2.21.5

blip.
biz card i've been puttering with. pretty garish, huh? maybe i'll tone it down. right now i'm taking 86 mazda truck in to replace belt i lost friday. more later.


it's later right now. i got lucky with the truck, took about 20 minutes and $35. it was pouring rain, and while it was being worked on i crossed a busy street to do a little quick shopping at the drug store.


a nice thing happened while i was waiting for the lights to change. car pulled up, late model, kid in the special thing they sit in nowadays in the back seat. guy sitting in shotgun said "need an umbrella?" and handed me one. it all took about two seconds, and the traffic took the car away.


i was sorry to hear about dr. thompson's death. i knew him briefly when i worked for the aspen illustrated news around 69-70. the paper used local talent for writing and photography and whenever he dropped an article off i would immediately take it down the street to a lawyer who would leaf thru it, marking up in red phrases like "nazi greedhead" which would be edited out.


i have to say that he was always level headed, calm, cool, and very lucid. in many ways a real southern gentleman. the item below gives some sense of him - and the culture - during that time and place:


"In 1970 Thompson ran for sheriff in Pitkin County, Colorado, losing by a handful of votes after campaigning for drugs to be decriminalised and Aspen to be renamed Fat City. Since his Republican opponent had a crew cut, Thompson shaved his head entirely and peppered his speeches with the phrase 'my long-haired opponent'."

Times Online - World


it will be interesting to see how the news of his death plays out. probably the usual nonsense, but there is a small chance that a meme (see Meme - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) will spread throughout the culture with some substance and a touch of what we used to call "reality" before the junta locked up everyone's mind.

2.20.5

retouched picture of my daughter nicole. original was partly torn and beat up. must have been taken around around '78.

friday night driving backs from town my truck threw a belt, fortunately only 2 miles to drive, made it through the dark crowded streets of aville with engine roaring and lights going dim.


so i spent yesterday at home, very pleasant day working on postcard and notecard sets i hope to have out around here by summer.


stumbled on a chromatic tuner that is part of band in the box v.8 that works like a charm so tuned guitar in open d, like ways 2 lap steels. but best of all was chinese erhu which after maybe a year i finally found the scale of d finger stops (no fret board on this baby).


spent a lot of overdue time cleaning and archiving material on hard drives. need to continue this until i have a little more breathing space.


refused to throw away water color disaster i've been working on: hosed it down and brought it back to a point where maybe i can complete it.


just walked into the kitchen for one more cup of coffee and flipped the tv on while i was at it. sunday talk show, the koreans have nuclear weapons etc. brings to mind 2 statements:

"if it can be done technologically it will be done." somebody's law, i forget whose.

"if you build it they will come." translation: if saturday night specials and nuclear devices are manufactured by anyone, they will be manufactured by everyone.


Chronicles v.1 by Bob Dylan

Review


Just finished reading this book, and I was mightily impressed.



Among the many divisions the people in this world are divided into are: those who remember Dylan as an icon of the 60's and those who have kept up with his work the last few years and think his present work is as meaningful as ever, maybe more so. he's no nostalgia act, that's for sure.



The book is a surprise in many ways. For one thing I think it is impossible to have an accurate preconception of it. It's another creative surprise from the man.



The tone is down to earth, matter of fact. Startling clarity of moments lived. The texture and mood of odd times and places comes through with a sharp clear cut immediacy. Maybe it is because the massive noise machine of the mediated culture seems incapable of touching these things, and he uses his weight to slip these moments through to us.



In many ways the voice used in the book reminds me of Jack London, Damon Runyon, even rex stout, but with a twist. The 30's and 40's are implicit, not because of some fake agenda but because that's the world he was born into. (Me too).



Read this thing, it is a healthy antidote to the franchised brand name culture that blasts away at us 24/7.

2.19.5

trying a little something new here. click here to see if it works.

yesterday i attended digital photography SIG at UNCA center for creative retirement. as you might expect - i mean how many people today get to retire creatively? - most of the group seemed to be well off retired folks with loads of expensive equipment.


everybody seemed interested in straight photos, and some were impressive indeed.


i talked to one guru who recommended sony or canon.


in the evening i attended informal performance of "the divine magees", two young ladies, no sound equipment, guitar and viola, good harmonies, at malaprop's book shop.

2.18.5

Can Terrorists Build the Bomb? - Popular Science: "But of more than a dozen nuclear-arms experts I interviewed, almost all agreed that assembling a crude nuclear bomb, though extremely difficult, is by no means impossible. "

2.18.5

"true creativity often starts where language ends."

author koestler (1905 - 1983)


i'm not saying a word.


but you might want to try this:



Quizzes


politics, blogs, and jail?


"Number one lesson is that what happens on the internet can and will bite you on the ass in real life. We've seen it time and time again with internet affairs and sordid emails - now, you'd better watch where you put your political commentating toes."

Blogger gets night visit from US Secret Service

2.17.5

"Last fall, intruders used stolen identities to open several dozen accounts at ChoicePoint to purchase data such as Social Security numbers and credit reports about thousands of consumers, some of whom have since become victims of identity theft."
Wired News: The Fight Over Cyber Oversight

2.17.5

"'Companies are not charities,' Schneier said. 'They don't do this stuff out of the goodness of their heart. They do it because the marketplace demands it, they do it because liability demands it, they do it because regulation demands it, they do it because competition demands it. Something has to demand it.'


Along those lines, he said, 'The marketplace will only go so far.'"


Clarke rips Microsoft over security

2.17.5

"A company that sells personal data on consumers said Wednesday that it's alerting 145,000 Americans -- including 35,000 Californians -- that they might be vulnerable to identity theft after a crime ring paid for their credit reports, Social Security numbers and other sensitive information.

MercuryNews.com | 02/16/2005 | 145,000 Americans' identity data stolen:

it's going to hell anyway. read these links below.



one step forward, hunker down, think about childhood, play



"people are strange" on cross harp, crawl on the floor towards the refrigerator, take a nap, imagine that, and then go to work. if you do all of this in the digital domain, you may end up as a cyberless person, in which case i would recommend whittling voodoo sticks out of rubylith.



heard a new phrase today: "celibate couples". if it's a meme, look for it soon on at halftime shows around the globe. maybe disneyland where it belongs.


now i am going to lay down for several hours and pretend i'm asleep.

today's picture definitely got lost on it's way to somewhere.



i realize that i've been on a run lately. hours, days, weeks non-stop on marginal projects. guess i'll enjoy it while it lasts.



"corruption is even corrupt."



a thought written down in chronicle by dylan.




today is (starting now, about 3:30) for stepping away from work and cleaning the house, paying the bills, grocery shopping. yeah, i do that stuff too.

the darkness is like solitude.



"sol", the sun.



