuff "happens". casualties of the "kulture wars" that began in the late 50's and ain't over yet by a long shot, obama or no obama.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist - Beyond Election Day - NYTimes.com:
"As important as this choice has become, the election is just a small first step. What Americans really have to decide is what kind of country they want.

Right now the United States is a country in which wealth is funneled, absurdly, from the bottom to the top. The richest 1 percent of Americans now holds close to 40 percent of all the wealth in the nation and maintains an iron grip on the levers of government power.

This is not only unfair, but self-defeating."

Monday, November 3, 2008


i'm ready. the train is leaving the station. hop on. play it out.

"So far from there being any spontaneous communication under this regime, these electronic media are carefully controlled to make sure that 'dangerous', that is, unorthodox views do not slip through. Such a system permits neither colloquy nor dialogue, as in genuine oral discourse: what takes place is for the greater part only a meticulously arranged monologue, even if more than one person is present on the screen. A population entirely dependent upon such controlled oral communication, even though it reached every human soul on the planet, would not merely be at the mercy of the Dominant Majority but would become increasingly illiterate and soon mutually unintelligible. Thus once again the parallel between the Pyramid Age and our own forces itself upon the observer: here in prospect is actually the electronic Tower of Babel."

Lewis Mumford
The myth of the Machine, v.2: the Pentagon of Power (1966)
p. 298

Sunday, November 2, 2008


a day of rest. which for me is my work. people "edgy". weather beautiful.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

maybe a peep into another time and place would be a good thing to do today.
YouTube - Django Reinhardt - Video Quintette du Hot Club de France

but then there is today