"why is it this way?" is often asked.



i read an article in old Time magizine in the doctor's office today. it was about a minor movement in the scientific world that asks what are the chances that the kosmos evolved to sustain life, ie conciousness.



i thought it was not a question. because we are always here now, or is it now here?



anyway, now is prior to all "was's". so any kosmos - including the one we call "the kosmos" - was once our beginning, but only because now it is Now.

didn't have much to say when i posted this yesterday. still don't.


glad everyone else does.


here is an item that reminds me of philip k. dick and some of his motifs:,br>
"But for Dr Nelson, talk of such psychic machines - with the potential to detect global catastrophes or terrorist outrages - is of far less importance than the implications of his work in terms of the human race."

RedNova News - Can This Black Box See Into the Future?

can't sleep. one of those - thankfully - now rare nights tapping keys. picture above is about all that has manifested during this unusual but not forgotten phase.

i gotta get regular.

supposed to be a pencil sketch above, if you don't see it neither do i. i'll fix it later.





went to the game night at NPR - that's no pairs required - i think - i always want to pronounce it no repairs required.



played something i never quite got but it was fun.



today folks are hiking 7 miles, i passed. as soon as i finish this routine i will take a walk up sunset mountain. from the light in here it looks like cold and bright out.



i've got a large watercolor ready to go, stretched and taped. i am curious how new lighting arrangement might change things.


How To Start Your Very Own Blog In Fifty-One Easy Steps! || kuro5hin.org

"Interested in the blogging scene? Confused how to go about setting up your very own blog? Follow these fifty-one easy steps and you'll be a l33t blogger in no time!"

and just wait till microsoff gets ahold of this stuff:


Magnet Therapy, Depression, Alternative therapies, mind-body medicine, integrative therapies
"Electromagnetic brain stimulation of varying types has been used with success in the treatment of depression"


magnetic stimulation therapy for depression in place of electro shock
"An experimental therapy that uses magnetic stimulation to treat severe depression could prove to be a viable option for patients who otherwise would resort to electric shock therapy, University of Florida researchers report."

this is what i've been fooling with last couple of days. i did it to fit in old frame i still have constructed out of reminants of booths in harry's delicatessen, chapel hill, another world. am not real happy with result, but there it is.



spent yesterday out and about, nonoptional errands. got a full spectrum light that makes all the difference in the world painting. and a telephone that will throw me into 2005. no it's not a cell phone. also 50 feet of twisted pair phone cord which will work a lot better than old one which was shredded.



this morning another run to town, then think i'll work on poetry book which i'll self publish. gotta make a statement.
and kleen the kitchen.



latest from house of cards:


Trojan Targets Microsoft's AntiSpyware Beta:
"Malicious programmers are already sharpening their claws on Microsoft Corp.'s anti-spyware software, even before the application's official release."

picture is from watercolor i did for christmas card.



yesterday's post continued:

in every society there is an ownership class who run things. this class is usually so overwhelmingly embedded in the culture that they are invisible. it is like the fish in water who can detect other manifest objects but are unaware of the water. for instance the european middle classes was largely unaware of the church when the church was running their life. how could be? the church was equivalent to reality at that point. and reality is considered unquestionable by the inhabitants.



just as today, reality includes the need to work. a job to survive. in order to survive, it is unquestionable that you need a "job".



in the middle ages, only when the nation-states evolved to become the ownership class did the church become "visible" to the culture as an institution that could be seen and criticized, and the political nation-state became unquestioned "reality". in the same way, with the rise of "wage slavery" as the dominant reality, the former dominant, the nation state, is slipping into the visible realm, with much scrutiny paid to them, while the commercial interests own us, dictate what we do, smell like, look like, where we are and when we are there. this is perceived as "reality", "a man has to eat and sweat to eat".



so what i am saying is that today we are morphing into a society where our livlihood is dictated by jobs, which includes character qualities like what you do when you are not "at work". emotional fascism.


the sooner the culture lives this, the sooner it will go away.

sam has been moved to thom's rehab, good sign. hope to see him there tomorrow.


i've got stuff to do all over town so it promises to be a hustle day in the paris of the south.



finished a ho-hummer today, watercolor, guach, colored pencil and oil pastel. it sounds like what it looks like.



funny things happened today. first i heard about bloggers being fired from their jobs. a new dilemma? need to express vs need to survive?



reminded me of the incident in clark's book where he hears one general tell another who is going to talk with rumsfield "if you want to be heard, be ready to hand in your stars".



considering the mortgage, the children, the cost of middle-class day to day, isn't this the same dilemma? express or survive.



then tonight on PBS leher news an interview with russian who just wrote a book on democracy and why it is good. he was talking about living under stalin. you could survive or express yourself but not both.



the conversation i had when i was shown the difference between the word "artist" (expression) and "addict" (etymologically from "does not talk, express").



so my prediction. more and more folks are going to lose their foothold in the work world because of something they said. or sang. or painted. or wrote.

this is sort of a ... watercolor that i messed with this morning.i had - still have - too much on my list of "things" to do. but today is a karmically ritualistic sort of time, so i decided to let things go like i do every other day. so i've been at the watercolors and computer all day.


click here to see why it's Be Day for me.

nice evening at the reilly's last night, good to see and hear old friends, new friends.

pencil drawing started in arizona.


hike yesterday was good, no apparent ware and tear apparent.


finishing von franze's psyche & matter. random sample:


"we have a direct consciousness of ourselves consisting of a certain amount of direct information. this is not our body, but our "i". but if we look at another being or object we can in fact not see it because we see only it's body., it's outer appearance, which we call matter, and not it's "inwardness" which is it's true nature. the corporeal existence is only an illusion, or a by-product of our sense-perception. we have two modes of acquiring information: by observation and by participation. "


too much to type. but brings wilbers left side and right side quadrants into the picture for sure. sunny day. i'm going for a walk.

remember this guy? me neither.


saw ray last night. very jarring movie. i hadn't expected 50's noir. extreme moments.


went for 7? mile hike with old folks this morning. nice crowd, nice weather. just about the right number of steps - 1299? - for me.

check this review out to see how misinformed a review can be. it reads like a parady, the author obviously doesn't know squat about macs. everything in the review is inaccurate. he or she seems to think that a mac is a PC:
Mac Mini: The Emperor's New Computer:
"To see how much industry support the Mac platform has these days, I did a google to see if there were Mac versions of any of my favorite applications; unfortunately I ended up disappointed every time. There are very few first-person shooters for OSX. There is no Mac version of WeatherBug to check the temperature anywhere in the world. Nor is there a Mac version of helpful web and email enhancers like Hotbar. Or any equivalent of the DealHelper software I use to keep track of my passwords. My Office 2003 CD would not install, despite claims I had heard from Mac fanboys that OS X is compatible with Office. "

lucius has resurfaced, thanks jim c.

Lucius Shepard interviewed - infinity plus non-fiction: "Lowlife Baroque
An Interview with Lucius Shepard
by Nick Gevers"

fresh egg, just done this morning in an effort to WAKE UP.


sun is out and so am i, going to be out and about today, the first time since re-entery to carolina mountains.


meanwhile here is a statement we all should ponder:


*spark-online.com >> version 34.0, JULY.2002 >> MAX PODSTOLSKI
"It is only a limitation in thinking, a fixed idea, to presume that art must either be socially visible or not exist at all."


and here is an item that indicates maybe there is a dab of sanity left in this world


Study: Internet Explorer continues to lose market share - Computerworld
"Microsoft Corp.'s share of the browser market has continued to slip, according to a new study, indicating continued momentum for users switching to Internet Explorer alternatives."

had to squeeze in the image above because this blog has come to support the "image a day" school.

supposed to be a snow and ice day in aville but i don't think it will amount to much - famous last words.


yesterday evening i finally brought out crock pot and pans and cooked stew and beans. made a hell of a mess but it's never too late to start. right?


set up oils and attempted to finish painting i was fooling with before trip to arizona. it's pretty much a failure so i'm just applying paint to see what works and doesn't.


slowly researching digital cameras, looking for a good buy. 5MB seems the minimum, since i'd like to print large at 300ppi.


inadvertently watched most of state of the union speech. the long shots were most discouraging: a millionaire's club, no doubt about it. like a kid's birthday party, an omnipresent air of self-congratulation. i say lock the doors and keep them all inside, hobnobing and hornswaggling, and forget about them.


i noticed that bush spoke twice, i think, about "renewing institutions". i agree with him that the institutions no longer work, but instead of renewing they need discarding and replacing with something else besides institutions. some way to organize folks based on anything but profit and self gain. doing things because they benefit others might be a good start.


i ate lunch years ago with ayn rand. i guess she was at the top of her game then. she considered altruism, compassion, obsolete. i considered her obsolete. the winner-take-all ethos needs to become a bad memory. as soon as we all do things because 1) they are fun and 2) help others is the only way to go. i think most people who have lived most of their life already would agree. utopian? sure, why not; it beats dystopia.

back from trip to arizona. i left right when the balmy weather we had since the holidays went away, and got to the west when the floods and rains were going away. i can't help it if i'm lucky.

stayed mostly at my dad's in prescott, and a little time with sister jane and family in phoenix. the pencil drawing above was done on the shuttle that runs back and forth between the two cities.


son eric and angela flew in for short break, it was delightful to see them both, they seemed so calm & competent. dad was 86 or 87 and doing quite well. like me he may shortchange the social world in favor of being by himself, but makes the effort to get out and about.


i made up my mind about which projects to pursue this year. must make my statement.


one of them is a redo of this blog. among other things i found out that the color pictures really look bad on PC monitor, so while i'm fooling with the gamma settings i'll rip the whole thing up and rearrange.


things i noticed while out of my cage:


the word "pessimistic" is getting a very bad rap. comes with living within the cult of optimism.


this "leading edge of the baby boom" is going to be stranger than people think. we may revert to the fine old roman institution of voluntary departure from this world. wait and see.


the world of brand-names not only has us surrounded, it prohibits the existence of any other world.


and finally, this from the savage god by alvarez which i just finished:


"when norman mailer calls the modern, statistical democracies of the west "totalitarian'" he is not implying that the artist is bound and muzzled and circumscribed as he would be in a dictatorship - a vision not even the most strenuous paranoia could justify. but he is implying that mass democracy, mass morality and the mass media thrive independently of the individual, who joins them only at the cost of at least a partial perversion of his instincts and insights. he pays for his social ease with what used to be called his soul - his discriminations, his uniqueness, his psychic energy, his self. add to that the ubiquitous sense of violence erupting at the edges of his perception: local wars, riots, demonstrations and political assassinations, each seen, as it were, out of the corner of his eye as just another news feature on the television screen. add, finally, the submerged but never quite avoidable knowledge of the possibility of ultimate violence, known hopefully as the balance of terror. the result is totalitarianism not as a political phenomenon but as a state of mind."

well i'm not retreating. yet. had to squeeze this link in. there was a time i would have said you wouldn't believe anyone would think the way this writer sees the world. but it reveals one of the many points of view whizzing around the information deluge that inundates us all. crowds don't think, and the crowd is the future.


"'Apple Computer' is nothing more than a liberal-backed fifth column intended to subvert the American computer industry, and ultimately bankrupt good capitalist companies such as Microsoft and Intel. 'Apple' isn't the only front group run by the International Communist Conspiracy."

Think Secret's Nick dePlume Revealed

i'll be out of touch for the rest of the month. cooling my jets. reset. but i will have my megapixel wi-fi blackberry with me, so can access email.

mmm...i seem to be losing the habit of daily posting. here's the short story:

Sam

my good and dear friend sam is in the hospital since last thursday. he is very ill, but i don't think they have a handle on the problem. they have eliminated tubucular meningitis, suspect some other form of meningitis, brain swelling of some sort, and a stroke. he has some movement in his right hand, but not much otherwise, and cannot speak much. his wife kathy and his children are taking excellent care of him. the last time i talked to him on the phone he was not himself. i told him he needed medical attention. he told me he needed a guru. prayers accepted.



richard and debbie flew to the ukraine tuesday for 3 years. they both have jobs there. they will be able to return here once a year or so. they have an apt in kiev. as the ukrainians say,"a surprise a day keeps you on your toes." good luck to them both. they will be missed.




i am keeping their digital spinit piano for them, full size weighted keys. i played the heck out of it one night last week, followed by the most painful night i've ever spent, wrist kept me up all night.




i put 2 and 2 together the next morning and figured i must have overworked right hand, aggravating tendonitus i have been ignoring for a couple of years.




so now i have a splint i gotta wear for a month.




had a great Baba meeting sunday afternoon. it stretched well into the evening.





i've been going thru my usual routine getting ready to go to arizona for my dad's birthday. ADD really comes into play in this exercise, i make list after list and wonder around the apartment wondering what i'm looking for.




my consciousness seems reduced to a small sphere - the world outside seems so far away and pointless. but i have faith that everything seems just like it is - thanks bob - and all will remain a mystery disguised as a world.




meanwhile working on a picture for my father's birthday, it'll be close.

embroidered forest meta-diorama i did yesterday in a fit of ionized electrons. this worries me.


my diurnal rhythms are drifting, probably because of el nino. i used to know how to put a squiggly (~) on top of a character, but no more. now i'm the character.


heat spell remains unbroken in the SE. haven't used the heat in awhile.


thanks to an acquaintance who i hope becomes a friend i was directed to "http://www.journeyintowholeness.org" which turns out to be a pretty substantial jungian site. i direct your attention to "creativity and it's shadow" by robert johnson. it nails what it's like to be a creature creating.


meanwhile, maybe justice is just resting; bush may have "won", but check this out about windows, the biggest hoax foisted on the public since the shah of iran's 2,500 year anniversary:


Free Fall: Internet Explorer Has Now Lost 30% Of The Browser Market - Robin Good's Latest News: "The rapid loss of IE users is now a clear and definite trend that appears to be unstoppable: Internet Explorer is showing many bad wrinkles and a slippery short term memory. For a fast-growing number of experienced Internet users IE is already NOT anymore a browser option to consider.
"

i survived new year's eve. barely.


it has been so many years since i was awake when the year turned that i can't even remember when it was. but this year i was at richard and debbie's farewell party, babbling to people i didn't know, and some i did. nobody kissed me at the magic moment.


if i had anything to say about the coming year, i would, but i don't. except it feels very creepy.


i think we are living thru a cultural-linguistic change, and since we are inside it, we can't much see it.


maybe it's some sort of shift from the word to the icon. from logical framework to image. this shift is rampant: it is everywhere, from the way the "news" is presented, to presidential debates and campaigns, to just about everywhere in daily life. for example, suppose you meet somebody at a function and have a polite brief interchange. isn't it usually true that the persons stylistic statement communicates more than whatever words are exchanged?


philip roth thinks that the text-based novel has about 20 more years left before it drops out of the picture, so to speak.


words have become soliloquies establishing caste and brand. no dialogues in public please. bush is a brand name, it doesn't matter what he says. it doesn't matter that we don't really know what he is doing. like coca-cola.


in alexandria egypt around 300 - 50 bc there were many metaphors from many cultures swarming around. it created the synergy that defined the hellinistic era. which when i was in school was considered to be a low point after the classical age, when the Apollonian classical reverted to superstition, caricature, giantism, the spectacular. there were many modes of existence and mundane life.


today's situation seems to be similar, except that the existence of any mode besides the iconic brand name celebratory culture is unacceptable.


so your job and mine during the next year is to live in such a manner that alternate modes are accepted by folks without fear. the word can be included. silence also.


on another topic, i think it is time to deconstruct this blog. i'm going to redesign and rebuild it. put the pictures in specific galleries - watercolor, ink, photoshop, whatever.



put some flash movies up. so much potential there and i really haven't learned it yet.


some sort of text archive with the occasional posting.

.feeling very cranky lately. have a funny feeling about the season to come.

don't forget susan sontag who died yesterday. a totally human being, as real as they come.


i just went into the living enclsure and got one of her books, opened it to this:


"photography implies that we know the world if we accept it as the camera records it. but this is the opposite of understanding, which starts from not accepting the world as it looks."

there's no time to talk. at least it can feel that way. and yet somehow, someway, what we are must express itself - my self.


it takes two to imagine One.

and vice-versa.

back from christmas trip to chapel hill. two nights in camper, not bad, comfortable. saw eli melissa lily nicole doug corbin nathan jen jim doug marcia ludie damien mary ninian.


it is apparent to me that as time bobbles along there is not enough left for those long soul changing talks we all had so long ago. but then it is a case of "been that, done there".


lotta loose ends to tie up. or untie.


the picture above i drew at doug and marsha's sunday nite, colored it when i got back.

and here's a pome i wrote on the road:


the habit hit me hard

when i was on my way

to look inside the telephone,

see what it had to say.



false morning's cobalt glow

melds the patterns in my head

to something i might follow

when i get to hit the bed.



but that was a lifetime ago

left canyons in my mind

space where you can walkabout

even if you're blind.



i never got the call

maybe the lines were down

i was amazed when i woke up

sleepwalking through the empty town.



"the pressure's on" is what they say

but i don't talk a lot.

i'm a maze without a map,

a hero i am not.



unseen patterns in the dark

clear enough to pray

out here we never phone,

there's too much to say.

day after. everything is exactly like it is. the correct time is now.

i'll be under my bed till the dust clears.

i'm living a weird life. today i got up at nine, puttered, a run to the grocery store, been puttering every since.


below is what happens when i putter the day away.

it's an xmas decoration.


maybe it's the weather. big storm coming, dark, flurries. i passed on two gatherings of nice folks who i enjoy being with, just couldn't get out the door. i've been painting (puttering) all day.

sat nite - i've been thru a long 24 hours.


met myria and charley at book ex. in hendersonville. a small start up business located in an alley very reminiscent of chicken alley in aville. about maybe 12 young folks showed up.


well in addition to the amazement one gets when talking to a grown young woman who i last talked to when she was... maybe 10? she sings great, and her originals are very powerful. yow!


it got too late to drive back so i drove to charlie's house and slept in the camper. no problem.


got up about 6 and banged my head in the dark. then drove home.


lot of blood when i looked in the mirror, but not too bad. i just pulled it together with a band-aid. i had left with a run of prints to do, so finished that. but i could not locate my survival kit, a purse like apparatus i carry with me.


lots of phone calls, myria and charles looking. around 11 i got ready to drive back to hville and the thing was in full view in the truck. i had gone out and turned everything upside down looking for it.


so i drove to the ER, 2-3 hours, no stitches required, everything is copecetic and i'm going to bed.

housekeeping. mailing xmas cards which i finally printed. one of the reasons i'm me is because it takes me longer to organize and mail then create them.


mariah (i forget how to spell it), cousin bob's daughter, phoned from hendersonville. i'm going to visit her and her boyfriend tonight. i haven't seen her in... a long time.

tip of the hat to tharpa for pointing to this:
Guardian Unlimited | Life | Mike Purton: Physics and metaphysics: "From then on, irrespective of time and space, a correlation will always exist between them. What happens to one will affect the other - even if they are now at opposite ends of the universe."

really cold today, around 20 degrees. if i had any ambition i'd spend the day learning how to make a "degree" sign that would display correctly over the web.


snow flurries outside. my blood glucose reading was sky high this morning, spent most of the day dealing with it. talk about fatigue definitely a day to stay in bed.

photo from hike i took last week.

it's snowing somewhere. Driving back from winnie's this afternoon, sky bright blue, a few dark clouds in the air, you could see snowflakes darting through the field of view.


when i lived way up in the mountains we called this "blowing snow".


real snow might happen tonight, terminating the absolutely weird string of beautiful sunny weather we have had.


went to the riley's yesterday for Baba folks, everyone played music either in person or on a CD. sure worked for me. later.

another encapsulated day. very raw outside. spent 12 hours wired to the apt. doing everything from vacuuming to stabilizing computer, lotta work on an oil.


in a way it's like being in love, that mad infatuation phase. as long as i'm making something, i feel fine. attention nailed.


but it can also be a little like a workaholic, an avoidance move.


and the new is always now. that is, creation is always now.


gee, i never thought i'd be mouthing one of america's mottos: "there's no time like the present."

the wreck of the annibelle lee


had big plans for today. got a walk in of computer time chasing weirdness which somehow was coming from additional layer styles i tried off a magazine cd-rom. visited tom and cathy in their new home.


ok here are the big plans: go to UU NRP - no partners required - from 7 to 8, then zip downtown for black mountain collage beatnik event.


it got dark, i got wobbly, so just me and jeopardy.

yesterday was another beautiful day, heat off in house, windows open etc. i managed a successful run into town and back to, of all places, office depot. little traffic, quick in & out, the way i like it.


last nite i went o see preview of play american dream by edward albee. "preview" = dress rehearsal.


the theatre is problematic with me. attending a theatrical production, my attention is drawn to the humans on stage, their stage personas.


as far as the story goes, the narrative, i usually do not get caught up in it. there is some kind of narrative flow, or maybe context, that doesn't register much with me.


this is not new, but i've only recently become aware of it.


in collage, i had the pleasure of standing back stage during la traviata. yeah i know, it's an opera, but at that point in my life i was a big opera fan. during the deathbed scene in the final act i was maybe 15 feet from the diva, an import from the met whose name i cannot remember.


anyway it was the moment i remember, and that moment was free-standing, ie i was not necessarily aware of what led up to it in terms of plot.


a play is a series of moments, and i enjoyed seeing american dream. but as far as what happened, why it happened, and most importantly what it meant all i have is a few faint glimmers in the distance.


here's an interesting site where you can kill some time on a rainy day listening to the backward messages from various rock songs, all of which you are familiar with:

Backmask Online - Your Backmasking Source

beautiful december day today, i guess all up and down the east coast. no heat necessary last night; this morning opened the windows. tee-shirt weather.


after lunch i will drive to tunnel road where the giant malls live and try to slip in and out of officeMax. timing could be better, but maybe i'll get lucky and come back untraumatized.


going to edward abbey play tonight with janice whom i haven't seen since travis's funeral. it will be interesting to see how i experience theatre. in the past i have not been too good at this.

last nite in bed with AM radio babbling low, i happened to hear mike savage. for those of you unfamiliar with the underbelly of radioland, he is one of the worst of the neocon ranters. he had clips of the dylan interview on 60 minutes and spent a good 30 minutes playing them. he was fascinated with dylan's voice. "alpha male" voice he called it. he opined that with a man with a voice like that he could sit down and enjoy a few beers and conversation.


it was fascinating to hear him talk like this, obviously unacquainted with bob's work except thru the cultural grapevine. i was with a group of the no-longer-young the other day when the subject came up and all expressed amusement at the burned out singing voice he uses today.


me, i'm with mr savage.

been looking thru some old notebooks - actually looking for a drawing i did at some point to use for xmas card. as usual found a lot of stuff, pictures and more text than i recall. here is an example: (and still have not found notebook)



"alexander octopus

when i was just a kid

don't remember much

but remember once i did



moving down the highway

old and in whose way

another talent called for

another world holds sway




not fishing for a doctor

cause there ain't no cure

now is always new

so have some fun with fear




old friends die

and new friends live

i guess it only matters

if there's something left to give"





more amusment & delight:



broadband:

Anime Popeye (at Camp Chaos)




Yahoo! News - Is ours a virtual reality? British scientists think deep thoughts

woke up late, around 9, and made it to the UU church by 10, where i joined a group of about 12 on a hike, it was a beautiful day, and we drove to somewhere past brevard, then up through some part of the pisgah forest.


i had found a roll of unexposed film the day before so took it and a point and shoot.


the group was a pleasure to be with and i only fell into water one half times.


if i did everything tomorrow that i'm supposed to the day would be way too long so i probably won't make the friend's meeting at 10.

a cyberdoodle because i don't have a lot to say.


saw "sideways" yesterday. i thought i was going to see movie about che guevera's youthful travels. i didn't care for "sideways", sort of a napa valley woody allen thing featuring 2 yuppie couples. i just couldn't get interested in their lives. the male lead did portray depression pretty well.

daily altzheimer's test: can i remember what i did today?


worked on a couple of color prints, ongoing. took care of some billz & laundry. got mike's manuscript back to him, it was fun to read. returned it at writers weekly group meeting, about 20-25 very serious people. got frame for picture i will send to ludie. finished 2 color wheels, one for watercolor, one for oils. based on 2 different theories, just doing them clarified some things. made 2 phone calls concerning medication.


did i remember everything? don't know because of course i can't remember if i forgot anything. "by definition" as someone once said, i forget who.


oh yes, i located the battery in quadra 650, and assembled tools to get to it. i'll do it in the morning.


the sufi term zikr means "remembrance" i learned recently.


remember apple? they made computers?


TechWeb | News | Unprotected PCs Fall To Hacker Bots In Just Four Minutes | Nov. 30, 2004: "The lifespan of a poorly protected PC connected to the Internet is a mere four minutes, research released Tuesday claimed. After that, it's owned by a hacker."

pay attention:


BostonHerald.com - Business: Economic `Armageddon' predicted


a slow pleasant week coming up i hope. finally got screen door storm window rebuilt and in place. ready for the storm. finished portrait of imago anima i have been fooling with for months. working on resuscitating quadra 650 so i can record to it from G4. got case open but can't remember how to get to motherboard. jim has about talked me into trying OSX in dual boot mode. recorded a guitar piano duet last nite.


just ran garbage out, almost missed truck. not hitting on all cylinders today. again.

this link has some bad news and some good news. i wonder which is which?

Head Transplants

finished this watercolor this morning. i guess i started it before travis's death. did more than i realized to it when i was sick. i'd pass by, stop, look, grab brush make some very necessary marks. then off to bed and i forgot about it.


what's to say? who's to say it?



anyway i like the picture.

seem to be mostly recovered from nasty bug. restless, impatient, full of ideas and plans to do this and that. sure sign that my head is buzzing once again with images i want to move into the manifest world, that is, paper, canvas. i've slept enough since tuesday to - maybe - last me thru the holiday blowout.


for some reason during this process i have become interested in the Oedipus complex. what this means i don't know except

1) it is a part of the jigsaw puzzle with no frame that is life; no frame being the infinite extension of the plane a la escher, and

2) i must be back to pseudo-normal, checking out the obscure and meaningless, a habit of mine.


my trusty 17 inch NEC monitor is on the fritz, don't know how much longer it will last. can't complain, i think i have been staring at it over 12 years.

still sick as a - so-to-speak - dog. spent 3 1/2 hours in ER yesterday, x-ray etc., upshot is i have flu. virus, cold, the crud, or something along that line.

fell into deep sleep when i got back. woke up and there was turkey, cranberries, stuffing in the refrigarator. i couldn't even begin to imagine how it got there but it sure was good.

good friend richard phoned me later and said he had dropped by, i was dead to the world - forgive the expression - listening to NPR very loud, something about somebody chasing a chicken.

back to bed.

straight from my rumpus room: i got back yesterday with a bad cold, sore throat, double-matrix rna virus. strange because i don't get these things most winters.



i feel terrible.

vitamin C by the handful and i'm about to venture out for zinc lozenges. but mostly i'll stay in bed hallucinating.



i've got that strange sensation i can remember from winters past. it's sort of like i'm not quite in my body. you know the sensation? if someone snuck quietly behind me and made a loud noise, i'm sure my psyche would fragment and head for parts unknown. plus i'm fixing and swapping mice and keyboards like crazy because they all seem a little off.

back in aville. last week pretty much devoted to driving to triangle, visiting with the aycocks, really nice service for travis in warrenton, good to talk to so many old friends. got back today. hiding under bed until holidays are over,

Bad news. travis aycock died in an automobile accident sat. evening.


his loss will be felt by many friends and his family. his friendship was a blessing for many of us. quiet, unassuming, he had the most beneficent head and heart of anyone i know. his compassion and feeling were understated but never in doubt by those of us fortunate enough to know him. i would have trusted him with my life and guess i did on more than one occasion.


his wife of what? 30-40 years? ludie and his children gretchen and damien know how special he was. and they are.


a prayer for his soul: God speed travis. we'll meet again down the road.

mixed up week. some days felt bone-tired all day, some felt great. a crap shoot. a case, i believe, of mixed-up metabolism colliding with the seasons rushing by much too fast.


went to hear john hammond at the gray eagle friday nite. really upbeat evening. it was his 61st or 62nd birthday come midnight, and he really looked great. i was unaware of the tom waits album he put out awhile back. he played some of the cuts from that and, of course, a lot of delta country blues about as well as anyone on the planet. see John Hammond: "Blues doesn't get any better than this, in concept or execution. Stay on the road, John Hammond."


the time i saw john must have been 65 or 66, summer. he was playing in some little joint in raleigh, and i went with a gaggle of the usual suspects from that strange and distant era. there was a party afterwards out in the country. carolina night, cool, moonlit(?), that eternal chorus of the woods critters swirling around in waves.


some evening this week i watched frontline: the persuaders | PBS, which was about commercial persuading. the first 30 minutes were so full of phrases and observations that could be taken as, in my opinion, commentary on the election i grabbed a pencil and scribbled them down as fast as i could.


here are some of them:


"someone once wrote a book called 'advertisements for myself'".


"pseudo-spiritual marketing"


"brand-forged corporate epiphanies"


"brands can create a whole meaning system for people"


"cult brands belong to tribe"


"study cults & apply to brands to see how one becomes a disciple"


"six mammoth holding companies now own all ad agencies, which have become commodities"


"the goal of a brand is to create and maintain loyalty beyond reason"

brands are becoming experiences"

need any other reason to turn off all media?

i seem to be out of words lately, so i'll just post pictures for awhile.


for those that are curious, it took me about 1 1/2 hours to do the above from scratch. starting out with a complete blank. used photoshop 7.


don't get me wrong. i'm not saying that it's worth the time it took in terms of what you're looking at. but in terms of mental health maintenance it is well worth the time it took. maybe it's like meditation. maybe it's the total interest, attraction, fascination that i experience.


all i know is that if i start the day with a little time dedicated to this or similar activity i feel better and get more done during the day.


don't know why.

going thru one of those weeks... when it seem's like i'm almost gone.


remember that song by richie havens? i found the picture above on hard drive while on the telephone a few minutes ago.


it might be a return to the paleolithic... got a book of cave art from the library yesterday...


the ice-age every winter, it starts about now.

as some of you may or may not know, by the time the election rolled around, i had already voted and wasn't paying too much attention to the daily news - i call it the daily "snooze". i went to bed about 9:30 election night thinking it looked good for kerry.



i left the radio in my bedroom on low the entire night. in fact i've been doing this for a couple of years. BBC all night long.



(i was told years ago by a fellow middle-aged insomniac what a terrible practice this was. god knows where the news goes while i doze (good title for country song?))


anyway when i woke up the next day the news was no surprise. i may have been the least depressed person in town.



or maybe i didn't notice through my normal state of depression.



anyway my feeling is that the bush situation is just more of the same thing that i have been living all of my adult life. "in the homeland we've never seen" (neil young.)



"what can a poor boy do?"(stones).
what can an old man do?



if you have he time - and you do - check out the links below for whatt more of the same is looking like today:




The Optimism of Uncertainty

TomPaine.com - Kerry Won. . .

BBC News | Front pages from 4 November 2003

Evidence Mounts That The Vote May Have Been Hacked

DNC: Election 2004 Feedback

t r u t h o u t - William Rivers Pitt | Worse Than 2000: Tuesday's Electoral Disaster

Times Online - Sunday Times

CNN.com - Glitch gave Bush extra votes in Ohio - Nov 5, 2004

making the email rounds:


Thomas Jefferson, from a letter he sent in 1798 after the passage of the Sedition Act:


"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt......If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake."

supposed to get cold tonight, maybe first frost. i totally lost yesterday, either 1) short flu or 2) post-election coma (short-lived) or 3) or maybe it's the weather or something like that...




been making postcard-like planer objects... now if i could only figure out what they're for.


finished the picture above 2 days ago. what it is i dunno but the colors look great in the sunlight.


today i began spring housekleening. my present system is to walk around & pick all objects up, put them in a pile in front room. then - the hard part - i go thru the objects and put them up or put them out.

i continue to get email with links to web pages where the democrats catastrophe is explained or commented on. i'll post them another day (tomorrow).

the election "might be called Bryan's revenge for the Scopes trial of 1925..."

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: The Day the Enlightenment Went Out:

sleepless night last night. it's after one o'clock in the afternoon and i still haven't woken up.



here is arianna's fix on the unfortunate election. i think she is right.



"...those in charge of the Kerry campaign ignored this giant, blood-red elephant standing in the middle of the room"

ARIANNA ONLINE - November 03, 2004 - Anatomy Of A Crushing Political Defeat



but her explanation is not complete; IMHO the corporate brand-name culture that we live in (under?) has hi-jacked language. the resident president is a branded icon, and that's all he needs to be. TV ads have successfully communicated to us via this language for a couple of generations now. when we see a commercial, the categories of truth and falsehood go out the window. the heavy - and expensive - lifting is done by icon, recognition of the brand.



as the marketeers say, "it works".



and here is somebody else who is right:

the election "might be called Bryan's revenge for the Scopes trial of 1925..."

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: The Day the Enlightenment Went Out

revolting ain't it?

the big day:


a site that plans to keep tabs real-time on election results & also any shenanigans.
indymedia.us


TomPaine.com - An Election Spoiled Rotten: "The Dems may not like to shout about this, but studies indicate that 90-some percent of people who have served time for felonies will, after prison, vote Democratic. One suspects Colorado's Republican secretary of state knows that."


Democracy Now! | New Initiative Calls for Mass Protest on Nov. 3 if Election is "Stolen": "That's why this No Stolen Election campaign has been put together, and we encourage all of your listeners to go onto the website which is nov3.us. Take the pledge that you will be out there on the streets with us on November 3, if need be."

and now for the important stuff:

MercuryNews.com | 11/01/2004 | That's incredible: "In short, ``The Incredibles'' goes where no purely computer-animated film has gone before. Through the combination of cutting-edge technology and the subtleties of facial animation, body gestures and caricature, it convinces you that the digital actors are alive. Animated, yes, but alive.

the noise machine is noisier than ever these last few days. at least i think it is, i've turned my hearing aid off.



and we've got the holidays cranking up already.



i walked back from richard and debbie's in the dark last night. blundered thru the bushes only once. it was oddly reassuring to stroll thru the blackness. reminiscent of the old days when i enjoyed walking thru chatham county forests at night pretty sure footed. my thinking at the time was when you are in the middle of the deep forest sight doesn't help a lot anyway.



check this out: some really nice paintings. taking a second look, they are not that good. but the painter is only 4 years old. there is something going on here, i'm not sure what.

Marla Olmstead

"everywhere in the west there are subversive minorities who, sheltered by our humanitarianism and our sense of justice, hold the incendiary toarches ready, with nothing to stop the spread of their ides except the critical reason of a single, fairly intelligent, mentally stable stratum of the population. one should not overestimate the thickness of this stratum...

the mass crushes out the insight and reflection that are still possible with the individual, and this necessarily leads to doctrinaire and authoritarian tyranny if ever the consistutional state should succumb in a fit of weakness..."

from the undiscovered self by c. g. jung (1957)

nother day, nother holler.



took the genz dogs for a walk this morning. beautiful day, beautiful fall colors. and if you don't know what a genz dog is, that's too bad.



spent the afternoon indoors slaving away over hot computer figuring out how to print postcards. out of art. or into.



either way i had a hell of a time getting front and back to match up and downsise. i mean downwize.



that a relatively simple problem took me more time to solve than i expected is no surprise. so does walking from a to b. so does going to a movie.



oddly enough i can still buy groceries as fast as anyone i know.



now for the important stuff: election.



i voted last week.


i'm restricted media-wize (sorry i can't seem to stop) to 3 1/2 over the air channels.



the radio is cool, on AM i can get the left wing socialist pinko extreme liberal station "air america". BBC at night.



what a ballet. reality for what it's worth is being re-orchestrated by "the noise machine". and we're part of it.



what if they had an election - like they used to have bread and circuses in byzantium - and nobody came? or everybody voted with a symbol instead of a sign?



bush, kerry, nader, neocons, liberals, sierra club, sound byte, spin, reality shows; they are all brand names, right?



which are you gonna buy?

this is a test. i can't post very easy any more. i think it is because this damn thing is way too big. i'm going to redo it some day.

rainy day outside, good day to stay put.



projects piling up. tydying up new life book before jeff gets back from india. i am certain he will have a lot of new stuff to be shoehorned in.



something has been missing from my daily routine and i finally figured out what it is: audio recording which i've been away from for a long time. the last couple of days ive reconfigured this and that and started putting old pieces of music together. i lost my midi connection to keyboard for awhile but i'm back in business now. i want to resuscitate qudra 650 which i think will help me with a few audio workarounds.



marx said governments would wither away. that's what must be happening as the electorial process here descends deeper and deeper into the noise abyss. a lot of the nonsense going on seems to hinge on choice of institution - or as some might say, "the man". it's either government or bizz, that's the choice to rule our life. i think we are on the cusp of an as yet non-existant emergant choice. one outside the economic and government spheres. if this happens, the 2 reigning domains will fade away into some ornimental state, like fuedalism into chivelry in the late middle ages.



the newly emergant will no doubt include things like experience, ludic emplyment, a new reverence for human experience and all like that.



or not.

why nader is right: he describes the present state of electorial democracy accurately, and does a good job of highlighting the reasons it is not working any more.



why i am voting for kerry: it may give the nation state and the people who live in it time to realize that nader is right.

a flower in hand

to give back to you

who live in the land

where beauty is true.



saturday i shot some fall folige at dr. r's. first time in 4 autumns i managed to do this before it was winter and too late. sunday i decleared a non-day, stayed home and did nothing much. slept a lot.


week before the election, should be a few blips of excitment, but i think the real action will be invisible to us peasants.


surprises? of course? surprises that matter? we'll see.



in the meantime, 2 good pieces about mr. dylan.

Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise: Emptying the ashtrays

Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise: The Wanderer

it's quick, it's loose

but i don't care

it's gotta be around,

maybe in the air



don"t know when i lost it,

it could have been the night

it poured cats and dogs

and i thought i saw some lights



i looked low

and i looked high

couldn't remember

just what was i



loss is part of life

the part that you can feel

but i can't see too good

something is concealed



yesterday is no account

the past is pulled apart

right now i'm doing this

cause i misplaced my heart



the wind it sings

blows through my mind

scatters thoughts

i'll never find



the lost and found department

must have a lot of stuff

but it's lost too

left me feeling pretty rough



don't worry that it's useless

don't fret about what's not

there's plenty more out there somewhere

i know that i forgot.


a song for the rest of us, and i can almost guarantee that it did not exist ten minutes ago. the radio is off, the TV's out the door, no newspapers, not a book that i can read. my mind was ringing, now it sings. lounge music, scrounge music, singing in it's chains. thanks to both dylans for this respite.

if you can't stand seeing it friday night, read it here now:


Daily Kos :: "Stolen honor" - TRANSCRIPT



otherwise


a heavy presence

clouds the land



raving priestess

understands



plays end,

lives unravel



if time is real

there's nowhere to travel



hunker down

it's happened before



you could say

don't know what it's for

news concerning ferrets, image, and the matrix, not necessarily in that order:

University of Rochester Press Releases

i was emailed this link this morning by tharpa. thanks. it shows, i believe, why this election concerns much more than the candidates and their differing world views.


Stewart on Crossfire


if bush wins, it will mark a point in our culture where human discourse has been replaced by iconic, brand name machinations which the media have fallen into supported by the kind of cash that only multi-nationals have. it could easily be the leading edge of a communication revolution where individual thought ceases to be the source of expression and becomes instead the repository of predetermined knee jerk response.


there may remain here and there small circles of friends who respect the dignity of human existence and attempt to express it, but they will probably only talk late at night in secure locations.


naming something establishes a relationship between the namer and the named. the machinery pushing for the re-election of the junta has just about taken that power from the humans that live in it's world.


i am convinced that the silenced majority feels this taking place and doesn't like it. but without a language other than mediated postures, what can they do?


on the positive side i heard ABC's doctor in residence say on the news broadcast last night that profit may not be the best motive for making and distributing flu vaccine.


profit as the engine that drives our world has displaced every other reason to get something done. big mistake.


on the negative side, the only alternative the doctor could imagine was the government.


new entities with new motivations are slowly taking form. but a bush win could set all this back.

finished yesterday. i used some 25 year old gouach on this painting and was delighted with what it can do. a quarter century ago when i tried it, i got nowhere. now it's just another tool. either it or i or both have changed.


had an epiphany yesterday afternoon: the light, the color, the air were beautiful. even more meaningful, my apartment seemed just right, everything, all 10,000 of them seemed animated, in a good mood, and already ready as they say.


for all of us, the election floats in the background of the world. worrisome, uneasy, troubled.


my present thoughts are that the folks who vote for bush are the folks who are perfectly - well maybe not perfectly - at ease with the brand name commerce world view. they do not expect, nor want, verbal or written monologues or dialogues. they are comforted by the video icons of the junta.


in advertising, there is something called (i think) "reinforcement". this is an ad placed not so much to convert you to buy the product as to make you feel good that you chose the product in the past. the cola drinks excel at this technique.


the junta is 100% using this mode now that nothing else has seemed to work for them. it does not matter whether bush contradicts himself, lies, or makes any sense. the public does not expect this in brand name publicity: just the appearance of the branded icon is enough.


the marketing people of the new world disorder will tell you that this works.


if McBush is elected - for the first time i might add - it will mark the beginning of a world view that deals only in brand name symbols. the losers will be thinkers (eggheads), the new young voters (gen whatever), and other pockets of the population who see thru the brand name miasma.


there is to be a protest at WLOS, local TV station owned by sinclair who are ordering it's possession, and all of the other many TV stations it owns, to show anti-kerry production next friday as "news". because of the time and location this should be an interesting exercise.

i'm working on the picture above. some old photos were found in chapel hill and this is one of them. the original is really really beat up. sally and eric, basalt colorado, 69-70?


this morning i got up at 5 and drove to get a drive-by, oops i mean drive through clinic. it was already gridlocking when i got there, but i was out in three hours. i think it was good practice for a possible future, i mean right now.


visited john r., fall already well started in those neck of the woods.


threw old mattress and boxsprings out and installed new twin. plan is to put elevated plywood under it.


late this afternoon, back home, the light and air were crystal clear, everything seemed like it was.

took me awhile to sloooowly bounce back from recent trip. i think i'm still bouncing.


about the election campaign which i've mostly avoided talking about because i'm soooo confused. not about who we all need to vote for, but about the cultural landscape materializing in front of us.


the junta that kidnapped the republican party are using a streamlined and highly tweaked version of the technique they have used - mostly successfully - since reagon. ie dems are liberal, tax and spend, probably demonstrated against the vietnam war and still can't park a bicycle straight.


but it strikes me that this mode has evolved into something very disturbing. it is a sort of brand consciousness mode, has more in common with advertising cereal on tv than what we used to call politics.


take "total", the cereal that for over 20 years has competed successfully with variations on one message: it has 100% of the daily vitamins you need. what this means is that if you only ate one meal a day that was a bowl of this cereal you would starve, but nonetheless have a full day's worth of vitamins.


bush and his people have adapted this method of selling. everything they say is short and familiar. slogans, bumper sticker stuff.


and like tv ads, truth or falsity does not matter. we have been conditioned to watch ads with no regard to truth. they are simply icons repeated endlessly.


but they work. they sell stuff.


so the meaningless slogans, "you can run but not hide", "tax and spend liberal" etc. might actually win the election. the democrats are a step behind, attempting to discuss issues.


if kerry loses, a lot of bad things will ensue. one of them will be future elections that are a parody, much like the elections in some third world countries where icons are marked on the ballot. coca cola or pepsi?

woke up

got out of bed

dragged a comb

across my head




took a look

blinked my eyes

scratched my feet

they weren't my size



--------------------


today's illustration i drew at my son eli and wife melissa's house on the evening i arrived in chapel hill - fri.


extremely nice visit with my father and sister, children and grandchildren. everyone doing well, better and better. what a pleasure to visit with them all. definitely was a challenge to my stamina, but i can't think of more pleasant way to spend it.



everyone's head was screwed on differently but right. now that that is settled i'm going to bed.



tomorrow i'll be trying to score flu vaccine. stand in front of alley and mutter "pst...pst...got any flu vaccine?" to the passers-by. good practice for the new millennium. maybe i can trade a kidney for some.



i understand the corporations don't like to manufacture this vaccine because there is no money in it. so the entire situation makes sense and is right. the profit motive is the prime-time injunction. what a relief.

sunday morning. my dad and sister are visiting in chapel hill, 3 of my children and 2 grandchildren - my dad's great-grand children.

dad says good morning. beautiful weather. we are heading for the park to see sally's bench.

nice day to play. reishi mushrooms are where it's at.

woke up this morning

got out of my head

wiggled my toes

and got out of bed


stumbled to the coffee pot

circled for a bit

mixed up the medicine

the light bulb was lit


remembered a dream

which i promptly forgot

later i'll eat

or maybe not


right now i'm sitting

looking at my talk

words here & there

key in the lock


the door might be open

to one more day

i think i'll walk out

and check out the play

in 1955 i was living with my parents and younger sister in alexandria va. we had moved from 2 years in tainan taiwan. i got a clock radio for christmas. i used it at night turned low to fall asleep by. i tried different stations. i don't even remember if there was FM.



one station really grabbed me. i often think about it because there was no platform in my culture to expose me to WOOK in washington dc.



what was it in the air that threw me right into this music at the age of 13 - 14 years old.



bb king, big joe turner, muddy waters, harpo slim. that blues thing that was a giant magnetic force in the culture. it took over the world.



there was a disk jockey on in the evening named lord flauntleroy bandy. he was from jamaca. he only spoke in rhyme.



so that's what i'm going to try awhile on this ongoing "thing"

like crossin the street with your hat in the ring.

expected return most any hour

rpms without any power.

pleasant sunday, well paced. walk in the morning thru the mist and fog. talked later in the day to an acquaintance who said she was not going out all day for a number of reasons, one being the cold nasty weather. it's that time of the year when i wonder around in shorts and t shirts surrounded by coats and sweaters. my addled metabolism does better in the cold.


skipped friends meeting to clean and organize for trip later in week. pretty much finished first run of miniature water color mountain landscapes, i'll live with them for awhile, see what i've got, and start putting them on note cards for the gods of commerce.


was headed for Baba meeting at 4 but got a call from old friend doug who is in town so spent some time visiting him and a few friends. nice time out.


haven't been to see the Baba folks in awhile and will touch bases with them one of these sunday afternoons coming up.


doc appt at ten this morning. will change oil and radiator fluid after to prepare for trip to chapel hill. now for the important stuff:



alone at nite i pace the walls

the silence of the crickets loud

the first full moon of autumn

drifts in and out of clouds.


my dreams are distant, far away

or maybe they're right here.

cold air streams thru the windows

my mind is empty, clear


somewhere limbic rivers dance

in shaded groves of thought

wounded warriors sit around

only glad they fought.



the images are never done

there is no end to flow

i feel the mystery's edge,

the place where thoughts won't go.



soon enough

slow mornings glow

will open up the crowded space

where light's surprise will show.

i've been working with a set of 4 x 6 watercolors, that is reducing and otherwise prepping them into 4 x 6 200 dpi files. object is to turn out sets of notecards with envelopes etc. to place in local shops. above is the last one, now i can move onto penultimate step. (there is no ultimate step, y'know.)



what to say about today?

a surprise or two along the way.

took a walk up thru the mist;

realized i missed the kiss

the wind blew so far away.

but the mountaintop says that's OK,

the perfect moment must contain

muddy boot tracks along the lane,

otherwise why be here,

so far away and way too near.

i replaced the picture that was above with the one that is above. the former was my try at comment on the debate and it didn't work. the present pix is straight out of my head 4:30 this morning. i'm going to stay away from visual editorials in the future.


watched the debate w/ a few cutaways and thought maybe kerry had a slight edge. rewatched it on a split screen and it was kerry by a landslide. the reaction shots of both participants made all the difference, the sound could just as well have been off, so the split screen version was far more devestating for bush. if i had it to do over i would have listened to mr. dylan for the audio portion.


then stuck around for the instant spin and was relieved that kerry was declared the winner. took about one hour.


last nite spent a classic evening in asheville, one hour with the ladies in black, dinner, drumming circle till ten.


i could feel the special quality of aville here and now. heard 6 different people say they'd moved here in the last 2 weeks. it's happening folks. wonder what it will be like as time does it's thing.